Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Oh, there's still a dark comment

on of flipping. That's always been the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just for a moment here. That's perp. Alright. Good evening. Welcome to November oh, wait a

Wait for it. Good evening, and welcome to the November 19 meeting of the finance committee of the Olympia City Council. All three of us are present, so we're beyond a quorum. And it's 05:30PM. So the first item is to approve tonight's agenda. Have either of you had a chance to consider the agenda?

I'll move approval.

Second.

Alright. It's been moved and approved. No. It has not yet been approved. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Great. We have an agenda.

Excuse me. Jim Lazar has raised his hand. I don't know whether you want to

Oh, good. Well, thank you. Because that was gonna be the next question was, is there anybody here tonight for public comment? And it looks like mister Lazard just might be here for public comment. Go ahead and speak. Oh, go do what first?

That is correct. I am here for public comment, and thank you very much. I wrote to the council about a week and a half ago and been back and forth with staff over an error in the draft budget at page 22. And I wanted to highlight that at tonight's meeting. On that page, the staff inadvertently included the nineteen ninety seven nonvoted utility tax that's in the 11% formula.

Utility tax is a little complicated. Prior to 1990, it was four and a half percent. That is what's known as the general use portion. In the early nineties, it was increased by 1% for capital projects, and initially, that was dedicated to parks capital projects. In 1997, it was increased from five and a half to 6%, and that was dedicated to in the early years to bicycle lanes and in ever since 2001 to parks maintenance, and that's the half percent that I'm concerned about.

And then in 2004, the voters approved the a voted utility tax, 2% for parks, 1% sidewalks. It's the 1997 portion that had the error in the draft budget. On page 75 of the 2025 budget, it is accurately separated out from the general use portion. And to my knowledge, has always been appropriated to parks. I have to admit, I only followed it closely when I was on BPAC, and it was being split between parks and bikes because I was fighting for the the the bike side of the money.

But it's not the capital projects money that's now been split into two halves over over time. That's entirely separate. But I've asked the council to address this problem before the budget is adopted to appropriate the entire 1997 half percent for parts maintenance as designated in the ordinance that adopted that increase and remove it from the calculation of the general use portion to which the 11% in the interlocal agreement applies. I I've been back and forth with mister Gibbons and and with Savannah Parks. I think everybody's aware of the error and the problem, and I trust it will be corrected before final passage of the budget.

That's that's why I'm here, and thank you for listening.

Thank you for your comment, mister Lazar. Do you wanna and and budget or finance director Mike give Gibbons will give us a little bit of his understanding of the situation.

Sure. Thank you, chair. We looked at the calculation in the formula, and this is how it's been calculated and applied going back to I believe we look clear as long as we've been applying this. I'll let Joan add in also since she has more longevity with this than I do. But we haven't deviated from how this has been applied, and so I'm not certain it's an error.

It's the interpretation that's always been applied to this formula for calculating that tax portion. So I'll stop there. I don't know. Joan, do you wanna add to kind of your knowledge of our analysis of that and from the historical?

Joan Lutz, senior budget and finance manager. So based on, mister Lazar's email, I did look into it because I wasn't here at the time, that the, ILA was established. But what he is talking about is ordinance number fifty seven fifty three, which was effective 01/01/1998, which is an increase of utility tax for telephone gas and electric, a half a percent. For the pry and it says in there, for the primary purpose of funding maintenance of new parks open spaces and bicycle lanes and using the remainder to fund bicycle lane construction for at least the first six years and so based on my understanding we have always applied that A portion of it did go to parks and still does. And then the the remainder was used in transportation for bike lane construction and maintenance.

And then in the 2015 ILA where the 11% was, established, I went and I pulled up, Dean Waltz' worksheet, and he utilizes the half percent that we are speaking of. And, I provided a copy of the, just a little snapshot of the percentage and how it relates to how and and shows the same numbers as what is in the ILA in the addendum addendum one of the ILA agreement. And so it has been my understanding that we can utilize that half percent for new parks, open space facilities, and bike lane construction. And so part of it has been utilized as part of the 11% thus dedicating a significant, you know, a portion of it to parks for use.

Thank you both for amplifying the comment. I appreciate that. Yeah. A question from council member Cooper.

Joan or Mike, in when you looked at that, did it did it seem like there was an opportunity to make it more clear on the budget document? That's the the what I would ask is if if you're both saying it's set it's we're doing the same thing and it's not clear to one person, it might not be to more. So

So I believe part of the problem is that we're actually showing our calculation whereas before it was rolled up into a number, and it just it just says b and o tax. And so we're actually now showing how the number is calculated. It have been for the past couple years. So I think that's where unless we wanna address the ILA and make it more clear, then I think, the fact that we're just being more transparent now and how we're how that number is calculated is is the resolution.

Okay. Thank you. I think I think we're past being able to open the ILA for a minute at this point. So

Great. Thank you. I I appreciate that conversation. Next up is approval of the minutes from the October 20 finance committee meeting.

To quote my colleague, motion.

Second.

Second. We had a a very abrupt motion last night. It was as quick as that. Motion.

Sorry. Tell me more. So moved, sir. It's I

we got it. So we have a motion. We have a second to approve the October 20 meeting minutes. All in favor, aye. Aye. Great. We have approved the minutes, and this brings us to committee business. And we've got a we're gonna first start out with a you can tell it was a late council meeting last night. I'm having a hard time with the English language tonight. The Washington Center for the Performing Arts annual report briefing, and we've got a delegation from the Washington Center here. And we also have Jenica Machado, our economic development director here if if we need your resource also. Thanks for being here. Jill, are you go oh, say it again.

I was saying, Jenica.

Jenica, we have a chair right here. Since you're

Yeah. A Everything.

Jill, would you like to introduce your team and begin presentation? Thank you.

Thank you. And just for everyone who all the folks that are listening to this, Jenica is our liaison with the city of Olympia, and she comes to our monthly board meetings. And it's really great to have that connection, to someone to connect with in the city when we when we need to or want to. So, thank you, Jenica, for serving in that capacity and for providing a staff member. In the past, it's been council members as well, but we really appreciate that relationship and that connection.

So I'm joined by our board chair, Tim Coley, and our deputy director, Jocelyn Wood. And, I'm just gonna jump on in. We we annually come here to this committee to share our audit findings. We sent a we sent a copy of the audit to you, but also just to talk about, like, where we're at financially. What went well?

Where are we headed? What's going on? Jim, you probably have the most longevity here with that. So you've seen a a you've seen a roller coaster of reports over many years. And well, this will this is a good one.

So we've got a good one this year, so that's nice. Our our fiscal year '24, so, that conclude that was 07/01/2023 through 06/30/2024 is, the audit that we're presenting, it was concluded in May '25. Yeah. It's that's seems to be the cycle we are have ended up on it for several years. But the audit went really well. We're really pleased that there were no findings from the audit, which is a good thing. And yeah. Well, let's let's let's oh, I'm sorry. We weren't on the yeah. Okay.

