Common Council - Special Meeting

its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest and it's calling you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music] Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 mi southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. It's a place driven by what's coming next. A place where industry is the lifeblood of its community. And its pulse is gritted with sand and steel, fire and smoke. It's a city building its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a

way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest that's calling you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music] Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 mi southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. It's a place driven by what's coming next. A place where industry is the lifeblood of its community. And its pulse is gritted with sand and steel, fire and smoke. It's a city building its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but

across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest that's calling you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music] Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 mi southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. It's a place driven by what's coming next. A place where industry is the lifeblood of its community. And its pulse is gritted with sand and steel, fire and smoke. It's a city building its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll

know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest that's calling you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music] Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 mi southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. It's a place driven by what's coming next. A place where industry is the lifeblood of its community. And its pulse is gritted with sand and steel, fire and smoke. It's a city building its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX Track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest that's calling

you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music] Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 mi southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. It's a place driven by what's coming next. A place where industry is the lifeblood of its community. And its pulse is gritted with sand and steel, fire and smoke. It's a city building its future together. One business, one family, and one home at a time. This is a place for makers, doers, and dreamers. It's where the global marketplace meets hometown values. Where Americana isn't just a tradition, it's a way of life. Here, your experience makes the difference. With access to railroads, major waterways, and eight different highways, this is a place in motion, sending goods, services, and ideas not just across the state, but across the world. And when the work ends, the day is just beginning with beaches like West Beach in the Indiana Dunes National Park, exciting hiking and biking trails like the Diana of the Dunes Dare or the BMX track, and local treasures and exciting festivals, you'll know you're in more than just a bedroom community. From veterans of foreign wars to hometown heroes, our diversity is our strength. And we forge our future with the same flame as our steel. Oh, there's a place in the Midwest that's calling you home. The best part of Portage is what's next. The best part of Portage is you. There's more for you in [Music]

Indiana. There's a place in the Midwest, 50 miles southeast of Chicago, nestled near the coast of Lake Michigan. Thank you for being here today. Will you please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Given that we had a meeting last week for business roll, Mayor Bont here. Councilman Alvarez here. Council member Woman Weidenbach here. Councilwoman Hurst here. Counciloman Parnell here. Councilwoman Vazquez here. Councilwoman Amler and Councilman Zilly here. So that takes us to the if we jump to the new business, we have the utility CBA. I'm going to see if Tracy's here, our general superintendent. For those who don't know, Tracy is now the general superintendent of utilities effective last Thursday. So congratulations, Tracy. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm really excited. Um, so the CBA, I think you all have one in front of you. So the main points, I'm just going to hit the main points of it. Um, it's a two-year contract starting January 1st of this year. So that means retro. Um so beyond that um we did certifications

was a big thing we looked at this year um because we felt instead of very a very large raise that it would be better if we gave them certifications to earn it by getting education. Um we would like to have the most educated and professional staff that we can in the area. Um, this being said, it keeps us it makes helps us to retain good operators and good staff, everyone who knows, and it brings in the same amount from outside if we needed to. Um, besides that, there was um um I'm trying to think of all the key points that we did. A lot of language changes. Lot of language changes. And then we went from vacation and personal time to PTO. So, that's a big one. The PTO is a big thing. Um, our staff is very excited about it. They're very excited about the change. Um, they see the positives in the for PTO over just having vacation and personal time and the sick time separated. Uh, the raise was that was given was $135 an hour for both years. So each year, um, they did opt to vote. They did vote to take 10 cents of that and put it into a health savings fund through the union. So they will be they will do that. Um besides that there were um I'm trying to think the main points. Was there anything I'm missing Lynn that was a main point? I think mostly just language changes that help both sides. I know the guys are very happy with the contract. This contract passed I believe with if I did the math right 95% of the voting members going for it. Um I would also add on the financial side because we have two contracts before us. Historically in portage maybe everywhere there's two ways to do a contract financially. One is that you identify the money that you have or what's already budgeted for and then other

times you have it where there's a commitment from the council that although it might not reflect what the previous budget was, there's a commitment to being able to fulfill it. In this case though, it was negotiated within the revenue that comes in. So when we did our rate increases last year, we also budgeted the amount that we anticipated would go to these increases for them and they budgeted and agreed within that scope even with the certifications. So financially this is in it fits within the 2020 um five and presumably of course within the 26 budgets for utilities. The only other thing I would say is that we tried to shore up some of the contracts so that they all matched like in bereavement everything matched so it wasn't so confusing that utilities would have something different than street than police. We tried showing all that up so that it all matched and similar things like that. It wasn't the easiest part of the process working with everybody, but simply put, if you have a brother and a sister in different departments, we want to make sure if the same relative passes away, they have the same amount of time for that same relative. And I appreciate that everybody found a way to get forward on that. Is there any questions on the contract? Um my excuse me I guess just to reiterate what the mayor said. I guess my question is directed towards the clerk treasurer and I ask this try to ask this every time we have a new contract. Can the city afford this uh contract as presented? Yes, there's enough revenue coming in for utilities to cover this contract. Thank you. Are there other questions about the contract? I think does Colin have something. Are you so any other

questions? Not yet hearing a question. Is there a motion? I make a motion to adopt. Second. We have a motion and a second. Um Liz, would it be all right if we vote by roll call? Yes. Council Councilman Alvarez, yes. Councilwoman Weinbach, yes. Councilwoman Hurst, abstain from voting. Council member Parnell, yes. Councilwoman Vasquez, yes. Council me Councilman Zilly. Yes. That passed. Uh 5 to one, I think, reasonable abstension. Thank you. That gets us to the police. I'll ask for the uh police chief. Would you mind coming and highlighting this particular um contract? Good evening. So, uh, there wasn't a whole lot of things that, uh, changed in our contract. Um, there were a whole lot of things that were brought up as it as it went through and once it boiled down to the final product, a lot of that stuff, uh, kind of was negotiated out. So, um, some of the key things, it is a, uh, a one-year, um, we are attempting to raise our minimum staffing level. Um, I told you all before right now it's at six, which just does not seem adequate for the call volume and the size of our city right now. Um, but it is something that we needed to agree on with the union on. Uh, we are looking to move that up to seven. That's one of the key things in here. Uh, there's a portion in there for lateral vacation. So, if we bring an officer over from another department, um, they will incur some vacation time

by coming over. We've been trying to get this lateral system going the last couple years. Um, just as of a couple years ago, there was really no incentive to come here from another department. So, if you'd been, you know, 10 years somewhere, you were coming here at basically a probationary pay status and you're losing all your your uh vacation, all that time you've acrewed, your your rank, things like that. Um, so we're trying to find a spot in between where it's it's a little more um welcoming to come over. uh you're going to give up your rank and some of that time and and uh as far as promotions and things, you lose that time, but with this, you'll get a little bit of a vacation bump. So, um you know, it's police work right now is it's competitive. Uh a lot of people are jumping from department to department looking for wages and benefits. Um it's just a it's a changing environment and we've seen that over the last couple years. So, we want to be appealing to not only get new officers in, but to retain the ones we have and possibly, now to say it, steal some of from other departments. Uh, it's been done to us, and if we can if we can do it and steal a quality officer, I'm all for it. So, um, also part of this was to rework our our pay structure through our rank a little bit. So somewhere along the line um as raises were done we had this very little differentiation between a master patrol officer and a corporal which is our first uh supervisory role and then up through sergeant and lieutenant. Um you know was I I think one we ran some numbers and it was like a couple pennies an hour to to get promoted but then to gain that respons you know have that responsibility that you might be in charge of the crew that day. So what this is this raise is proposing is the master patrol officer would get a certain raise 6% raise and then the other ranks are based off of that. So 3

