Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

And while I get that sliced up for us, Jessica is going to make us a bourbon peach cocktail.

Today I'm going to be making a peach bourbon sour. We're going to be using peach liqueur, bourbon, some fresh squeezed lemon juice, simple syrup, and fee foam. So I'm going to go ahead and build this all to a cocktail shaker with ice. I'm going to do two ounces of bourbon. We're gonna do three quarters of an ounce of this peach liqueur. And I've got three quarters of an ounce of fresh squeezed lemon juice. And I'm gonna do half an ounce of simple syrup. And then we're just gonna do about two or three dashes of this Fee Foam. And what this is, is it's like an eggless cocktail foam alternative. So instead of putting an egg white into our cocktail shaker and doing like the dry shake, adding ice and shaking again, we're just using this. And this is basically like odorless and tasteless, but it's gonna give you that great like foamy, velvety texture still without any of the egg kind of smell or things like that. All right, I'm just gonna give all this a good shake. It's great. All right, and finally, I am just going to strain this into a coupe glass. All right, and there you have it. It's our peach bourbon sour.

So Jessica, it's peach season, right? And you know how we often talk about recipes that we grew up with, right? Because they were from that Kentucky canon or something. Well, I don't know if this is a particularly Kentucky canon kind of thing. Definitely southern, I would say. And certainly something you do when you have an abundance of peaches, but for me, I can tell you this is literally something I had growing up by the time I was like a preteen and there's a reason behind this. Okay. I thought I'd share with you. So my brother always had, for his birthday, he wanted, quote, yellow cake with black icing. Boring.

Oh, I hated it.

So I started asking for something different when I was a little girl, and that was strawberry cake. But my mom found a recipe. It must have been like an old Southern Living magazine or something. for this peach chiffon pie and I loved it. So somewhere in the 80s. I was going to say it sounds so 80s. Peach chiffon pie. Somewhere in that time frame she began making this on my birthday and which is in September, the top of September. It's still summer. We're close. And since that time this has been my birthday pie.

Well I can't wait to try it and actually it kind of goes perfectly with a little bit of a retro whiskey sour cocktail. Yes. So we just need to peachified a little bit. So it turned out to be a great combo. And I really think that these, this fee foam for if you, especially if it's warm outside, you know how an egg white can like kind of get a little bit of a smell to it. It doesn't have that at all. So it's perfect for summer too, especially.

And even easier. Cheers to an old find and a new find.

Cheers. And we'll see you next time on Bourbon and Biscuits. Cheers.

Hi, I'm Bob. This is Premo Oils and Vinegars. My wife, Beverly Bromley, and I have owned it for 16 years and we've just moved to the douglas uh highlands area 2237 bartstown road we've been here about eight months we offer a wide selection of olive oils and balsamic vinegars plus other assorted items like pastas honeys pickled goods pickled asparagus okras we want to connect with the customer and have the customer feel comfortable in the store while they sample anything and everything that we have Our hours are 10 to 6, Tuesday through Fridays, and 10 to 4 on Saturday. Our most popular oil in the store is a Tuscan herb, which is sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, a little oregano. It's a perfect dipping oil. You can roast vegetables with it. It works in pasta. It pairs with almost all balsamics, but it's a very nice vinaigrette.

My favorite balsamic vinegar here is the peach balsamic vinegar. I think it's really lovely. We also offer...

Good afternoon. I'm Councilman Kevin Cramer. It's about 3.06 on Thursday afternoon. It is time for our next budget committee meeting, or budget, I'm sorry, budget hearing. We have economic development before us today. Welcome back. Joined in chambers by my vice chair, Councilman Winkler, joined also by Councilman Leninger, Councilman Herndon, Councilwoman Welch, Councilman Joseph, Councilwoman Rui, Councilwoman Hawkins. Oh, Christ. The good news is nothing flew from the gallery in my direction, sorry. Councilwoman Bast. Councilman Reno Weber, Councilman Bachon, Councilman Piagentini, joined online by Councilman Woolridge. I believe that captures everybody, especially Councilwoman Bast. Councilwoman Crystal Bast, just to be on record. So thanks for joining me. Madam Clerk, if you'd please read the notice into the record.

This meeting has been held pursuant to KRS 61.826 and Council Rule 5A, read in full.

Great, thank you. As I said, we're joined by, our meeting today is economic development. We're joined by Jeff O'Brien and Ms. Dunn. As a reminder, departments will not be making opening comments and we'll begin immediately with council member questions. Council members, again, please ask only three questions and then you can jump back in the queue. I will again continue to try and call on folks who have not yet spoken before I call on others. And so the first question, Mr. O'Brien, We have in this year's budget $1,170,000 to the Louisville Sports Commission. That's quite a difference between years past. So for the viewing public, we should remind them that we're also hosting the trials for gymnastics. So that's obviously a big chunk of this. My question is around how do we see going forward from here. I'd ask first if you'll speak a little bit to the gymnastics as opposed to my just mentioning it. But then can you give us a sense of what we think this might mean going forward? Do we anticipate in years, in future years, going back to the minimal funding that we did? Or do you anticipate some level of funding between the one million and where we used to be in hopes of doing other really big things?

Thank you, Councilman. Jeff O'Brien, Executive Director for Economic Development. Yes, so this year there is a large jump in the proposed expenditures for the Louisville Sports Commission, and that is due to the fact that we were able to attract the 2028 women's gymnastic trials here to Louisville. And we're very excited about this opportunity because this is not just a regional event, but it is an international event and will set the stage for the next Olympics. The trials being here and the sports commission, so I do anticipate that we'll have some expenditures in this fiscal year and perhaps next fiscal year in making this a successful event here in Louisville. In terms of what happens in the future, that remains to be seen. We are always hoping to attract number of wonderful events as many of you know we have we host large events very well so whether it's the annual Kentucky Derby or whether it's bourbon and beyond and louder than life with the DWP festivals or the gymnastics trial we do see ourselves as a host for major events for music culture and sports of course

Thank you. We've been joined in chambers by Councilman Sime and Councilman Chappell. I think I mentioned Councilman Hawkins, but just to be positive, and I think I mentioned Councilwoman Rui, although I'm not 100% certain. And first question, Councilman Winkler.

Jeff, thanks for being here. I just want to ask a question about your personnel budget is basically flat year over year, is that correct?

Yes, we're going down a little bit this year, and that's due to the transition to one Louisville, but generally it's flat.

So my understanding from the proposal was that the $3 million being proposed to One Louisville is basically in lieu of the staffing that we were essentially loaning to Lita, or now One Louisville. So if that's the case, would there not be a reduction in your personnel that corresponds to that and now it's a cash outlay instead of an in-kind outlay?

Yeah, so what you'll see in our budget is you'll see about a $900,000, just under $900,000 drop in our budget from the proposed in FY26 to the, I'm sorry, the approved in FY26 to the proposed in FY27. There are seven positions that are actually being eliminated from Metro government. These are people that are working currently for us and are at One Louisville. They'll stay at One Louisville, they'll just become private employees. There were another six positions that were unfilled and we planned to fill when we had the previous arrangement with Lita. That represents another $700,000. However, the way that we look at position openings and unfilled openings, you're not seeing that directly reflected in our budget, but the reduction that you're seeing year over year is from FY26 to FY27 is due to those seven positions transferring to Louisville.

So was it nine or seven transferring? I'm sorry.

It's seven positions that are transferring. We also had a couple. So there was a couple other employees that we moved around in other places on Metro government. So there were 10 positions total that people have either left Metro employment to be full-time One Louisville employees, or they are remaining with Metro, but they are not participating with One Louisville employees. So there are 10 positions total. There are seven positions. Seven of those 10 positions are people that are at One Louisville, still on the Metro payroll, but as of July 1, if the proposed budget goes through as proposed, then they will no longer be Metro employees. They will be One Louisville employees, and they'll come off our books.

Okay, so I guess what I'm not quite following then, Jeff, is Well, okay, maybe that is the, so that's the $800,000 reduction in personnel expense, is those seven people?

Correct.

Or eight people? Right. Okay, thank you.

Councilman Piagentini.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, first of all, you have a line item here $1 million economic development incentive to support targeted business recruitment. Is it $1 million or $2 million, first of all? It's $1 million. It's $1 million. Okay. I have a typo here. I just wanted to make sure. What is this for, and do we know what the targeted business is?

Yes, so there is a business attraction that we are working on in downtown Louisville. So that is what it's for. The project hasn't been announced just yet, but the funding has been identified, the project has been identified, and it will be an attraction business moving into downtown Louisville.

So if it goes through, we're using it. If it doesn't go through, we retain it, could use it for something else. Correct. But this is for a specific thing. This isn't like a million-dollar slush fund.

Yes, there is a specific project.

Gotcha. Perfect. Looking at projects, historical projects... that your department has handled. And again, looking at budget encumbrances spent, remaining budget, you've got about $16 million of remaining funds. Some of the projects Haven't moved in the last year as far as we haven't spend it any additional money on them Like the quote new market tax credit that hasn't moved the business accelerator. It's a half a million dollars and There's 471,000 in public art. I got to get Ken Herndon on this one, by the way. But the point is, how much of this can be lapsed, if any of it, and why haven't we seen progress in some of these projects?