So these are the the big categories within our audit, and we did put our unaudited oh, you probably probably can't hear me. You did put we did put our unaudited fiscal year '25 next to it just so you can see. I think a really big change is the operating income. We had some really we we had some big selling shows last year that and we moved a lot of tickets, so that was really exciting. I was actually looking back to jog your memory a little bit.

'19, going into the 1920 season, that was a really a great trajectory year right before the pandemic. We were it was wonderful. But that number is actually a million dollars more in ticket sales from the 2019. So that's not just Washington Center presented shows. That's from our community rentals and, other rental events that we have in there.

So the next page we can go to. I just want to share some season highlights from last season. We were involved in 345 performances or rental events, which included a 196 at the Washington Center. We concluded our contract with Harlequin. If you recall, we were acting as their box office in front of house December '24, so that contract concluded, but all of those three forty five events includes at the Washington Center, at Harlequin, at SPSCC because we also have a management contract out there.

And 31,491 students were served. We sold almost 78,000 tickets. We were too shy, so we'll just round up. Maybe two people snuck in. I don't know. Our attendance was over 103,000 at the center. And we had a lot of sold out shows, including the comedian Henry Cho, who we put on the Friday of Arts Walk weekend in the fall. We had a magical Cirque Christmas, which was on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's, and that sold out. So we added a second show, and that sold out. Those were two programming dates that we hadn't tried before or recently, not in my in my time there.

So that went well. All of our black box jazz shows sold out, and those are regional performers, which is really exciting. The Center Salon, which is regional creatives that present in there. Lyle Lovett and his band sold out. Menopause the Musical two, and David Sedaris, just to name a few.

We also this past season, we hired and created multiple new positions, including a part time marketing assistant, a data and special projects coordinator who is also a seasoned box office professional in overseeing our box office, an education and community engagement director, and we also created and hired an HR benefits coordinator. That's a part time position. With the growth of the organization, it was something we desperately needed. So that brings us to 17 full time and 27 part time positions. We have three vacant right now.

We can go to the next. Yeah. Thanks. So I want to share this because it's if you remember from last year, I I shared that we had some pretty stellar numbers for new subscribers really bucking the trend nationwide. So what how is that we're curious, like, how's that translating for the new year?

So our we're really happy still with how that's panning out. Our renewal rates, 58% of our subscribers have renewed so far this year. And the so to compare it to a national average, it's about 43%. So we feel good about that that growth. New subscribers. So last year we had record number. We're currently doing pretty well. 39% of our total number of subscribers are new subscribers. And that is also bucking the national trend. It's about 25 to 30% in most places, and we're at 39%.

So we're still bringing in new subscribers, which is really important. We also have what we call higher commitment subscribers. So to be a subscriber, you need to buy five show tickets, which is a big commitment. And to be in this other category, you have to buy eight or more, which is nothing. People are committing their money in advance, they're committing their time.

So of our higher commitment subscribers, 39% of all subscribers fall there and that's an increase of 105 over last year, so people are being are more committed and the renewal rate is 65% for them. So it's we're really happy and we've really been focusing on a lot on that. And we did something that I thought was really fun to learn and really understand why why are we having so much success with new subscribers? So we sent out a survey to new ish subscribers, people who had been there for about one to three years, and we had a robust and rapid response, which it was a digital survey, which I can only assume they were like, yes, I will. They were excited.

I I was pretty shocked. We had a lot of people respond and then we also hosted a new subscriber roundtable to get, you know, personal information. I think I also shared this last time that I had some suspicions of why we had some new subscriber growth. I was not totally right about my suspicions, but it was really great to talk to people and learn more about who they are and why. Some of it's not really surprising.

Most respondents of our new subscribers, they do not have children living at home, which aligns with the busy realities of family life. And I'm a mom of three and I totally understand that and I'm an easy sell for events, so that totally makes sense. The reasons for subscribing were really clear: they like the discounts, they like the advanced planning and having something to look forward to. You know, there's psychologically, even they say, like in the winter when it's rainy and dark, it's even just having something to look forward to on the calendar is as lifting as going to the actual thing. So I think that that could feed into it as well.

If they subscribe to eight or more shows, they get same seat privileges, which is important to a lot of people. And early access to special engagements all range really highly. Our special engagements are shows that we pick up later during the year and we offer tickets to our subscribers and to donors before they go on sale to the public. Also, the little things matter. The focus group participants really appreciated the personal touches and we've been working really hard on that too.

We're a small community too, so it's fun to be able to see people again and again and get to know them. We'll leave I call them love notes. We'll leave little notes on people's seats sometimes, when they're coming to a show. They like feeling seen and remembered in the lobby by staff or one of our volunteers. We have over 200 active volunteers.

They like the extra experiences. Last year, we were able to offer a few unique things. We showed the movie Tracks, which complemented National Geographic photographer Rick Smolin, who came in a few weeks later. He spoke that it was a movie that was made about him and the subject that he had photographed and written about in National Geographic. We hosted a noontime open rehearsal with organist Cameron Carpenter.

We had about a 100 people come into that. Never done anything quite like that, so I was surprised. I didn't know. People were highly engaged in that as well. And another event we hosted, which I'm really proud about and it's super unique, we had the one person theatrical show, I'm Not a Comedian, I'm Lenny Bruce, and about a week and a half or two weeks in advance of that, we hosted a webinar, a free webinar, and we had Ronnie Martmo, the actor and writer and, director for that show, as well as Bob Kornrevere, who is a preeminent First Amendment attorney who also, got the posthumous, pardon for Lenny Bruce in New York, and our very own Chief Justice Deborah Stevens in this webinar.

And so they were talking about the First Amendment. We had about 100 people across the country participate and uniquely, we applied to be able to offer continuing legal education credit to lawyers, and we had, I think, about nine attorneys participate in that. And I don't know for sure, but I don't think there's very many performing arts centers that have offered continuing legal education credit for something, so I'm really proud of that unique opportunity we were able to put together. It pretty cool. We we also learned that we need to still, like, sell ourselves to our existing audience.

They want they they want more they want more deeper connection and context. As you've probably witnessed last night, we have a very engaged community who wants to participate. Whenever we have a Q and A after a show, we have probably 80% of the audience stays. They want that enrichment. So, the more that we can do that, the better.

We I mentioned some of our new roles and of course, one of them is our Education and Community Engagement Director and Jennifer Herman's doing a great job in that position and she's it takes a lot of work to put these things together and we need a dedicated person to make them happen and take advantage of the events that are already going on at the center. And yeah, we're just working on continuing to curate subscriber only experiences. We just hosted a backstage tour. We've got another little thing we're planning in January for how we book a season. People always want to know about that.

So things to to incentivize people to become subscribers and commit more to the center. Okay. So that was all good news. We can go to the next page. So this the Broadway tour of the Book of Mormon was in our current fiscal year, but I don't wanna talk about it next year because it's still fresh in our memories right now. So I wanna talk about it. This was in August. This was our biggest show ever. Trucks. You measure Broadway shows by how many trucks does it take, and you probably saw them parked around.

