City Government - Regular Meeting

to the Laram City Council special meeting of Tuesday, May the 12th, 2026.

Do I need you all with this special meeting? I just go right into the agenda. I'll roll call. Oh, city cler if you can please call roll. Bowling I. Freed here. Lockart here. Newman here. Oorty here. Shley here. Bethl here. Richardson here. Here. That's nine prisons and zero absent. Thank you. City clerk. Next.

Do I have to do public comment or just Yeah, public comment because it's not in there like it normally is. It's It was in our notice. I'm not sure what happened to the agenda. I don't see it here either. Do we have any public comment on non-aggenda items? Okay, seeing none, we will go on to the agenda item of this special meeting. Councelor O'Dory.

I move that Laramie City Council approve Councelor Behill's travel to the International Town and Gown Association 2026 conference and authorize the city clerk to sign the pre-approval form. Second. I have a motion from Oy and a second from Balding. Councelor Behill, would you like to tell us anything about this conference?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, so, uh, as part of our boards and commissions assignments, I'm on, um, our little chapter of the International Town Gown Association. Um and so this um association has gone through quite the transition over the last year and um I think now we're really in a pretty good place um where we're starting to move forward with a lot of the ideas and initiatives that we had um and kind of meeting about this past academic year. Um and so we put together a proposal for this conference and it was accepted. Um more information is in the cover sheet. Um but essentially we'll be kind of talking about um uh morality and some of the ideas that we have and the importance of maintaining relationships between um you know the municipal level, the county level, biotech, LC and the University of Wyoming. Um and so appreciate all of your help uh with the proposal too, mayor. Um and so I think it would be really great to have city representation. The conference is uh in College Station, Texas. Um and yes, and so I am part of that proposal or presentation. Um and I think it'd be really great. So the conference itself, uh there's a lot of really cool um sessions just around the municipal university relationship and I think that in particular will be important especially as uh you know we're welcoming a new university president here in the next two months. Um, so there's some sessions on building those types of relationships. Um, and then I think it would be really great to um, yeah, to attend some of the other sessions which are around um, a lot of town associations across the country focusing upon substance prevention. Um, and I know uh, Albby County does as well and so we've done that as a local chapter in the past and so to get up to speed on that um, I think will be

important. Thank you, councelor. Uh, are there any questions for councelor beh? Okay. Is there any public comment on this agenda item? Seeing none, are there any comments? I just want to say councelor Vill uh I'm really proud of the work you've done. You've been a very devoted member and you've really helped um with the renewal of the organization and I think that your association with university with city council and on this is just an important and strong triad there. uh and I'm real proud of you for participating in an international conference and this is going to be more than a presentation. They start with a presentation and then it'll be group discussion. So I think this should really generate uh some great thoughts and ideas. So uh without further ado uh if you can call the role please. Foley,

yes. Oorty, yes. Free, yes. Clark, yes. Yes. Newman, yes. Be hi. Richardson, I comfy. Hi. That's my guess, your honor. Thank you, city clerk. That motion passes. And uh councelor Dorty. Oh, okay. I move we adjourn the special meeting to uh begin the work session.

Okay. Uh all in do I have I have a motion by a dhy second by Newman. All in favor? I oppose. We are adjourned.

Come to order. Welcome to the work session of the Laram City Council uh Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. And uh first we'll start. Is there any public comment on non-aggenda items? Seeing none, we will move into the work session. Oh, it looks like I have a motion. Yes, Councelor Newman.

I move to suspend the rules tonight to allow open dialogue be between council members and staff, including the use of first names for the purpose of encouraging open discussion. Second. Was that uh I have a motion from Newman, second from Bowling. Uh can we just do voice? Okay. All in favor? I oppose. That motion passes. We have suspended the rules to allow for open communication between counselors and staff. Thank you,

council members, and mayor. We're excited to be here again tonight for the second of our budget work sessions. I'm going to turn it over quickly to Director Wade so she can give you a little insight on what you can expect tonight and then we'll look forward to the presentations. Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor, state council members. I know it's first names, but it's really hard to eat off that way. So, I'll be a little more formal to start. So, tonight you get to hear from departments all night long. And that actually is what the agenda will be for next Thursday as well. And so, what we've asked them to do is actually prepare a presentation that goes over kind of the functions that their departments offer, maybe maybe in a different way than you've heard that talked about before. and then their major budgetary requests. And so you'll be able to see if you go to what I what I would recommend you do actually um while the department is presenting is just to go to that section in the budget book using those bookmarks um and you'll be able to move along with them and see what those budget requests are and ask questions about requests even if they don't go over that specific item. And so that's the best advice I can give you for kind of navigating tonight. But I think you're going to get a lot of really good information and we'd like to encourage you to ask questions of directors as they wrap up their presentation. So they're here for as long as you need them to be, but I know some of them have other commitments and so when they step down or move away from the table, um they may be moving on to other things tonight. So I just want to encourage you in that way. Um, you will notice in the budget book this year when you're in that departmental section, you'll see not only the requests that apply to that area, but also a summary of the budget changes by division. And so, we hope that that additional little summary as you're considering the budget as a council really helps you see how things moved and changed during the year. Um, for items that are not related to department requests, one of the

