Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Finance standing committee is called to order at 08:46 6AM on April 23. I hope everyone had a nice birthday yesterday. Alright. We'll, start off roll call. Auditor Roman O'Neill, are you with us?

Present.

We can hear. Alderman Thorpe? Present. Alderman Huntley is here. We also are joined today by Auditor Roman Conte. And, is there a motion to approve the agenda as written?

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from yesterday's meeting?

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Mister Palico, floor is yours. We'll put fifteen minutes on the clock.

You just swap the mics. They move. Yeah. Might be easier to move the mics and move yourself.

Okay.

So Don't count this on this time, Caitlin.

All right. Good morning. Just wanted to quickly highlight Sean Doyle and Karen Ajai who are sitting back behind me and support the finance department, but I will get going through the presentation here. So and Darren who's our wonderful budget analyst. And so want to just jump in, start with our fiscal year twenty six accomplishments, a lot to be proud of here.

We were able to get a clean audit opinion on both the ACRA and the single audits. We completed the fiscal year twenty twenty five audits with within the extension timelines despite multiple staff vacancies as has been communicated. We delivered the 2027 proposed budget on time to the City Council on April 13 and then while also maintaining and enhancing core delivery across the accounting team, payroll budgeting, and treasury operations. We have since we arrived also provided and worked with the team on Building 50 stand 50 plus standard operating procedures for the finance department to start building that durability and resilience in the department going forward. And we are really highly focused on the Annapolis Works initiative and increasing our customer service levels by staffing vacant positions to support residents and internal stakeholders.

Our team has been heavily involved in this budgeting process as we've discussed around some of these changes in centralization for ITS and central services and so working closely with those teams and other departments to make that shift. And then in preparation of our move to the Shaw Street office, we've really taken significant efforts in cleaning the office vault and moving out physical paperwork in accordance with regulations. And so there's been a lot going on in these last few months and really proud of everything the team's been doing to move the needle forward. Speaking to our performance measures, these are performance measures that have been historically included with the budget process. We submitted the same ones as last year to keep a consistent flow.

Won't necessarily go through all of them unless if you'd like me to but they are here, they listen to the budget book but really focused on a lot of transactional activity and just ensuring that the team is operating at a high level of efficiency with regards to processing transactions, evaluating spending, and then also making sure that we're working towards a better future with electronic type payments versus physical payments. In terms of budget enhancements, we really had only one significant one. As you all are aware, we've been making a transition here within our payroll process and HRS system from using the standard Munis payroll system to a NeoGov system. And in doing that, we wanted to enhance our payroll centralization and so we've recently had brought on a employee in a contractor capacity and we do feel it is very critical for the City of Annapolis to make that person a full time employee as they are touching significant information for the City of Annapolis. And so converting our existing contractor to a certified payroll manager to handle payroll compliance, support grant funded project reporting and reduce burden on the existing accounting staff.

We actually did not add anything from personnel, non personnel enhancements. Actually we've been we were really focused in the process of achieving some of the reduction require asks from the mayor's office and we were able to successfully implement that into our budget. In terms of budget trends, you're going to see that this salary and benefits line has increased over time. Majority of that is tied to the payroll manager as well as just the pay and comp plan studies having right sized some of the staffing expenses as well as just a large portion being tied to benefits having increased people's elections changing and just increased costs there. In terms of contractual services, we are keeping a similar line item continuing to ensure that the finance department has the tools that it needs to continue moving forward and executing on the development.

In terms of supplies and other, we've decreased. We have a larger amount in the fiscal year twenty six projected, but for proposed we've been bringing it back down in line as we think that we can manage with the team and identifying things such as free training and other types of opportunities. And then this question will actually go back for capital outlay. We'll actually go back to what Alderman O'Neil had been asking about yesterday with the ITS move, but all $118,000 of what we had expend what we're expecting to spend in 2026 are all related to software such as like OpenGov and also some other capital outlays around laptop refreshments and everything else which have now been centralized into ITS. And so that number shifts to zero on our side and can then be part of the increase on the ITS side.

In terms of additional information as we look forward into fiscal year twenty seven, the hiring of deputy director Ajai has been really significant in the process of driving our audit timelines to achieve the December 2026 issuance for fiscal year twenty six audit. And also that will have a downstream effect of improving our fiscal year twenty twenty eight budgeting timelines. There's been really significant efforts put here. I know Alderman Thorpe can speak to it from the audit committee side and seeing the the enhancements that we're making within the team. We still continue to have key vacancies in our finance director position, budget manager, finance office manager, and some accounting associate positions.

We have filled a couple and continue to interview and try to fill more but working towards that more full execution and full staffing model. In terms of the focus on training and documentation, we're as noted earlier, we've already created significant SOPs a lot more in work. This is all in an effort to drive a department that gives people the ability to be independently working, feel as though they're armed with the right level of information and the resources to complete their work timely and execute along the mission of just serving the greater city of Annapolis. And so we believe that we're driving the department to a lot of more sustainable and resilient operation. And then we've also started building on fostering our partnerships with some of the boards and commissions including the finance committee, the audit committee, and the financial advisory commission.

And so continuing to enhance and work on reporting for those groups as well as just delivering more timely and useful information so that those boards and actions can be more informed and empowered to be better advocates and support for the city. Last

week efficiency, mister Palakal. Way under your time for the mark. Let me just start by saying how much I like your guys' performance metrics. I think there are some maybe there if I'm gonna offer a criticism while saying how much I like them, I think there are some additional things you guys do that we could reflect in performance measures. But the ones you have here are so clear, so understandable. So, I think if you wanted to, you could probably tie them very directly to costs. I just really like what I'm seeing on these. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for a clear presentation. With that, alderman O'Neil, do you have questions you wanna ask?

Believe it or not, I do not have any questions at this time.

Hey. Alderman Thorpe, straight to you.

Just when you thought it might be easy.

Don't worry.

I've got one. Two of three. That was good.

In all seriousness, I'd like to start by commending you and the team that's sitting around you. I know you would say that if I didn't say that which I haven't in the past and you have quickly pushed the credit over but I think it's important to focus on the fact that I think three of the four of you were not here on January. Is that right? You were? Yes sir. Yep. So you're the veteran on the team.

And he's very very helpful.

Yep. So three of the four weren't here. New administration and the work you have done in the last four or five months has just been eye watering. The fact we worked through the audit expeditiously quickly was your and your team. Tremendous work.

The fact that we're here with a budget that is manageable, we can work through it, we're having serious fact based discussions is absolutely tremendous. And sometimes when things go well, it's just an assumption that they are just going well and I don't think that's the case in here. I think it's because you all have run really hard. I want to shift though to the fact that we need to keep running. And one of the things that concerns me is that the finance department of any organization is the backbone of everything else working well.

And it has come to my attention that we don't close our books on a monthly basis. Now I'm fully aware that GAAP doesn't require that. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles don't, I know you know that, the acronym, but don't require it but it's best practice. And I believe there's work going in the direction of doing that which I think would make the city run so much more efficiently. So my question is, what are we doing in order to move in that direction?

And do you have the capacity and the tools to turn over to the permanent finance director when they come on board in order to move forward to doing a monthly close?

Yeah. And so I'll break this down in a couple of different components. So first of all, thank you very much for the acknowledgements of the team. I can't echo it enough, the work that's been done. And it does extend way beyond just the folks sitting behind me and Darren here.

It's been everybody really rallying around the cry of getting back into good order and just working together. And so to just share a little context, mean what we've instituted since we've been here are these weekly meetings with each of the individual groups including budget, payroll, accounting, billing and AP That has really created a lot more efficiency within the team. Your statement around month end close not being done monthly is an accurate statement. It's something that's just been inherited over time and I think just as a result of some of the turnover that has occurred. But in instituting some of these weekly meetings and also our departmental meeting, we've been able to really push the team into seeing the value and the understanding the effects of not making this process occur.

The effects it could have on downstream effects for different teams to the departments and otherwise. I do wanna be clear that our team is very focused on closing cash monthly. It may not be the most timely but we're working on enhancing that. We just continue to work towards that, marching towards that ultimate North Star. I did want to add just one clarification piece.