six and nine above that. So um doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's getting you know that percentage but there's it's it's basically now there'll be a difference. So if you're um as you work your way up through the ranks you'd be 3% higher than the rank above you. Does that make sense? I kind of had a hard time describing that, but um so just kind of give you a little bit of what what went down. So um there was a lot of things that were proposed on the union side. Um increase in the uniform allowance, specialty pay. So this would be, you know, SWAT team, um crash team, all the different teams that we have. Um there was some stuff in there for different uh if you're a training officer having you know a specialty pay bump. Um if you are a firearms instructor like if you had an instructor side of that um that there'd be specialty pay in that. So when it boiled down to uh they they were willing to give all that up for the overall raise which is what what you guys are looking at. So basically all that stuff went away as as they negotiated through. Um and I think that's important because a lot of departments do have different specialty pays for different things, but um I'm not a huge fan of that because I think that then you've got some officers that are that are out there doing things that aren't aren't getting the benefit of of the pay raise. So um I'm in favor of what the city side and the union came up with. Um, I ran some numbers on pay comparisons to other departments. Um, I think I sent that to you guys. Um, so based on our 2024 wages, we are lower than Porter County, Valparezo, Chesterton, and Porter PD. Now, granted, I know there's a lot of benefits and things that come with working here in the city of Portage.

Um, but it is a concern to me that we stay competitive on the wage side. If we lose an officer to another department, there is a cost that you're probably not even seeing. Um, there's all the hours that went into training that officer. There's the academy if we've sent them to the academy. There's the uniforms. There's all the equipment. And then just the knowledge of somebody that's been doing the job for, you know, three, five, 10 years. Um, it's a huge, huge cost to us to le to lose somebody to another department. And I would just hate to lose somebody based on just an economics uh factor. Uh I know, you know, my job is to get the best police department out here, get the best officers. I'm not tasked with making all the money match for the whole city. I understand that. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't explain how important it is for us to be competitive, to be able to pull in quality officers and then be able to keep them. And I and I do think that with all the things that are going on that we do bring with the city, but you know, the financial side of it for that pay is is is huge. It is huge when you look at it and you could see you could go somewhere else and make, you know, a decent amount more. So, well, if I could say, so I mentioned in the last contract that what was negotiated and what you guys voted on and passed for utilities, that was within the projected revenue for the utilities department. And I say projected revenue because that's an example of we count on enough people paying their utility bills that the revenue comes in and that as that revenue comes in, we're able to budget and reasonably expect that we're going to be able to pay for that pay increase that you guys just passed uh for the utilities. when it came to the police contract, which for me was a amazingly eye-opening experience because there's really no other job quite like being a police officer, especially in a city like ours. Whereas um we were able to

negotiate with utilities based on increases to the utility fee and money in that increase being essentially budgeted to be able to go towards their wages. We didn't have that with the police department. the 2025 budget budgeted enough to be able to pay the police department as it was and so I did not have wiggle room in the existing budget to negotiate how much of a raise they could get or where we could move that money. So that's where I get to the second way that historically cities or portage has done it where you pass a budget and then upon negotiating a contract and review of the council which is the fiscal body of the city. The council is essentially determining do we agree with these priorities. You could think of it on paper as a shift in priorities. Although I don't believe anyone voted on last year's budget anticipating that the police were not going to get a raise or that expected that I would go to the police saying we can't do anything. So, if you can forgive me for using what will either be a very effective example or perhaps a comically, oh my goodness, I can't believe you used this example, but I'm borrowing this from someone. Say you were working at a restaurant back in the day. I don't know how far back in time you'd have to go. and you find out that your boss is in the process of building something outside the restaurant called a drive-thru. He's paying to have windows added and putting in a thing for people to come in and give their orders. They're making a route for cars to go. You might say to your boss, "Hey, what's that?" He's going to say, "Oh, this is a drive-thru. It's this new thing we're doing to allow people to pay us money, order food in a different way." If you were negotiating a pay increase, you might say to your boss, "Hey, boss, that thing's going to make money. Shouldn't we think about the money that's going to come in from that? Now, if your boss were to say, "Ah, that's too experimental. There's no guarantee that's going to work." You'd be kind of suspicious of your boss who's investing all the time to build this drive-thru. As you guys know, because I haven't been shy about it. And I've been

working with you guys on a council. We've been pursuing residential tiff or what they call home tiff as a source of revenue creation in our city. It's something that I'm confident is going to bring revenue in and at the same time there's a pace to it and how we do it. So in negotiating with the police, it was based on the fact that we don't have in this case what's proposed in this contract. Well, I'll start here. They wanted more than what was in this contract. And quite frankly, they deserve a lot more, but we also have to negotiate based on what we can reasonably pay while keeping the city running. We worked our way down from the initial offer, which was very hard for me to do because our police deserve the absolute best. But I've got to get to what I think I can be able to show that we can do with the residential tiff in mind. Looking at the revenue that we anticipate could come in through residential tiff and project development agreements, you know, from it as I've explained to the council and I know that we'll be working on in the future by the months of August, September, and October. We were able to calculate that we can bring in the revenue to be able to cover as long as that passes. Now, I say that very carefully because ultimately that comes on a council whether or not you guys are comfortable going that direction. If we had done it last year, we'd have a much better sense of how much money we brought in. The second piece to this is the fact that as a fiscal body, the council and mayor and clerk treasurer, we're also going to be if passing this contract also looking at this from a cost-saving perspective. I don't mean saving money because of this contract, but finding what other areas in this year's budget or next year's budget are we willing to move around to be able to cover the cost of this contract. Ultimately, we estimate working with the clerk treasurer's office and the police administration and HR on the high end, this is going to cost $750, I'm sorry,

$775,000. We don't have that in a bank account right now, unmarked and unappropriated. And so when I ask you guys to pass this contract, I am very confident that we can do it. I wouldn't take the time to bring it to a public meeting if I wasn't confident that the things that we're working on can fulfill the obligations of this contract. But I do have to note in transparency that the money that we're going to need to pay is going to be based on decisions that the city and this city council makes between now and the end of the year to properly save both now and in the future to cover the cost of this contract. I believe it is extremely important because public safety is the top priority of a local government. And simply put, the other methods by which we generate revenue and serve the people are foremost founded on the fact that people can feel safe in the city. Now, I can be long-winded, but I wanted to be very careful with my words, but I can state that I appreciate the work that our police stewards went because the number that our police deserve is much higher. And I'm not afraid to say that. But we have to work somewhere between what they deserve and what we can afford. And I believe that this is the right number for now. with commitment. Chief, so you have one more officer in mind, and I'm just curious, what methods of recruitment are you using to bring in that extra individual and the type of um quality, I suppose, that we would be receiving from that recruit. So, so we're actually um we're two officers short right now, but we have two that are going through Perf and if they make it through there, then we'll be at fully staffed for the