things that comes to my mind is that payrollbased budget we talked about last work session. And so I just want to point that out to you because I think it'll help you navigate um as we move into a different type of presentation this evening. First up tonight will be Dan Chief Johnson with the fire department. Thanks for your time tonight to present our legend. I also want to thank Todd and Jen's too uh for their assistance to the providing processes to help do a lot of work getting these. Um we were asked to talk about our department uh a little bit things we do the first fire department put out fires. Now there's actually a lot of things involved with fire. So you go through these visually and administration is the first job that's basically what I do. I'm here saying what do I do? Uh I try to summarize it into uh uh I really deal with outside influences under the party and everyone knows they're the visional people. They're they're inside influences. They're all uh responseoriented. I deal with outside when I say outside influence it could be the budget process. I deal with budget process. I deal with politics. Uh come to council meetings. deal with laws, legal uh things, standards, liability, uh uh public interactions and decision making for a department. So that's really administration having

defining what the division does in our department really trying to provide leadership to the department um divisional directions necessary to give the citizens the protection they need. Um, so that's administration. EMS division's probably the division that's undergone the most changes in our department. It's uh uh uh been a a very interesting year. As you're all aware, we uh split, but I didn't mention we're now our own entity and uh we no longer do different facility transfers, but we for the city. So, we're still real busy with EMS. uh the budgetary change you'll see and that is us getting some of our supplies in them through uh the books of IMAN uh taken off what our revenue investment I made it's like we've got our own account of that we'll talk about that um operations uh division it's probably the most troubling component of our uh uh department it's the one that is the nuts and bolts that deals the a lot of the operational issues with fire trucks, animals as fuel. Uh um they really I I really break the operations division down into three three sections. Uh they really do facilities management, they do apparatus and equipment management and they do personal. So uh they stay busy. uh uh they uh have not only do we do a lot of uh EMS is our primary follow uh we do structure fire, we do wildland fire, we do technical rescue, special operations such as sweat rescue, ice rescue

going into the life safety fire prevention division. Uh a lot of people have renamed those divisions to community risk reduction when we were really the spend. Um but they they do a lot of public education. Um they do a lot of communication media, the press release, that kind of thing. Uh the main the main function is proactive measures. The the the best fire is the one that never happens. if they we can stop uh from happening. And that's really what I hold the vision. They through inspections, code enforcement, plan reviews, uh they they're very valuable in trying to keep this town safe from having those.

May I chief? I remember a few years back we talked a lot about fall prevention the fire department and then we had then we had co is that still part of the life safety um function or has that been delegated to like action center or not?

Um so you're you're correct. We had a person that was really dedicated into the community risk reduction at that time and uh uh fall prevention through our data analysis was one of the the biggest areas we thought we could make an impact and he spent a lot of time in the EPS center but all over town nursing home uh doing inspections for uh trip but also doing education. It was a a real busy effort on that. We will still do that but that's not the the main f we don't have a person might go well we spend quite a while missions we'll still do that so

thank you on the training division uh it's a very important division I've always said you know we if we if we only have it we all have limited budgets our best spent money is in the training division I'd rather have well-trained people that I needed well equipped people too but the training was so important I needed people to know what to do so the training division they develop coordinate and deliver training programs in our department uh they're responsible for promotional testing we have strict guidelines we developed through the civil service commission on how we all promotional testing uh they they do a lot of recruit testing uh uh they they train to local state and national standards we have a lot of standards that we train too. It's not we don't just make up stuff. We we uh are trained in these standards. Um they're also our academy liaison. We are one of the primary participants in the state fire academy and uh so they're primary liaison with and then our physical fitness program. There's a couple of other cost centers. They're not really I don't call them divisions in our in our department. They're listed in the divisional matrix of budget and the EMA really what it is. We used to run EMA through the fire department or the whole county until about 2013. I believe in that transition where the county runs it and it is accountant's responsibility to run. But we benefit as a city a good effective EMA. So we support that budgetarily the best we can and uh you'll see a cost of 14,000. support that report bank because the city really benefits from that

you would inform us about I assume it's emergency management is it agency

emergency management agency yeah sorry I do something um and then the other cost grants uh grants that we uh uh typically manage we we look at the fire act granted every year and make applications. That's through the federal government. We uh applied through the state through Wyoming Office of Homeland Security for uh what they call slip grant grants uh SHSP grants uh the state homeland security grant program and then we've been successful in HMBP program which is hazards and materials. I I don't I don't even know but it's a it's a hazardous materials emergency prepared to so anyway um so anyway that we run a grant revenue and expenses through the grant process. So so and whenever we have money coming in we bring it over council for acceptance. Okay. So I'll get into some of the actual reasoning here is talking about budget requests. So I'm going to kind of jump around on this next slide. One of my uh request is for uh clerical assistance in our department. Um, your clerk will will that that position will assist the administrative coordinator with things like payroll assistance, scheduling, phones, office, just general clerical duties in a in a place. We have a part-time person there right now and it's just basically replacing that person. She's her last day is tomorrow. So, I suppose

um I'm going to jump down to the firefighter over hires. Uh uh once again, I want to thank the council for uh supporting over hires in the recent past and the five firefighter over hires we want to carry into next year will hopefully keep our head above water. Uh we have four recruits getting out of the academy. Uh we do have attrition issues happening this year. We should be zeroed out on those open hires within this budget year. The amount that you see asked for is figuring five open hires for the year. It won't be that amount, but we had to present a budget number and um some people may delay retirement by a couple months or uh some people may uh work life a little longer than we expect. We have we have some uh movement issues going to happen in our department this year where those overhires will slide in. We've been well we've been kind of sunk on our staffing levels for so long and you guys support us with the over hires and with our overtime budget. If you look at our current overtime budget, we we have spent a lot of money in overtime, but to maintain the minimum staff that's that's the only way we can get there. So, so we didn't talk about the overarch. That's a big payment. Um, the next uh one on here I'm going to talk about is the inspector position that we've had, you guys have supported that for I think four years, three years at that position and we bring it back annually for your uh scrutiny and uh that that position uh does a lot of work. uh really grinds on inspections, but grind gets out and they don't they're they're a civilian 32-hour uh uh position. So, they're not pulled away on calls. They're not having other things

distract them from the the the work the mission of the life safety factor patient. Um so, that's that's another request I had then to carry that one in again. Chief, I have a question about that one. Yes. Why don't we just make that ongoing then? Why is it why is it from a two-year now a one year? How come that isn't just ongoing?