It is my understanding that within we're where going the I think resonate for all when you have a business that has people that accrue PTO, you would have to book what is like a liability on a monthly basis for that PTO that would require a lot of report gathering, a lot of information gathering, And then you're just booking this in and out reversal accrual reversal accrual reversal. We're not aspiring to get to that place today. What we're first focused on is getting to what was really impactful and really could be thought of as cash basis accounting to really inform the budget and provide the right level of information for department heads to be managing to their budgets. We continue to march towards that and so again, immense credit to the team sitting behind me and the folks downstairs in really recognizing what the key priorities are in closing out. And so to answer your question in a roundabout way, I think we are moving in the right direction.

We do need to fill those vacancies. But in order to really achieve an optimal and a strong close process, there will be need to be evaluation of a couple different things. And so I'm just throwing these out there without having built yet the project plan, but we have a road map to get to this end goal of strong closing. It'll include things such as like reviewing the chart of account structure. It'll review things such as reviewing the team structure and ensuring that folks are sitting in the right seats doing the right type of work to be more expeditious in getting that stuff done.

But yes, to your question, we are building that plan and giving coming up the recommendations so that the next finance director can really carry that forward and continue driving the team forward. And I have every confidence in deputy director Karen that she will be able to really drive that continue driving that forward. Think we are properly staffed to execute and achieve that in the next twelve months.

Thank you. And I think we probably ought to throw some credit over to Ms. Buckland who's helping to herd the group but and she's over here saying no but would her shaking her

head no is an absolute wrong head shake. She should be shaking it up and down because she's been our number one advocate and our number one support through all of this.

Well let's be clear. My role is advocacy and I have an appreciation for what that means and the value and the amount of work that goes into it and I'm happy to run interference and some things like that, but the actual work and there's a lot of it that goes even into a soft close and I agree that that's very important but I'm doing none of that day in and day out work. That is all them, Right? I play an advocacy role and a support role but the work is there. It's not here.

Okay. Somewhere amongst all of you there is the credit. But let me drill one step deeper as to why what's the why? Why this is important? Is it fair to say that at the working level among the city staff having better granularity on a monthly basis is useful to them.

And then all the way up through the staff, through the mayor for you to have the ability as the senior finance, the finance director being the senior finance person to advise where there are potential problems, where there are potential resources that could be used somewhere else. God bless you. And then at our level at the City Council, what I've talked to you at at your finance committee meetings is the idea of how we're doing on a monthly basis. I'm not looking for that quarterly report. I'm looking for public works is way ahead, way behind, you know, the four projects whether they're capital improvement, whatever, what are the highlights at the board level?

Is that estimate of why we're having this discussion and why you're putting all the effort, is that an accurate discussion, accurate point?

Yeah, I think what I might need to rephrase what you're saying or have you restate it but I think ultimately what we're trying to talk about is information sharing and ensuring that the people who are executing against the budget or executing against the plan are armed with the right level of information to do the best that they can stay within budget and, you know, identify opportunities for changes. Say for example, if budget is lagging because of delays here, perhaps if more timely information we could pivot and use. Think about moving budget to something else that could then be moving along. And then on the flip side, if we're burning hot and spending more than we have, where do we need to make cuts and other changes? I I 100% agree with you.

I think all of that is accurate and I think, you know, the budget team would welcome having more timely information to be able to better serve their constituents. So I think I think it all goes back to what you said at the very beginning is everything kind of begins and ends in the finance department where we are the aggregators of information and then ultimately the disseminators of that information in a way that empowers folks to be able to make decisions. 100% in alignment. Not sure if I answered your question.

Yep. Exactly. And the one whipped cream I want to put on top. Did you want to say something?

I was just how are doing? Darren Johnson, budget analyst.

Yes, sir.

Thank

you We for have

started creating workbooks, budget workbooks that we have for each of the departments. So in a sense of being able to track the budget against what's happening versus what's planned, we do have something that we've started working on. This was, like, the first year of us implementing those budget books. So hopefully, next year, we'll be able to have something more grounded so that we can we can take a look at one to see if you think it gives you the information that you're looking for working on to help track the budget process to do things like Joe's salary and benefits running over. In one of those meetings, we can say, hey. Let's take a look at this. Something's off versus what you planned, your actuals. Let's look at it and see if we can make some changes. So we do have some things that we're starting.

You answered my question. Thank you very much because what I was gonna say the whipped cream is is having this information, the staff having this information allows them to track the budget which then allows them to budget more accurately next year. Is that because if if they don't find out if the if the staff doesn't know how we're doing when they're producing the budget, then how do you produce an accurate budget based on reality? So thank you very, very much for that. And I just I really applaud all the effort you are this is a significant level of improvement that the team is doing.

So one last question on it. Do you have the tools? Do you need any more tools to do that?

The I know Karen will tell me if I say yes to that question that she'll jump over the table and say no. We we definitely need more tools but I don't know if we know exactly what the tools are. So I think going back to it, we need to develop this roadmap to what is the ideal end state really getting to what you're talking about. And then we're gonna need to inform some of that. Some of that's gonna be enhancements to the systems.

Right? Whether it's a more efficient AP system versus what we're using today, whether that's bolting on modules to the existing accounting system, looking at an alternative solution, like, have to do that work. So I can't say today exactly what are the different types of resources we're gonna need, but I can in a very open and blanket way say, there will certainly need to be more resources. I can't tell you, is it this much human capital? Is it this much in IT? Is it this much in contractor services in terms of third party outsourcing? Like, we haven't figured all that out yet. That's really the next phase, you know, just to kinda speak to what you've been talking to and alluding to. Our primary focus was to first come in and stabilize. We've achieved that.

We've now executed along a lot of our deliverables and now we're really moving and shifting into that next phase which is developing the transformation plan of the department. And so I will be able to more appropriately come back with what resources are needed in some due time.

Well, I think I speak for my colleagues, but for you and the city manager and the mayor, please know that we stand ready to support you. Come forward. So we don't want to hold you up.

We've, you know, I know a lot of kudos have been shared across this side but I do wanna really recognize the the strong willingness from the finance committee, the audit committee, the financial advisory commission, and others that they've been very very focused on getting to exactly the place that you're talking about, making it so that the organizations that are supporting the finance department are able to actually support the organization and we're very thrilled about that and we really wanna lean into that as well. So we appreciate you hearing that but we do want to send back just appreciation to all of you for everything that you've been doing to really help and put your money where your mouth is in the words, right? Like we're we're trying to really make changes here.

I commend your inability to take credit for success. Slide three, if you could. There is a line here that says percent of expenditure paid via electronic means versus check. This is something that you're all over. This also applies to yesterday's conversation with IT about electronic payments coming in. I used the word credit cards and then I backed off of that because that's a solution and I I want to turn it over to you but

It's gonna be all Venmo. Gonna have everything moved to Venmo. No credit cards. Wave of the future.

So the the the question for you really is a yes or no unless you want to dive deeper. But do you have in this budget what you need to be able to move to a more electronic payment system? We

did not include any enhancements because again we have not built the roadmap out. To be my understanding is that Munis, the system that we use today, has an AP module that we should be able to look at and develop and implement that would then allow us to shift to a lot more of that and so I don't believe at a significantly increased cost. We just need to spend that time doing that strategic planning with ITS as well as the finance team in general.

And I can shed a little bit of additional light on that. When we're talking about electronic payments, we're kind of talking about three different things lumped under one umbrella. We're talking about both the ability of the city to send payments electronically. That has a couple of pieces to it and then that question of can we receive payments electronically. The city already does receive payments electronically for several things.

We just don't do it universally. And so part of what you heard from IT yesterday was some work that they had have started but not yet brought to fruition for some of that with rec and parks for example. But we already accept electronic payments for like licenses and permits and some other things like that. So it's really it's building that out and completing it and depending upon how those electronic payments come in, know Alderman Huntley mentioned Venmo but there are you know Elavon, Stripe, there are a number of different vendors out there. Department of Finance gets involved in having relationships with those vendors and having a multitude of those vendors can get complicated which is why finances input into all of that is important to help try to keep those, operations from sprawling, if we can.

On the other side of the fence of us giving, making payments electronically, there are two parts of that. One is the just the sheer electronic relationship with the bank of doing that transfer electronically. That piece is essentially ready to go. The second piece of that is us making sure that we have good banking information to use when making those payments. So we have a bit of a plan for how to get there, where we're going to start with that, and then a more gradual process then of building out that and ensuring we have good banking information for other vendors.

So that was a long answer but there are several different pieces to that and there is some movement along each of those lines.