They were in for two days, two shows. We, definitely could have sold out another day or two if we had had the opportunity to keep the show in town for more days, but we didn't have that as an option. We sold tickets to people in 37 out of 39 Washington counties and many out of state sales to travelers as well. And dozens and dozens of hotel rooms were occupied by the touring company alone for multiple nights. We learned it was a heavy lift for us in a variety of ways.

It's just being such a big show, but we learned a lot. And I'm it it was just a great great experience. We learned a lot. And some things we were able to do, we tried some new ticketing strategies that worked because of the popularity of the show. We felt comfortable that we could try a couple things.

Our marketing director gained more OTT, its marketing experience, with that leveraging streaming and digital platforms for targeted advertising. There was significant community pride that a Broadway show of this caliber was in Olympia. We heard I heard from so many people who couldn't even attend. They were out of town. They're like, I couldn't go and I'm so sad, but I'm just so glad it was here in Olympia.

And they're really proud that we were able to host that here. And the summer schedule, we don't do a ton of big events in the summer because people do want to be outside and we're competing with a lot of outdoor festivals and traveling. In this scenario, right, the stars have to align, it has to be the right title, but it proved advantageous for us for staffing, for audience availability, also for venue availability. We need so it was a two day show, and we have to have at least a day on each end for getting ready and restoring the theater. And then really, we need days around that because we run into a lot of overtime issues and people need a break after a heavy lift like that.

So this show had eleven seventy three labor hours, mostly over two days. But it was over four days, but the bulk of that was over the course of two days. So that was a good yeah, that was a big impact in a lot of different ways. Okay. And then so we're brings us into fall of this year.

We've had a great fall lineup. The shows have been really wonderful. In October, we hosted Anand Varma, a National Geographic photographer. We had Mariachi Adencia de Mexico, they did a bilingual school show. The Mount Vernon Mariachi Ifo Glorico Ensemble came in a bus and they performed on the last number with the touring group, which was just lovely. We had Doctor. Scott Bond come in and talk about serial killers. Stunt Dogs, this is my new favorite photo. We've been doing a lot of photo booths. That's Mr.

Hollywood. And we hosted Uptown. So the quality of the shows has been really great. I will say our our ticket sales have not been where we estimated. We're definitely running under so far. I think there's a lot of factors leading into that. We're in company with my peers. Everyone's really experiencing a dip in ticket sales right now. So I'm I I think we might I don't know. I don't know what how that'll play out for the rest of the season.

But yeah. So so far, it's been a little it's been a little not how do I say? We just we haven't hit our goals yet, so we'll see where that goes. So thank goodness we had Book of Mormon in August. Moving ahead.

So the road ahead, this year, we've got some great things planned. We have more student matinees, so we're serving even more students. At the fall arts walk, we hosted an artistic partner spotlight. So all of our artistic partners is what we call them, other organizations sometimes call them resident organizations like the Olympia Symphony and Olympia Junior Programs, Student Orchestras of Greater Olympia, Ballet Northwest, Studio West. We hosted a spotlight and they all had a chance to talk about their organizations and their seasons and kind of pitch to, you know, people who might be coming in for the Washington Center or for Ballet Northwest.

Now they're hearing about the symphony, so it was really great cross pollination and just bringing people in off the street from Arts Walk. We're gonna do that again, but it was really nice to be able to host a platform for them to talk about their seasons in a different way and to a different group of people. We, just installed a new assistive listening system. It just was approved by the FDA in January. It's called, it uses Bluetooth technology with Oracast.

It's fantastic. I don't know if the city uses anything like that yet, but we're really proud about being able to do that and creating more accessibility. The only problem is the consumer technology hasn't quite caught up, but within a few months, all new hearing aids will be ready with AuraCast. It just goes directly in there, they can adjust it on an app. It just really opens accessibility and if people needed to leave the theater, like walk into the lobby, they can still hear crystal clear and they're gonna walk outside the theater and they're not gonna hear at all or hear what's going on on stage.

So that's really exciting for us and we hosted an open house to showcase that technology and get people used to it before. We're working on a new strategic plan with our board. We have a really engaged and enthusiastic board. We're also updating reserve and designated funds and policies to strategically invest in our future, which I'm very excited about the options and how we're managing our finances. We're currently auditing the market rate for rentals and labor in our territory and making adjustments to our rates that are appropriate for our community.

It's been about three years since we've done that. That said, I'll just tell you my preliminary they're not preliminary. I'm pretty much done with the comparison. But I've learned that our nonprofit rates this is crazy. I just like this is big.

Our nonprofit rates are 38% to 306% less than our peers. I'm not saying that's totally good, I'm but because we want to be within market weight, but we also don't want to gouge our local arts organizations. So it's finding a balance of what will work locally and what works for us operationally as well. But I was comparing to venues in, you know, Bellingham in Tacoma, Federal Way, Portland, you know, the similar sized theaters. It's not apples to apples, so it took a lot to put that together, but it's been really eye opening to do that.

And we're also working closely with venues throughout the state to enact some meaningful legislation around the secondary ticket market, which is a pet project for me, and I'm happy to get on a soapbox anytime to talk about that. We'll move on to facility maintenance. Let's see. So in this photo, not a glam shot at all, but backstage isn't usually too glamorous. So you can see that's our the tread and the stairs going down to the basement or I'm sorry, to the green room and dressing rooms.

That is our upgrade. It it it's a big deal to us, and it's a big deal to people using the facility. I know it doesn't feel like it, but it actually is. And so we're so glad we could get that updated. We've done some carpet fixes and edging in there because even though it feels like we installed it, guess what? With a 100,000 people coming through every year, you have to do a lot of maintenance constantly. Let's see. New this year, we responded to some patron comments and feedback. We purchased new chairs for the black box. We donated the old chairs to Bally Northwest.

We're trying a new setup in there as well. We purchased more orchestra chairs and cello chairs, which are different, a conductor stand. These are all supplies that will benefit the symphony and the youth orchestra or masterworks, anyone who needs it who uses the facility. We have with you know, in collaboration with the city, we've done our annual fire inspections and elevator operating, certificates. We'll continue to do, you know, window cleaning and that type of maintenance.

And we'll continue just working towards additional safety and compliance, anything that we need to do or update, additional floor flooring repairs and, yeah, carpet and window cleaning. It's like, it never ends. That never ends. But we don't have any, like, big capital projects planned. It doesn't mean it couldn't happen, but we're we're on a good path right now of of maintenance.

And, yeah, I think that's we can wrap it up. We're we're, again, just really grateful for the partnership and the support, and we we love to host live live events and and bring everyone's welcome in the theater. And so it's really truly a joy for us. So I wanna leave some time if you have some questions for me.

And if we could take down the slide, then we'll see council member Green again. There she is. Hello. Council member Green, do you have any questions or comments for the presentation?

Yeah. Thanks, council member Gilman. Jill, thank you and your team so much for for coming and doing this. I always love hearing about what's happening with the center and, of course, get there when I am able to. So I have had the opportunity to hear you talk about this a little bit before, but I think it's really valuable.