So some of the, like the New Market Tax Credit Project, there's a number of things where we've had legacy projects that have just been hanging out there forever and ever and ever. We are going through a process of cleaning up our capital budget and things that we can move along or reappropriate. We are working to do that. Some of those funds, like a new market tax credit, on projects like that, did we actually receive those funds and did that project ever happen or was it a federal grant that never came through? And some of those projects do exist in our capital budget, so we've been working hard with Office of Management and Budget to clean those up and we're happy to dive into those and get to those that we can reappropriate and let you know what that is. I'll have to go back and check and see exactly where we are on the business accelerator programs. A lot of those were kind of projects that existed in the 2020, 2021 era, so we'll see what those can be reappropriated or if they've actually been spent. A lot of those funds did go out the door. Public art funds, I know we have just wrapped up our public art plan and we're hoping to put those funds out. good use here in the future. So we would really love to have those funds go toward putting public art in places in the community other than just downtown in the urban neighborhoods.

Thank you. So just to clarify though, if there are inappropriate funds, we would have to come back for a council vote on reappropriating them, correct? That's correct. Okay. Last question then, and this I think is just a logistical thing, might even be for Ms. Dunn. There's a weird thing that happens between last year's amended budget and the proposed budget this year, particularly around carry forward and designated funds and contractual services. There's just this like crazy spike in money where we go to like 25 million in carry forward and designated. The contractual services bumps from 12 million to 37 million, back down to 12 million. I didn't want to presume who would answer this, but can we just clarify what's going on there?

I think there's a couple things that are going on there. Number one, some of the TIF projects come in over or under budget just as they come in. And again, those are performance-based incentives, so we put a budgeted number in there, but sometimes the developments overperform. Again, these are all cap developments, so they're not going over their cap. Another bit of it, too, is some of the money that we are using to finalize the ARP project. So the project with AMP and the Louisville Urban League, those two of the contractors as part of that, those funds have been carried forward. But we will, I'll work with the Office of Management and Budget, and we'll get you a detail on those carried forward funds. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Councilman Leninger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hey, Jeff. So we just had a question from Vice Chair Winkler about the $3 million line item about additional resources. And there was sort of some confusion about, is this for the employees? What is the $3 million that's listed as additional resources for one Louisville 4? What are we talking about?

The last two budget years, we've provided $1.5 million to LIDA, and that's helped them get their operations off the ground. So in this year's appropriation, we are again proposing that there's $1.5 million toward appropriations. However, the change this year is that we've also moved we are also proposing to move Metro staff from Metro employment to One Louisville employment. So as I was explaining with Councilman Winkler, maybe not very much clarity, so I'll try to clarify that. There are seven people that are employed with Louisville Metro government that will cease to be employed with Metro government and they will be part of One Louisville. That represents about $880,000 of payroll and benefits. There were six positions that were not filled and have not been filled for some time, but we were going to fill them with LIDA. We were waiting for that transition to fully occur. That represents another $671,000. However, the way that we look at personnel budgets and the way that we look at unfilled positions, they're not necessarily reflected in our budget. The additional funding that is going to One Louisville is covering staff expenditures for the staff that was Louisville Metro employees and will now become One Louisville employees.

So we're talking about three million over the past two years, three million this year, so we're at six million. Is this one-time funding this time or are we going to see additional funding requests at a similar level going forward?

In terms of, I think that we'll continue to see funding requests for One Louisville. It is a best practice in the economic development world for there to be a public-private partnership. I know what One Louisville is working toward is toward having more private investment into their organization. However, as we've seen, it's also good for Metro government to have skin in the game so that we can help direct some of the work. And I'm assuming I'm going to get some questions about South End Fund here in this presentation in small business. And part of the work that we do with One Louisville, my team at Metro government does with One Louisville, is making sure that we are Going into our corridors and investing so and having that Metro government investment into one Louisville is very important We also get some oversight In that and that we have four council members that are part of the one Louisville board And then the mayor is also also part of the one Louisville board So we have five of our five of our elected officials that sit on as part of that as part of that board so having some level of PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN THE ORGANIZATION IS IMPORTANT SO THAT WE CONTINUE TO HAVE SOME MISSION-DRIVEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ALONG WITH THE BUSINESS ATTRACTION AND RETENTION ACTIVITIES.

NOW MY LAST QUESTION BEFORE I GET BACK IN THE QUEUE, WE HAD A CONTRACT BETWEEN LITA AND ONE LOUISVILLE. IS THERE A NEW CONTRACT BETWEEN ONE LOUISVILLE AND METRO?

There will be a new contract that will be drafted as of July 1st. We are working under the old LIDA and Metro government contract, and that is just the service. Again, we're still operating as if one Louisville was part of LIDA, or I'm sorry, as if LIDA was with Metro government. That was just because we were so close to the end of fiscal year. We didn't see the need to necessarily do a new contract. Also, the funds had gone out the door, for LEED at that time. So we are in the process of working with our friends at the county attorney's office and office of management budget to get that new contract drafted. I will also say that was not just a decision that my team in economic development made. We had a conversation with office of management budget and the county attorney to determine the best course of action going forward in drafting a new contract with One Louisville as they went through their merger.

Just to be clear, are we talking about it we executed July 1st or that's when we're going to start sitting down?

We have already started sitting down and drafting terms of the agreement. We executed shortly around July 1st. Before we send the money over to One Louisville, any money, whatever is appropriated to them, we will have a signed contract with them. We won't provide them any funding before we actually have a contract drafted with them. All right, hopefully we'll get that too. Thank you, everybody.

Madam Clerk, please call the record to reflect. We've been joined by Councilwoman Parrish-Wright online and Councilman Reno Weber.

Thank you so much for being here, and I'd like to particularly thank out all the veterans of the recent Highland Commerce Guild meeting. I know many of you took fire. Several of you were wounded. Welcome to the Highlands. We are grateful for your presence despite shooting at you for half an hour. But relevant to that, I would love you to talk a little bit about some of the work that you are doing, particularly with small businesses, some of the funds that were activated this year and some of what's in the budget right now.

Yep. So thank you for that question. I will say that I just left the METCO board meeting, so that has been our legacy small business lending program. So that program has been around since the 1980s. The Board of Aldermen and the Metro Council have only had to infuse that program with capital one time in its nearly 40-year history. Just to give you an idea of the impact of what METCO has done in our community over its time, our current loan portfolio is nearly $18 million. We're at $17.8 million of capital. of loans that are out there. We lent out $4.1 million in FY24. That's the highest total ever, which is why when you look at our numbers this year, it's a little paltry. We're waiting for some of that money to revolve back. The loans we issued two years ago in FY25 was $2.3 million. Those funds leverage almost $50 million in our community. They lead to, as you all know, a number of jobs, a number of beloved businesses in this community. And, you know, again, I just came from the METCO meeting, and we were talking about the 801 Logan Street building and issuing a brownfields loan for that project to keep it going and get the site remediated. With this year, we were able to deploy the South End funds and we're very grateful for that $3 million that came to us, which we administered with the one Louisville team, formerly lead a team. We did an innovative mix, again, with the Metro Council's help, an innovative mix of grants and loans. to a targeted geographic area. That's the first time we had done that. So right now we've issued about a million dollars in grants and loans. Most of those have gone out in grants. We're doing a mix of new businesses. So we've attracted businesses like Longhorn Steakhouse to Dixie Highway. That was the Dixie Highway Fund's restaurant fund. We helped Valley Dairy Freeze with getting their outdoor seating area ready as we get ready for ice cream season. So we're ready to go down and sit on some new tables down there, stone tables and not picnic tables. I called them picnic tables yesterday. And help businesses like the streetery. So those are some things that we see as being very important. We still have about $2 million of those funds remaining and we'll continue to deploy those via grants and loans as we've been doing. In the proposed budget this year, there is a fund called the Big Streets Small Business Fund. I think I got that right. It's a million dollars proposed in the capital budget. And again, that is targeted investments in our corridors. And so we look forward to working with our friends at One Louisville and deploying those funds and getting them out along our corridors that have big streets. So think about our big streets. I'll name a few of them. I'm not trying to... discriminate, but we've got Bardstown Road, Preston Highway, Dixie Highway. Those are our big streets. There's others too. But those are where we really see some opportunities to go and invest in vacant spaces and fill those corridors up with lovely businesses and residential units.

When I talk to business owners, incumbent and incoming, the number one thing we hear them talk about is workforce. So I was gratified to see so much investment in some of the workforce things. I see additional work or additional funding for Summer Works and for Kentuckiana Works. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys are thinking about this in this budget?

Yeah, well I was, Kentuckiana Works, and Michael Gritton, the executive director of Kentuckiana Works is here, so our investments have been in, Kentuckiana Works has been very exciting. We have been focusing on youth investment, Two years ago, the state legislature, for the first time, invested in Kentuckiana Works and the other nine workforce innovation boards around the state. Those funds were to help high school students that are coming out and not necessarily going to college. So we want to make sure that we're getting those students on the right path. The other major investments that we've done with Kentucky Anna Works is at the spot, so the opportunity youth, and really helping those individuals that are 18 to 24 years old that are not in school, are not working, and maybe have been justice involved. So that program, which Kentucky Anna Works runs with the help of Goodwill of Kentucky, those programs have helped make sure that we are keeping kids and young people on a good path, and doing things like helping them get certifications to go do welding and get another workforce training programs beyond just going and working a minimum wage job that doesn't necessarily have a career path. And again, we're putting a $300,000, we've proposed a $300,000 in investment in our summer works program. Really exciting what we're doing with Summer Works. I also had the pleasure this morning of being at the Kentuckian Works board meeting. We're helping students get into career pathways with places like GE Appliances. So we're going to help 35 kids at GE this year start their training. But when you come out of high school and you're starting a brand new manufacturing job, at 18 or 17, depending on how old you are, 19 as I was when I came out of high school, you're not really prepared to take on the responsibility of that job. So we're going to spend the first week that they come in, which is going to be the week of Juneteenth, so they'll have a four-day week. We'll help give those kids a stipend so they can get in, get acclimated to what it means to be working, and then they'll be on their way and hopefully on a successful career path at GE Appliances. So Those are the sorts of things that we are doing with Kentuckiana Works and that we hope to continue to do with programs like the Expanded Summer Works program.