Thank you. And I think that answer indicates the amount of work that's already going into this and I think what I'm trying to communicate to is the sense of the finance committee that whatever we need to do to support pushing that along Yeah,

I think that it would come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I've personally been frustrated that some of this stuff hasn't come to fruition earlier. It's one of the things that I'll be spending more time on in another month.

Right. And last but not least, again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the work you're doing. You guys are doing awesome. So appreciate it. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Awesome. I got a bunch of very anodyne questions for you. I'm gonna start with maybe the most anodyne and apologies if it's a bit of a a gotcha. So feel free to just tell me if you wanna get back. But I was you know, I like to dig into these pretty in-depth. One thing jumped out to me was last year we're paying $30,000 for Brink's. This year we're paying $40,000 for Brink's. What's what's the deal with that? How did it jump 33% in one year?

And I have to turn around and see if my folks have any knowledge on that because I don't have like details.

So there's a the Brink's increase includes a force a floor safe for wrecks and parks. That's the note that I have.

Gotcha. Uh-huh. And because Brink's is is essentially, they're transporting cash. Right? And so the floor safe for rec and parks is now they have to go to an additional facility and get it from rec and parks. Yeah. So we went from there picking up from two places or three places to now an additional fourth place. Okay. See? That's great. What wow. I I kinda thought I was gonna stump you guys on that one. Now that that was my goal. My goal is to get the dream work. Thank you.

Way to go. Alright. The other one I wanna dig into here is the if you go back and look at last year's budget that we approved, finance has 23 positions. And this in FY '26 is showing it had 24 positions. Now, I think the distinction is says finance advisor.

And I'm sorry, I don't have a great way of of saying all these different pieces together. But what I'm trying to get at is, it seems like we added the finance advisor which is a consultant position. We also have money in the f y twenty six budget for consultants. And then we're getting rid of this consultant contractual position, but we're adding we're still having $90,000 of money for consultants. So I'm trying to understand that intersection of last year's consultant money, last year's finance advisor money, and this year's consultant money.

So the clarity is that the finance advisor was that we held on to Jody Dickinson.

Right.

And then she fully finally retired in December.

But as I remember that was paid for out of the consultant, the contractual services fee.

Darren will add a little bit of color here. Darren can add color here.

So it initially started out in contract services and then we moved Jody to salaries and benefits. So then it ended up getting covered out of salary and benefits. So basically that funding. Got us gone. Yeah.

So And that was intra year. So that kind of it's it's a little hard to see in the specific numbers as well because of the shift in timing intra year.

So then what I'm getting at is if we were spending a $100,000 last year on essentially Jody under contract services, and this year we're spending $90,000 on contract services for consultant. What is that going to?

So the consultant can be it doesn't necessarily have to be just for Jody. It could be if we need auditing assistance, anything. The consultants is just for us to have a consulting's part of funding for anything that we need to have a consultant for, I should say. So if we need any consulting work, we have the funding there. We can reach back and say, hey, let's get this funding's already in the budget.

Got it. And how did you guys come up with that $90,000 figure?

I think it's mostly been based on just recent experience. I don't think that there's a there's not a I'm not aware of a specific proposal that that is responsive to. I think it's just based on recent experience.

So, yeah, we had this kind of similar discussion with IT yesterday, and I'm wondering just is there a way that we could like, clearly, some departments, it makes sense to have a pot of money reserve to go out and get some additional insight into something specific rather than try and have a generalist staffer. But I'm trying to understand how we come up with those numbers and across departments, but then particular to this department. And it sounds like it's sort of a it's a best guess for now rather than a I think there's a standardized process.

Yeah. I think the term reserve is probably appropriate in the sense that we don't know what we don't know. There's gonna be things coming up and we wanna be able to have some ability to manage to that. And so we can endeavor to try to give you a little bit more of a breakdown just so that we can be a little bit more clear, but I I do think that such as finance where, you know, you have changes that can occur at any time or there could be initiatives that pop up. There's opportunities to just need some additional support and to ensure you're doing the right thing.

For instance, we had to hire Harborview.

We had to hire what did you say? Harborview. Oh, Joel. Yes.

And and Sean.

Exactly. But that I mean, but actually, that that's kind of my point because in that scenario, we have then additional money in salaries and benefits. Right? Because we we hired them because we didn't have enough staff. Right?

So the proposed budget would assume a 100% occupancy, which is not the case. And so that's why you'll see the projected numbers coming in so much lower. Right? And so there's a trade off there between the projected and the proposed.

So this is a question I I think I posed to you last Thursday about vacancy savings. And so is it is it the case in finance that we don't have any assumption of vacancy savings within there?

There isn't because we're aspiring to be fully staffed going into the new year. So there wouldn't have been appropriate to take a vacancy savings, considering that we're still, a couple months out from the beginning of the year. And so the intention is that we've been making a really strong effort to get to that fully staffed position.

I do hope so. Looking at the salaries and benefits again, we're jumping 12% from the, f y '26 budgeted figure. And certainly makes sense that a good chunk of that is this new payroll manager. Right? That's I don't know. I mean, it's a relatively high grade position. But if we're looking at this, it's about it's a little over $300,000 increase, close to $400,000 almost. And so certainly not all of that is accounted for by this one new position. Totally. Can you speak to what the rest of that increase is going to?

Yeah. So I actually have let me see. I can have some numbers pulled up. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I don't wanna like click and clack here. But basically, the the payroll manager is a significant portion of it, but then outside of that there was a lot of adjustments to people's benefits elections and other things otherwise. And so that increased the number pretty significantly, almost 50% of that number. So 50% of it's really the kind of that payroll manager type and then 50% is the benefits number in the jump there. That's that is really the breakdown.

I can give you a more position by position breakdown if you better understand that.

Mister Johnson looks like you're something bad.

Just merit increases as well.

Yeah. Oh, yes.

Yeah. Step increases, promotions, things like that. So that's included.

Auditor, did you wanna jump in?

No. I I did wanna note that it's about 60% since fiscal year twenty three that the budget for finance has increased. And it was going to be my next question if I hadn't run out of time. Mean, it does seem that you'd increase the operating budget well ahead of other increases across the department. And I don't think you can speak for what's happened since 2023, but it is probably something that we'd be interested or maybe maybe miss Buckland could address as she lowers the microphone. That I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Yeah. The there have been a number of several positions that have been added to the Department of Finance over the last several years. Not in large chunks, It's been pretty gradual. One position here, one position there. So for example, it wasn't all that long ago that the city didn't really have a budget team at all.

So the entire budget team is essentially new. And that was a really significant hole for the city, right? And there's been a lot of work over the years to really look at the city's finances, make sure that they're being soundly accounted for, that we're budgeting, you know, using best practices and stuff like that. So there's been a lot of investment in time and expertise. It's not just the budget team but that's given our conversation today that's a really visible part of what's been added over the years.

And I think it's safe to say that the finance team in general certainly was very behind the eight ball in terms of their personnel complement and their overall skill set, just being able to focus on certain things. That's part of frankly what this team is doing now is kind of continuing that work of assessment and alignment. So but it's gradual process and do appreciate in some sense that finance is not doing things in giant strokes. They're doing it okay we have a need here, we have a need here and allowing time for that to really sink in and then okay, where's our next thing?

I think I know the answer to this question but in your supplies and other line that went down significantly is that just because we're putting stuff into central services or is something else getting cut? Yeah. Okay. So Sure. The you mentioned meeting the 5% reduction that the mayor's office had asked about. But then, of course, the budget is actually going up. So could you help me understand what that 5% reduction was?

Yeah. So the way that we operated when we were developing this 5% reduction was we kind of got to the full bore budget number, the base budget, and then we were able to make reductions from that. And so the base budget had just grown. And so we we did implement some level of reductions there to to get from what would have been what would have been an even higher number for this proposed versus what is presented here. But admittedly, I can see why that would be confusing and why that would be hard to interpret.

Maybe maybe a statement I would walk back on a little bit, but just there was an exercise done. Instead of maybe trying to take credit for reducing our budget year over year, rather say we would have actually been higher and we were able to go and look at it with a lens and bring it down to a different a number that really did not accelerate it as much as it could have otherwise. So

most of the rest of my questions are now about our non allocated budget summary, so less your guys' staff. And so I know this is probably stuff that's maybe a little bit less day to day familiar, but I'm hoping you can still help me understand. Looking at our debt service, we were just talking about this the other day that we ended up being significantly under what we expected in FY twenty six, which is great. But then we're jumping back up in FY twenty seven. And I'm curious if you feel like that new number for FY twenty seven is going to see a similar actually, it's lower or if we don't have to I'm gonna say worry, but it would actually be a good thing about that in this year.