Can you talk a little bit about, you know, you you shared, the excitement that came with Book of Mormon and you sold out a couple of shows and could have done more, but you also shared what an extensive, production and effort that was. How do you kind of balance, like, the the costs and, time of a of a show like that, knowing that it will fill the center a couple of times with, the realities of kind of planning out a whole season and and trying to find that balance for your crew and for your ticket sales?

So how so are you specifically talking about book

Like, why don't you just book a whole season of touring Broadway shows?

Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. Good quest yes. That question, I can answer. That's a great question. I'm a big Broadway fan, and believe me, I would love to book a full season of Broadway touring shows. But we one, I I like to say that we have something for everyone, but not everything is for everyone, and that's okay. So people want to see other things besides Broadway shows, so presenting a broad range of genre is really important. Also, our local artistic partners, they get first priority of dates when we're scheduling.

So a lot of weekends are taken up, which is why you'll see a, you know, a Melissa Etheridge on a Monday night and not on a weekend. So a lot of those dates are taken. And it's with a show like a a Broadway show, we need multiple days in the theater, and we just it's hard to find during the season when they're touring. So it it just worked out it just worked out for us in the summer. I'd love to repeat that, like, oh, this is our new formula, but it just doesn't work that way.

We need to take shows when they're booked in our region. This particular production was in, I believe they were in Vancouver. I'm not sure if they were in Vancouver or Victoria, and they were traveling south. And then event they were going to Texas next, which I know is a really long haul. And there was a reason for I don't know what their reason is, but they had their own reason for their tour the mapping of that touring.

We were kind of at the mercy of where they're at and when and if we don't have the dates available, we can't book it. So there's a I have to I have to say no to a lot of events that we just don't have the date availability for it for yeah. Just a variety of reasons. For from rentals to I don't have enough consecutive days. So does that answer? Is that the okay. That

helps. Thanks. I'll hand it up to council member Cooper if he's got questions.

I I guess the a question came up for me in that answer is how many, like, professional theaters like ours are that model where it's partner first? Is that common in the Zero. Zero. Okay. Okay.

I I don't know of I can't think of any

Okay.

Off the top of my head.

Okay. That's interesting. The the thing I heard in that answer is that we don't have enough theater. I mean, right? Like

I I think that there's we've got a good I wouldn't say that. We have a good balance of the dates that our autistic partners are able to get the dates that they want, and we are able obviously, we're able to make it work with who we bring in and when. I've also realized that if it's the right title and our community wants to see them on a Monday night, they will show up to the sold out show and it doesn't matter. And that actually kind of works in our favor financially because usually usually artists might charge a little more on a weekend than on a weeknight. So then we can offer, you know, sometimes we two things.

We we have access to them because we're willing to pick up them up on a Monday night or whatever, Tuesday night, and maybe they wouldn't normally perform in a thousand seat theater. They would be in a bigger theater. But because it they're they're kind of in on the way, we're able to pick them up, and we have that Monday available. So that works. And and we're able to keep tickets as accessible as possible.

So we have a nice balance and it's working. We when we do our scheduling with our artistic partners, I'd say every other year there might be a conflict between two of the organizations for a date and we have a process to work through that and it it works. And, people, they get they get a date. They get something. And we're not bumping someone from a Sunday to a Wednesday. It it doesn't work like that. They'll still get their Sunday that they, you know, traditionally perform on.

Cool. Great. Well, I just want to say that it's been so great to see you take the center to a new place in this role. Almost fifteen years for you, right?

Yeah, twelve.

Twelve. Okay. So I couldn't remember when in my time you came in. I was the first liaison to the Washington Center. We didn't ever have that before under with your predecessor, and it's better now that it's not a council member. Just have to say. It was

I know you're a lot of comedians.

A little a little awkward, But it's such a core asset to our community. My daughter is an eighth grader, and she's been there twice this fall, which I can't remember a school year like that either. And I I I credit that to the cultural access funding Yeah. Getting the kids down there. Yeah. And so just that extra enhancement of the ability to have our community appreciate the arts even more because of that, the, like, the educational aspect is really, really cool.

The cultural access funding has been game changing, not just for us, but for other organizations and for the schools. It's really unique and special, and Olympians should be super proud that they passed that because it's making a big big impact in a variety of ways.

Will the new ballet center have a performance space or will they still

No. I I don't think they're planning one. Okay. I I don't wanna speak for them, but I don't think that there's one planned. I did do a little curious walk through Okay. Because it's really exciting.

It's very exciting. My my daughter does hip hop there, and it's gonna be a cool

Awesome. Change.

But there was something else something else I was gonna say. But, really, just thank you and keep keep doing the good work. The city appreciates what you do for the community and values it highly. It's one thing that I've seen again and again over my time. And the the just our community's appreciation for the arts and this model is a really special recipe.

We you don't run into this very often. And in my you know, in my day job, I've had the opportunity to work with a couple of other theaters that are not locally run, And it's very different and very corporate and not what we experience, whether it's in this interaction or just when you walk into the theater and you see the people you know volunteering at the door, you know, all the way to to when you exit, it's a it's a great experience, and Yeah. It's valuable to our community. So I I do hope that the consumer confidence issue improves. But just to I know you will, but to reinforce that, you know, if those signs are changing in a in a good or a bad way to make sure the city's really close to you and knowing

Thank you.

And having that conversation because we have ways to partner better in hard times too.

Thanks. Thanks. We're we'll we'll see.

Yeah.

We'll see. I I appreciate that. I wanted to give our board chair an opportunity to if if you wanted to jump in and say anything.

Well, just briefly, Tim Coley, board chair. I'm a proud Tom Wattarian, and I'm I'm happy to be here. I wanted to say that first. And I guess my only note would just be that, you've gotten a small taste of, one bit of the complexity that, Jill does as our executive director along with, Jocelyn as the deputy and, in my I don't know. What has it been?

Four or five years now on the board, every time I am part of an interview or a season comes together or or whatever, I'm always learning a little bit more about just how complex all of the background operations are, whether it's, you know, labor relations or putting this part of the show together or all the relationships she manages with those artistic partners. So I think our board is very excited to be part of, one, just such a tremendous and high quality organization as the Washington Center, and and to see what we can do, in the years forward. But we also respect that we we get a lot of value from the leadership team, and that's a tremendous resource to the community. So that's all I have. Thank you.

So I oh, I've I've heard similar presentations several times, but this time, what's really standing out to me is you've often spoken about the local partners and and centering them and scheduling. And then you're talking about needing to reevaluate operating costs, labor costs against what's a reasonable nonprofit rate. And I'm wondering if you've also just recently gone through a strategic planning effort. And does it feel like the model is still okay? You know, of of centering the the community partner organizations.

It looks like you've reached a rough equilibrium in the last couple years of of breaking even at the end of the year. Right?

So we're working on a strategic plan right now this year, and our how we operate is definitely part of that conversation, but we also really believe that's core to our identity. And I I wouldn't see that changing. You know, that's why the Washington Center was created with the support of our local arts organizations. I don't I don't think when it first started, they had a robust presenting season. We do now.