Um, I'll take that uh through to Brandon. Brandon, what what we're doing is just basically managing staff costs and impact to budget for ongoing expenses. Um, if worse comes to worse or if there are reductions, we'd have the ability to make some changes. you'll see two other that those are the three personal requests I had on this budget. you know, the fact that I was able to uh call up here and talk about budget, I did want to take this opportunity to jump kind of backwards and look at Thank you once again for the oversizers, the support you've given on that that has been a lot more uh operational efficiency and uh thank you for supporting the compliance officer uh uh that we uh that was a new position for us. ly separated and it's been a learning curve but it's amazing how important that position has been and what that position what we rely on that position to do uh and I was uh jotting down some of what I rely on this position to do for our department for you for the city and uh uh uh she takes care of regulatory adherence on our EMS response she looks at policy the procedure development within the compliance vision. Um she does a lot of quality assurance review and reports and billing and training based off of that within our department. Um she uh does a lot of investigation and risk management if there's any issue that comes up that she's got the background uh of uh 30 years in emergency response. So she knows the the the response side of the job too. So she's we really rely on her to investigate any whether it's complaint or uh uh a review order uh documentation management and she's our primary leazison to our billing

company. All the the revenue is generated through that program. So I wanted to thank you again for last year's support of that and and let you know that it's very appreciated. is very viable. We have that position. Chief, last question. Um, Dan, is the overhiring is that pretty common in fire departments across like municipalities, Wyoming or the country? Like that type of practice to make sure that you have, you know, minimum staffing field, whether there's attrition or, you know, whatever.

The minimum staffing level, I would say, is very common in most departments that I'm aware of. The overhire concept is is common on like shortterm like one position type of thing. Not for a greater percentage like we're doing. We went through a very I've never seen anything like it in my career as far as as the the absenteeism to injuries that happen whether they're on duty or off duty. they they really multiplied on us and uh the being getting into an over hired position for us uh allows us not to sink hopefully as well as we got. We we really worry about we're working the people that are left way too much. So the over house is is going to help that out. And like I said on that over next year we should be hopefully uh good. Now I will say uh you know we're in the learning curve on staffing needs when you do the staffing analysis. I've done staffing analysis for years on on data uh evaluations based on call load based on concurrency of call lo based on a lot of things. Um but we're in a new system now and our responsibilities are a little different and there is time so so we're getting a better handle on what our actual needs are. the uh we need our staff what we have but we also need an hourly and that's kind of where we're at with that that's

yeah absolutely again you describe the uh shift number the minimum staffing number and the number of firefighters that have been out on injury just to give a a full picture of what we've been going through over the past few years

yes we have uh 42 firefighters that divide out to to FTEES to 14 per ship And uh on on each shift you have a ship commander, three company officers, couple operators, uh seven firefighters. They operate out of three stations. We have this station uh station out in West Laramine uh or station three, the station out north of town north side at station two not station one. Our minimum staffing level to run all spots for the county is 11 people um uh per day. Uh Bill 11 was when we were running inter facility transfers under an old agreement was I will say it was not enough people. Uh that's where we layered in our civilian driver program for a while and we had a paramedic program uh trying to heal us. Uh uh we're doing much better with our we still it's amazing how I flip the currency of economy you go from we went from where we were regularly at a 70% when we were running size we're still over 50%. I'm trying to add that into our report every month we're hanging around that 52%. So uh 50% of the time we have more than one unit visit we're running multiple calls this web I say that. So, anytime you're running multiple calls, of course, the the staffing mode is going down the other goes on and you can drop uh uh uh four calls within 10 minutes. I mean, it's not common, but it happens. It happens every year where then we need to be able to respond again. We start uh triaging basically the calls and trying to get the wants working through them. So anyway, that's that's kind of the

minimum staff standards. Uh the injuries, our high point was I think we ran about that at work point uh with they were unable to do shift work. So we're down now to like five. I think if I could if I could run those numbers, we remember it's 14 per shift. There's vacation in those ships too. And I think we allow two positions for vacation which takes us by contract takes us down to 12 and then you have injuries, sickness, other changes that will get us below that minimum staffing level number of 11. And then you start to bring back for a lot of overtime or shift holdovers which which can lead to injuries. And so the overhires are this bridge gap to try to help us get to a different point and be more secure in our fire department and the right amount of personnel option. Next slide uh oper operating request uh probably one of the bigger things you see in there we were starting to layer in uh operating requests in our EMS division for supplies. Like I said before, all our supplies ran through the diamond.