first time in six, five, six years. Just to be clear, when you say you're increasing your minimum staffing from six to seven, that's not adding an officer to the No, no, no, no. There's the amount of officers on the road at any one time, right? No. I'm just looking at the recruitment for the additional hands on deck. But you're not there. You're not getting an additional office. We we've been allotted 75 for I don't know Colin it was under Colin Fernandin Gina I don't remember three years ago. Um and we've never been able to reach that level. Um so we we should be at that level about a month from now hopefully. So, we will not be looking to add anybody after that. Um, as far as if you're just asking about recruitment. Um, we've we've stepped up our our visibility. Um, job fairs, things like that. We've been out there a lot more. Um, we put together the recruitment video which was awesomely done. Um, we're pushing that out there. Um, and quite honestly, we're I think a lot of it's word of mouth is um we've got officers that are out talking to officers at other departments that are, you know, having some struggles and things and and I truly believe that we would have gotten more lateral officers in the last couple years if we had had the salary that we finally got with the last contract and some of the benefits. It's, you know, it's hard if you're working at a department and, you know, things have changed and it's just not the right fit for you anymore. It's hard to give up that time. You know, if I've got four or five weeks of vacation and I'm a supervisor to come somewhere at a starting pay, have no time off, and lose that rank. So, um, I really think that some of these things that we've done in the last couple contracts with having the the lateral pay come over and then now with some vacation and things will

will will help that. Um, and then I mean if we're just being honest, if if if you've got the benefits and you've got the pay, you're you're probably going to have a better shot at getting the higher quality officer. Um, it's like it's no different than the business world out there. You know, you graduate from a college with very high scores and you're a very marketable candidate. uh you can kind of pick and choose where you want to go and you're going to go to the company or in this case the city that has things to offer and to get them to come. We still need to offer things. The less we offer, there's always somebody else that's hiring. And that's that's kind of been the thing that we've been pushing for a couple years. You know, law enforcement has changed. Um when I applied, I tested with 120ome people. Um there were very few police departments that were hiring. You get an opening here and there. Um, everybody's hiring now and so we're competing with not only Porter County agencies, we're competing with uh the state police who have a astronomical salary bump that they got. We're competing with Lake County. We're competing with Leaport County. Um, so we need to stay competitive. I think we have a lot of things in place, equipment, training, the specialties. I think the city's going in a good direction. Um, I think there's a lot of things that bring us here, but if you drop below in pay, you know, six, seven, $8,000, that's that's a lot, especially to a younger officer. Um, I don't know if that answered your question, but um, thank you very much. I want to be careful not to speak too much, but I always tend to make that error, if you will. I think there's also be said for retention and that's being able to keep our people because Chief, you can correct me if I'm wrong or if I say it in a less diplomatic way. When we lose an officer to another department, we're starting all over with somebody brand new. And at the maybe not always,

but it is to say the longer we can keep an officer who's great, it also builds that rapport and that relationship in the community. you've got somebody after, you know, that that's here a couple years that's that's understanding this job is you don't just start and you understand this job. And I know, you know, there's a lot of jobs that are like that, but there's a lot of things that go into it. There's learning the city, there's learning the people in the city, there's criminal law, traffic law. Every scenario is different. You know, we we say that every call is different. You can go to a domestic disturbance today, think it's the same thing tomorrow. It's completely different. It takes several years to really start feeling comfortable. I go to calls at 23 years and I'm like, that's the first time I've seen that. I mean, true story. So, yeah, when you lose somebody that's got that time and experience, not only are you losing what you've put into them, but again, you're you're replacing them with somebody who's starting all over again, that hasn't made their connections with the community yet, possibly that, you know, doesn't have all of those training and certifications that somebody picks up over the years. They may not even know their way around the city yet. Um, and then when you start putting a, if you want to put a dollar amount on that, you know, the field training officers that are that are training them and that are they're getting the compensation for that, the cost of the academy, the cost of the new uniforms, the cost of any schools that we've sent them to along the way. Um, when you lose when you lose an officer that's got some time on, it's it's a huge financial uh, step back. So the more that we can keep is definitely favorable for us. And not just from a quality of policing, but if we're looking at finances, it's it's a huge dollar amount that you're saving every time somebody doesn't leave you. So I have some technical questions and these are going to be for probably Liz and Carrie and Scott. Um going back. So, we'll start with the finance site

because I know there was a discussion that there's a disagreement in how much this is ultimately going to cost that this is somewhere in a range. Carrie, can you like right now police officers do not pay the 6.2% towards social security, right? No. Okay. So, on the dock you provided I just it's social security is listed there as 327,000 currently, but the appropriations report has it as 35,000. sales clerks and everything. I know, but the budget for 2025 was only 35,000 and that's what the appropriation report says. So, I just because then this would get us closer to a total that makes sense from both sides. Chief, I apologize for asking to potentially stand. Don't stand unless you feel the need. But um do you have the papers that you showed that were your calculations? I understand that that was based on wage, not the payroll that comes to it. I just wasn't sure if that was shared with the council. I think it might have been put in Dropbox. I don't think it was. But I mean, I say that because we had a meeting today with the clerk treasur's office and it was a very productive meeting to show where our figures came when we negotiated this and calculated it. And to the chiefs, well, to put it, you know, simply, there was initially um a much higher estimate from the clerk treasures office. And I don't mean that in any bad way. I mean, they ran numbers and then it got checked with Buzz. It got checked with us and it went down. Sure. Not so down that I'm like, we're in the clear and you guys don't have to worry. It's just like the utility contract. But believe me, on Friday, I left thinking, man, I got to meet with Liz and make sure that we're on board here. Well, to be clear, I mean, at minimum, this is at least 400,000. Social Security, this it's it's not a huge amount, but at minimum, it's 400,000 between PEF. Actually, it's probably closer to five between PEF and

salaries and wages and holiday pay because that increases. It's not You can't just take 6% of the salaries and say that's the new budget. It increases how much you pay on holiday, how much you pay on overtime, how much you pay on longevity, how much you pay towards Medicare and Social Security, if we're talking about that. But I think that was from the consultant. Okay. Yeah, I think they included social security and they shouldn't have because police officers in Indiana don't currently pay into social security. That's another problem we're going to run into in a couple of years. Uh we might have to find 6% every year um if police officers start paying into social security. I think that needs to be clarified because they put this in here and they're they just went through all of SB1. So, I don't know if it's included somewhere in in current legislation starting in July, right? So, I need to clarify that, right? I don't maybe cities in Indiana are starting to have to pay this. There have been changes to social security eligibility for police officers and firefighters. Um, so I think we need to get an answer on that because that's a significant amount of money. Um, so that answers that question. My next question um for for legal counsel, we for sure can use housing tiff revenue for nonpublic infrastructure spending. Yes. So there is no difference between regular tiff revenue and housing tiff revenue. Correct. Okay. Because that that is a change, right? That changed in 2023. Correct. Okay. It was part of the enhanced legislation at the time for the for the residential tips specifically. Okay. Thank you. So, I appreciate mayor your thorough explanation. Uh my question is for clerk treasurer Modesto. Same question as last time. Uh can the city afford this uh proposed contract as it is currently proposed?