So we feel that helps substantially. It helps sustain the operations, but also provides economic development in our community. You don't have to drive to Seattle if you don't want to to see some great entertainment events of national tours. So I don't see that aspect changing, but there it it's constantly you know, there needs there needs to be a balance and we're we're checking that. And we we do that with the consideration of the artistic partners, how you know, what what are nuances we can make to make sure they're accommodated, which we did with, you know, we have a I'll give an example.

We have a flat rental rate versus a percentage and that's a pretty common practice for theaters. And so the more ticket you know, if someone does better, then we also do better financially, knowing that some organizations have a nutcracker for our community loves the nutcracker. We sell about 10,000 nutcracker tickets a year. So knowing that they're gonna hit like a benchmark and a percentage could be pretty, pretty intense. And it it when we so we we have a we scale it appropriately so that it's not such a big impact on on them, for example, and they can continue to have The Nutcracker at the Washington Center, and we make it snow outside, and it's a community tradition, and it's lovely and wonderful.

And so we evaluate how it impacts our partners as well.

Thank you. That's I was just hoping to hear all that that that continuing to balance the presenting programs with this long, rich relationship with all the community groups. And, hopefully, you're planning more ukulele oriented programming this next year.

We'll we'll see. We'll see. More ukuleles.

I I I just on

a personal note, I really enjoyed when Jake Shimabukuro came. We had the black box full of community members playing their ukuleles. Jake came in for a moment for a quick lesson, and I got to sing him a song to welcome him.

I have it on video if anyone wants see it.

It was awkward, but it was awesome. And and I also had an opportunity to visit for a minute with Leland Sklar, one of my favorite bass players in the world, when he came touring with Lyle Lovett. And that was that was just just those opportunities right here on Washington Street.

Yeah. Yeah. We had a BYOU, bring your own uke, and we had a community uke gym. And, yeah, it's on video. So if anyone needs to see it, I can share that.

Thank you. And, Jenica, did you wanna add anything as our representative for the center? Since you're you're here, we're glad to have you with us tonight.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's been, oh, sorry, a great opportunity to get up to speed and learn more about what the Washington Center does. I think, not only are they an economic anchor downtown, but when we think about livability and, what the arts bring to our community, I think that's where we get to see, the Washington Center shine and really provide a invaluable, benefit to our community. So really appreciate the work that they do.

Thank you so oh, city manager Bernie's got half a hand up.

Oh, no. I actually, I I just wanna echo the gratitude for the partnership. So, you know, particularly with with Jill's leadership and the time she's been it's hard to believe it's been twelve years already. But what Jill's done and what she's brought and enthusiasm and energy is really what makes the engine at the Washington Center. So and Jocelyn does an amazing job of keeping all of us connected too at the city with what's going on. So it's just a really great team there, and just wanna echo my gratitude for what you do in the partnership.

And just because you said Jocelyn, I think that's one of the best investments the city's ever made when you look at the numbers that it generated. Like, bringing a development director to the Washington Center was was significant.

Yeah. She's our she was our first dedicated development director.

It's cool.

Yeah.

So great work.

Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Yes. Well

or maybe we'll see you for the the presenting season preview in these chambers at a noontime.

We Jocelyn's nodding yesterday.

This year. And I'm there's nothing I like more than blabbing about this about our season. So I'm anytime. Let's do it.

We should put that in the books. That's that's been a that's been

an awesome Love it. Thanks.

Lunchtime. Yep. Cool. Thank you.

Thank you.

You're still good there on Zoom, council member Green? Alright. Alright. So next, Mike, do you have the or or Jay? Jay's got the consideration of the recommended 2026 proposed operating special funds and capital budget for final budget balancing. Any any big changes today?

No. So I'm gonna give you a bit of a dealer's choice for this presentation tonight. So there's nothing new in this presentation from what you've seen from the last couple of times that Mike's presented at a public hearing. Right? In fact, the two new revenues were have been adopted by the council already, which is a significant portion of this budget.

And so really what is left is the things that we've added, which we've reviewed with you on multiple occasions, the rates and fees and all of that. Nothing has changed. I mentioned last night the rental registry piece that's included in this budget. So I can go through the slides one more time if you'd like me to. But really, nothing has changed, and I've not heard anything different from council members along the way. We didn't get any other significant public comments last night. So it's really where the finance committee is. If you're comfortable, I mean, I'm really at a point of of needing a motion to approve the budget recommendation. But if you'd like me to go through the slides, I'm happy to do that.

It's it's really your choice. Could we bring council member Green back onto the screen? Thank you.

I'll see what she says for her.

Yeah. I'll say, if my colleagues care to hear it again, I am open to that. However, I think Mike's done a fantastic job. We just saw all of this last I mean, not even twelve hours ago or twenty four hours ago. So I would be comfortable making a motion, but if there's any questions or any need for further info from my council mates or committee mates, happy to entertain that as well.

Yeah. I was the only question I had was to see the numbers in a public meeting for the rental registry enhancement because it it wasn't in the slide deck that's in the council yet. Yep. If we could just do that one slide and move on, I'm good to move on after that.

We can pull that up. We have that here. Good point. Because you didn't see it last night. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's pop it up.

And while it's coming up, I just wanna ask that one of the city managers double check that we mister Lazar's mistake question. Yeah. I I totally believe that that this is the truth, but I just wanna make sure that we do a check and balance when we have that kind of a claim.

Yep. I've been briefed by the two of them. I I trust what I'm what I'm hearing here, on that particular calculation. Yep. So this is the one addition that, we proposed to counsel on November 10, and Susan McLaughlin spoke to it.

This is really adding 1.5 FTE to the rental registry program. When you had your study session a few months ago, one of the things that we talked about is just the burden Aunt Sarah as the lone employee that's working to get the rental registry program up. And to really get our registrations up, we need some more support. And so this doesn't have an impact to the general fund because the idea here is that we bring these positions in, they help bring registrations up, and program revenue for rental registry will offset the cost of these positions. We'll revisit this as we get to the end of next year.

If that didn't pencil out the way we thought it would, then we'll have a different conversation with counsel, around funding, and that's those support positions. But for now, again, I I recommend that you add these positions to the budget. It's the one additional that came up on November 10.

Okay.

I think we're getting to a motion slide. Is that what we're doing? Mhmm.

Oh, you went too far. One back. Council member Green, we we're seeing the Zoom slide, but I'm guessing we can still hear you if you're mute. You had offered to the motion?

If you can hear me, I'm happy to move to approve recommendation to the city council to consider the 2026 preliminary operating special dedicated funds and capital budget for final budget balancing.

Second. Is there any discussion?

Just echoing what was said last night. Great great job, everyone. It is really cool to see the continuous improvement process in our budget every single time. A lot of organizations, should be watching and learning. So,

The only other comment I'll add is I just a lot of gratitude to the the finance team. I thank you, houseworker, for saying that and the department directors as well. The last two years have been difficult as we work through budgets, but we've done this in partnership together. I really enjoyed the extra process that we added this year. Think made this a much better product this year because we were able to have conversations throughout the year. So we're gonna model that a bit in future years to figure out how we can continue to have conversations a little bit earlier so that we can move to this budget process a little bit smoother. So just my thanks to the council as well. And

I will just also add that I believe that the work plan over the last few years, how it's evolved into a a very visual rebucketed sort of plan, the priority based effort that's involved so many staff, and an amazing effort by the finance department together, I think really gave Jay all the tools that you needed to guide us through a tough moment, but with a budget that maintains our level of service. I'm really excited. Kelly, any discussion on the motion before we vote?