That's awesome. I recently had the pleasure to be at both the spot and at one of the academies at Seneca. I mean, it's truly amazing. You can count on the support from certainly our colleague, Councilman Benson, who I don't know if you know, was once upon a time a shop teacher.

I was aware of that.

Thank you. Were you? He taught people to... Okay, good. I'm glad we're all aware of that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Councilman Chappell.

Thank you. I hope that you can understand our confusion in LIDA. Just to look at it from the perspective of when I came on council, GLI is not LIDA, and there was a big fallout before my time on council that they were not representing Louisville, they were representing the region, therefore they should not be a part of Louisville Metro government. Enter LIDA, who is just focused on Louisville instead of the region. But they're not a government entity, but we do give them staff. then GLI is absorbed into One Louisville, which GLI was regional, One Louisville was local, so I don't understand the mission of economic development or why Louisville Metro has an ancillary economic department. And then when you're talking about employees, I've been trying to write down what you're saying, but 10 left Metro, seven are going to One Loo, that's $800,000, there's six positions filled. It's not making sense to me. I think it would be really helpful for us to have a breakdown of that and for us to better understand what your office does. You mentioned that you have the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Economic Development, and the Office of Art and Creative Industries. We have no idea what the programming is for any of those buckets, and so it would be really helpful for us to understand better what the function of your department is.

So I'm happy to talk about what we do in economic development. We also have Amos Azamania with Office of Immigrant Affairs and Jessica Kincaid with Office of Arts and Creative Industries. But again, what our office does in economic development, so my small but mighty team, we work with One Louisville to make sure the businesses that are attracted and coming to Jefferson County that are asking for incentives or are just trying to locate and get permits, our office is the office that is coordinating that. So again, in my portfolio of my daily work, I work with codes and regulations. They issue permits. You'll hear from Director Robinson here in a little bit. I work with the Office of Planning, making sure that we are getting developments through our planning and zoning processes. And then you heard from Director Grabowski on Tuesday about our office of housing so That work is that is the ecosystem of economic development and making sure that we are keeping the trains running on time It's not just about it's not just about business attraction and retention but it's about quality of life in the cabinet for economic development and the Louisville Metro Department of Economic Development and What we do at One Louisville, what One Louisville does is they make sure that we are attracting and retaining businesses small and large to the community. Trevor Paul, the CEO of One Louisville is here and can talk about some of the, he can talk about the confusion that was created between having LIDA and GLI and Louisville Metro Government. And I think what we do on a daily basis is make sure that we're working as a cohesive ecosystem to ensure that investment happens in Louisville Metro the way that the residents want to see it and is helping grow our community's economy.

Sure, and I don't think that we need to get into that larger conversation, but I think that that is one that needs to be held. And I don't know if the community is supportive of $3 million going to one Louisville in this budget, especially when I would argue all of our city services are quality of life services. So I think that we would really benefit from seeing a breakdown of that and also a breakdown of your programming within departments. Next, I want to talk about South End funds. So $3 million was given for South End funds. As of... February 15th, I have record of only five, and this could have been updated, but there were five businesses that got that money, or that received a grant. None of those businesses are in District 15, none of them are within the Watterson Expressway, despite the south end going all the way to Central Boulevard. So I would like an updated list of who benefited from that, and then also a list of the rejected applicants.

Yes, we can provide that.

Sister cities, why are we eliminating the funding for this? And then your budget also states that one position with the sister cities is going to the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

So again, of the positions that were moved out of the Department of Economic Development, so out of the people doing job attraction and retention, one of those individuals, this is a little confusing because we have the three offices in economic development, so I'll admit that it's a little confusing, but one of those individuals switched her role from working on job attraction and retention on the LIDA team to working with the Office of Immigrant Affairs and her role is helping with the Sister Cities program. So we eliminated the funding for the Sister Cities program because we now have a staff person that's already on board, already in Metro government, already is doing the work today that can staff the Sister Cities work. Director Iserminer can come up and give any more details about that program.

Sure, and while he's making his way up, I'm also curious if you all are working with the World Affairs Council as a part of that work with the sister cities.

I'll defer to that time. Director Asimov's too.

And to Jeff's point, yes, that is what has been proposed so far. As you all know, every year we grant about $30,000 to the World Affairs Council to manage the Cesar City's program. And a lot of that has mostly gone to their staff. And so what we're doing here is that we have this staff person who's moving over from LIDA to Office of Immigrant Affairs. and they will be able to continue that programming that World Affairs Council was doing. So instead of granting that funds to World Affairs Council, now we'll have somebody in-house who can do the work.

Sure. World Affairs Council does great work too, so I'd like to continue this conversation offline about that partnership.

Absolutely, and we'll continue to collaborate with them as well.

Great, thank you. And then I'll get back in the queue, but last question, it's a yes or no. Is there any money in this budget to help businesses that have been impacted thus far and will be impacted by the closure of 65?

No, there's no money in the budget for that. Thank you. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think last year, I want a specific question. Last year, I asked you about the ability to option property on certain properties. projects and where I came from downtown partnership DDC did not for many years because they had they were funded by ballpark money I don't think at the time last year that Lita was had at that time that that ability will the new one Louisville be able to in some force in some fashion do that for the handful of projects that that would benefit from that option

That is something that we are talking about. So right now they don't have a fund source for acquiring property or acquiring options for property, but that is something we've been talking about with them as we set up what's our ability to go and facilitate redevelopment projects differently than just putting in cash incentives or using tax financing or industrial revenue bonds or low interest loans. So that is something that we've been talking about with them. And as we develop the funding mechanism, I know that they're getting into a phase where they're going to start fundraising to do development funds. That is something we'll be talking about.

Okay, and for other, you used the example, for example, back in the DDC days that when 4th Street Live was developed, That did not exist, and so the properties up and down Fourth Street could not be optioned, were not optioned, and they're still sitting there now. So I just want to make sure that we're able to correct that going forward. Thank you. Councilman Bachon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Jeff and team, for being here. Sorry, I'm tangled up in my charger down here. I'm gonna start off, and we got like two questions. Again, thank you all for being here. As one Louisville has merged with, or Leda has merged with GLI, you know, GLIs are more regional, business development attractor, and now with One Louisville merging with them, what does that look like in, I guess just for the public to understand, what does that look like in the realm of, it's called One Louisville, you've merged with GLI, if you've got competing interest in a business looking at Elizabethtown versus Jefferson County, How are we attracting them to Louisville? How are we dealing with that conflict, I guess, is the question.

Yeah, I'm gonna defer that to Trevor, but while he's getting up, I will say that what we are finding in our in our economic development job attraction activities is Jefferson County is the center of gravity for job attraction in the region. We're the 800,000 person county. So what we see is that having the caller counties gives us the ability to compete for jobs that we might not necessarily be able to land in Louisville, so large-scale manufacturing projects where we just don't have a whole lot of land. So I think I've vamped enough for Trevor to get up, but let him kind of take it from there.

Good afternoon, Council. Thank you, Jeff. So Councilman, the way we- Introduce yourself. If you could introduce yourself for the record. Oh, sure. Trevor Paul, CEO One Louisville. So the way that we've set up the operation is there's a pretty distinct firewall between our regional economic development and what we're doing in Jefferson County. So on the one side of the firewall, the Jefferson County focused stuff is very much about retention, small business growth, and leads come in through a separate channel if they are first interested in Jefferson County. And then on the other side, the other, you know, remaining counties in the region, they have their own lead generation pipelines. Now, as you know, businesses don't stop at county lines when they think about, you know, labor markets and infrastructure systems. And regional competitiveness really matters. That's what our peer cities could, you know, think about and try to one-up us on. And so if, say, a lead comes to the Jefferson County pipeline and the, there's no land for what they want. In order to not lose it to say Charlotte or to Indianapolis, we now have the ability through a centralized hub to work together collaboratively with Bullitt County or Oldham County to ensure the region doesn't lose the new jobs, the new CapEx. Granted, we're in month three and there's gonna be tweaks to the system and at this point we are handling it project by project by project to get it right. But I hope that clarifies a bit.

Yeah, definitely. I just wanna make sure that we're not essentially alienating ourselves to other counties, as long as we're putting Louisville first, is obviously the ideal of everybody's.

Yeah, Jefferson County's the lifeblood. I mean, $3 billion last year, that's a 691% increase year over year in new CapEx, and I think that will continue to be the case.

Awesome. Mr. Chair, second question. So Jeff, I think this one's more for you, and you may not have the answers to this, but I'm just gonna just tee it up, right? You've teed up, essentially, the South End Economic Development Fund, and it has made some significant traction and headway and some serious momentum with some of the interest we have coming to the South End. What does that look like ROI-wise as a city investing in those incentives? What does that ROI look like back to the city for growth and development?

I think it's too early to tell. Some of those investments have actually gone through and they've been made. Some of those investments are underway and some of them will be happening soon.

So I think it's a little too soon to tell about that.