Maybe a better way to put it is, do we think that we're going to see the same difference between projected and or let's say between actuals and budgeted in FY twenty seven for debt service as we did in FY twenty six?

I'm looking at the team to see if anyone is jump jumping up. In the absence of seeing someone jump up, I'll get back to you. I think that's a really good question. And I would like for us to delve into that a little bit more.

I was asked by the TV studio to make our asks very explicit today. So I will and say a action item is for Ms. Buckland to get back to us on whether we can expect the FY '27 debt service number to ultimately be significantly lower than we budget for in the same way that the FY twenty six one was? Unless you've got an answer right now.

I do think we'll take a look back at it and come back to the table. I think really we have lots of different payment schedules with different time frames. And so I think it's just getting that master schedule really tightened up and made it to make sense. So then, I think your question is well heard and received and so we'll come back with a better answer. Yeah.

It just seems like as you guys are looking to shrink that variance figure, this is one that I think, and I could be wrong, I'm not the expert, but I think that we can get a really tight answer on it. Because Yeah. It's kind of it's just a bunch of math. Right? It's not like, oh, no. The fire department had their BGE bill go up. Alright. Moving on to interfund transfers. Actually, this ended up not being a question. I answered it myself, but it's just kinda shocking to me how much less pay go we're doing this year for capital projects than we have in the past to the tune of about $3,000,000. So, like I said, not a question.

I I would wanna clarify. Think Sure. That's more about the capital reserve. So in the city council working session that we talked earlier, there was a very significant amount moved for capital reserve in prior years because of that really larger fund balance. As we ended every year, we were able to increase the capital reserve number due to the excess reserves. This is us working back down towards that smaller capital reserve number and moving that way. So over time. Yeah.

Okay. So that that's actually a very helpful distinction. So I just wanna make sure I'm totally clear. When this says transfer to capital projects fund for PAYGO, it's inclusive of both what's labeled in the capital projects as PAYGO and also what's labeled as capital reserve. Okay. You. Last one along those lines is this year last year, we transferred $240,000 to parking I'm sorry, to transit, the transit fund, which makes sense to me. Right? We know our our transit fund is a public good. I don't expect it to be self sustaining.

I think people disagree on that, but that's my opinion. This year, we're not transferring to the transportation fund. We are, though, putting some money in our off street parking fund. And so my question is twofold. What impact will we see on the transportation fund from not giving that additional money to it, if any? And why are we putting money in the off street parking fund when that really can pay

for itself? Panically speaking, the way that the transfers for this actually work are that the off street parking fund funds the transit fund and then we fund the gap to the off street parking fund out of general fund. So it's it's a little bit of a waterfall. I can probably walk you through a little bit of that, how the flows work. I can't I mean, that makes

sense at a high level, but why is it different this year

than last year? I actually

Capri Tanner, budget analyst. I believe that the 2 and 40,000 was one time funds which is why you see that transfer directly transportation. The 38,000 that you see for off street parking is one time fund as well for FY '27. So it's one time funds. Historically, parking, the parking fund has always subsided to transportation to support it.

Okay. So I'm going to say can we get an action item on why is it different this year than last year? Everything you guys are saying makes sense.

Yeah.

I just don't understand why one year we were doing it one way and one year we were doing it the other.

If it's one time funds, the general fund is the one who's supplying that.

We'll we'll we'll get back

to you.

Yeah. And then

Mister chairman?

Well, hold on. I wanna just say mister Johnson looked like he had something more to say.

So I was so the one time the $2.40 was for special projects for like we're saying is just one time thing. And then the 38,000 is to cover the one excess one time funding to cover the 38,000 for that special project. So each time, it could change based upon what the needs are, what's being asked. So it's not like there's a set budget or set something that we're covering. It's all based upon the needs, and the funds come from the general fund. That

makes sense. Okay. Thank you. And so, I'm sorry. I know you have a question. I'm gonna try and follow-up. Tell me if I'm getting too far off topic for what your question is. So what is that 38,000 funding then? What's the special project?

On the all fund summary you'd be able to see

Oh, sure. I could have looked that up. Thank you.

It's for way signs. They're going to be adding additional signs to show where the parking garage is like directional signs for constituents.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah, I was looking at capital budget. Thank you. Alderman Thorpe.

So either in the extra time we have when we finish our briefings, if we have the time or some other time, I would like to dive deeper into your explanation, not about the numbers but about the process. So and perhaps this is a new guy on the city council challenge for me, but to me, I feel like I'm trying to follow the beans underneath the shelves right now. And I know that's not what you're trying to do. It'll all make sense to me, but but I don't know if other new members of the council have that same challenge. But as we move, as you do this, we don't have I'm I'm not we don't need to do it now.

But maybe, you know, it's basically the next version of the finance work session that you all led which was tremendous. But now I think we need to go a little deeper into Yep. So so that I could know the lexicon.

Well, we'll make sure to touch on fund transfers in that that session as well.

That'd be great. Yeah. I actually need to touch base with the mayor on what we're gonna do in that. But okay. I got two, maybe three more questions for you. The health insurance fund. We consistently are saying, it looks like in both '25 and in '26, we said, boy, we're gonna get all this money in and all this money is gonna go out. And those two things matched. And then it was like, we actually got way less money in and way less money out. And so there's not a net problem, but how are we miss estimating by a factor of like 30% on that?

I'm sorry. Can you Sure. Health insurance fund summary. So this is down it's on the last page of finance book as I'm looking at it. It's our FY twenty six budget was 14,000,000. And our FY twenty six projected is 9,500,000. And that's true for both revenue and expenses. So it's not It like

goes back to the vacancy discussion. So on a projected basis, we assume that the the city is fully funding the health insurance for a 100% of positions. And so as that doesn't matriculate out to being true because we have vacancies, it just you'll see adjustments there that occur. And so precision there would also be in bent enhanced by making changes for vacancy type changes.

And not everybody takes a 100%, takes the highest level health

insurance, Yeah.

That makes sense also. It's kind of what we were talking about yesterday with the whatever it was, 60% benefits for the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff position. Okay. Thank you. Just a note that our budget highlights, and I think it's the same on OpenGov, but I haven't checked, say that we're adding an accountant to position, but we're not adding an accountant to position.

So that's That was good. Already in the workforce plan.

Cool.

Okay. Last thing I wanna talk about is the self insurance fund. So we have an actuary go out and figure out how much we should be spending on this. And it seems to me like when we get hit with these particularly big lawsuits, we should see our self insurance fund change more. And yet, it's pretty darn consistent. So I'm wondering, first of all, can we see we, the finance committee, not necessarily the public. I would understand if it's somewhat confidential, that actuarial analysis. And then just generally, why does it not vary more?

Will attempt to answer Capri, you want? Okay.

So what you see in there is the expense for a policy that we have, but the amount that the policy pays does not show in there. So it does vary if we do have a lawsuit or something that we need to pay out for but it's covered by our policy at a certain amount. If we think that if we anticipate that it's going to go over our policy, then additional fundings are added to that fund.

That makes total sense for, like, how I pay for car insurance. But it feels like it doesn't make sense to me for the city being self insured. Isn't the whole point that we don't have a policy? We are the ones paying it out? Or am I I mean, feel free to tell me if I'm just being hard headed here.

It's a mixture.

Okay. Okay. That that kind of answers my question. That smoothes smooths it out a little bit. So we would still think we would expect to see maybe a little bit more variation than we get. But it's by having a policy, we're smoothing it out. Yes. Yeah. I still would like as an action item to see that actuarial report. And if there's a reason why we can't see it, please let us know. Chairman Yeah. Go ahead. That is a

lot better.

The mayor has asked the audit committee to, on a continual basis, take a look at the self self insurance fund Right. From a policy level and things like that. So as you know, we've talked about it. We'll be diving into that at the at the city council level. Right.

Think that's all I had. Anything from you, Auditor McCarty? Got any questions? No? Auditor Roman O'Neill, you got any last things?

I'm all set. Thank you so much for the great presentation.

Yeah. Okay. I thank you. If you had anything else, you would have told me. Yep. I'm good. Alright. We're good. Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you all.