None for me.

Alright. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. We recommend to counsel that they approve this budget.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you all. And it's you know that it's it's only November 19 too. That's that's nice. Six weeks to spare. Yes. I'm pretty happy about that. Yes. The the next item is to consider the 2026 finance committee work plan. And we recognize in in in having conversation to bring this tonight, we populated the work plan with items that are repeating items that we just know are gonna be on there, and there's some there's some room for scheduling more items.

And we also recognize we'll have another member in January, so we'll we'll finalize the work plan when when we have whoever the twenty twenty six finance committee team is. But would Mike, would you like to step us through what we've what we've got penciled in so far?

Thank you. For the record, finance director Mike Githens. Thank you, chair council member Gilman. We met with council member Gilman last week to talk about our proposal for the work plan. We start the year out a little bit light, but we wanted to intentionally leave some space for the committee if there's anything that we want to add in.

I think that we have a pretty robust schedule from April on, particularly as we get into the budget season. I did wanna point out on the January and February meetings, and perhaps this happens every year, but since it'll be my first winter here, those fall on holidays on the third Monday of the month, so we moved that, to a different date, just the following Monday. So if the took that liberty, if the new committee wants to change that, we certainly are open to that. We just needed to get something on the calendar and make sure we had chambers booked and everything arranged for that. But overall, I think this is a good schedule.

Last year when we were comparing it, we had a lot of work. This budget that is before council and the committee has been a long time in coming, and so we had a lot of, items on last year's agenda early on to really start digging into this. So this is a little bit of a different look at things for next year. And we certainly have I know council member Gilman gave us a couple of things to look at. We may have some additions, but this is, I think, a solid draft to get us started.

Kelly, do you have thoughts about the proposed initial work plan for next year?

It's the most amazing proposed work plan for 2026 I've seen yet. Yes. No. I have I have no specific thoughts. I know, you know, having, gone through most of this year with this committee, I know that this will get, flushed out as we see what's on the council work plan and as we see what, you know, what what issues are are popping up for the city. I'm sure sorry. I'm looking through the list right now. I have no doubt it will come up and fill in some of these holes, but, obviously, some priority based budgeting conversation, I expect, would be welcome.

Thank you. Council member Cooper.

Yeah. Priority based budgeting, just to I think just because of that investment, it's important to keep the words in front of the public for a minute even though it's gonna integrate into our daily operations. And then, Councilman Macron mentioned last night the referral for climate funding, and I don't see that. And so my question is, where do unscheduled referrals live or hanging out referrals, and

are there more? Yeah. I don't I don't know that there are more beyond that one. I think that was a long standing one that's been sitting there kinda waiting for a conversation. So what I would suggest is for now, we add it to the to be scheduled down below. And then as we kinda figure out what what to do with that, we're in a place that we can get it scheduled.

Okay. That sounds good. And then council member Gillman asked me to to make some thoughts thinking back on my time. And one of the things that is in my thoughts that I I'll do when you say, but is is the is just our capital budget needs. And, like, the we have not spent enough time on that lately because we've spent two years working on this budget.

In fact, it's nice to see a break kind of for the finance committee. It's been maybe the hardest two years, at least in ten, that we've had in finance, and for some reason harder than it was during the recession, but I'm not I can't put my finger on that. But it's been a lot of work. And so but but in this lighter moment, it might be good to spend some time with our capital priorities because they're huge and they're totally unfunded. Like, $300,000,000 or so.

Absolutely.

We we could pick back up conversations like the public works maintenance facility. We might even talk about

merciful landing. Right.

This which hasn't been uttered for a while. So we yes. I I appreciate that. And and I'm glad so we were able to put in the the first part of the year the investment policy that I'm very interested in, building electrification and fleet electrification, which isn't the full on how do we fund climate, but it is continuing to work on our own internal sustainability efforts. And hopefully it'll make financial sustainability sense as well as environmental sense, but but we'll we'll give that some time before we dig in in earnest to the 2027 budget.

So yeah. Yeah. Anything else for the work plan discussion this evening? Well, wonderful. So as council member Cooper just mentioned, I asked if sort of to kick off our report section, if Jim might reflect some on over fifteen years of watching and nurturing and caring about the city budget, what what would you ask us to keep doing or do differently? What your advice as we move forward?

You took me aback a little bit when you asked me that because I'm not this is December conversation for me, and I'd forgotten that we were not meeting in December. So I have a handful of things, and I won't go long. And if you wanna hear the story, call me. You know my number. And they're not in order, so don't take them as any kind of priority.

So the one that I wrote and added to this list when Joel was talking is don't forget to sell the dump. Because we right? Like, it's it's it's sort of like some when there's people available to market it or it becomes a project over time, and it it's just something to to do. And and it has a little some implication for the Washington Center's in doubt. So that's that's why I thought of it. So for Kelly, that's the the that sale has some portion of that sale goes to the Washington Center's endowment when it ever happens. So that's written somewhere.

Like the the one in Lacey?

Yeah. Yeah. No. The one next to Top Foods in on the West Side.

Got it. K.

The former city landfill. Yeah. Yeah. And and and I talked about this in the in the in the work plan, but the the balance of operating and capital tends to, like, do big swing. Like, we swing like a pendulum, a lot like the, like, national politics, like, at the like, if you think about, like, presidential then midterm, like, it's just like that.

And we go back and forth, and we don't, like, keep the capital on a steady pace. And so, like, that's the thing that I would be trying to figure out systemically next. And it like, how do we keep it in front of us? And and and was thinking about this. Like, so when I came in, not more than fifteen years ago, because I don't wanna be that old, the the council before me was known as the brick and mortar council.

Had, We like, a $150,000,000 in investments in downtown in public infrastructure, capital or sorry, the personal landing, the lot, the city hall, the, hands on children's museum. It's a knit. Maybe that's all of them. And and that strapped the city's ability to do operating because that was, like, six or ten years of no new operating revenue. And when you're lose when you're having 3% or 5% cost increases every year with the 1% cap, you know, it's five more than a couple years without new revenue, and you're a lot more behind than you really should be to be able to serve the needs of our public, which we all know are is extremely demanding.

And so, like, I that's the one big nut, I think, that needs to be cracked. It's like, how do we make sure we keep capital steady and and, like, think about the funding for them more holistically? I don't know the answer. And then and then all I think to that is my next one, which is don't forget about revenue because for operating. Because, you know, you say you're gonna be okay for anywhere from one to five years, depending on which night I listen to Mike or Jay.

And so we know it's coming. And we know that former mayor Jacobs is right that we should have done a general operating levy, lid lift, like, fifteen years ago. Right? And so that's and that now is left to be one of your only tools. But within that, and I think this year was since 2009, the best ex or since 2012 or '13, the best exercise of a really prudent budget process, which included all the slices of the pie.