Basically, they just built out to us and took it off of our revenue and that's how it was accounted for all these years. While we're being our own entity, we are paying for supplies, collecting revenue. So, I have to um account for that. And that's a learning curve. Uh we don't have supplies have gone up. Everything's gone up. Uh but also we don't have the amount of supplies that we're ordering I will say is a lot smaller than an order flight that gets pulled through the whole hospital. So the the volume things we might not get the volume discount that we do but we make up for that next we're going to be much better at inventory control which is next inventory management we are instigating initiating inventory management system uh it's called Prax PS and it's a cloud-based inventory management system that tracks supplies We can even put our vehicles in there and our highlighting assets in there. But we really are targeting more supplies because we can't we can't run well. We have to know like what's expiring when we're looking at a lot of the drugs that we carry on the shelf lives ID supplies. A lot of stuff we used to have shelf life. So we can't have something like push to the back and be expiring and be in using stuff. uh we can't miss inventory checks and not have the equipment that we need. Now, we do have in our mutual aid agreement the ability to run out and get some stuff, but we want to do a good job on our inventory management system. So, uh we uh put in to get that going. Let's see. Uh it does it can do digital manual

checklist help do inventory levels and it really can focus and tracking our meds and our collees basically at the end it ensures our operational readiness. Um the next thing I'll talk about is communications. Uh we for many many many years had the good fortune of having what I call communication techs that were layered in our firefighter rank that could actually do a lot of work on our communication stuff whether it's programming radios troubleshooting problems with radios installation of radios. uh we don't have those anymore and we will have to rely on contractors or get into a contract with a uh a company to take care of a lot of our radial issues. uh I guess best estimate and we'll again we'll build an experience over the next few years on what we spend on a contract for a contractor but we're we're thinking we don't have

um chief would you say that over those years where previously you had people that could work on it and or service have our communications become come more complex where it's difficult to have an individual just come in and be able to do that.

The the people we had were highly talented and they were highly educated in that field. They would start talking about some stuff and it was like they could be talking. I didn't I didn't understand what they were saying. Uh I don't uh it's a very uh uh it's it's technical and complex and and it hasn't gotten easier. I will say so it's uh I imagine kind of talking about in in that radio stuff anyway but it's it's uh uh we we need assistance we don't have technical expertise on shift anymore anymore. Thank you.

Um next thing I think I got list is PPE. Uh the cost of PPE has gone up. It's crazy how much there there is the price going up on everything and personal protective equipment for our uh uh firefighters. So, we want to get good quality personal protective equipment. It's the their lives depend on it and uh we uh have fallen a little bit behind on our uh turnout replacement schedule. We're still okay, but we got to catch up on that. So you'll see request um see I didn't put it on the slide but uh training supplies uh uh we uh do a lot the guys have the ability to do a lot of complex training scenario it was a facility that was supported by the community on the 2018 spat tax and and so therefore we're building up we're knowing what our costs are for that it's about 10 I think I asked for $1,000 uh It' be OSB, propane, uh, uh, you know, we break a lot of doors and locks and stuff like that from training. So, uh, order something.

Chief, I think, um, the people that aren't reading the 223 page document, it would be good for the public to know as far as training, we have there that each firefighter completes about 240 hours of training a year. So, I just think it's nice for the public to know that they're not just sitting around waiting for a fire to happen. They're always even busy and completely trained.

They're very busy and they actually do the training. They're actually out doing it. They're not I call it pencil. No one's getting hours assigned in for training that it's not accomplishing it. It's it's their they're doing the work and uh it's uh gosh I remember when I got out of school and I was thinking uh that's what has to be done with school when I got this job is I still don't train this like what guys train all the time if they're not learning new things they're they're training skills I call perishable if you don't do those things for a while you uh uh um you're not good at it. You have to practice those skills. You have to practice fire attack. That's a good example. Yes, with practice single company and multi company, right? And once you get as far and you're doing it really good, if you don't address that, you won't be very good in the field. You won't be very confident. You won't be very fluid putting on the gear and advancing those lines and coordinating with other companies. Uh, one of the things I require people to do is if they go to a dumpster dumpster vehicle,

see, it's not a u I would say a critical call, but we run that call incident command wise like it was big call. You know, you make an arrival report, you do a size up, you make assignments, you pass command or you retake the van. uh if you need more resources, you got to do resource allocation and resource uh uh uh uh evaluation and uh uh if you can't do it right on the little things, you'll never do it right on the big things. So we I hammer about that. If I don't hear a rivalry report that takes it serious on a small call, I talk I call them and talk to them. They know that they got to they've got to do it right. uh because when it's uh so that training is on our go through their whole career and see um next thing is capital uh the spat we were successful on 2018 spat we've got the uh the project as well we built it uh earlier in the the collection time frame uh it's been a huge success very well uh used the state loves it. Uh they come out and and integrate their training on the academy. Um we use it all the time. It's been a good thing. There's a little bit of money left to get with Jin and have to do some uh I believe your book will show there's like 60 somewhere maybe 70,000 left. I think we spent most of that, but there'll be just a minor amount left to to close out the book on that project. But we're all closing. And remember too that in a year when excess collections on the center are released there'll be even more. And so that'll be the last trickle in a year um because had to deal with that trickle now for the whole life of the project

which is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. So we're very fortunate, very thankful that the community supported that project and it's really working on both floors. uh very thankful that the 2026 passed because we're in our station for kind of know what what I talk about when I mention so you'll be seeing future budgetary I got a couple questions for you um one on that uh on the use the state does of of our equipment here we charge so you