And appreciate it. We'll look forward to spending the rest of budget season with you.

Okay. Good. Thank you, guys.

At this time director Simmons, I see you're here. Are you okay to present in five minutes?

I am, if you will.

Okay. Great. So at this time, we'll recess for five minutes and resume at 09:45. Thanks. Over to you guys.

Thank you. Thanks for having us. Again, I'm Kevin Sims. I'm the emergency manager for the city of Annapolis and to my right Dave Mandel, deputy director. So let's get this show on the road.

So we were told that you wanted three accomplishments that we thought were our best. So we took we put in the $35,500,000 FEMA grant. OEM coordinated the grant application and support with the mayor's office. The application spanned over 500 pages. Emergency management and the grants team responded to every FEMA request for additional information, conducted multiple meetings per month and held site visits and engaged stakeholders to achieve this major award.

So this was a phenomenal feat and I owe a lot of it to the gentleman on my right. It was four years in the making. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of effort. And the payoff was great, literally. The payoff was great. However, before we we received the grant about a couple of weeks ago, you all at the press conference, I've you on TV yesterday and the rebroadcast, everybody's smiling.

I got a mailer yesterday with our faces on it. I think you were on there too.

I was, I was. But we were due to have that grant way before that. Way before that. Because things got discombobulated in homeland security and FEMA, the issuance of the grant was delayed and I really appreciate the mayor and the Maryland delegation from getting it across the finish line. Second accomplishment we want to talk about is winter storm firm. Is it too soon to talk about that? I still got

the scars. You and director Vogel both. It was

a complex and high impact winter storm characterized by eight to 10 inches of snow, sleet, and freezing rain and dangerously low arctic type temperatures. The emergency operations center was open for six straight days, twenty fourseven and implemented coordinated response operations, operational priorities focused on life safety, maintaining essential services, situational awareness, and coordinating resources for six days twenty fourseven. Call center, I'm pretty really proud of, the folks that worked in the call center to include office of emergency management and some other departments, they feel that 745 storm related calls, that's the most ever for a single incident. Goal is always to get the city back to normal as quickly as possible. And our last accomplishment made it actually to the mayor's state of the city address and significant reduction in total overdoses.

Total overdoses decreased from one hundred and ninety eight in '20 twenty to fifty six which is a seventy two percent reduction. Major decrease in fatal overdoses, this is where folks die, dropped from twenty eight in twenty twenty to five in twenty twenty five. That's eighty two percent. Narcan was used in the majority of the overdose incidents this year so we had a very, very aggressive Narcan program and it caught on and all the folks have it, all the folks use it and because of that we're starting to see the fatal overdoses drop. So positive look for 2026, only eight total overdoses from January to March this year.

So this projects a significantly lower annual total if this trend continues. Performance measures. I am not going to hit that hard because that's going to take up, eat up some of my minutes, but here's what I will tell you about the performance measures. FY '25, we did meet all of our performance measures goals. I don't know what you all had in your budget book, but it wasn't what high performance measures are.

So these are the true performance measures. FY '25, we met all of our goals. FY '26, we met most of our goals except for two of them, and I'll talk about that. For the percentage of employees and partners with activation responsibilities, we didn't quite meet that goal. We wanted 75% of the red team and the blue team to be prepared for any eventuality.

In all, we got 70%. We were very, very close, but not a cigar at this point. And then if you go down to percentage of high priority plans are in progress complete and up to date. Our goal is to meet 75 of that and we met about 70% of that. So these are two of them that we didn't quite meet.

We were kind of close. As far as the plans is concerned, about a year and a half I lost half my staff. So at some point for a long time it was only three of us. We're back up to a full strength of seven and that had an impact on all of that. And here's our performance measures, our new proposed performance measures here.

And they're going to focus on planning, they're going to focus on preparedness, they're going to focus on substance use disorder like we always do in all of the rest of the plans, the former plans, and they're going to focus on readiness. Let's talk about some other statistics. Here's some other statistics that I wanted to relate to the to the finance committee, especially the first one, the special event numbers. FY '25, we have 465 planning hours. This is OEM's planning hours for special events.

FY '26 year to date, 582.7 planning hours. We're starting to see more events in the city of Annapolis. Annapolis is rivaling Baltimore City and Ocean City for events. And the events take a lot more planning, a lot more security. So it kind of thrust us into the middle of all this planning.

And FY '27 predicted, we predicted about seven fifty planning hours. Winter relief statistics, we were in our sixteenth year of winter relief. FY '25 actual, we had 80 we had 98 activations and sixteen fifty five patrons visit. FY '26, what we're in now, we had 108 activations with eighteen sixty eight patrons that visited. And I do think we're over it.

It closes officially at April 30. So I think these will be the numbers. And then FY '27 predicted, we predict maybe 100 activations and 1,600 patrons that we'll have to deal with. Food Friday statistics, boxes delivered, boxes delivered per year is 16,755 for FY '25. They actually impact 50,000 folks.

And that they're getting this is not 50,000 individual folks. These are 50,000 patrons that we see over and over again. FY '26, I'm not too sure about this number. I was looking at this number yesterday, but we have 18,200 with 55,068 service interactions. I'm not too sure about that 18,000 number.

Predicted in FY '27, 17,000 with 52,000 service interactions. So we have a lot of folks with food deficit in the city of Annapolis. This food only goes to Annapolis and it goes to all eight wards. You'll see you'll see activations, we had 19 activations in '25, total of forty five days, 22 activations in twenty six, forty six days. We predict in FY '27, 20 activations, forty five total days.

Talked about the substance use disorder stats. I'm going to go right down to outreach events. Our goal is about '25. We had 22 in '25. We had 19 completed in '26 and eight upcoming and 25 predicted.

Budget enhancement. So we're in a predicament here in the office of emergency management. We're the lowest funded of all the departments and that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing because the general fund supplements us. We mostly depend on federal grants.

We have for the past sixteen years. This year I'm coming to the finance committee, I'm coming to the council in a difficult situation because of how things are so discombobulated with FEMA and homeland security that we are projected not to receive any grant funding at this point. So we don't know if it's coming. We can't bet on that. So we fastened our budget in effect that this won't be here.

So with uncertainty in the federal funding and impact on personnel funded by federal grants, we fund three of our staff through these federal grants. So we're asking for two emergency management planner one positions. These are existing positions. We're not adding to anything. We're trying to keep what we have.

And that's the cost of 224,000 and it was in our budget, in our FY twenty seven budget. We have another position which is the exercise training and outreach and PIO. Again, an existing position. We're not adding anything. We're trying not to lose everything.

108,974. And we did get that in our budget. Non personnel enhancements, again, uncertainty with the federal funding, the hazard mitigation plan, that's a plan that we have to have updated every five years. It's an important plan. If we don't have that plan in place, if FEMA does not approve our hazard mitigation plan and then the council does not adopt it, then we're not eligible for certain funding.

And if we didn't have an approved plan, we wouldn't have not have gotten the 35,000, 35,000,000 for city doc. So the cost of that for a vendor to do it is 60,000. We've always used the vendor. Most of the jurisdictions use the same vendor that we do. So we did get that in our budget.

Again, uncertainty with federal funding. We want to be able to do training and exercise. This is important. Many of you actually attended our citywide exercise last year and you see how important that is to keep everybody prepared and everybody ready to respond and help the city recover and get back to normal. So we asked for 13,000 and we kind of sort of got it.

You won't see it in the budget. I think we did some discussion afterwards and it was agreed about finance that we do have the 13,000. Any other comment, Joel, on that? The 13,000? That was for the exercise.

Yeah, I think if we look at the budget, we actually had an allocation for that in the salaries line in the budget. So I think we just need to have it shifted on something that we've discussed internally. But it was just misplaced on our side.

Okay. So we have that. So another one of our non personnel enhancements was a maintenance program for our radios. And these are not fire and police radios. These are the radios at public works, rec and parks, transportation, planning and zoning, OEM. I'm pretty sure I'm missing somebody in there that they use these radios. Now we have a 130 radios. These radios cost about 4,500 per unit apiece and we have no maintenance plan for them. So this is sort of a deal where you pay now or you pay later. So we put in for the maintenance plan of 21,000 and we did not get that.

We did not get that one. How am doing on time, sir?

I think you're just about out. Can you see?

Seventeen seconds.

I'm out.

Seventeen seconds.