Okay, I'll go into a little bit of an explanation. So what we we did was we crunched the numbers in my office and we came up high and it was at $1.1 million which we decided that we needed to crunch them some more and then so Carrie crunched them and then we also asked for an independent consultant to crunch the numbers. So those numbers are at 700,000 and then 75,000 for the retirees. Um after having the meeting with the clerk or with the um mayor and the police chief and HR um I believe we're going to be right around if we didn't budget the $212,000 that we but were supposed to budget for the H or SRO officers which I believe we did. If we didn't then we'll be at $563,000 to fund this contract. Uh I do want to say that um Cone Cronin Associates did a really good job at analyzing it. So I will get with them. They they um also inc have the increase at for the social security. So if that doesn't have to be in there this year, then that will be taken out. So um there's a couple more questions we had. One was for the impers for the that's in this contract. Um, as far as whether or not we they can use the first class patrolman, which is st standard lang language used to base retirement for n the 1977 plan with an officer with 40 years of service, which we got a determination that it's not currently within the IC 36-822 um code. So, we are waiting for the uh written opinion on that because that might need to be changed in this contract too which will affect the cost of this contract. It would reduce it. To

put it simply, um we were doing our checking when we were negotiating and we were confident that that would be okay. And I'm I'm not to disagree, but I'm operating with confidence on that and I believe our administration is too. I say that though to Liz's point, if it turns out I'm wrong, we will have to go back and figure out how to fix. But at the same time, it was something that we calculated and that's how we ended up with the $775,000 uh number that I got to. Um so on on on the social security piece, um I mean I'm just limited research. I think that was just included because you know it typically is for most contracts. Police officers, firefighters are are unique. there was no change in the federal law. I don't see anything that's requiring that we're paying 6.2% now. Um, as we are for every other employee who's social security eligible. So, but that aside, I mean, there's still a significant chunk of money that needs to be found. And I I mean the contract was negotiated and I think we're at the point now where it's been negotiated and it's put us in a terrible position, but unfortunately it's been brought to the council and it's been negotiated and ratified and approved by the board of works and it's up to the mayor quite frankly to figure out how to fund it. And I mean, I mean, the idea behind residential tiff, I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but if it doesn't work the way it's planned, if the revenue doesn't show up by December 31st, I mean, Liz, in terms of extraordinary measures that we normally rely on, fund transfers, inter fund loans, if we don't have physical cash, we're not going to be able to rely on those this year, right? No, we won't. Um I we did generate a proposed app appropriation request from the DLGF um representative, our field representative, and she said this contract is not would not be funded if

we didn't generate any additional revenue, which um the mayor has some suggestions on generating additional revenue, which if if this does happen, the funds if the all this all the things that he's proposing or that he's looking into, if um they were come to fruition, then this contract would be able to be um would be we would be able to reappropriate money to it. Until we get additional revenue, this contract is not fundable. But when do we find out if that is the social security issue is in fact it's about $292,000 difference. It would be nearly funded. I think we were negative 216, right? Yes. So that could get us closer to zero or a little bit above zero, but not much wiggle room to be clear. That would leave the city in a rough spot. But again, this is the position I think the council's been put in is the contract's been negotiated on the idea that we will be able to afford it. And this contract would not a rough position to be in. This contract would not be funded unless we get additional revenue. Oh, 100%. And with the tiff, is this going to be based off of the houses that are sold or the houses that are built? It's based on the fact that we have the ability to work out developments with the developers or agreements, you know, with them that allows us to be able to bring money in to cover the costs that we need. Now, that's been worked through with um legal, not this attorney here, but with our attorney for um the bonds, which is Tom Pitman, who worked on this extensively with Dan Bodic. Because residential tiff is something that's managed through the redevelopment commission, it became a redevelopment responsibility as a funding source for this contract. To put it as simply as I

can, I don't have suggestions on how to get the funding. I have a plan. It's a plan I've been transparent about and it's something that I've brought up with the city council and certainly residential tiff has been a plan since the law changed for us to be able to generate additional revenue for public safety in the city. If you are okay with this contract, it would need to mean being okay with the residential tiff plan in my opinion. As noted, we don't have the money right now. This isn't the first time the city of Portage has worked out a contract with money that it didn't have in a bank account right now, but we have proposals that this council will be able to vote on by August, September, October of this year on these residential tiffs as they come in to generate revenue and bring in money ahead of it to be able to fund public safety. Whether or not you guys are comfortable with that has to do with whether or not you guys are the fiscal body. But although we're up here, I know I've spoken to each of you guys about the plans that we have. And my hope is that I've explained it well. And as noted, it's something I was also transparent about with our police officers and with the stewards. Uh I think they're all here, or at least I'm looking in the back. I see almost everybody. And the negotiation is based on our plans to bring that revenue in. Um, to put it very simply, I wouldn't be here in a public meeting fighting for this contract if I didn't believe in it. And I didn't believe in the city's ability to deliver it. But at the end of the day, I'm asking you guys to vote for a contract if you are committed with the plan to pay for it. We have other avenues that can be done to save money for the city as well. things we're working on, things we've talked about, but at the end of the day, the residential tiff is an indirect public safety tax and it's something that we are planning on using. And then when do

we receive that money? Is it still not for another two years? If we are doing a pro if we have a developer doing a project development agreement that involves paying the fee for a residential tiff deal which I'm trying not to say the acronym for for we would have to receive that by the end of this year or I would say you guys should vote no on those deals. So that's all well and fine. Do we have any examples just of any other community that's using this type of residential tiff deal which is basically asking the developers to front money in most communities that is being done for the infrastructure work in their developments. Are there any examples of communities that are asking developers to put money upfront where their development isn't seeing any direct investment? I mean, it's it's an investment. It's an investment in our community. I'm not dying. Well, it is receiving direct. I'm just trying to think of this from the developer side of they're used to this being used as a way to fund the infrastructure in their development. Yes. So, this is something we asked Tom Pitman about when he reviewed the deal. He used a rather impressive example of an industrial tiff deal in another city he represented about a decade ago where they did a bond that led to investment in the infrastructure they needed around what they were building. and they turned around and gave $20 million to that city. Now, that's not the kind of money we're looking at here. A residential tiff deal would be a deal where the developer is securing their own bond and using the tiff money to pay off that infrastructure bond, saving them money on their project, but then paying a fee to the city that's negotiated and approved by the council in order to get that deal to go through. Now, any money that isn't collected in the tiff to pay off the bond would go to RDC and can be

used for police and fire operations. Originally, circa mid2024, my plan was beginning as we're going to do these residential tiff um districts and then over time generate the revenue to go towards public safety. SB1 in many ways got in the way of things. And to uh quote Daffy Duck, it's amazing what you can do when you have a weapon to your head. And we started working with Pitman, we started working with Bodic on what are other avenues that we have to raise money through a residential tiff program to be able to pay for costs that we have now. And so what they came up with is a tax increment finance imposed fee, which is something that we do need to negotiate with developers. We've begun that process of working with them. I understand that not everyone's going to be super excited because everybody wants investment in them without a cost, but it still saves them overall and then it allows the money to move to the city sooner. Once the bond is paid off, anything remaining goes back to the city. So, it's a little bit more like borrowing money knowing that you're going to get it paid back in the future. It's more about getting the money now and then giving time for the tax base to go back. I'm not arguing that this isn't a plan that could work. I guess my question would be what if it doesn't work? Yes. What if then we're left with a bill at the end of the year homes go in and the cash that we don't have. So what's what's plan B? Plan B is actually a co-plan which is that in light of SB1 and just the fact that the city needs to reduce its costs altogether. We've been moving towards consolidation in city departments. We've been making cuts as we've talked about in legal in saving money with it through the agreements we're working on with the school system. Sorry about the legal thing. We're going to be we're going to be okay all said and done. Whether this contract were up this year or needed to be looked at this year or in the future,