Right? We did revenue. We did reductions, and we looked at look at partnerships every single time we do the budget. And that's like like, if I if I could thank Steve Hall for one thing, it's when you do a budget, you always do those four things. Right?

And I can I I can see this because because it was the great recession when I started? Like, I can always see his slides every time we do a budget, so it's just ingrained in my head. So I've been thinking a lot about economic development because that wasn't a thing the city did before I was on the council. And Cheryl and I got an economic development quarter coordinator in the budget for the first time. And we spent a lot of time in the what was the committees?

General government committee at the time to to to work with the economic development partners and really emphasize that economic development in the eyes of the city of Olympia, and I think kind of in the eyes of the Economic Development Council, but it has to do with the people at the table, not the mission, is is that it's a three legged stool. Right? Like, so it's it's not about the money. It's about the money, the people, and the planet. And I think even as we've done it, while we're doing pretty good on the planet side, we're not and and we have just had a year long conversation about this.

How can we do better on the people side? There's a clear expectation in the community for the city to get into that space. And if we're really doing economic development the way that we said we would, we should have been more into that space by now, I think. Right? And so how do we make economic development in the city of Olympia truly a three legged stool so that it's not just talk?

And sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. But I I have more tension now with that than I have at any other point in my career. And I think it's because I spent the last two years on the Economic Development Council board, are people that really want to see the economy grow, but they don't get two of the legs of that stool at all. At all. And so that partnership needs to be built, I think.

And when we redid the committees, we put economic development in the code under finance, and we haven't really talked about it. And so those and I'm thinking back a ways, but just having one or two meetings a year where the chamber and the BCB and the EDC and whoever the environmental economic partner is and the people economic partners are are at a table and talking about the priorities of the city, I think it would be a good thing to bring back, but for a purpose. Right? And and and I think that there within that, just as a a side note, there's a need to really look at with the downturn in the federal government what support the EDC is even really able to provide our community anymore. Because, like, the like the scale up programs that started in Olympia that we funded with, I think, CDBG for the first time, like, they're gone.

Like, the state has wiped out the funding, and and our EDC was doing them statewide because of the the, you know, the process that was built here with Daryl, I think, is the one that created that. The biggest shift I've seen in government in my time, and Jay and I have been in cahoots and Debbie on this from the beginning, is moving from political to data driven, outcomes based. And my first budget was when I got elected. So I was a midterm it was a middle of a term. So I got elected in November and ran out the two and two years in three weeks of the term.

And so I I watched the budget process while I was running, and then I had to vote on it. And when I the the budget balancing for that budget and the ones I'd seen before and kinda my first and second ones were really intense. Like, city manager with a whiteboard or a flip chart in the middle of the room fighting with the city council over $150,000 Not fighting, but like being professionally, like arguing. Yeah. Or 10,000. Right. Yeah. And and and yeah. Like, Methune. Right?

Yeah. Right? So this software for the Shoreline master plan that was gonna be $10 or whatever. So what we just went through is how to do this. Right? Like, no council member is gonna be surprised next week because we've moved to the work plan and really have moved to knowing what we want to accomplish as an organization. And it changes politically every time people come in. But my first retreat was after that budget. And the council sat down, and people threw out the political priorities that they thought were the mandates from the voters. And they all went on a list, and we narrowed them down to three for seven people.

So three people's top things lived. Right? And that was the priority of the city council for the year, which is really a reflection of the politics and not a reflection of the ongoing needs of the institution, which if anybody asks you about running for city council, that's the one thing I tell people is this isn't an activist organization. Right? It's a $300,000,000 organization, and it takes a lot of work to be on the board.

And your activist agenda is gonna be this big compared to your ability and your need to, like, keep the lights on and and, like, keep the buildings taken care of. And how many employees do we have? And and take care of the care and feeding of 600 plus people. Right? It's a big deal.

It's a big it's a it's a burden, you know, actually in a lot of ways. And it has its high points and low points. But if you come here thinking you're gonna be an activist, you're not gonna succeed, and we've seen that. And the way I know that is because I would venture to guess that there's very few city councils in The United States that can show the trust from the voters that our city council can show over at least the last seven to ten years. Like, we just don't see turnover in the council unless people want it.

When we ask the voter for something prudent, they give it to us. And when the majority of the council is in a space, generally the community is really, really right there with us. And that's not something that I take lightly. And it's become a bigger piece of my mind over the last year or two. Just like, you think that the world's changing so much, and then the the city voters just, like, validate what you've been doing.

And I I I think it's something that we need it's a special thing that that needs to be taken care of. I'm almost done. Oh, actually, just one thing. So the last thing is community involvement in the budget. So I've seen I met when I first started, I met with maybe three prior finance committee chairs just talking about, what did you do?

What and all of them, as have all of the finance committee chairs, including myself since I've been here, have tried to reinvent public involvement in the budget. Whether it's called budgets three sixty five or it's called something else or it's my first experience with the one was the mayor the later the mayor of then council member Bucksbaum was the chair of finance and, like, walking people through, like, this clicker exercise of do you wanna fund cops or firefighters or parks or lawnmowers or I mean, was crazy. Right. Right. Force prior force choice dyad, right, which is not governing.

Like, never do that. Never let anybody make you do that. And and and and I think that we're in the wool of the ebb and flow flow of community engagement engagement in the budget. Like, this was a big budget year, but it was also not a very community involved budget year, except for a moment in time when people were wanting to protect their babies, right, like their programs that they cared about. And that, to me, is a sign of concern in the future if we don't kind of keep constantly reinventing.

My first couple of years, I thought it was silly. Like, why don't we have a formula? Why don't we do the same couple of things every cycle, but the community changes and people change? And it's never a dynamic that can be formulaic. Like, don't you wish your budget could actually be a formula, Joan? Right? Right. Right. Right. But you spend so much time and you care for it. And it's it's the same thing with with interacting with the public. And and I do think that the one thing in that that I've appreciated the most is making sure that we always do the customer satisfaction survey every two years. Like, it didn't used to be in the budget. I think it's core to the budget now. I guess I don't know that for sure.

But making sure that that's always there, and then adding enhancements to that that are representative of of the of the community. Right? Any other ways. And I really thought the one or two years where we did really deliberate focus groups were a really good add on. And we just we'd kinda moved on to something else, I think. And or other things were our priority at the moment. And there's there's never a shortage of those. There's I think that's what I would say too is as a council member, you always have ideas. Right? And these are the folks that have to figure out how to fit it in to all of the other things that it takes to run an organization.

And sometimes we're not very good at recognizing that, myself included. And so if you always lead with the staff as the expert and really your largest resource, I think it'll behoove you and you'll do better every time in the future. Because if you as soon as the council's not in that space, you're at a a oppositional dynamic almost. Right? And whenever there's an oppositional dynamic, no one's working their best.

And so like even for me, finance is one place where somehow it seems like it's like you can kind of churn off the emotions of the issues and talk about the numbers and get to a place where we all agree. Like, we don't agree on a whole bunch of stuff, but we just agreed on a really awesome budget. So keep doing that and sell it up. That's what I I don't know. You probably shouldn't ask me to do that.