Really? So take a look at my budget and pretty much everything's in your budget book. However, look at the grants line here. We have grants from '23 up until '26 with no new allocations in '27. I can go on if you want.

Yeah, Please keep going. Sorry.

Okay. Know I've hit my fifteen minutes. So I'll just keep going. Opioid restitution fund budget, we get that from the opioid restitution funds and we also get a grant from the health department of about $31,000 It takes about 150,000 to run the four programs from police, from fire, from the mayor's office, from OEM to run that. And in our discussions I can give you a breakdown on who gets what.

But we're good there. This is not coming from the general fund. This opioid restitution funds and a grant from the health department. And last but not least, just for effect, just to see what we were dealing with and what we're not dealing with now is that back in FY twenty three we had 624,000 in federal grants and FY24 we had 583,000 in federal grants. Not all of it comes to the city of Annapolis, I mean, I'm sorry, to OEM, but it goes out to fire, it goes out to police, it goes out to planning and zoning for code books, it goes out to ITS and other different departments.

We get some for our day to day activities. We get a lot for our staffing. So you can see FY '25 which we're in budget season, FY '25, we have nothing at this point. Typically when we get our funds, our funds come in October and it is April and we have zero.

You very much. Auditor Roman O'Neill, I know you gotta stop, so you wanna go first?

Thank you. You

always go first, but.

I appreciate that. Director Simmons, thank you so much for all of those explanations and numbers. I know that in past budget hearings, we've often talked about the fact that so much of your budget was grant funded and the worry has always been that this exact case scenario was going to take place. And I think that this question got answered during our work session a week or two ago. But how are we doing this year without the grants that you did not receive?

Normally, you receive them in October, we didn't receive them. And are we okay in FY 2026 to continue as is? And I fully support the moving of the three positions into, the actual operating budget. But how are we doing for the remainder of FY '26?

So we really do well in our budgeting. We do. No frivolous spending. We we have our anything that we need, we have funding earmarked for it. And we spend very, very carefully. So I think that we're good getting out of FY '26. I think we're good to go there. Again, we have salaries for the three positions up until we think October. We know the fall. We think until October.

If you're asking me how much that is, I would have to use my lifeline and call a friend. But we think that we'll get to October at this point.

Okay. That's great. In regard to the warming center, one of the discussions that we've had since the warming center was moved from the center to Pitmore, there was a lot of discussion around actually transportation of folks that were trying to get to Pitmore and transporting throughout the day. Can we talk a little bit about what it would add if we were to add bus vouchers for those folks to ride city buses now that they're a little bit farther from when they were at Stanton Center, they had some resources. They were close enough to places to walk to, you know, to get additional help, either seven Eleven or restaurants downtown, things like that.

Has there been any discussion on your end as to increasing the allocation for the warming center?

We didn't ask for an increase. We did need some extra assistance this year because of winter storm Fern and the fact that we had eight straight days, twenty four hours and all but we didn't feel the need that we had to ask for more. When you're dealing with the unhoused, the homeless, routine is important for them. They go by routine. So once we moved from the Stanton Center to Pip Moor, you messed up their routine.

So it took them a long time to get acclimated. Once they got acclimated, I think they were pretty good. They have a lot of good sources in that I think that director Moore supplies the lighthouse shelter with bus passes and then the lighthouse shelter gives them, gives our homeless, the folks that are using our warming center bus passes. So I didn't think we had a big problem there and sometimes when I would go visit the warming shelter in the morning, I would see a go time bus which is relatively cheap, come pick a few of them up. I got paid for, I don't know, maybe some of the attendees paid for that.

But they seemed like they were moving in a good direction there. I need to let you know that we were in talks with HACA about using Robinwood and their gym space down there. And I went to the board at HACA and they agreed to do this. They voted in the affirmative that we can use their facility there next season. So the fire marshal has done an inspection. I think it came back okay. I got to get with Chief O'Malley on that. If everything goes through, we will be using that area next year. So it will be in Robinwood and their gym.

Thank you. That was going to be my next question. So appreciate the heads up on that one. I will go ahead and release my time, because I know there's a lot of other questions coming, but thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, Alderman O'Neill. Alderman Thorpe, you're up.

Thank you, mister chairman. I'm not sure where to begin other than just to say thank you. I had the opportunity to watch you close-up during the snowstorm and you all do is amazing. The other thing I'd like to highlight that people don't see is grants. If I had a criticism for OEM is you make grants sound too easy.

And you're highlighting of the FEMA grant having done a couple grant applications in my life, super effort for the city that the residents probably as they walk down the street have no idea how they can sleep better at night because of the grant work that you all do.

I know that you feel our pain because you sent us a grant the other day that we could apply for. So we appreciate that.

Well, thank you. I only did that because I know that it matters to you. Let me go through the slides a little bit. If I could ask you to go to slide eight and if I could ask to drill down a little bit. You you touched on these numbers and I'd I'd like to to just better understand, the predictions.

And and I I think the the fundamental part of my question is, what drives up or down on the predictions? Is it what you anticipate, which in some cases is higher or lower? Is it budget constrained? What drives the number? So you touched on the additional planning hours which I that's one that you have total control of. And my specific question to that one, for special events is is are you confident in your prediction and do you have the tools you need, to staff those special events?

So let me talk about the nature of special events. So talked I talked a little bit about it before. Baltimore City and Ocean City are the event capitals of in Maryland but we're closely behind them. So here's what we do in in emergency management. We do a lot of planning. We do operations on the day of the event. We're we're operating the mobile command or the EOC. We do site visits leading up. We meet with the organizers. We draft maps.

We draft traffic plans. We have the PowerPoint presentations for the planning meetings, with the departments and the partners. We do logistics. If we need any resources that are not in the city like mobile cameras that we have to set up so we can have eyes on everything, we have to get those. We are the author of the incident action plan and that's that's the rules of the road for these events. We have we hold the ops briefing. We hold security briefing with, APD and AFD. We we reach out to the school system for emergency shelters. Right? So if we have, some some bad weather coming, we have to shelter everybody.

If we have an active shooter, we have to shelter folks. We do all that. We mediate problems, game day. And if we have to cancel the events, they look for OEM to give them. So, yeah, so each year has been growing a little more and a little more and taking away from our time from other things.

So in the f y twenty seven predicted, we have the two fifty coming up. So not only do we have do we have the July 4, but we have all the activities with the two fifty. So we started meeting with those organizers and trying to get get a handle on what that would look like. So between some of the metrics there and just forty years of my gut, I come up with that prediction.

You have the tool? Do you have what you need in the budget to be able to do that?

We can get it done. We can get it done. But here here's what happens. And here's how it affects my performance measures. Right? So when you see these type of hours that we're doing, right, it takes away from especially updating my plans. And we have some important plans that we need to update. I think I had that discussion with, deputy director Mandel. He was telling me that this is gonna take away if you want me to do this, this is gonna take away from us doing these other things that you want. So at the point that we need to start looking at whether we do need another person.

And our responsibilities are growing. Our expectations are growing. But our capacity is still the same. Our capacity is still the same. So at some point we need to have a discussion. And me and my boss have had discussions about this and all and how it's growing and how it's affecting and the impact that it's having.

I was going to ask this last, Director, but you've got in this budget planning for not getting grants. And my question was going to be if you do get the grants, I was kind of going to look at the city manager and say what's the process for the city council to look at that? Presume it would be fund transfers and all that. And what I would ask the city manager and you is as you get grants to come to the city council with this is what we need in emergency management before we start looking at other things that Alderman Thorpe wants to spend money on. Moving on, the next three, and you touched on them a little bit and you touched on the food Friday being a questionable number which I appreciate your honesty.

But all of them go down and predictions, I get it, but what if they don't go down?

If they don't go down, I guess I'll be coming before the council. And that has been done before. We've had some unusual circumstances with relief some years back. I don't I don't know if you remember it. It was in 2016 where we overshot the budget because we had a bad winter storm.

Winter storm was so bad in 2016, I think it was called Jonas that we got FEMA reimbursement for recovery. So we did over over run our budget that year, and we we over run our budget this year because of unforeseen circumstances. These storms were were above and beyond. But on a normal winter, we can make it on the 38,000 that we get for these programs.

Okay. And I haven't seen this, so I'm not worried about it. I love your budget, your conservative budgeting. I just wanna make sure that you we don't ever convey to you that we're looking for the emergency operations center to be activated less because of budget constraints.