What I will say is it has provided a number of new inquiries to locate in a part of our community that I had been hearing about my entire time at Metro government that's looking for for more investments. I don't have any tangible ROIs to give you today, and I think that's something that we'll need to do a deeper dive on once those investments have been made and completed, which might not be for another 12 to 18 months. What I do know is that whether it's the business disruptions that were faced on River Road or that we will face for the I-65 or whether the comments and concerns that we've heard from other major commercial corridors around the community, I think it's something that a lot of our other parts of our community are desiring to help fill vacant commercial spaces.

Wonderful. And with the remaining funds in that South End Development Fund, whether it's that fund or the downtown fund or whatever, or after a certain deadline, are we pulling that money back and moving it somewhere else, or are we still... putting the pedals on metal?

It's capital funding and it's in our capital budget and there's an ordinance, a budget ordinance that dictates how that money is going to be spent. So until we've either A, expended the money or get it to a point where we have so little that there's probably not another project that can take advantage of it or Metro Council decides to reappropriate it, it's gonna remain in full force in the South End and we'll continue to promote the availability of it.

awesome thank you so much that's my last question i'd like to just follow it up with just if we can at some point maybe put on our radar what those rois will look like um and maybe present it back to the council for future growth thank you councilman paris wright thank you mr chair um thank you all for being there to answer the questions and forgive me if i'm asking something that was already asked i had to join late

My first question is, I get a lot of questions, not just from people who live in the area, but people who wanted to see more investment. Is there any economic development in plans for the 9th Street divide? I know that there were talks of it. There was plans before. Is there anything coming for that in the near future?

So the Louisville Metro received a raise grant from the federal government in 2022. Those funds are, we've gone through the planning stages, and they are starting the two-way conversions of Muhammad Ali and Chestnut Street. That is part of the Reimagine 9th Street project. The infrastructure project, I believe, the 9th Street will be under construction, and this is probably a better question for public works, so I'm getting a little out of my lane, no pun intended. BUT I BELIEVE THE CONSTRUCTION FOR THE ACTUAL NINTH STREET IS SUPPOSED TO GET UNDERWAY IN 2027 OR 2028. OKAY.

THANK YOU FOR TRYING TO ANSWER THAT. AND THEN WHEN I JOINED THE CALL, YOU WERE ANSWERING COUNCILMAN LENAGER'S QUESTIONS AROUND THE STAFF AND THE CONVERSIONS. I WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IS THE SALARY RANGE OF YOUR STAFF AND THE FRENCH RATE FOR THE STAFF? I HEARD YOU SAY 800,000 was used, it was like eight people, and then there was like, was it six or seven for another 600,000. So just trying to see what your salary ranges are and what the fringe rate is.

Yeah, for most of the positions, and this is kind of an average, most of those positions are around $75,000 starting wage for those jobs. We always calculate fringe in economic development at 40% of the salary. So we assume that those positions to be worth about $100,000 each when we think about it in crass terms for the budget.

Okay. So are you saying around the 30% fringe rate?

Yes, that's typically what we estimate.

Okay. I'll get back in the queue for the last question. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Rui.

Thank you. So first of all, I'd like to thank you for all the work you've put into this. I've noticed METCO loans going to work in my district. That made me very happy. But I've got a question about how the METCO loans are going out and the loans from the South End Development Project part. So you supposedly are bringing in more employees with the increased volume, right?

Yes. METCO has traditionally had one full-time employee and one part-time employee. We've gone through some staff transition over the last couple of years. So as of May 4, we were fully staffed at two employees working the METCO program.

Okay, so aside from employee shortages, which you're working on, are there other friction points in there that are slowing down people's loans?

So the only other friction point that we have with METCO is just it's a revolving loan pool, so it really depends on the amount of loans that are out the door. So we've been working on a pretty massive cleanup project with METCO. There are multiple funding streams that have come into this program over the years. Some of them are federal, some of them are local. And so we are working with management and budget to make sure that we have those streams cleaned up. What happened in FY24 is that we had overextended some of our federal lines, so we had to make those up with some of our local lines. And so again, we've just been waiting for funds to come revolving back in, so our volume of loans that went out the door in FY26 was a little bit lower because of the fact we had to make up some deficits in our account. So we've instituted some better accounting practices at METCO and I expect it will be more in our normal range, which is usually around two and a half to three million dollars a year coming out of METCO. Again, this year we were on the low side. I'd say that 2025 was a little bit more normal. 2024 was almost $4.2 million was a lot of volume for METCO. So there shouldn't be any friction points. We did go through a pause early last year to try to help build those accounts back. We're fully staffed. We've cleaned up our accounts and continue to clean up our accounts, and we're back to business as usual at METCO.

Okay, thank you very much. And the next question has to do with the South End Loan Fund. And so my understanding is it's $2 million and barely over a million has gone out. Do we have things in the pipeline to get that other money?

Yeah, so we can share what our pipeline looks like. Again, the South End Fund was broken into three different pots. There was a million dollars that went to Dixie Highway restaurants. I believe we have approximately $500,000 remaining in that funding stream. In the loans and grant funds, that was another million dollars. We have approximately $300,000 that has not gone out the door in the loans and grants line. And then there was a discretionary million dollar incentive that we have not allocated just yet. There are a couple of large projects that we've been talking to and how to best deploy that. But we have not deployed those funds yet. And we're kind of at a decision point with those funds, so I don't have a great answer for that today. But the other two lines are working. We have pipeline. We are continuing to promote those with the businesses. And we'd love to, any of the South End members, we'd love to partner with you and get out in the community and help promote those lines that are available.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilwoman Hawkins?

Thank you. Thanks for being here today. I have a question. I want to talk to you about the One Louisville. So I don't know if you want Trevor to speak to that. So when you all designed the One Louisville, when you set it up, how did you set it up and miss, there's not one minority that sits on this executive committee.

I'll have Trevor talk about any board compositions.

Councilman.

Again, Trevor Paul, CEO of One Louisville. So we do have our minority makeup on the executive committee is 15%. We have two Hispanics and one LGBTQ. And I should back up by saying putting together boards from two independent organizations is extremely.

Let me, I'm sorry. Let me just say what it is. You don't have one black person on the executive committee.

Yes.

I'm sorry, I should not. No, I was planning to address that. Straight up black.

Yeah, no, I was planning to address that. So, you know, it was complex. We wanted to make sure that we had strong representation from our various industries. We wanted to make sure we had good expertise based on, you know, the mission of the organization. And we wanted to make sure we had continuity between the old organizations and the new one. There's definitely room for broader representation, and yeah, it was a miss. The way I would like to look at it is this is a starting point, and we have staggered terms for a reason, one year, two year, and three year, and I've talked to a variety of different community leaders about it, and one of the things that we're gonna be getting begin to do is a public roadshow to understand, beyond just having board representation, what strong economic inclusion programming looks like. GLI had it, and it was visible, and it did some good things, but I think we could be doing more. And with the strength of this African-American community, there's no reason why, I mean, we can't do better than we've done before, and that includes board representation. So point taken.

And I would say when you just made the comment saying that you wanted to make sure that you had strong recommendation from here and there, I just want to know what set of lenses are you looking in to where you didn't think that there was a black developer anywhere in the city of Louisville that couldn't help move this board forward. And I need to make sure from the... district that I represent, that we have someone that sits on that board that will be able to move development west of 9th Street. And as far as right now, I don't see that. So I would love to see that, especially on that executive committee, that there is no equality at all. So I mean, we can use that for another conversation.

Thank you, Councilman. Is there a budget question in there somewhere?

In terms of the full board, right now, I mean, we're at 25% small business, 18% diverse. There are five African Americans on the full board. And the full board has power. It's meaningful. I know we can do better. Point taken. And I hope to meet with you after on this.

Colleagues, it's now 3.53. This meeting is scheduled over at four. We started a little bit late, so with your indulgence, we will run a few minutes over. I do have one person in the queue who hasn't had a chance to speak yet and several of you who want back in. I would ask, please, that members of the committee focus your questions on budget-related issues so that we have a chance to get all of the budget issues taken care of today before we move forward. Councilman Sime.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Ambassador Program. 2.2 million, the total program in 27, what was it in 26?

It was 2% less than that, so it was just around $2 million.

Are there any areas being added?

There are no areas being added in FY27.

This is purely a cost of living adjustment. I believe there's a small equipment purchase necessary.

And what entity provides the program?

Block by Block does our programming. Block by Block is a local-based company in downtown Louisville.

Thank you, sir. who actually operates from Louisville, but is offering services in other cities across the United States. So it's pretty impressive that the company who does it is actually located here.

Thank you, Chair Kramer. I should also, I will note there are 150 cities in the United States, and they include places like New York City, Chicago, LA, San Francisco. So we're not talking about smaller towns. This is a local company that is nationally known doing meaningful work in meaningful cities. Great, thank you.

Councilman Leninger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask you a little bit about the breakdown of our TIF disbursements. Last year, we had a $2.4 million disbursement to Nucleus downtown. That is now zeroed out for this year. That was 60% of our TIF payments last year. That's a 30-year TIF, so they shouldn't be up yet. Why have we gone to zero there?

I'll have to get back to you on why it's budgeted at zero. I'll have to get back to you on that one, Councilman.

All right. And then I have another question on TIFs, and I'll try to let someone else have a bite at the few remaining minutes we've got. Where in the budget are we recording the reimbursements for TIFs?

For TIFs, it's in our operating budget.

Okay.

All right, thank you. Councilman Piagentini.

Thank you. My 1% cut question. So if we were to cut, you know, look, the budget's tight. If we were to say, look, let's cut 1%, now yours is a little different. Like when I brought this up with LMPD, for example, like 90% of their cost is in personnel. That is not the case with you. You have... you know, $15 million budget, two millions in personnel, 12.8 millions in contractual services. So I think your answer might be a little different than others, but 10% of your budget, or 10%, 1% of your budget would be $150,000. If I said we need to cut $150,000, what would you do concretely?