we don't right now we we're talking about a system we were involved with the front range fire consortium and it was all money driven and it was being people's hours were charged out. Uh it was it was very costly and it was very expensive. The departments that are in involved in the Wyoming consortium are called the Wyoming uh it's a a lot of departments working together that are sending trainers that are providing uh costs I guess to get make that work. uh we're looking at how we're going to move forward in the future, but we're still way better off uh doing it the way we're doing it now versus going south of the border and doing what we we really need to kick off a professional academy for a guys prepare to get them started down. And it's uh uh so we're working through that. The the answer is no right now, but we're talking about how we're going to equalize that. Um, and it's still going to be way way better than what that I think they were pretty just it was basically a a right to hold on to the consortium out there. There was no amount of money that we had to pay on the basis plus all the extra that you had to pay for the instructors that came. My other question is backtracking a bit on the um content out or you're bringing in the inhouse communication technology. I am assuming that none of this overlaps with what the PB utilizes and we can't leverage one system for everything. Is that

uh sorry. So my question is on the communication request for the new technology. I'm assuming that this could be it's not the same thing the police department uses and we couldn't um you know come together on that communication system. I'm assuming you guys talk about certainly are not the same thing under the Aiden part that communications I talked about was building out the ability to have some work on some stuff. You'll see a communication capital that uh No. Yeah. this year that involves it is layered in with dispatch. Okay.

And and uh I've gone over all the costs. It's amazing what this kind of stuff cost, but what we have is obsolete. It's supported. Uh it's not reliable and we we've got to get it fixed and so but yes, uh we're uh getting assistance through Kim and Chief Brown this project. So, um, apparatus. So, uh, we don't have any major apparatus on this year other than what we're carrying from last year. We've approved for 12.3. We've got the the bids in. I I'm still undecided whether we only received one bid and I'm not very happy about that at all. And I'm still debating that I'm going to bring that one bit for recommendation to council or not. I I really want to scrutinize it a little bit more uh before uh uh I bring forward. So, but that would be money would be spent if we build uh will be that's from last year. It was a carryover to this year. Um,

I I heard a rumor that um since there's so few companies that provide like trucks that some municipalities might be um suing them for like u you know monopoly. Yeah. And so that they're gouging municipalities for the cost of trucks. I know they cost a lot of money. So I'm just wonder if you'd heard anything about that. the possibility of some relief if there's some

I have not heard that. What I do know is that uh through the co era things really got expensive. I have not seen the prices go back. The timeline's got really ridiculously long to get equipment that is getting better. Uh that's moving in the right direction. The pricing is still higher than I'm comfortable with, but everyone's dealing with that. It's uh uh one of the things that I've considered and looking at I we're everything I do is part of information stuff, but the person knows with you having your budget to spend on a piece of equipment and they're bidding on it. I I have a little problem with some of the bids I've seen uh over the last few years are very close to our budget and uh I'm wondering how to move forward with that. I'm not saying that that's happening because I don't know, but it is public information. So, you know, it's easy to find. So, um and so I always like buy it's not the cost is the value. That's what I look at. um under apparatus then the only other two things we have we have the big carryover that we're dealing with and then we have I believe we have staff car that's new on this new budget and then we were trying to add a a small in town not an out of town not an emergency response vehicle that won't be fitted with license but we need some more uh uh vehicle support in our life prevention uh life safety fire prevention division so I request a large fishing food paging system. Uh I think I really just kind of went over that. It's it's an expensive project. I think the totals

are all up at 15, but we need to uh invest in in that because it's too critical. um on the dispatch side that when they send out a tone that they know we received it. They shouldn't have to wait and say repage to order me and the guy to page. You guys shouldn't have to have all the radios on all the time listening to find out this is trying to get it should work the way and what we have is really really that's the capital license. Uh this is kind of the vision. I call it driving our future since we had our drive.

But anyway, I think the biggest thing I'm looking forward to over next year is I think the most important thing that we can achieve is stabilizing our staff. and you the council support on that is is big and if we can get to a stable stat and the normal where you guys aren't like looking at overtime budgets and going holy you know it's that that's one of the big goals we have this next year the the just passed I mean that's a big deal we'll we'll look at uh I'll be talking about the to June and the council about bonding that project. Uh we'll be looking at uh a process of getting the design team together for that and then uh together as the owner the design teams will be looking at probably doing a construction manager risk and uh work as those three entities trying to get us achieved. Um, technology, uh, technology is here. It's every year. It's it's never ending. I can talk about technology every it's amazing the stuff that's coming out every year. Um, but uh, really what I'm looking at is predictive modeling uh, for our department. Uh, software that will help us with inventory. We talked about that one already. Uh I'm really pushing the uh fireplace safety fire prevention uh division to digitize all of our pre-plants so that officers and incident commanders have instant access to emergency response information on specific buildings in town that's digitally accessible instead of trying to have file cards and stuff. That's what today's technology may have been.

Um yeah, uh proactive community risk reduction comes through preventive inspections. Uh uh education. I think they're probably, you know, I tell you, we'll start along, but uh the guys, uh they get a new guy in and they'll work. They're really responsoriented stuff and they'll meet someone from our prevention division. They'll say, "Can I help you, sir?" And it's like, "I work here." They don't it's they do a lot of important work though and uh uh they they interact more and more with the public on those inspections and code. Um data driven decisions I I I like decision to be backed by data. So uh I really look for uh data to help us out. I uh I really can. So firefighter has the safety what we learn are learning about cancer based on firefighting and uh the past practice what we did when I was new here was never a lot today what we the way we live today and we need to keep so that's that's kind of the vision of what I have to normal trends uh I'll speak to self voting because I don't uh over time we over relied on overtime and over hires can give us establish the MS service model has changed that's the the biggest change and then the last slide I have I want to end up with our mission statement we put it on test and stuff it's important we have a post on our law preservation of life and property to regressive professional service I tell the guys especially the young guys you and you'd understand what that means.