No. We that's our number one priority. Response is our number one priority. And we we were conservative this year because we knew the predicament that we were in not getting any federal grant money. We had three salaries in the general fund.

And then just a clarification for me on substance use disorder stats. 15 a month, 180 per year, and then but the numbers are 46, 35, and 30. I'm not understanding the numbers, I don't think.

Okay. These numbers were yearly numbers, right? 46, forty six and twenty five, thirty five and twenty six. Yes. So I think your question is that your question is that our goal is to be under one hundred and eighty overdoses a year. Is that is that your question?

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. So so here's my answer to that. We are doing good. We're bringing the numbers down. I'm very, very happy. It's a whole community thing. We're doing good. But what happened last July 2025, as you remember that bad bastard that was happened in Baltimore City? Yeah. Do you know where all our drugs come from?

It comes from Baltimore City. And so that kind of jolted me a little bit because we had that bad batch. Was scrambling, talking with the police department, talking with the health department, wondering if that path was gonna lead here to Annapolis. I'm not ready to say that I can reduce it lower than 15 overdoses per month, especially this is not in my my control. Right?

Right. So it was 25 in my performance measure, but we went down to 15 and we'll see how it goes. I have I take it down to ten, but a lot of times stuff is not beyond my control. And if we get a bad batch in Annapolis, we could see they saw twenty seven overdoses in one day. In one day. And that could happen here. So I'm very kind of conservative with that number.

Thank you. If I could go to slide 10. And this is my question and unless you have anything else to add to it from what you previously said, we haven't we don't know that we're not going to get these grants but you're planning on not getting them because of the discombobulation, with this going on in the federal government. But I'd be very interested in tracking if if if we do get these grants to to track what we do with those resources. Slide.

And I mean, it looks like maybe Mr. Palakkalo is going to say something, but I think we need a fund transfer, right? It wouldn't be just well, you go ahead rather than me speculate.

Going know, to But, the intention would a 100% be that if the grants come back online, we would issue funds transfers and then reduce budget and then increase the grants amounts. That's absolutely the plan as things come and move and shift. So we would adjust accordingly.

Yeah. I think my point is is I just would from my one ninth of the city council viewpoint, like to see that money stay in o v OEM as a because other things we're not doing rather than pay for my favorite topic, whatever that be. And I'm just pointing at myself.

Yeah. I think that would then just go through the fund transfer process and Yeah. Whatever city council ultimately approves and deliberates on.

And so let me just jump in here to make sure I understand. Frequently, when we get a grant that we're not expecting to, like we just did this yesterday, we have to have a supplemental appropriation for this. So, this budget, tell me if I'm wrong. This budget is set up such that those grants are not in it. And so if we get those grants before we even talk about moving the money around to some maybe some do something else, we have to have a supplemental appropriation just to accept those grants, right? Okay, you're all nodding guests.

Yes, that's correct.

Beautiful. So we would know is what I'm saying.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you get what I'm saying. I just I

hear what you're saying. I'm not sure I 100% agree, but I hear you a

lot. So

so slide just take us to slide 11 and then I'll come to you director to because this applies. My question is, are you comfortable with not funding the radios? In other words, to your point, the the fear of communication. And I'm gonna quasi give you my answer to the question, which is I used to say if there's an extra dollar in the budget, I wanna spend it on sidewalks. I think the chairman and I stand together on that.

I think I'm gonna change that statement to say if I have an extra dollar, I wanna spend it on the OEM radios because if we can't communicate in a crisis, it'll it it's not the radio that's not needed that stops working. It's the radio that, you know, that's the most needed person in the most secluded area. So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on that, and then I think the city manager wants to talk.

So story. Quick story. I first got here, we had hurricane Irene, right? And Bob Coconaro, as we all know, in public works, he was out working and the storm was really battering the city of Annapolis and I needed to call him on his radio and he wouldn't answer. He couldn't answer.

The radios we had poor quality radios when we got here. So eventually we got by and pulled his crew in, got them to the shelter and safety. So I was committed that day to replace the radios. The fire and police, they have good radios, but public works, rec and parks, ADOT, planning and zoning, they all had poor radios. So we we got grant money of over a $100,000 at the time.

Radios were cheaper. And just outfitted everybody with with new radios. Everybody had new radios and the world was alright with everyone. So over time radios break, they become less efficient, they get upgraded, all of these things happen, right? But we had no mechanism, no maintenance plan to deal with radios. They would come to our office and say this radio doesn't work anymore. These batteries don't charge again. So we don't have a maintenance plan. So I don't even know if this is the best place for it to be in my department. I don't even know if that's the best place for it.

I don't know if central services might be better with this. But the point is that something needs to be done. We need to have we pay a lot of money for these radios. 4,500 per radio and we got a 130 of them. I mean, why don't we treat them good? I mean, your car. Right? You do maintenance on your car. So it'll last longer. Right? You can maximize its use. And we need to do the same thing with these radios. And I understand we didn't get it, but it's something that we need to think about. We need to think about.

Director, I'm only gonna say this because I think you're already thinking the same way. I don't do maintenance on my car so it lasts longer. I do maintenance on my car so when I start when I try start it, it starts. You know? And and that's what I'm looking for is the radio to work.

And even more so that when you're driving down the road but they're already started, it doesn't stop. Right? Right? Yeah.

It's the same thing with the radio. You know? We if if we don't take care of them right now when you're calling somebody to say, hey. Bring me something and all. But when you're calling somebody in an emergency, a disaster, or crisis, it it has a different feel. And you wanna make sure that when you press that radio that you're gonna get a response and what you need.

I were you gonna say something?

I also saw miss Turner. Yes.

I just wanted to clarify that the enhancement was for a maintenance plan for all city radios, for it to be more like centralized, but there's actually funding in each department's budget that uses radio for maintenance. I'm not for sure if OEM has funding, to maintenance their radios, but in the other departments, they have funding within their department that maintenance for maintenance in the radios.

Could we get a readout or a due out or an action item or whatever I'm calling it to optimize it in our our notes of the cumulative amount of money getting spent across departments on radio maintenance and then what it would cost to if we were going to have a centralized program either in OEM or OCS to centralize that. Is that what you're looking for?

Exactly. Thank you. That would alleviate one, that would alleviate the director's challenge and would also

I believe they all use the same vendor. Yeah. But I can get that information.

Yeah. And I think it's in his best. He's probably the the director of OEM is probably the person who cares the most before the crisis that the radios work. So I'd love the him the OEM to have their fingers on that. Whatever that Well,

to push back on that just a little bit, public works, police, fire, they use those radios all the time. So, like, they have a very vested interest in that stuff functioning. Yeah.

And and I'm it's up to you where the money goes.

I'm not saying Kevin doesn't have a vested interest, but they do too.

Right. Got it. Got it. So if you could get that's as the chairman said, the bottom line is is the funding somewhere else in the budget which would, relieve the

I would like to see clarification on that as well because it's our understanding. And we just went to a round of upgrades for all 130 radios, OEM did. So I just wanna make sure that if they have radio maintenance and all, then it's a moot point. Not too sure that that's happening.

Yep. Okay.

Yeah. And I think a big theme throughout this budget is centralization. So regardless of where it gets centralized, if we have an opportunity to bring forward an amendment to do that, that'd be great.

I have two questions. Let me hit one and then I'll go back to you if I have time for the second after you're finished.

Yeah, I

don't have time. Slide 15. And I think old woman O'Neil touched on this, but I kind of missed the answer. So this is $20.25 money that we don't have. And and if we don't get it, if we get it, we're good to go. If we don't get it, what happens?

If we don't get the funds and I don't get what I've asked for in the general fund, I'm automatically laying off three people. I can't meet the city code requirements because it requires for me to do an exercise every year like I did last year. I won't have the funding for that.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you funded This is a slide that represents what you funded for in case you don't get this money or or was that 26 grants or 27 grants?

I wanna make sure I I understand the question. So you're you're saying if I don't get f y 25, right, which is zero, which we've been talking about, then I'm heavily dependent on the general fund and what I what I propose, which is kinda conservative. And you can see from my presentation, I could use a lot more, but kinda conservative. I noticed this the situation that the city is in. But if I don't get that, then, you know, where do I start?

Mean, it's gonna have a cascading negative effect on OEM, which is gonna have a negative effect on community preparedness, it's gonna have a negative effect on how we respond, and it's gonna have a negative effect on how we recover from an emergency or disaster or crisis.