Yeah, we would have to look at our operations, but we would get tight on some of our programming for sure. I mean, I have some ideas where it would come from, but I think that really we've tried to operate on a lean, mean staff, but we'd have to look at our programming. Where do we have funds where we could sustain? A lot of, as you point out, most of our dollars are coming from contractual services, but there are some places I'm sure we can tighten our belt.

Yeah, no, thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Councilman Chappell.

You may have said this multiple times and my ears are clogged. As of July 1st, 2026, how many Louisville Metro employees that will have Louisville Metro paid benefits will be working for One Louisville?

Zero. If the proposed budget goes through, there will be zero people on Louisville Metro payroll that are working for One Louisville.

And the $3 million was for personnel? Yes. Okay. My next question, last question. Councilman Herndon had talked about 12 different pieces of art that were damaged or missing from the public view and is there any money in this budget to conserve any of those and get them back out into the public right of way? For example, we know $200,000 to put the walking sticks back up along Main Street. Is that in the budget or any of the other projects?

We don't have any particular projects that are budgeted. Again, as Councilman Piagentini pointed out, we have $400,000 that's remaining in public art projects in our capital budget, and we also have a regular maintenance fund that we use, but there are no specific maintenance projects budgeted.

Thank you. Councilman Winkler.

Jeff, I apologize if this isn't in your program. I was kind of searching through the budget. The payment to the downtown partnership, does that sit in economic development or does that sit elsewhere?

I think it, I'm pretty sure it does. I'll verify that with you, but I'm pretty sure it does.

I thought it was in your budget as well. And so my question is, is what we're paying the downtown partnership commiserate to our square foot? Because I think it's assessed based on the real estate, right? Yes. It's my understanding from the downtown partnership that we probably underpay our portion relative to the real estate that we occupy. And I don't know if you can speak to that.

There is a small amount that, forgive me, it's a five-figure amount that is, that we're, I'm sorry. Yeah, the overall fee in lieu amount that we pay them is $207,000, but there was some frontage added when the Slugger Field area was put in the bid, I believe that was last year or the year before, and so there's a five-figure amount that we're short on because that addition to the bid, I can get back to you on the amount, but don't quote me on this, but I think it's somewhere in the $70,000 range.

Madam Clerk, please cause the record to reflect that we were joined by Councilman Bratcher some time ago. At least three or four folks that spoke, and I kept meaning to make that known. And Councilwoman McCraney may or may not be joined with us. She has joined, but I've not seen the camera on, so there she is. I'm gonna claim then that we are also joined by Councilwoman McCraney. Councilman Wright, do you have the floor?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My two last questions. One, kind of a follow-up to Councilwoman Chappell's question. Are there any, well, I know the transfer has happened, but have you all used fleets and facilities? Have any of the employees used fleets and facilities? And will you be using any Metro-owned cars or anything?

No, we do not. In economic development, we do not have any fleet that we use. The economic development department is located in a metro facility, but it's just all the staff located in the metro building are metro staff.

Okay, I appreciate that. And the last question is when I talk to my constituents about economic development, I mean, their requests are the things they need around groceries, gas, utilities, and things like that. how can I explain how the investment of their tax dollars, what could I say to them to explain your proposed budget to let them know that it will connect? Because in my district, people don't see the connection, right? We hear about all the projects that are happening in other places. So if you can give me one or two lines that I can tell my district about your proposed budget.

Yeah, the proposed budget, again, has a big street, small business line item. So if I think about what's happening in the Shively area, of course, Dixie Highway is there. We have the south end funds, and we have a certain portion of that is for Dixie Highway restaurants. So, again, we are doubling down on our investments in Dixie. in our corridors, our radial corridors. And so I think that we continue to focus on that. Again, we have a longstanding METCO program. And as I noted, we have fully staffed that program as of earlier this month. And we are back to business as usual with the METCO program. It's a program that's infused nearly, leveraged nearly $50 million of investment from small businesses in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you. Colleagues, it's 4.02. I don't have anyone else in the queue, so that brings us to conclusion. Looks like we're going to finish pretty much on time after all. Thanks, Economic Development, for being here. I will note that codes and regs is in the room, and so we will start back up as soon as everybody has moved chairs. So please don't wander too far. Thank you.

Mmm.

Okay, colleagues, we're ready.

And if you're in the gallery and would like to find a seat, that would be fine. Well, welcome back. I'm Councilman Kevin Kramer, Chair of the Budget Committee. It is 4.08. We're going to go ahead and get started with the next committee meeting, the next hearing. With me today is Vice Chair Marcus Winkler. I'm joined also in chambers by Councilman Hawkins, Councilman Councilman Piacentini, Councilman Reno Weber, Councilwoman Bast from District 14, Councilwoman Chappell, Councilman Sim, Councilman Herndon, Councilman Leninger, joined online by Councilman Woolridge, Councilwoman McCraney, and Councilwoman Shemeika Parrish-Wright. There are others who were here and I suspect will be back soon, so we will expect Councilwoman Rui. That said, our last hearing today is with Codes and Regulations. I'd like to welcome their new director, Donald Robinson, to chambers. Director Robinson is new to this role, but not new to Metro government, and not new to Codes and Regs. As a reminder, departments will not make opening comments, and we will begin immediately with council member questions. I'd ask council members, please, As we move into the last one for today, especially given codes and regulations, is going to be answering, I know, a lot of questions. If we could please make sure that our questions are budget related. So if it's a question about something that's happening in a specific portion of the community, but it's not specific to what impact it's gonna have on the budget. If you could please reserve those questions for an opportunity to have Mr. Robinson come to a committee that is accountable to the actions of codes and regs. So one last plea, let's keep our questions focused on the budget. And so if I say to you, is there a budget question in there somewhere? Don't get your feelings hurt, you've been forewarned. As a reminder, the departments will not offer Any comments to start? So codes and regs, FY27 proposed operating budget is $19.2 million. Let me start off by asking about the impact on citizens as a result of Louisville Metro Housing Authority's reduced funding for Section 8 inspections.

Good afternoon, Donald Robinson, Codes and Regulations. Good question. The Section 8 program, they have a new program that they use right now that will kind of cut down a lot of the interactions that we have between inspections and citizens. The inspection process is a little bit more streamlined, and it's like a definite form that you have to use that will take a lot of time out of those inspections. As of doing those inspections, we shouldn't see too much of a fall off of those time limits. Great. Thank you. Councilman Winkler.

Director, right here. Thank you. Yes. Question for you about your personnel budget and specifically personnel and overtime. Okay. Yes. I noticed there is functionally, there's, I would say, a pretty decent reduction in your salaries budget because once you factor in COLA, it's actually fairly significant. And an almost doubling of your over 50% increase in your overtime budget. Can you speak to the relationship between those two? Are you over removing a position and then subsidizing it with overtime? Would we be better off to just keep one extra person on and reduce the overtime budget? Can you kind of talk to those two things?

Are you referring to the 615 that's proposed this year?

For the overtime, yeah, and then 11.154 million versus 11.7 million in last year's budget in your south. So you've got functionally, you know, a $600,000 reduction, but really it's actually more than that when you factor in COLAs. It's probably, you know, I think you're losing... I believe it's 20 total. 20 total, exactly. But your overtime is going up, right? So... By 50%. Yes. So would we be better off, instead of losing 20 positions, losing 19 and having less overtime, or 18 and having less overtime? That's the gist of my question. OK. I think I would have to confer with OMB.

Sure, hi, Angie Dunn, Office of Management and Budget. As far as the overtime is concerned, that was forecasted based on usage or what we spent from the prior year, what we had spent up to the first six months when we started doing our forecasting. So there is a relationship, obviously, between the number of employees you have and the overtime is earned. But the number that we're looking at is really forecasted based on what we've spent our average spending as opposed to sort of planning for what overtime might look like with reduced numbers.

Yeah, I think to me this is sort of, I mean, a point I've come back to a couple of times in the budget hearings, right? And it's one that I really struggle with and that I would really ask for a little bit more fidelity around, right? Because Again, the idea that this is what I spent last year, and I understand from OMB's perspective, right? I mean, you can only do what you can do with the information that you have, right? So I understand it's challenging for you to do because you're not running the actual operation. But the concern that it creates for me is that we perpetuate sort of this ongoing and ever-increasing amount of overtime because there's no accountability to... No, you don't have 600. You're running at 615. You don't have 615. You only have $400,000. You have whatever is the appropriate amount that you need. And I don't see where there's the accountability to have the appropriate amount. And I don't know what the appropriate. 615 might be the appropriate. 900,000 might be the appropriate amount. But 300,000 might also be the appropriate amount. And that's where I would ask from the administration a little bit better guidance on what the right number is. And in particular, and I use this, I mean, this has stood out to me in this specific example, because we do have the significant reduction in staff here, but it probably merits in other departments as well, which is what is the right balance between whatever the overtime level and any staffing reductions that we're making. Obviously, that's a big question I don't necessarily expect you to answer on the spot, but I think before we get to June 25th, I do think dialing that number in a little bit from department heads would be quite helpful.

Councilman Piagentini.