And if you can't remember it, remember we're there to help you. The only thing we do is have two word measures. If you can't remember this one, remember that that's why we exist. So that's I'll end for any questions.

I'd like to make a a comment or announcement. I'm not sure that I've shared it with uh council, but Chief Johnson and the Larby Fire Department would have invited us to hold a live burn demonstration for city council during the work session on September the 8th. The beginning of the meeting would be held in the classroom at the LFD training facility and then adjourn to the live demonstration. And my response was, I enthusiastically support our doing this and I think it's very meaningful and helpful to our holistic understanding of the department. And so I appreciate your thoughtfulness and inviting us and uh so we'll look forward to that on May I mean September 8th? Any other questions or comments?

Yeah, thanks Chief. Um um forgive me for waiting here for the end to just go back to some things and maybe this is also a question for for Tom and for Jen. Just going back to some of the supplemental operating requests and supplies like say for instance when it comes to the EMS operating supplies right I mean obviously inflation is a huge part of that and we can anticipate that not doing we have an ongoing like $7,300 request but then also the one time 32,000 um is is there a reason we shouldn't be anticipating taking that um combining those into something that feels like it's an ongoing request and then and maybe this is a silly question but I understand that you know it was a it was a very complicated albeit successful process to you know make the agreement with the hospital that we did in terms of interstate transfers and things like that. But is there any um future possibility of going back and about agreement that allows us to access those care supplies that at that point you probably don't foresee us being back to that we asked that question that so uh uh so one of the things I want to say is when you're looking at like that onetime cost and We'll get a real good handle on our uh inventory costs over this next few years, but we have to I want to say front load. There's there's certain supplies we use all the time. You know, IV tubing, I bags and stuff. There's other supplies that don't get used a lot, but we have to have them. We have access to that. We had to stop and get them going. you know those type of things they typically don't expire but we have to have a lot of access to so we

had to make an initial investment up front that might be some of the those costs that you're looking at on one time issues

and if I could add to that we were really hesitant to add anything to ongoing budgets unless we saw in the history of spending that that would be necessary there's all kinds of mechanisms that departments can use to increase their budget for one time amounts like the chief just talked about or you look at routine equipment which actually has a lot of supply type purchases in it that are larger. And so we kind of try to look at those decisions holistically and say is this truly an ongoing increase because once it is remember if it's part of their operating cost and that means contractual supply contractual services or operating supplies then it rolls forward every year into perpetuity and so we're pretty careful about how we grow the budget that way. Thank you.

that that numbers you're looking at, we're starting we starting to develop those budgetary ideas and projections uh after we'd only been a split for 3 to four months when we started admission. So we're we're going to learn a lot over the next year, two years about those costs. I feel like I'm very comfortable if we over projected or under projected beforehand and met the issue with you explaining why that happened. But I I think we did we did the uh we did analyze it pretty clearly and I think we're going to be in the supply arena around 10 grand is what I think it's going to be overall because we have revenue offset all that in the future but that's kind of way it's looking at I will stand by that number right now. I think that's kind of like see through that J ask you this question. I don't think it's ever come up before. We obviously have several volunteer fire departments throughout the county. Uh I know that you have a hard time keeping your three stations fully staffed. Have we ever thought about bringing in our trained volunteers to fulfill the staff needs and you know without I I know we're paying quite a bit of overtime and quite a bit of of funding to keep that staff work but can we or has there been thought to use volunteer fire fighters to complement and to bring our staffing up to what what the requirement is for each I don't know if you uh that that has been looked at years ago. Uh I believe Randy Biggers did a presentation. Uh it

might have been might have been at your request and years ago when you were running council. Uh and it looked at combination efforts. Uh so any any kind of thought into that uh endeavor would what's really got us over the last year and a half say was the staff shortages uh to run an effective uh those people would need to be trained by us certified by us equipped by us if they're going to work for us and there are high costs associated with operating that way also with equipment training uh uh turnover uh reliability If if we were going to look at a combination situation, I don't think I've never looked at or or I personally would consider a situation where people and put them on duty that we didn't train. We don't know their capabilities. We don't, you know, I I don't think that has ever been like that. No, I won't answer your question, but but that's uh uh I think that's what you were saying is take the ones that are available and just basically all they need to supplement the stat and uh they are not they are not in our our system I guess of accountability. Uh I think the liability very high uh I wouldn't be comfortable. So but if uh directed I would certainly look into

Oh thank you. Thank you chief. Sorry.

Next up, we have Next up, we have Chief Brown from Larry Police Department. Thank you.

Well, I'll apologize in advance to Council Member Bowling. We presented this presentation to the police advisory board about two weeks ago. in preparation for this process. So, I'll try to speed through it a little bit if you can find that. All right, I'm out of here. He was supportive of everything. That completes our presentation. There you go.

Sorry, I I know. Um I just had to share the screen folks.