Well, I'm 90% sure, I think of I think, of what you just said. I just wanna make sure for me. This isn't me doubting you. This is me asking that because I'm confused on the fiscal year, challenge. So so you're this this is fiscal year twenty five federal grant money, but it's gonna pay for fiscal year twenty seven employees. And you have it in the you have less money, but you have money to maintain those three employees in the fiscal year twenty seven operating budget. So we're talking about the same people and different fiscal year but the same but funding for fiscal year twenty seven. Is that right?

So so alderman, your predecessor, Ross Arnett, had a name for the deputy here. He called him a grant ninja, right? Grant writing ninja. So I'm going let him explain this to you and he probably can explain it a lot clearer than I can.

Thanks, director. Dave Mandel, deputy director, OEM. So there's different labels the federal government uses versus city government. The federal grants that we have not received were FY '25, the federal fiscal year FY '25 that ended last September. What Congress typically does is on the waning days of the fiscal year they'll send out all the money, September 1, October 1, whatever it is.

And that comes our way shortly thereafter. So we haven't gotten that as the director mentioned. Here we are six months later. So when we say we haven't gotten FY '25, that's that would have been newly received federal government funding under the federal fiscal year, right? So these federal grants are multiyear grants. There's just not one fiscal year. It's not that it expires this year. They're generally three year two to three years. Three years officially sometimes state wants to give us less time to make sure we spend it all. So right now we're working through the end of our federal fiscal year FY24 grants.

Those expire about a year from now because they're multiyear grants. So we think we have enough to get through some point in the fall as it stands now. So the FY '25 comes through, and I hope it does, you know, obviously that'll put us back to sort of where we've been, you know, in the last few years. But given that it's been six months and we haven't gotten anything, we can't count on it. So we have enough money for moment given those grants are multiyear grants from the federal side. And so they're working through FY '25. And should the schedule write itself, this fall there would be FY '26 but we who knows? We don't know what's gonna happen with FY '25, let alone FY '26. Does that answer the question?

Yes. Thank you. Mister chairman, that concludes my questions. Thank you very much for what you By the way, I'm sorry, your budget does not include a line item that should be in there which I lived with for twenty eight years and you live by and other duties as assigned.

I'd like to put it in. I'm going to

ask a question that I would expect Alderman Thorpe to have asked. And by the way, I'm not going to give you the main one that I was going to ask you guys because you have so many more performance measures, I think it's not helpful. But Alderman Thorpe has been really focused on this budget on overtime. And for a department that is working, well, sometimes twenty four seven, I'm sure during those storms, it seemed like you guys were on 100% of the time. You don't have a lot allocated towards overtime. Can you just explain to me why that is? So we

have an over we used to have an overtime budget from a general fund and then we had an overtime budget from grants. Okay. So I think what happened is we took an average over the last couple of years and we came up with an overtime budget of 25.

Point So

if I can just supplement the answer on this one. Overtime budget has risen over the years from the city. It started something like 2,000 and I think this current year we're at 8,200. This is off the top of my head. Now in formulating our budget knowing that's a portion of it comes from grants, we went to the finance team and said how do we treat this?

And the response was tell us what your overtime costs actually are every year, grants plus general funds so we can account for that if you don't get any grants this year. So we took an average for the last few years and we got about 15,000 and change. So that was included again under finance directive in the open gov process, not as an enhancement but as a reflection of actual costs that we're already incurring. They just wouldn't be covered by grants potentially next year.

Yeah. I'm not asking you why your overtime costs are so high. I'm asking you why they're so low.

Well, only four or so of our staff are eligible for overtime. Got it. Okay. That's one one thing to know.

I figured that was probably part of the answer.

Okay. Thank you. So we have a total of what 15,800? Okay.

Thank you. You have a $20,000 addition of supplies. Is that also just related to this transition from grants to okay. Yeah. And then the last thing I've got is a question for you. I told you it wouldn't be much. Maybe we'll go back to Alderman Thorpe. Is just I think I asked you something like this last year, but nationally, we're seeing a trend where overdose deaths from opioids are going down, and that's wonderful, and it's thanks to the kind of work you guys are doing. But at the same time, we're starting to see increases in stimulant debt overdoses. Stim stimulant overdose deaths, which are harder to combat in a lot of ways.

We don't have a Narcan for stimulants. So what, if anything, is your department currently doing to start planning ahead for what appears to be a trend? And is there anything additional you would need for that?

So a lot of people are talking about opioids. When you're in an urban situation like like us, county being suburban, Baltimore City being urban, as well as DC, you know, we have to think of things that they don't think about like TCP, like what you're talking about. So what we have done is we actually have used the opioid money. We go into our highest overdosing wards. I'm going use Ward 4 as an example in the past.

I'm going to use Ward 6 as an example as well. I went into those communities and I found a person that actually knows the communities. I know them but I don't really know them. And so I did find a person that's right over here to my right way before this person was an older person and I said hey can you help me? Can you help me? I want to bring the overdoses down to community. So I employed the all the women, Conte. And together, we we got the the Wellmobile. We we did op opioid yes. What do you call them? The sticks?

Mike.

Oh, opioid training and Narcan training.

Fentanyl strips and we were heavy duty into that and with our work, we were able to install the first harm reduction vending machine residential in the county in in Eastport. We were able to do that. So I did the same thing in Ward Ward 4. So it it takes nontraditional methods to meet what what you're talking about. And I had I went in Ward 4. I hired a person. Same thing. We went and did different things now. Now we have a harm reduction vending machine at, American Legion. And then we have the, what do you call that thing?

The the big big bus.

Oh, the well mobile?

Well mobile. Thank you. We have the well mobile in Ward 4 as well. So so we're always thinking out of the box. And, again, you need to get in with somebody who actually knows those wards and knows the nooks and crannies and knows what's happening and knows the people and then we go from there. Wonderful.

Thank you. Yeah. I just I I wanted to use my fifteen minutes of fame as it were to spotlight. This is something that I think we need to be looking on the horizon for and using a lot of those same kinds of tools you guys have been using. But some of them some of them don't work, and so we need to come up with some new ones. Some of them will work, and we can keep using it just in a different capacity. Alderman Conte, do you have any questions? Anything you want to add? Alderman Thorpe, you want to go back? We got five more minutes.

Sure. I'm gonna ask arguably a very difficult question and a very philosophical question. I've I've been asking everybody if you had another 5%, what what would you use use the funds? I wanna reword it for you because you are so your department is so can do. What keeps you up at night when it comes to what the city council could do for you?

You know, what you know, thinking out of the box is as you said, a lot of what you do is quite frankly not the traditional sidewalks, roads, potholes, planning and zoning, etcetera. So what keeps you up at night? What what are you gonna wish in three years that you'd have funded in fiscal year twenty seven?

Ask a couple of questions there. Up at night, I can't really talk about it right now. But then again, you've other department who said the same thing, so I think you know what I'm talking hurricanes. I do your tornadoes. I do your snowstorms.

I do your terrorism. I do all of that stuff every day of the week, twenty four seven, three sixty five. But the one thing that keeps me up at night, it really makes me nervous. And What was the other question? Was it another part of that question?

I think director Simmons just asked it, which I think puts an action on us and maybe Mr. Chairman over to you to talk to the bear. Maybe we need a closed session on hearing what director Simmons is saying, and making sure that it's, supported appropriately by the city.

I think that might be a good idea. Maybe it's something we want to loop into this meeting on Monday and just say, we're going to take thirty minutes here. Anything in the budget we can't be talking about in open session to make sure everybody gets a good briefing on that. There certainly are some things that makes sense.

Okay. I think I could ask you five different iterations of that question but I'll say it publicly what I've said to you privately and the big question that is unanswerable is what are you going to wish you'd done two or three years from now. But I think you're already thinking that and you're already working it. I just want to make sure that for anybody listening, I have seen the command center operate for a parade. I have watched your operation and you are the single person for the city in the lead to predict the unpredictable.

So, I would encourage you to push the city council.

Well, with that, it's just shy of 10:45. So unless you had anything any last thing you feel like we need to add director Simmons?

I do not.

Okay. Anybody else got any last thing they need to add? Auto Roman O'Neil? Nope. I'm not sure if she's with us or not.

Frozen in time. Yeah.

Okay. Well, we'll we'll take it as she's good then. And if not, she'll let us know. But with that, I'll look for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Meeting adjourned.