Thank you. I couldn't agree more with Vice Chair Winkler's point here, because my initial question was going to be, we're cutting a bunch of positions, and yet our personnel cost is skyrocketing. This math does not math in any possible way for me. Either retain some of the positions, not all, and reduce the overtime, or we just made up this overtime number. Again, I'm not... I prefer zero-based budgeting. I realize it's a much bigger budget than what I do personally in my own life, but this idea that, well, I spent this much last month. I'm going to spend 10% more next month. It's just not the way it works. There are all kinds of reasons why we spent more this year in overtime. I'm not going to ask a question because it's basically been asked But I do see, my last question was going to be about a 1% cut, what that would mean. I think there's an opportunity here to reduce some of this estimated overtime and just say, Codes and Ranks has to live within this budget for this year. And then, you know, see how things go. And then if we need to adjust, we need to adjust. I do want to ask about vacant lot abatement and then more broadly graffiti. So let me talk about graffiti abatement more generally. And then there is a section of your budget under vacant lot abatement where I think this is a contractor, JLG Pro Boom, that you're using. to assist with vacant lot abatement. And I'm curious as to how are we doing and how much are we putting in this budget toward general graffiti remediation? And then will this organization assisting with vacant lot abatement also help with graffiti removal if there is graffiti in the vacant lot?

Yes, oh, okay, the company that you reference, that's for our boom, so we get a lot of graffiti that's on, it's like a second story on a vacant lot or on the side of a building.

It's actually the piece of equipment. Yes, boom. That puts people up there. Okay, gotcha, okay. Now we're jiving. Okay, so then coming back to the original question then, how much money are we putting into general graffiti abatement in this budget compared to historically?

Looks like 50.

Right, we've got 50,000 in a graffiti supplies category budgeted. There could be other cost centers that they may pull from for graffiti removal, but just if I'm looking at a single line item, we've got 50,000 in that graffiti supplies.

I'm assuming that for supplies, that's typical year over year. And I'm seeing head nods, that's good. But I'm more also concerned with personnel. Like how many personnel are we dedicating to this?

Yeah, that's more of an operational question.

We have two crews with two people.

And I think that's what we've done in the past, correct? Absolutely. Yes, okay. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Councilman Bertrand.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to touch a little bit. I'm going to circle back a little bit to abandoned properties and foreclosed properties. What is your team doing in regards to and how are we turning them around and getting them back into the system for revamping abandoned and foreclosed properties, whether it be a bad owner, a bad actor, someone who has... stacked up liens, et cetera, how are we getting those back online, turned around, and put back into the system for good property use? Okay.

So the COSA regs team, we are concentrating on making sure that they're secure, make sure that we don't have people getting into the actual apartments, I mean, or house. So we're just cutting, we're securing, we're making sure that everything is clear boarded to eliminate the possibility of crime or it's being set afire, folks are getting into the dwelling. So those are the things we're doing. As far as the fee assessments, after we assess the fees, then we kinda pass that off to our housing division and they kinda handle that other end. of trying to get it to market.

Gotcha. With the proposed budget, I'm gonna shift to another question. With the proposed budget, it's $259,600. What type of duties are performed under the temporary services contract? It was an FY... 26, it was 18,500, and it went to 259,600. And then it says budget was moved from professional services to more accurate, aligned with FY26 actual expenditures.

Okay, looks like there was, I apologize, I wasn't here. I'm three months in, but I'm learning. We contracted out some services to do some boardings that were on second floor structures. We did that. We contracted out some cutting and cleanings because we had a backlog as well. So, we use some of that money to handle those particular duties.

Sounds good. At the moment, I have no other questions. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Councilman Joseph?

Hey, sir. How are you?

How you doing?

JCPS is not, we have that connection. Yeah, tomorrow's our last day for teaching, so. My question for you today is, is there any budget issue or concern from having a staggered evening shift beyond the 5 p.m.?

I would say yes, and I've had several conversations around that second shift, or maybe third shift, I mean, we would have to put on supervision. We'd have to put in more staff for those particular shifts to cover. That's why I've addressed it as, let's do it on a case-by-case basis. We can flex some times, and we can do those particular enforcement enforcement activities, because I know that we talked about there's illegal junkyards that's going on at night, and I think the general public know that we're out of the office by five o'clock. So again, that's something that we want to address, but again, I want to address it on a case-by-case, and we will do an operation after hours to accommodate.

So when you're saying an operation after hours, because for the south end specifically, this seems like an almost an everyday issue and occurrence. And so if we're looking at, like are you saying more like a, I don't know if sting is the right word, but like a sting, is that kind of how you would suggest that?

Absolutely, because in our conversations, this is happening well after 5, and we can do a targeted approach saying, okay, if it's happening after 5 on a certain weekend or weekday, we can get a enforcement team together and go in and make sure that we witness what's going on and we can cite.

Okay, so if we were to, first of all, is there money that is needed to be budgeted for anything past 5 p.m.? Would there need to be any money that is budgeted to be able to help these efforts?

Absolutely, yes.

Is there a way that we could find out how much roughly we would need to be able to make something like that happen? And then if we did budget funding for staggered evening shifts, would codes and regs support that?

We would have to support it if we had the money, but again, our position was to just do it on a targeted basis. We're talking about another shift of folks in the agency.

Can I do an immediate follow-up to that? I'm curious why it would be, and I get there might be some additional expense. I'm hoping you can speak more completely, but if you're talking about targeted after hours, we have employees that are scheduled for 40 hours a week. Yeah, why would we not schedule somebody in that other time? Instead of having them come in at 9 in the morning, they would come in at 5 in the evening. And surely we have the flexibility in our scheduling to do that. And again, I'm not saying necessarily that this would become someone's second shift. I'm not saying we'd necessarily push someone on the second shift. This could be done on a rotating basis. You could roll onto that after hours. But I'm curious if you could just respond to his question. You said yes, it would cost more money. I'm curious why. Is there some constraint that would prevent us from having a rolling opportunity to provide that service after hours?

Well, our collective bargaining agreement have times for workers, so we would have to negotiate that as well. Councilman Winkler.

Yeah, and I totally understand that and am sympathetic to our CBA. It does strike me that that is where it's appropriate use of overtime, and that we would have a targeted action that says, hey, I've got an entity that I would like investigated this Friday night at midnight, whatever. But again, going back, so I do, because I don't want you to hear from my earlier questions, and I think I probably speak for Councilman Piacentini as well, that we think overtime should be zero. I mean, I think we think there is an appropriate use of overtime. To me, this is an appropriate use. The question is then... you know, what's the scale of that, right? How often is the demand that we would be asked to do after hours things? I have a hard time fathoming that that's, you know, half a million, $600,000 worth in a year. So that's not a question, that's more of a comment.

Okay.

Councilman Joseph, you have the floor.

Well, thank you. So I'm still, I guess I'm still confused in regards of, does it feel like it's, I'm just going to, from my perspective as the councilman of District 12, the issues past 5 p.m. are probably the calls that we get the most about. We can talk about grass all day long and whatnot, but we see those during the day. Those things can be addressed. When the cat's away, the mice will play. And that's what it feels like with this right now, is that when we are closing up shop at 5 or 6 o'clock, that they know that. And that's where our biggest issue is. And then the constituents get frustrated when they think that the police need to reach out, but the police say that it's codes, and then the codes won't. And so there's the rift right now that we have within the South End. So just being able to figure out this list of shops and whatnot at nighttime, I mean, I don't really know if I have much more question, but I still don't know if I feel financially that there's a number of, like if we move forward with this, Is there a suggested number of where we need to be to be able to get this problem alleviated? Because this is certainly where we're getting the most frustration from our constituents. At the end of the day, with all respect to codes and regs, the constituents aren't coming to codes and regs in regards to these like they're coming to us. It feels like we're not able to do anything, but it falls on our offices and on us at the end of the day.

So if I may specify, Councilman Joseph. Yeah, I'm done. I think what we're gonna ask for is can you give us a sense of how much it would cost to have per day to do what's being asked, and how many days you think it would be necessary to actually have an impact. So we just would like to get a sense of how much it would cost for each day we try to do this, and what's the minimum number of days you think would matter, and what's the target number of days. So if you could just get us that number, that'll give us something to work with. Councilman Joseph, does that capture what you were hoping for? Thank you. Councilman Leninger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director, great to see you. I said this during solid waste and public works, but there are a couple of departments that when I've got a problem and I pick up the phone and ask for some help, that I always get a lot of help from, and codes and regulations is the other one I was thinking of. So thank you all for everything that you do. And I think it is important when we talk about the work the codes and regulations does is we're thinking about how this is a protection of basic quality of life for people in Louisville and in a lot of ways a basis for what we're able to do in public health because a lot of what you all are addressing makes a really serious impact in that regard. So I do want to, in that vein, ask the question that Councilman Piagentini has been asking other departments. If we saw a reduction in your budget, how would that impact the ability that you have to serve the people of Louisville for these basic needs?

Well, any loss of employees will have a negative impact on what we do. And again, I mean, us losing positions to LMHA, the cut in funding for Section 8, you know, losing the renter street monies. I mean, it's gonna take a toll. But, you know, we're trying to look outside of the box and say, okay, how can we still have officers on the street? How can we solve these particular problems in neighborhoods? So that's our focus, trying to keep everybody in the neighborhoods and the affected folks, we may have to do something creative inside of our offices. But at the end of the day, we want our enforcement officers

Thank you. My next question, there's a big uptick in expected general revenues in the civil penalties. Can we explain why we've got such a large increase projected there?

Hi, Angie Dunn with the Office of Management and Budget. The forecast based on those revenues is based on performance. And so those civil penalty collections actually happens in OMB. OMB owns that process. And so just based on the performance that we've had, you know, average collections, I think we've been seeing sort of a gradual uptake over the last couple of years in our ability to collect on those fines is what's generating sort of the change in those civil penalty collections.