we need to be making big cuts and rearrangements in our city funding. And we have to be committed to that. But at the end of the day, public safety has to come first. Sure. And I I don't think anyone's denying that public safety has to come first. And I mean, I'm supportive of the contract. I'm just trying to figure out like We're going to have to figure this out sooner than later because if the development plan doesn't work, we have to have the cash. We have to have the physical cash in our bank account to make payroll in November and December. And efficiency is great. It's not going to generate revenue. And unless you're eliminating positions through this, I mean, money is going to be spent through the end of the year. So the question becomes what happens in November, December when the clerk treasurer goes to make payroll and doesn't have the revenue to or the cash to do it. That's the question I think that needs to be answered. There needs to be an immediate plan of we've identified here's where the money is going to come from. If the tiff doesn't work, if developers don't buy into this, there needs to be in the next 3 months like here's where the cash is. This is where we're going to cut. This is what we're not going to do that was budgeted for in order to find it because it's got to come from the general fund. It's not going to be able to come from local road and streets or MVH or ambulance fees. It's going to have to come from general fund property tax revenue. And has the budget committee have they met in their opinion? Victoria, this particular issue since it was such a short notice on getting it to the special meeting now. Sure. But we've known that a contract's coming and we've known what the amount was for a while. I mean, we knew that this was going to cost us money and we knew we didn't budget anything. By the way, we knew when we

passed this budget in October that it included 0% and that it wasn't going to be 0%. We knew that the city council, I believe, also knew with the fire contract that it wasn't going to be enough to cover the actual contract, what was in the budget, and that hurt us very hard the previous year. That is not the budget that was supposed to be adopted. We have we have established that and that's where it gets to that this is not the first time in portage history where a city council has ratified a contract without identifying the direct source to pay for it. Except in this case we have identified a plan. We've also identified co- plans that we are working on in part because this contract was negotiated with an awareness that the state was looking to cut our funding but with anticipation that it wasn't going to be potentially as bad as the start. It's still bad, but it's better than it was in January when we were first concerned about priorities. But at the end of the day, we had to negotiate in good faith with what we reasonably believed we could have and put together. So, and I don't want to belabor this because we'll get to a vote, but this is a one-year contract. We're going to have streets next year. We're going to have police next year. We're going to have fire next year. And our revenue, correct? Uh, so this is a one-year contract for the police. Utilities is a two-year contract. You say utility, I said streets. Well, streets is we haven't we haven't had a street contract yet. No, street contracts been being negotiated since last year. Uh, the streets has not passed their contract, so it's still in Evergreen right now. Um, that's something still being negotiated, but what we're aiming for is a two-year contract for streets. So, we won't be So, at minimum, we're going to have police and fire next year. Well, police would be later this year because if this passes, it's a one-year contract. So we'll be that ends December 31st, 2025. Yes. So they're up for negotiation for January 1st, 2026. That is next year. Yes. And so and fire ends at the end of this year. Oh, I I thought

you said next year. That is next year. It's 2026. Both of these contracts, police and fire are going to be negotiated for 2026. So this is we have no agreement beyond 202 or beyond 2025 with either police or fire right now. Yes. And that was done intentionally because we wanted to reach a point where police and fire are negotiating at the same time. Historically, what's always happened is police negotiates, they get a raise, and then another year fire comes and negotiates, they get a raise, and they're chasing each other. And in because of what we're working on with residential tiff to bring in revenue, there was also some speculation that the county government might be proposing an increase in lit. I don't know if the county is actually going to do that and I don't think it's reasonable to budget or to negotiate based on that. But in the event that they were too and such a funding came in, the last thing we wanted was a situation where between our two public safety entities, one of them negotiated and then had to wait two years and then the other one was then free to negotiate with other money coming in. Negotiating in the same year is not a bad thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Also, there's a history as to why because police did a four-year contract one year, fire did not. Police took a increase in their pension, fire did not. They did a three-year contract. It isn't as simple as there was just a choice made, but we are trying to move past that history. Let's get to the point I'm trying to make. We're going to have to do this exact same thing next year with even less revenue than we're talking about now. So residential tiff is going to take care of this immediate problem, but we're going to have this problem because it's not going to be a 0% contract for 2026 for either entity. That's where we have to be careful because when we you you might be surprised to know I tried to get lower than what this amount is. Not because I believe our police deserve lower, but because I was trying to financially preserve what we could. In the negotiation process, we reached a point

where we got definitely lower than what was initially asked for by the stewards, but they were still asking for much more than I was trying to get to, which is this particular agreement. And I hope you guys don't mind me saying this, but I think it is important to note. I had anticipated a smaller amount so that when we negotiated later this year, there was still money left over for the police should a raise be negotiated. What was clear to me was is that and I explained this by what's being asked for in this contract in the event that there's not more revenue coming in and at the time we were talking about a county lit increase there's not going to be more money available to negotiate for and I'm going to have to be really stern about that we have just enough left that I believe we're still going to be able to negotiate well with fire but what was communicated in the negotiation process is that they understood that this is based on a residential tiff plan with some need for the city to cut costs in other areas as it is, which we knew was true, but especially was going to be true this year. But it was also understood that what we agreed to, we being the bargainers on the city side, myself, uh, the attorney and the, uh, department head administration was that what we're offering is basically the most we could offer within two years. Now, I'm sure when we go and negotiate later this year, you guys might try to see if you can prove me wrong, and I hope you do because if you can find more money, I'd be all for it. But understand that we're doing the most that I believe we can for this year, not the most that I believe we can do just right now. And I think that that should be communicated clearly. So, if the excuse me, if the residential tiff revenue will stop gaps, so to speak, and

uh fund this particular contract, but it will not fund future contracts. Um, it could fund future contracts. In fact, as the five neighborhoods that we've identified grow, it will likely exceed the amount that we need for these first two years and get to a point where we have more money. Keep in mind, residential tiff is for police and fire operations for the money that isn't going to the development infrastructure. So, as that grows, now granted, it's over a 20-year period. So, as a city, we do have to think 20 years ahead, but that's true about everything. I mean, simply put, that's true about everything. But no, what we're negotiating right now, what we believe between the $500,000 we were initially looking at and the 775,000 I believe is more respon I didn't know what that was for a second that I believe is more responsible to plan for and budget. And again, it's possible it might be less than that, but I believe the most responsible, reasonable thing we can estimate is the need for $775,000 on this year. Residential tiff will exceed that in time, but this plan will get us going. So, will it be the position of this administration then to uh anti-up the developments in our city then in order to basically fund public safety? I don't necessarily know if that's going to be possible in the future for a couple of reasons. One, this is all very new. Keep in mind, residential tiff was created in 2019 and it was originally meant to sunset completely in 2026. They then changed it a bit, and I apologize for not knowing the exact year to date, but come 2026, it will still be possible, but it will require the approval of both the city council and the school board to create. Keep in mind if we're doing residential tiff agreements where the developer is making

oh I'll I'll tell you the format is not unusual at all. It's essentially a similar format to when an abatement is going on and you're talking about a payment in lie of taxes. That's why Dan Bodic originally wanted to call it a Pilott payment in lie of tax increment. The reason that that doesn't work is because there's nothing in l. So to put it simply, for as long as residential tiff is something that the city and the school board are agreeable to and agreements could be made, there are ways to get more money out of a neighborhood development from for the city at least for a certain amount of time. I don't necessarily think it's a great idea to plan for in the future. It could be depending on the neighborhood or development, but for two reasons I'd be cautious. The first is that no matter what, eventually you have to plan for what to do when the tiff breaks. Right now, this is, I hate to say the word band-aid, but it is a plan to get us through somewhere between a 15 to 20 year period for the city's tax base to catch up where it needs to be. And I promise you, I I hope to still be here because you and I, we're going to be 53 in 20 years. So, uh, or 54, I'm sorry. We don't have the we don't h Colin's going to be even younger. I'm not even sure if you're going to be 50. You know, we don't have the luxury to be like some politicians who appear to fix all the problems. Then we move away or pass go to heaven or wherever politicians go and leave the city with problems. This is an example of fixing a plane or repairing a plane as we fly it. But anyway, so that's one piece is that there still needs to be a strategy made and developed over the next 15 20 years. we should start sooner for how to catch the tax base up. The second reason I'd be a little careful is right now, as noted, this stuff is perfectly legal to do. It mirrors other project agreements that have been done for industrial and commercial entities. The only difference is this is a housing development, but there's no legal difference other than