Go ahead, Jake. I appreciate an opportunity to comment. Gentlemen, I have a lot more to say later. Right? But you and I have been on this journey with the finance committee the entire time. I've been assistant city manager or city manager just about. Months. Right? And, the journey that we've been on with the budget, I agree with you. You know, when I first took over, just like you, I remember sitting over at the fire station in the Barco Loungers and saying, well, what do we wanna work on this year?

And council members said, well, I want a dog park, and I want to do this, and I want a new fire truck. And I right? And then they put them all in the middle, and then they voted on them, and they said, well, here's our top three things. And they weren't always strategic. They were more projects and things.

And we slowly, over time, made this shift to using the comp plan as our guide and using a different way to say, well, if it's not in the comp plan, then why are we working on it? And then to explain to the community how we connect the budget two things. And you've been part of that evolution and part of giving input to that. And so I just have a lot of gratitude because we are kindred spirits in that need to use data to tell a story. And it's fitting for me that, whereas we're right at the end of your time on council, we're making the shift to priority based budgeting.

You've got to see it. And it'll be a a part of a legacy that you get to be part of, not just because it's just this last year. It's something we've been working on the entire time. The wheels of government work slow sometimes. But your perseverance through a lot of this, I just have a lot of gratitude for because it would be easy for you to give up and get frustrated, but you continued to ask for what you wanted and to point us in a direction and to push us to do this differently.

And so I've learned as much from you in my time as I hope you've learned from me, but you've taught me a lot about how we should budget and why we do the things we do. And so I'm a better city manager for having spent time with you in this forum here. So, again, I'll a lot more to say later, but that's what I wanna say to you tonight and just a lot of thanks.

Joan, did you wanna pile on as somebody who's worked alongside Jim through every one of these budgets?

Being the introvert that I am, I was gonna say something just one on one to him. But, I do appreciate, getting the opportunity to work with you, and I have so appreciated everything I've learned. And you have actually been kind of the the yeah. I mean, you've been the finance committee, since I've started in budget, and, I don't know. Somebody's you're gonna have to assign somebody to be that that core person that holds it so I can look to them. I do appreciate it. Thank you.

Debbie, go ahead.

I I just wanna take the opportunity, council member Cooper, to just to say thank you so much. I when I started, I moved upstairs from public works, and I became, the administrative services director, and you were the first council member I was working with as a staff liaison. And I was nervous. And you made it so welcoming, And you taught me so much. And you made it a really safe space to have big ideas with you. And I enjoyed that time so much. You would meet with me and you'd say, What about this? I'm like, Oh, what about that? And what's that?

You said quit asking. No, I'm just kidding.

I didn't say that. I didn't say that. And I think the how we budget as our most important policy document is a result of a lot of conversations that you had with me and with others. And we're able to help find legs for it. Because some of the things that you wanted to do were very innovative and not been done. But we did it. And we have our cycle of priorities, performance, and innovation or not innovation. That's my other project. Investments.

That's my other wild idea.

But anyway, I just want to say thank you for your leadership, thank you for your guidance, and thank you for your expertise and the service you have given to this community for many, many years. It's important.

We'll open it up. Are we

Mike, please. Thank you. And I guess I will start with thanking all three of you as I joined the finance committee as your new finance director midyear this year, and I appreciate the kindness and grace and help you've given me. I know it's not easy having somebody new in this position, and, I appreciate your patience. Just for a brief report on something that was a bit monumental that happened this week.

Yesterday, the we the city received the bond proceeds for the Hands On Children's Museum expansion as well as the parks. And that's been a big lift on finance, but it was exciting yesterday. We were on a call at 9AM and 09:15 as the wires were officially confirmed. And so all of that is planned out, and I can assure you it's invested, appropriately. It's held in, our, accounts now.

Part of the budget, if you recall, not to go too deep into finance on you here, but it's your last meeting. Right? Part of the budget for the Hands On Children's Museum expansion relies on some interest earnings in our investments, and we've been well advised on that. We're, as you know, we, in finance, are conservative on our investments. We feel, very good about where that's invested.

It's a bit of a sweet spot not to go too bond nerdy on you now, but now that I have all this information, we have to do an arbitrage report in five years. And if we earn too much interest, it's a kind of a bad thing for us. But we have it at a good place. We think we can realize everything on that. And so thank you for, I think, just the trust you put in us, but also the partnership we had in doing that. It's been a good process. And now the work begins, and the results will be seen across our community. So that's a really exciting thing. So that was kind of a monumental bring it all together of of what's been happening. But thank you.

That was definitely a little capital project work that we did this year. True. Made a big ask. So That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Any report or good of the order this evening, Kelly?

Not for me. I'll save my appraisals for Jim for for next month. But, yeah, nothing else to report.

Absolutely. Debbie, go ahead.

Well, council member Cooper, it is your last meeting finance committee meeting, and I do want to give an update on priority based budgeting. And I am really happy to report, you know, we took a little bit of a pause in order to normalize the scoring definitions, rescore the programs, rerun things. And we had run into a glitch wasn't able to provide the data visualization that we were hoping for the public. But because of the extreme talent of the people in our organization, Sean Lopez, who's not here tonight, and IT, and Sean Ward, we were able to use Power BI, upload all of the information. And at your council retreat, you will see a priority based budgeting that will have our 154 program descriptions, our investments by our focus area.

And I'm just really excited that you'll be able to see that and that we'll be able to roll that out in the community. That that part is still in play about how we will do that, but it came to fruition. So I want you to know that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You won't wanna miss it. Sit in the gallery. Yeah.

Are there any other reports? I want to thank you all for bringing us through this budget, for integrating the work plan and priority based work, getting us two new revenue sources and bonding for those major capital projects, all in a year where the world was crumbling just outside of Olympia. Alright. I am I'm just super grateful and I appreciate the opportunity that you offered for me to chair this year and and I'm I'm also I'm remembering one of my well first the first time I met Jim was when I came to interview for the B PAC in the room next door and it was For like five minutes. Council yeah.

Councilmember Cooper, Janine and Cheryl Selby as the general government committee giving me the three minute interview. And then when they appointed me to counsel, one of the first things I did was together we went up to Debbie's office to talk about purchasing policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was like, why not do something sexy and fun, know? Let's talk about more local procurement. And

I had that conversation four times in fourteen years. Yeah.

So we have successfully brought a budget that will be recommended to council and so I don't believe that we will need a December meeting and we'll we'll as we reconstitute the finance committee in January, they'll find that they'll finalize a work plan for next year. So I think that our work is done but we would need a motion to what would you call it? Cancel, not hold?

Yes.

Cancel. To cancel the December meeting of the finance committee, if that's your pleasure.

Mr. Chair, I I move that we cancel all future finance committee meetings in 2025.

Yes. Okay. We have a second on that motion. Is there any discussion or clarification? Seeing none, all in favor of canceling all remaining meetings on the 2025 calendar, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Alright. Yeah. Well, great. So at 07:01PM on November 19, the finance committee meeting is adjourned until we reconvene in January.