And then finally, your predecessor and I discussed pretty much from day one when I was in office that we have a problem, particularly for our points, my district and West in Louisville, where we've got a lot of delinquent, absentee, landlords, homeowners, and particularly a problem where we've got a number of businesses hiding between LLCs that are preventing enforcement and preventing us from being able to improve quality of life in these neighborhoods. Is there any money in the budget towards something that, again, your predecessor and I discussed, trying to create a comprehensive list of looking behind these LLCs to find out how many of these people own multiple dozens of properties that are in violation and are scofflawing their fines and their remediations.

I did hear that question. I think we had talked about that as well. That's one thing that we're discussing with the county attorney as well. But as far as the budget, I don't see any line items in the budget that will affect what we're trying to do. But we need to have those conversations. Because it's kind of difficult when you register as an LLC, who's the actual owner. So that's one thing that we'll have conversations with in trying to figure it out.

Yeah, I just think that there's gonna need to be money invested in making sure that we're getting that research done because I think that that is a major roadblock to us improving a lot of quality of life, especially in the West End. Thank you, Director. Yes, thank you.

Council Member Reno-Weber.

A lot of the work that you guys are working on is essentially paperwork, trying to make sure that the workflows are going in the right direction, that people have ample opportunity to respond, that the right things go to the right people at the right times. Can you talk a little bit about how you are working on this or thinking about this in a moment when technology is making this both easier and terrifying?

Yes, yes, I'll do. So we're working on a tool in our construction review area called GovStream, and this particular tool, it's like a AI bot, and it's a software that we load in all of the different things that we want, like land development code, regulations, building code regulations, all these different processes as far as if you want to open up a boarding house, what is the structure, things of that nature where This tool will ensure that customers coming in, they'll have the right pathway. Instead of customers talking with the plan reviewers and slowing down that particular work, they will have a listing, sort of like a checklist, saying, okay, you have to get this permit before you can move forward in the process. So it will cut down a lot of time that we're spending just trying to educate folks on here's the proper procedure, you know.

One of the things we talked a lot with your predecessor about was about how to begin the process with not just here's you're in violation, but you're in violation. And here are the resources that exist across our community to help you get back in compliance for those who are not bad actors, but just resource constrained, which I think can look a lot the same. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys are thinking about that or how the work that you're doing either with nonprofits or other parts of Metro?

Yes, it's a good question. What we're doing is we have a department, that educates. You know, we are reaching out to HOAs. We're going to community meetings. We're at every function that we can be to educate folks on here's the proper way to do things. And we kind of have a balance, too, because, yes, we get a lot of calls for service, and those citizens, they want action. You know, grass is not, you know, grass is out of compliance. However, we hear a lot about the resources part too. So we want to have that balance. Okay, here's your violation notice. Hey, get it cut. We'll follow up with you and give enough time and resources for those folks to get those services completed. But the educational piece is really the main piece that we are really stressing that people are genuinely saying that they do not know some of the rules. So we are really working hard to get out in the communities to get that information out.

Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. Councilman Hawkins.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks for being here today. Just a couple questions. I'm going to try to keep them budget related. It looks like that you all are asking for increase. right, increase in the budget, but it also looks like that you're laying off 11 employees. Right, so I just need you to follow me. So you're laying off 11 employees, you're asking for more money, and your contract increased significantly from approximately 18,000 to over 250,000. I want to know what specific duties are being performed under the contract duties.

Councilwoman, I will have to give you a list on that one. And I see the line item that you're looking at from 18.5 to 259, but I'll give you a detailed list. I don't have that.

Okay, you can send that to me later. I just wanted to, because if we're letting 11 code enforcement go and we're asking for more money and then it increased specifically, significantly for contracts, that I definitely wanna know that. And it looks like, yeah, you can just send me that. Just send that to me. Okay, so my next question is, after asking for the datum, it looks like district one through six, you all have after you let go of 11 employees, right? So we're not counting them. So it looks like, District 1 through 6, you have 39 inspectors. District 7 through 26, you have 12 inspectors. Kind of want to know, how did you get there?

Let me clarify. The numbers are confusing that you have. So the numbers that you're looking at is, so District 1, it shows five inspectors on your report, but those are five inspectors that have touched cases within District 1. So those inspectors are on boundaries or in boundaries. So it's not just five inspectors that's inspecting in one. We direct the work by the amount of cause of services. So with the cause of services.

I'll let you understand the question real quick. Okay. So I'm not just saying one. So this is going to get me to what my colleague, Councilman Joseph, was asking. He was asking about do you all need funding for like second shift, right? It looks like that you all have 39 inspectors that are overseeing the districts of one through six. which is primarily the West End, okay? District seven through 26, you have 12 inspectors. So I'm saying we could get, take some of these inspectors that you have in the West End, one through six, and maybe we can move some of them to second shift and move them it would balance the budget as far as their need and it wouldn't be so much over policing in districts one through six. And then you could also, it could reflect what my colleague Councilman Joseph would like to see after hours.

Thank you, I'll get back to you. Councilman Bass. Councilman Bass, do you have the floor?

Thank you all for being here.

Welcome.

You are in a thankless job, so thank you for everything you all do. I wanted to say that first off, and the response and follow-up with you all has been great. I just wanted to ask, does this budget include anything? I know in the past we have talked about some AIs, or some drones coming into play with some things or anything, is that anything that y'all have allowed allowance for, for enforcement of that, or is that something you're looking into for the future possibly, maybe not this budget, but is that in there anywhere?

Hi, Angie Dunn with the Office of Management Budget. There is budget in MTS, Metro Technology Services. That is where the majority of the budgets are going to lie for any AI initiatives or things of that nature that Metro may take on. So I can't speak specifically, Chris could tell you a little bit more about what's specifically on that list, but it would cover any sort of AI initiatives that Codes and Regs may be interested in or any other department. Okay, great, thank you.

Councilman Chappell. Hello. Hello.

Thank you for being here, and congratulations on your first budget. I hope that it's not too terrible for you. Thank you. I want to echo what my colleagues were saying about adding second shifts or staggering shifts. I think that that's really important, but can you help me understand, with so much overtime, and you were saying that in your agreement there's certain hours to be worked. And so when people are working overtime, what hours are they working overtime in?

So the majority of the overtime falls in our vacant lots division. Those are the folks that are cutting the grass, they're doing the cleanings, the clear boardings. So we spend a lot of time with overtime. Right now with the grass growing season, they're working overtime as of now. We have a little piece in the wintertime as well for snow removal because we're a division of Public Works helping them out with snow removal as well. The bulk of that overtime, those dollars are going to be in vacant lots.

And so are they mowing, like coming in early on their shift? Are they staying late on their shift?

They're working a four-day, 10-hour shift, and they are working on Fridays. That's Monday through Thursday, 410s, and then we're having them come in on Fridays. And if we're really behind, they may work a Saturday as well to catch up.

In those 10 hours, what are typically the start time and the end time? Just curious.

7 a.m. I believe it's 7 to 5, I believe. Okay.

Yes. And my last question, you're one of the few revenue generating departments that actually comes in front of us. And so we want to support you all because... The more you're able to enforce, the better our city looks and maybe even some more money coming in like we see with the civil penalties going up by nearly $1 million. And I know that that's a projection. I know that the code board does really, really wonderful work. As I understand it, there's a vacancy, one's about to go on maternity leave. So we're gonna see a lot of turnover on that board. And then we're also looking at 20 eliminated positions, 12 which are currently filled and eight which are unfilled. That seems like a pie-in-the-sky projection to me, considering that we're rolling back our workforce and, again, seeing turnover on the code board. So with those considerations in mind, is that $1 million increase still justifiable?

Yes, we believe that that $1 million increase is reasonable based on, you know, our efforts to collect those fines. I think it's also important, we're not only just collecting new fines, we continue to collect fines that could have been on the books for quite some time. So there are opportunities through liens and things of that nature. A lot of it depends on how successful we are in getting our liens secured on some of those fines. And sometimes that takes a while to collect on those things. It isn't just the active collection of things that are happening this year, it's an ongoing collection of fines that have been issued in the past and those fines that we've been able to secure through our lien processes and things of that nature.

So it sounds like with that number going up, it's not necessarily an indicator that properties are getting worse and there's more people to fine. I know that there's no lack of work for our code enforcement officers, but I guess that number is maybe more attributed towards having the resources to go after the bad players that have traditionally been on our books. Is that how I'm understanding that? Correct. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Winkler.

Thank you. Angie, I think I'm gonna probably direct this question to you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but things like FICA taxes, our retirement share, our life insurance, disability, those are all set formulas based on salary, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, so and if I remember correctly from your very first presentation, our CSRS contribution rate for this year is lower than last year's, is that correct?

It has decreased slightly this year, yes.

So here's what I don't understand. Let's focus just on this department. Their projected salaries, and FICA is a direct formula from salaries, their total salaries, even if I lump in overtime, is flat or reduced from last year. However, Their FICA contribution is expected to go up $200,000, almost 15%. Their HRA benefit gonna go up $20,000. Their health insurance is gonna go up almost 40%. So 40% health insurance increase on a smaller base of salary. Their retirement employee share gonna go up 10%. Workers comp going up 25%. how, especially the FICA, how are those going up if they are a fixed percentage and the base is going down?