perhaps the money involved. you know, 20 million versus 200 to $500,000 what we're talking about negotiating the other. But that said, in the event that the state regulates this in the future, and I'm not trying to challenge anybody to, but just note that in Indiana when cities get creative, the state tends to start looking at that creativity and regulate it. We have an opportunity this year to work within the law as it is to set things up in the future. But I think that if the plan is to do this for 10 years, we're probably not being smart. Well, and just I mean this is all property tax. We're all talking. It's all funded by property tax and this is assuming the state doesn't decimate them next year. They've already cut them enough. They they are clear that they're or there's a big backlash and they do something else, right? It's clear they're not done. They're going to do more. Their their goal is to get rid of property taxes and switch us to sales tax. But that isn't revenue that we'll get directly. we'll get it from the state. So, I mean, the residential tiff plan is a great plan if it works out. If it gives us the revenue, it works out. It's just not a long-term plan because that's also money that is no longer now going to the general fund. So, the homes that aren't that are in the residential tiff if it's created when they're built, that is money that isn't going to go to the general fund. It's going to go to it's going to go to the RDC and the RDC can spend it as they see fit on public safety, but we have other expenses. We have the rest of the city that gets funded primarily off of general fund revenue. So, we are making a decision if we go with residential tiff in this case to reduce the general fund even further beyond what the state is already reducing it by. That's not perfectly correct. residential tiff or um traditional tiff or what we would call allocation areas, they take our AV, they don't take taxes. And the reason why that matters is when the state caps our

tax levy, the formula adjusts to get us our same levy. So, if you remember from a couple meetings ago, we had a township official and later Brendan Clancy, she and I, we met with Dan Bodic and Melissa ended up being there, too. And I don't remember if you just like snuck in or I don't remember how you did that. But all said and done, the levy adjusts. So when you create a new tiff district, residential or commercial/industrial, which is a traditional TIF, what you're actually doing is not by a large amount, but you're actually increasing the tax rate outside of that to catch the levy up. The best way it was explained in the meeting is if the city council, now we could not do this because we have bonds on the RDC, but suppose the bonds on the RDC were paid off and this council said, you know what, we want more money. We're going to abolish the tiff district. That would not bring in a cent more money to our general fund in our tax levy. All it would do is reduce the taxes on the commercial and industrial properties in the city. That's now where tiff creates trouble is things like cumulative funds such as like what the school has and that's why we need to calculate the impact of a residential tiff on the schools. Now at the same time schools in Indiana get more funding per people. It's one of the bigger conflicts is cities are funded primarily by property tax. Schools are funded by people primarily. There's other issues and complications of course, but residential tiff is also a current compromise to allow for growth that funds and keeps the schools going while also allowing for revenue for public safety that allows people to feel comfortable living here. You're absolutely right, though. This is not a long-term plan. We can't rely on this for decades, but it allows us to get through what's hopefully a storm now because right now, let's face it, everyone is in a storm. The trick is, can we maintain either what we have or something acceptable when it comes to the level of public safety that Portage currently does enjoy and at a time when things are getting more challenging?

Well, and it it's not going to make up the difference from what the state is in essence taking away from local communities. Uh, I mean it it's not going to make up the difference of us seeing our general fund levy increase by 1.7 million and now with the changes in SB1 to only going up by 700,000 next year. Liz, did we ever get clarification on Buzz with the amendments to SB1 how much we think might be coming in? Well, I got an estimate from DGF um at state board of accounts also and they do not anticipate any new revenue for municipalities. Right. Our levy will go up. Just naturally assessed values go up, but it's not going to go up by nearly as much as they're saying. It's going to go up by zero. We're It's froze basically is what they said at the last um clerk treasur. They the state board of accounts said it's basically froze. I was operating on it being a 700,000 based on the 1.1. I'll ask for an opinion tomorrow. We're talking two different things. I gotcha. Talking two different things. in right increased development is going to bring in more taxes. It's new development. It's things that didn't exist. They're going to get new assessed value. We are still going to get taxes off that. And your assessed value is still going to go up and but your taxes just won't go by up as much as they've been going up. So the anticipated levy was going to be 1.7 more million more from 25 to 26. The fiscal note for the bill has that only going up by 697,000. So in essence, there's a million less than we're not losing a million dollars. We're just not getting a million that we otherwise would have gotten if not for SP1. It gets far worse in 2028. Correct. It's significantly worse in 2028. And that's actually where I believe in the short term the residential tiff development deals actually could make up some of the gap that we're really facing come 28. We still have to make plans for

it. But I really think that as we've discussed and been working on, I think that we're in a unique position. The fact that as a city, we don't need to incentivize home development the way that some do, which allows us to be more creative with how we work out agreements to fund the city. I'm not disagreeing at all with the contract. You guys, we need that. We need our safety and with the growth that we have. My concern is if the tiff does not cover this, how are we gonna what other funds are we able to use? So our what we are looking at is changes when it comes to our IT. As a city, we pay about $500,000 a year for it. We're working on a new IT agreement with the school to save money. When it comes to um legal, we're looking at consolidating the legal department, which is something that a lot of you guys are aware of as we've been, you know, working on that. Right now, the current situation with um Scott and Ken is extremely appreciated because you guys got us through a storm, but I know that I know that you guys have taken on a lot of extra responsibility this year to get us through and I appreciate that. We are looking at other changes to quite frankly all of our different contracts and agreements to continue to cut. And we've believe we've identified, keep in mind, we initially negotiated thinking that we were looking at 600 to 700 some thousand dollars. Liz initially ran the numbers and this is not a criticism of Liz, but by any means 1.1 million is what you ran at first and that was a concern and we had to figure out why is there the gap between what we calculated and that's where I think it was very good to get Buzz involved minus maybe the social security thing which I will ask on legal. Can we safely assume that there's not a relevant change on social security so we don't have to be concerned about the social security side and again

though that's why you guys are the fiscal body as the mayor and I'm not trying to throw that on you. I negotiated a contract based on what I believe we could do by calculating our revenue opportunities and our ability to reduce spending in the city. I've shared that with you guys ahead of this meeting. If you're comfortable with it, I would be very comfortable with this contract. What I'd be uncomfortable with is not passing this contract, but then still pursuing extra revenue. That goes back to my restaurant drive-through example. And so there's been a lot of figures and a lot of terms and a lot of things discussed and I apologize if this has already been covered, but how much are we expected or projecting to receive if the residential tiff does in fact become enacted? And is that enough to cover this $700,000 projected shortfall that being conservative conservative we're look I don't mean like Republican I mean cautious I know we just live in a politically charged time Dan Bodic's calculations would be with agreements something along the lines of 900 to$ 1.1 million a year if we do it a certain way because we could do it either by incremental like payments Or we could do it as bigger one-time payments. But if we were to average that out between about 2 years or 3 years, safest would be about a million a year. compared to residential tiff once all the neighborhoods are mature and assuming that things are paid off and any remaining money is going towards just public safety somewhere reasonably between three to $4 million a year which keep in mind we should consider that from a salary perspective both for police and fire in the future but also operations is more than just salaries as well in terms of what we can use that for.