So, I'll start with this. Every year we're required as part of the city ordinance to give an update on bias crime related incidents and we completed our annual report about two weeks ago. I encourage the public to go online and you'll get the data in its entirety. It's a robust report with a lot of data while the crime committ investigated throughout the year our community engagement efforts. What you will not see in there is data surrounding bias incidents or crimes this year because we did not have any. There were three incidents that we looked at as a team and researched our federal partners just to make sure it didn't meet the federal definition. They uniform crime reporting definition and they confirmed that it did not. So this year we did not have anything reported to us for the public. I will say that does not mean that there there are not biased incidents or crimes happening in our community. We would strongly encourage any member of our community to report those those to us. But I am proud to say that none were reported to us this past year. So starting with the year of year at a glance, we had 81 community touch points. So we created a support services unit a few years back that includes our community engagement team who's responsible for our efforts in that area. Then that team had approximately 81 different community events. That includes farmers markets, events that we participated in our local elementary schools, middle schools, high schools. That includes um our community academy, VIP radio. There's a lot of different activities that we're asked to participate with that our team um does a phenomenal job of engaging the community on, but that does not include it's my calendar or assistant chief constant's calendar which is pretty robust with a lot of community presentations. Um, if for example, I was at UW twice last week giving a different presentations to their criminal justice program and gave presentations for Wiiotech and engaged with them, which I'll talk a little bit further about some of our plans in the future. At the bottom, I really want to talk a little bit about training and

recruiting. We had approximately 106 applicants, 13 were hired. That's a selection rate of about 12%. The national average held right around between 10 and 13%. So, we're right in that range. We have done a lot. We have tried a lot of different things to get different applicants through the through the door and through the process. And we're looking at a new process this year where we're asking the council to support a part-time position. Um we're going to give it a try for the next 3 to 6 months. And it's um our goal is to hopefully hire someone who specializes in social media, community engagement efforts, technology to help us kind of rebrand our department and get our information out there. and hopefully increase our recruiting diversity. So last year we were hit with a lot of retirements. What we've seen nationwide in our profession is a difficulty to get individuals through training which I really contribute to COVID um and the lack of communication for several years um and still ongoing in our middle school, high school and college setting, but the majority of our students are interacting and engaging online instead of face to face. So, we're having some challenges in the communications realm when we really have high expectations of our officers and their ability to deescalate situations and engage with our community members and we're really struggling trying to figure out how to bridge that gap. So, we're hoping to have a position that can help us identify ways to get more applicants through the door and increase our hiring rates. on the right. The crime data that's referenced here is referenced further in our our annual report, but these are five crime areas that typically are pretty heavily investigated in our community. One of note that I'll say is the sexual crimes. Um, being a college community, typically you see those a little higher in those areas of the nation, including in Larine. theft crimes. We came up with a new process about a year and a half, two

years ago, and we've worked with a lot of our local realers or realers, a lot of our local shops, uh, especially the big ones, Walmart, Ace Hardware, um, Ulta. And what we've asked them to do is typically they call 911 when somebody steals something, there's a theft at the location, and they even call 911 after the person flees. So what would typically happen is if somebody leaves the scene, our officers would respond. They might get there 5 minutes after, depending on fire for service, it could be 15 to 20 minutes and that person's kind of gone in the wind. So we came up with a process where if that person is no longer at site, the loss prevention officer for that establishment will complete their report. They'll pull up their surveillance video. They'll call dispatch to make a report. And then um our administrative sergeant will review it, review the surveillance video. Often times we can identify people simply by the surveillance video and they will assign it to an officer who can um respond when they have free time available. So instead of taking an officer off the street when we might be short calls for service or maybe one of our um shops waiting several hours for an officer to respond. They're able to do so in a timely manner. Identify the individual. reach out to the officers to see if they can potentially identify the individual and then we'll issue that individual a citation and taking them into custody aggregated. So far we we've had pretty regular reviews especially if we warm which is the biggest clients in this area. Uh real quick I'll touch on the training hours. So 17 hours per officer per per month is an average. So a lot of our officers um especially our special response team typically train about 10 hours a month. So they kind of increase that curve a little bit. And then we have a lot of officers that attend different types of training. We've really been trying to leverage webinar based training that gives our officers the ability to train here at home and

learning instead of traveling outside of the state and increasing costs. There are still some um conferences and training environments where we have to do that but it's definitely less than it has been in the past. um as webinars have become more popular. So records and communications this so is going into one of our divisions. I really wanted to emphasize their call time. The national average expectation really is 95% within 20 seconds. We average 99.5% in under 15 seconds.

So they do phenomenal work and that's with less personnel than we would like to see. We were slotted for 12 operators in our dispatch center. we currently had nine. Um, and give and take depending on who's in training, even the amount of training that kind of fluctuates between typically what I've seen since I've been about 8 to 12. So, we're hoping um as we bring on on a new part-time employee for the council to increase hiring efforts that that'll really flourish in the spots.

Our patrol division. So this is really um the nuts and bolts of the police department and you'll see some of the numbers up there. They're pretty impressive. There is a decrease in traffic stops this year. We've really asked our officers to for focus on parking enforcement. If I'm being honest as the chief of police, I would guess that 95% of my complaints revolve around parking enforcement. Um and I kind of get it in both ends. I jokingly say that I get complaints if we enforcement if we don't. But I actually got a call last week in the morning um regarding some a lack of enforcement complaints downtown and without talking to any of our officers or community um engagement officers or community support officers, I actually got a call right around 3 p.m. about a complaint for enforcing downtown. So we really did on both sides. Um, so it's something that we have set up our efforts in. There's more details of that actually that outlined in hand specific to downtown. Um, and then some of the other uh calls for service are areas that our patrol division has seen increase or decreases significant increase or decreases in criminal investigations. So we actually have we're slotted for three detectives. The majority of 2025 we operated with two. So that makes these numbers even more impressive. And what we did is we we had a sergeant retire. We put a new sergeant in there who's incredibly active and it really did change the culture of the division. we've been able to have him participate more in writing search wars, conducting investigations, but now it's more of a team effort and they work closely with our support services unit um which also has been down in numbers because of deployment related issues and they've been able to work together to accomplish a lot of these goals and clear some of these cases cases. We also work closely with Ali County Sheriff's Department and they have weekly investigator meetings with their detectives and um to make sure that we're collaborating together and not duplicating work.