Well, I don't have the forecast work papers in front of me, so I would like to have an opportunity to, you know, to pull that information and give you more detail. Can't say generally speaking, you know, obviously we talked about the health insurance. We had a huge increase in health insurance, $13 million overall for the year, and so that gets spread out. So that accounts for some of that large increase you see on the health benefit. And then, you know, the FICA and stuff, we do have, you know, there's obviously, there's, COLA or wage increases that are built in. Um, so again, without having the work papers in front of me, it's hard for me to direct specifically, but I, um, I think we can get that information for you. I understand what you're asking, but I'd have to see the details.

Sure, and I understand that the COLAs are built in, but then we would see the salary base be larger as well. FICA is a direct percentage of your salary. If the overall salary is going down, even if it has a COLA in it, it's going down because the net number of employees are there, FICA should go down as well. I also don't quite understand the healthcare answer because 13 million across all departments, I have a hard time understanding why this one department has half a million dollars or almost 5% of the total increase when, you know, the number of employees in this department does not equal 5% of, I mean, so I'm curious how we allocate, you know, it doesn't seem like it's just the 13 million sort of spread directly across employees.

Sure, sure, and we'll get that information for you.

Councilman Hawkins.

Thank you. I'm back on Districts 1 through 6. How much would Districts 1 through 6, does those fines equal up to?

Okay, for just cutting cleanings, of violations and penalties and things like that.

Let me ask a clarification. Are you asking about the civil penalties? Yes. Districts 1 through 6. 1 through 6. I don't have that information in front of me, and I think we'd have to run a report to look at it from that perspective. In OMB, we don't necessarily collect by district, but we can... Excuse me, look to see what kind of report we can run to get that for you.

Right, and I'm asking that because it looks like that you all are making, I think it was probably like a nice percentage. And if you have predominantly majority of all the violations coming from those areas, I would say most of that money is coming from there. Looks like that you all made a nice profit. My next question is, I know yesterday housing came in, and if any of my colleagues can remember, I asked the question about How much did they make as far as clear boarding? They spend a lot of money on clear boarding, cutting grass, just the maintenance of a lot of these properties, right? So I wanna know... I think that that is what you all are wanting, that is gonna be increasing. So are both of you all doing the exact same thing? Because housing just told us yesterday that they're clear boarding, they're cutting grass on a lot of these properties and things like that. And I just wanna make sure that are both of, is both departments doing the same thing or So we... You spend a lot of money on clear boarding, grass cutting, and things like that. And that is what most of this contract is for, correct? Most of the contracts are to cut the grass, to clear boarding, right? And that's what you need an influxion of funding for, right?

Yes, let me... Let me just share what we actually do. So we have what we call an annual list, where those are properties that we cut. They're vacant and abandoned. We cut those properties on a 30-day cycle. If we can get to them before the 30-day cycle, we'll do that. And it's approximately 1,300 properties that we cut. all the time. So you have what we call a Metro-owned listing of properties. That's right at about 900 properties that we also cut, all right? And those are definite numbers that we're cutting every month. It's on the rolls. Then from our code enforcement side, all of their referrals for cuts and cleanings, we have those that are coming into our vacant lots department as well and that number sits at 2,600. So we have all of these different properties that we're taking care of maintaining and The ones that you were talking about or referring to with housing was the Metro-owned. But we make sure that they're cut and clean. And I believe housing has another contract for, I believe, if they're having a showing, that contractor comes in and does some more detailed work.

So they said that they pay a contractor to come in to clear board, cut grass. I'm just seeing, do you all work together out of one budget or is it two different budgets doing the same exact thing?

So the clear boarding supplies, it comes from the housing division. We install the clear boarding on houses, Metro.

So basically, y'all both doing the same thing, different parts of money.

I can say that, yes.

Thank you. Thanks for being honest.

I don't think he said they're doing the same thing. I think he said they provide the resources and someone else does the work. or it's the other way around. Someone else provides the resources, and they do the work.

Right, but they contract, and housing said that they contract, too. So what I'm asking is, being brought back up, either they're working together and should have one contract, but they're doing the same thing for the same properties. That's the exact same thing that was said yesterday.

As I understand it, there's a difference in the materials and the labor. And the labor is being contracted from one organization and the materials are being paid for from a different one. That's correct, if you would please. That's correct.

So Clear Boarding, we do all of it. I mean, if it's Metro owned or if it's private and it's been referred, we do all of that work. So that money comes out of this budget?

Yes, the... And that's why we're asking for more money, right? Because housing said the same thing yesterday, that it's coming out of their budget. So I just want to know whose budget it comes out of.

Housing... Housing has their own pot, as well as codes and regulations.

Right, and that's what I was asking. Both of y'all got a pot of money to kind of do the same thing. They clear board, too. Right, thank you.

to do similar work on different types of properties. All abandoned properties, but codes and regs has responsibility for certain kinds of properties, and housing has responsibilities for other kinds of properties. So what they're providing is similar work, but Codes and Regs is doing the work on the properties they are responsible for. Housing is doing the same work on the properties they are responsible for. So if you wanted to shift that, you would have to give one or the other agency responsible for all of the properties so they could do all of the clear boarding. Does that make sense?

I'd like to see a list. I might ask for a list from both Housing and Codes.

Okay.

I beg to differ.

Thank you. You bet. Councilman Chappell.

Thank you. Somebody brought something up about the cut list and you'd provided on your vacant lots report that you all cut and cleaned 17,585 properties.

Yes.

I can believe that number. But what I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is that the 2022 cut list that was sent to Metro Council on 3-20-23, and that was the most recent cut list that I could find, there were 1,641 properties on there that were being mowed by Louisville Metro. And there were actually less I didn't have time to filter through because there was a column that said being mowed, yes or no, and there were probably about 100 of those. So let's say 1,500. So can you help me understand how we went from mowing 1,500 to cutting and cleaning nearly 18,000?

So you have the annual cut list and that fluctuates. So that's sitting at 1,300 right now. And the Metro-owned is in that particular number as well, which is sitting at 938 properties that we are actually cutting and cleaning on a 30-day rotation.

That's the roll-up.

OK. So Mr. Crowe, he's been around a while. The $17,585 is the total roll up of what we've done, the work we've done. But again, that number keeps changing. Because we're still in that fiscal year, we're going to have probably another $1,500 to $2,000 by the end of fiscal year.

If you wouldn't mind distributing to council that annual cut list so we can take a look at it. And I'm hoping that it identifies by which district as well so we can look at that. It sounds like we're trending downward on the properties that we're cutting, which is really great, but I'm wondering, and maybe that's a wrong understanding, but I'm also wondering how we're working to offload those properties. If Louisville Metro owns 938 of them, and those aren't the medians that we're mowing, the parks that we're mowing, this is more stuff that we're mowing, why can't we offload that or put it into active development so that we're not like, It sounds like we're the biggest offender, right? Am I wrong in these numbers?

The numbers are high. The numbers are high, but that particular question goes to housing. I mean, all we're doing is securing, cutting, and cleaning. We have fines on them. And once we get enough fines on them, then that's when housing takes over and says, OK, do we foreclose? What do we do with that particular property? So again, the code enforcement, their responsibility is just to make sure that they're available, they're cut clean, and no one insecure. No one is getting in.

Absolutely. And I think it'll just be good for us to dive into that list when you provide the 1,300 that we are mowing so we can have a better understanding of where they are, who owns them, and what kind of pressure maybe do we need to put on the Office of Housing in order to get those off of your mow list. So that means you're about 400 properties that are privately owned are being cut by Louisville Metro. Is that the way to interpret?

Thank you. Yes. Council Member Weber, there was an immediate follow-up?

Yeah, an immediate follow-up. So I think there used to be this program, VAPSTAT, that would sort of have the status of each of those programs. My understanding is there's still a version of that around. Can you speak? Because I think that's the questions that some of my colleagues are asking would be answered by access to the VAPSTAT.

I know it is, but.

Again, that's housing.

No, I understand. I'm just saying that. I think that the questions that they're asking are around what are all of the properties, what is the status of them, where they're currently under foreclosure, they're in the land bank, they are trying to contact the owner. All of that is there, I believe, and I think is what my colleagues are asking for. So I just want to flag that.

I'll get that report, yes. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Parish-Wright.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for being there. Three months in, I imagine you're gonna hear about your predecessor for the next three months. I just imagine being three months in and just being your first budget and then having the experience you have. What to me, I would like to know, does this budget take care of the top three priorities or can you identify the top three priorities and does this budget address that? Cuts or not, as we're moving forward, does this budget address top three priorities you've identified?

Absolutely, it does. Thank you for the question. Again, my number one priority is taking care of the citizens of Louisville. We want to make sure that we're being responsive to the calls for service, which we get a lot of them. So we have different benchmarks that we're trying to reach when addressing those particular concerns. The educational piece is just paramount. I mean, we want to make sure that we are educating, making sure that we are fair and balanced when we're doing our jobs. That's another aspect of the job. And again, I think I mentioned this earlier, it's like we're on a seesaw because we want to be fair and balanced, but if we have things in communities that are being called out on and they're not right, we want compliance. So there's a balance with everything that we do. So those priorities have got to make sure that we are continually making sure that we're working with the citizens of Louisville.

Thank you. And my second comment really quickly would just be, let me know how my office can work with you. And because there's a lot of things you all are doing that are working, and we want to be able to communicate that to our constituents. But I really appreciate you being here. And that's all, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, colleagues. There is no one else in the queue, so that ends our public hearing for today. We will begin hearings again on Monday at 3 o'clock. We will hear from Corrections, Public Health and Wellness, and Libraries. Thank you. We are adjourned for this afternoon.

the city. Statistically speaking, there are no issues on Marchtown Road in the daytime. We get into the nighttime.