Thank you. My biggest concern is if this tiff does not work out, you know, if the economy crashes or everybody just goes on a freeze as far as buying or selling homes. We've seen the increase with groceries, shopping, so forth. Um, my biggest thing is how are we going to cover this if not which and being on a budget committee, how do you feel? How do you feel as far as budget committee how we do you feel financially we can cover this? And that gets to that was getting to my point Gina from earlier with backup plan a backup plan for this and I appreciate finding efficiencies and we're changing this with it and we're doing this something I'm trying to be only gentle about because some of this is being negotiated as I know but what I'm saying is that's not going to cause an immediate influx of cash to pay for this right like we we're still going to have it costs we're still going to have legal costs it doesn't just magically create an influx especially if the contract isn't ended by the end of the year. We're still paying for it. We're also going to begin offboarding through this year. So, there'll be sure, but we're talking about finding actual cash. We're not talking about a budget issue. We're not talking about moving around budget line items. We're talking about Liz in November and December saying, "I have what's our payroll every two weeks? What's the amount?" Carrie, what's our payroll every two weeks? Carrie, what's our payroll every week? Oh. Oh, grow like what comes out of our bank account. It's over half a million dollars, right? Yeah. Got to have that in the bank account. So, this isn't a budget issue. This isn't about like, oh, we're going to trim from this. It's actually having the cash because we've gotten to the point where our our ass or our uh fund transfers and inter fund loans are aren't going to be possible much longer.

We the city has routinely used them, but as you start running into cash issues, which we're getting there, we're not there, but we're getting there. It's harder to do those things. It's harder to do interfund loans and do transfers if the physical cash isn't present. That's my concern is residential tiff doesn't work. Where are we getting the actual cash from? Would you prefer if we identified that ahead of passing the contract in a very concrete way for the council or have the council work on that? I mean, it's not going to change my ultimate decision to vote yes or no on the contract because it's been negotiated and it's in front of us and it's what the city has said we're going to do. I think the budget committee and the mayor need to outline that. outline exactly how we're going to pay for this at the end of the day because I don't want to be back here in November and hear from Liz like I can't make payroll in a week because we are running low on cash. We don't get our tax draw until December. So, if we have a payroll left and the bank account only has so much money and we don't have enough in other areas to temporarily transfer it till we get our tax draw because we're not going to be able to do as much in um tax anticipation warrants as we've been able to do in the past. So there's going to have to be a conversation at some point towards the end of the year if if we are getting to that point where we just don't have the amount of cash or if the state doesn't approve an additional appropriation because they are going to have to pro approve an additional appropriation for this because the money is the the it wasn't budgeted for and again as noted it's not the first time that money has not been budgeted the council approved. We've used Rescue Act in the past to pay for contracts, but we've never not had cash. And and I hear everything that you're

saying and your concerns, too, Gina. And it is something that I did bring up to the mayor that we're midyear for this contract, which ends December 31st, and we're going to be right back in here in a couple more months to negotiate for the next year. And so putting a plan in action of what we're going to do moving forward is on the priority to make sure that, you know, if we end up having to Yeah, I hate to say, you know, tighten our belts, but look at where um spending can be curved tailed or where we can generate money elsewhere. And and I agree um Colin, it's not about where a budget line is and moving money, but where we're actually increasing our revenue from. So that is that is something that we do have on the priority list to make sure that by August we are putting in an action plan for 26 anticipating what we're going to do because it won't not to say it won't be as much of a blow in 26 if we have to not move forward with certain things on our wish list but it will be more understandable as to why we can't move forward on certain things. Like I say, I negotiated this um with our stewards based on revenue that we plan on having to come in that I knew was going to take a political act by the city council to be able to create. It was also negotiated based on a certain amount of revenue coming in that's now been impacted by a change in state law, but that we've reviewed and we believe we've identified the amount of money that we need to put together. As the fiscal body, you guys do have the ability to review this contract. My hope is that you review it or have reviewed it and have talked with the clerk treasurer's office and have determined

if again very very rarely has the city negotiated a contract based on the amount of money that was actually there in a line item waiting for it. But contracts have been passed with the expectation to find the money. Sometimes from very creative sources because it's also happened that contracts have been approved without even adjusting the next year's budget to be able to cover it. That's not a criticism. It's just to understand that as a city, we need to move in a better direction. We do. And to your point, we really should not just be living every year on these end of the year loans, but that's what the city has been doing. And we also have to be very, very responsible with the money that we have this year to not go over with what we've got. Liz has done a very good job each meeting updating on where we are financially in terms of what percentage is left in the budget. you guys see those appropriation reports each month. All said and done, the goal is to not have to borrow as much, but I don't think it'd be reasonable to expect anytime soon we're going to be able to make it to the end of the year without borrowing something. The goal is to get out of that hole, but we've been in the hole for a long time. And I appreciate the fact that we are all acknowledging that we need to get out of it. I was I wanted to say something because in regarding the contract, I totally agree with the contract for the um Chief Cany. I know you said something about just the competition between the different cities and so forth and you want to keep the same employees. I work in the health field. We've seen the same thing too and the hospitals are getting tight on their funds for the same reason our cities and I just want to make sure that we're going to next year we're going to have to tackle this all over again. And if we don't have a backup from this tiff, it scares me. At the same time, this goes back to as a fiduciary body, what are the financial priorities of the city? Again, I didn't negotiate this

contract and bring it the way that I did to put you guys in a bind. I spent a lot of time. I did not want to go into Evergreen. My hope was to be able to negotiate something by the end of last year so that what we came could be looked at for this year's budget. it wasn't possible to achieve and so we ended up in this year and at the same time we also have to deal with the fact that we have to keep up with the need for adequate public safety in our city both from a recruitment and a retention side we oh and and again I can't stress what this amount is is not what our police deserve but it's the amount that I determined that we can afford with a good plan that I believe has been identified if you guys agree not with is this what our police deserve I think we all agree that they deserve more. But if you agree with me that this is within what we can afford by putting together a solid plan as a team and I believe has been identified and if we commit to our financial priorities focusing on public safety this way, it's why I was comfortable bringing this to you guys. If you're not ready or if you don't agree, that's not something I take as a sign of disrespect. But at the same time, I just assure you I wouldn't be bringing this here as the mayor with something I've negotiated if it wasn't something we've planned for. So, if I may request a brief history lesson either from the mayor or Councilman Zilly, um what happened what has happened in the past if uh the city doesn't make payroll? Have we ever not made payroll? Okay. We've never been this close to a position where our budget is so tight that we've never not made payroll, but we've also never had $7 million in tax anticipation warrants like we did this year. Exactly. But it's grown steadily over time. It it decreased and then it it grew and then it decreased and in many cases it was

offset by things like ARPA or other things. Whereas what we do not have is any reser reserve money set aside. We don't have a rainy day fund. We used all all the funds we could last year to make uh last year's budget or last year's um balance. Well, and and we've also been able to interf gradually over two decades become less and less available. For example, we used to always be able to rely on the cable TV fund for a good what half million a year and we decided to just roll it into the general fund being not this body here or no I'm saying this yeah the city council in past decided to it's going to be general fund revenue anyway. Why loan it every year when we know we're going to need it? Same with riverboat funds and all those To put it simply, through multiple administrations and multiple city councils, the city of Portage has faced a heavy financial difficulty. And over the years, it has progressively becoming more and more challenging. Now, we find ourselves very similarly to how we found ourselves last year in a way with utilities. A can got kicked down the road for some time and now we're in a spot where it's tighter than it's ever been. At the same time, we have to have a way out that we work on. We also have to maintain the quality of services that people expect in the city. I understand that sometimes there are cuts that people can get irritated by. I still have people who are very mad at me that you can't take your trash and just drop it at the street department anymore. I still have um people who believe I can raise property taxes and use it to fix the sewer system, which I can't do.

Certainly not on my own, but not at all, even from you guys. At the end of the day, oh, and I and I understand what you're saying. At the end of the day, it is a challenge to figure out what things we can cut to move money and what things we can do to increase revenue. And I'm very honestly, it took a lot of work and legal checking to be able to have a plan like I'm trying to bring forward to you guys by this year to be able to increase revenue. What's unfortunate is that if we were a city in a stronger financial position when we came in two year or a year and a half ago, this would be extra revenue that we could put in towards quite significant like projects and things. We're talking about doing impressive things in order to make more basic needs happen. It does actually remind me a great deal of when other cities were getting ARPA money and they were using it to make big infrastructure investments and Portage was doing it using it to keep the lights on and pay for salaries. I don't have a time machine. I wish that things could have been done better then. But I also can't criticize people who were around then because I don't know what other fires they were putting out. What I know is I've identified a plan that I believe will pay for public safety and it's an important plan that if you guys are committed to and you believe in, I think that we've got a plan going forward and and I hope it works out. I'm I'll vote for residential tiff. I mean, it's a way for us to generate revenue. We have limited ways to do that. Um I mean, this pretty clear. We need a public safety tax. We've needed it for years and it has not it's fallen on deaf ears from those that can actually approve it. And hopefully now that the state has done what they've done with SB1, everybody comes to the realization that it's needed. It Lake County's had it for years, Leaport County's had it for years. Porter County needs to have it. We can no longer pretend that having the

lowest income tax in the state is something to be proud of. I mean, we need to fund basic services. And if we're not going to get hospital interest money, then we're going to need a public safety tax because we are not able to sustain what we need to do in portage to keep everybody in Portage safe. And I also don't bring this to you guys now because I don't think that the situation we're in is frightening. It's been frightening for some time. It was frightening last year when we were doing the budget and found problems with the budget we didn't even know about until we were doing the budgeting process. Liz, you were there with me. We were up late till like 2:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. because we were finding things with the consultant that were huge problems in the 2024 budget that had to get solved so that we'd be able to make it to the end of 2024. In many ways, it's a similar situation but with a plan. And again, I don't try to speak with so much confidence. I'm not the Wizard of Oz, no matter what some people would say, but I know that I've taken the time to explain what we're doing. And that's where you guys, as a fiscal body, I trust your judgment on if what I've negotiated is as accurate as I believe it to be. All right, we've talked this enough. I'm going to call the question on the CBA and I apologize. I Robert's rules of order parliamentarian. What do I do when the question is called? Just bring it up to the F. I don't know. I'll make a motion to adopt. Second. So, we have a motion and we have a second. Um, Liz, if you could call roll. Absolutely. Councilwoman Widenbach, yes. Councilwoman Hurst, yes. Councilman Parnell, yes. 100%. Councilwoman Vasquez,

yes. Councilman Zilly. Yes. Councilman Alvarez. Yes. Motion passed. Well, let me say two things on that. And I know that this was long. One, there is literally no other team I could be more thankful for than you guys. Republican, Democrat, that just has not mattered in two years or any of that stuff. Two, we could have totally voted and then had all that discussion if we wanted. No. No. But seriously, I know that we're going to work together on this and I believe that we owe this to our public safety and I promise you guys have my commitment that we're going to work to make sure that this gets done right. And I agree with you. It shouldn't matter what party. Um, and I don't think that this was I just mean to say that our city is our family and that's what we should be here for. All right. Do we want to get a target or what? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. So now we have pending litigation agreement. Attorney Mccclure, if you're comfortable after all that to So we had an executive session before last council meeting and this is a followup. I haven't had any additional questions but ultimately I'm looking for the authority to settle a piece of litigation. It's a city of Portage verse Michael Viete. uh we have taken it to mediation and as we uh discussed in the factual portion of the uh uh executive session the mediator's uh ultimate recommendation was to settle this uh at $340,000. We've already paid $285,000. So we're talking about the difference there uh to bring this ultimate condemnation action to an end. This is part of the Central Avenue uh realignment project. So ultimately I'm looking for authority to settle this matter uh pursuant to the

recommendation of the mediator. I'll make a motion to authorize settlement per the mediator agreement. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor uh please signify by saying I. I. I. All right. I just wanted to state that I think it's sad that we agreed on the one price and with removing that building it probably is what brought the property value up and now we're having to well handle that. It's a little more well we'll we'll talk but this is all this is kind of normal the course for this sort of thing. That gets us to CF1 True Power Properties LLC. Um Scott, does this have to be read by a council person? No, I believe it's just All right, I'll make a motion to adopt or to uh approve the CF1. Second. We have a motion in a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All right. And then that gets us to the reading of ordinances. A, ordinance 25-26, an ordinance amending chapter 90, article 5 municipal um code entitled zoning map. This requires an actual second reading or can someone just is saying the title enough? All right. I didn't want to have to have Victoria read all that again. You're getting to be a pro. Is there any discussion on this or a motion? We'll make a motion to adopt ordinance 2526. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. And then before we adjourn, there's something not on here, but I wanted to put in through other business as it was presented to the council at the last meeting, and that is a resolution from uh trust, well, it's

from the trustes office. Um, let's see. Let's see. I don't want to be Victoria. Councilman Alvarez, would you be comfortable um reading? Um, I guess my question to the attorney would be, does he have to read the whole resolution or is this a title enough sort of thing with the resolution? resolution. I think the title small I'll let the mayor provide the small summary. Uh resolution number 25-08, a resolution of the Portage City Council authorizing acceptance of funds from Portage Township pursuant to Indiana Code 36118 and Indiana Code 36648. uh let the record show that the resolution has been read in its entirety. To put it simply, our trustee has identified funds that he's able to I don't know what the right term is, transfer um essentially give towards our city that can then be utilized for the from the parks and uh what's that? It's very nice. Yeah. um he wanted to come and bring it and I I wanted to see I would have thought with all the time that we had he he would he would make it but I know he's at another event so I know Brendan would be happy to speak you know on it but I appreciate that he identified this and was willing to offer it to the city. There we go. We can do like a whole We'll name the fitness court after him. I'll make a motion to adopt. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Any other business before we Question, Liz, are you gonna because we're accepting funds, do you have to do like an additional appropriation on this? I'm going to have to do a a fund. Yeah, we'll have to create a fund donation fund because it's going to go to parks, I assume. Correct. I I think we'll have to decide. Yeah, I guess it is going to park. So,

we'll have to They do already have a donation fund set up, right? But we have to appropriate it, right, Scott? Yeah. Depending on how Yeah. I don't know how it works when transfer. I only bring it up statuto accounts. They may already got one of those pre-made funds allow that to occur. That would kind donation fund. I don't think you need to have an additional appropriation for a donation fund unless you even if you go to things you don't have to have an appropriation for donation be one of them. I mean you would need an appropriation for the donation fund once it becomes here it's taxpayer dollars wherever it came from. got would it be and maybe this would have been better as like a contingency or something, but if we trust you, um would you be able to review this and just determine a recommendation if we need to move it somewhere at the next meeting? Thank you. Only in Portage would we get a motion to adjurnn. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Thank you guys. [Applause] [Music]