Animal control. So, we do have a lieutenant in charge of every one of these divisions. I really wanted to kind of emphasize some of the calls for service that we have outside of city uh um limits. And right now, we're not charging anything for the sheriff's department. A lot of those calls for service that you see, those 22% are the sheriff's department detaining detaining officers, collecting animals in the county area, um, and then bringing them into the shelter where one of our officers will respond if our animal control officers are not available or animal control officers will safely take custody of that animal and we'll um, have them check into the shelter. I will say um there is a state statute that requires us to add times depending on the specifics quarantine animals for dog bites um and definitely tape reports on every single dog biting garden. So our services unit is the third one um and currently under focus has been on recruitment and training. So, um, Sergeant Miles Kushman, Lieutenant Craig Linhardt, um, oversee this area of operations and they also see our oversee our community engagement effort, um, and any other outreach opportunities that we have. So, we have been able to hire a tremendous amount of officers this past year. Part of the challenge for us is it takes approximately 8 to 10 months to get through the training curriculum. would be 14 weeks in academy, eight weeks inhouse training, getting them familiar with our software, procedures, um general orders, city of Larby handbook, and then another four to six months in the field training program where we'll be out with a partner officer, a senior officer kind of escorting them through the processes um of conducting criminal investigations throughout the city, engaging the community and ensuring that they're meeting our expectations. So, we'll jump into the budget a little bit. I wanted to put a slide up there to show that the 23% of the city budget, the general budget goes to police services. I will tell you this is well below the national average. The national

average for a community of our size of approximately 30,000 to 40,000 residents is about 29%. Ours is 23%. It's about 42% combined um with us and fire department. So the largest amount of um our tax dollars are going towards public safety which I believe is is an important function of city government but we are al also are extremely efficient we have we are below the national average of spending and if you look in the budget manual I believe our area starts on about page 58 and you'll see that the majority of our our um budget is spent on personnel and that includes salary and burden of our employees and we did a a cost survey, salary survey that was done a few years back and it was supported by this council for paying to make sure that our officers are being paid um a fair wage that's consistent with other areas in our region. So these are some of the asks this year and I always like going up um after because after they ask for millions of dollars of fire apparatus it seems like our budget request maybe not be that high. Um, and I to be honest with you, last year I think I don't know if we had any significant number requests, but this year we do. Um, so I always look for ways to offset cost and again we're doing it this year and our team looks for ways to offset costs. So we're requesting two positions. One position is a transfer. So we had a record specialist and every time that we have somebody vacate a position, we try to leave it vacant for as long as we can determine if there's an actual need. And one area in our department that we've really seen a transition over the last really three to four years is our records function. So we've really seen our software cost increase, but we've also seen that technology take over some of the functions of our records department. One example that I like to use is transcription. So when I got here, our records department was our officers were reporting on a reporting device all of their police reports and our records department was transcribing

each one of those police reports. It took a significant amount of time.

As we've invested in some AI report writing programs that basically dictates our body warning camera footage for us, we've seen a significant decrease in that transcription requirement to the point where our records division is no longer transcribing its um and the AI is doing the majority of that for us. And we had an opportunity to present that I believe um our financial advisory committee at the beginning of last year. Then also um our draft fun stuff with the police advisory board about two meetings ago where council member rolling took a sitting thinking about a time to write a police report and I believe the AI program did it in about 15 seconds. So it really is a hands-on experience that um it has been beneficial to our department and given us areas to repurpose positions. to um so the uh program that you got has reduced the time that it takes for them uh to write the report. It allows them to be on patrol more and to be out in the community more. But is it my understanding also that it has significantly increased accuracy of the reports? Yes, accuracy and consistency and that's from it's felt both by the city attorney and also the county prosecutor.

That was my question. Oh yeah, good.

So the first the first request is that I'll start is the actually the bottom one. So it's a transfer of a position from one of our records positions that we've been holding for approximately the last 6 months. It may be a little bit longer than that. and we're requesting to convert that into the police officer position. And the reason for that is our ideal um deployment numbers are six officers per shift. So we run four shifts um and they're basically split up with um days and graveyard shifts and we run five or what we would like is five officers as supervisor. Once again, that gives us the ability we have occasion our officers on injury FMLA issues. gives us some flexibility to make sure that we're meeting our mandatory minimums, which is four officers and supervisors. That's the goal for each team. So, this would help us accomplish that and would give us the ability to have approximately 32 officers and supervisors, which would give six for each team to um complete our patrol deployment functions. The second request is a school resource officer, and this one's a little unique because it's um kind of the the brainchild of myself and Ryan O'Neal at Biotech. So um forecasting biotech growth in the future which is rather substantial um for those of you who are not aware they are looking at um essentially doubling the size of their facility and then also adding in dorms and if we look at it realistically or their strategic plan for the next 5 to 10 years we're going to see significant growth in those areas and the University of Wyoming has their own police department as everyone in this room knows and I think this is really an opportunity for the Wyoming police department and the city to partner with biotech to make sure that we have a footprint in this area um and appropriate response. As they grow, we also grow. So, they ask from council is we are asking for the city to fund a two-year position similar to what we the contract we entered about three years ago now with Alb County School District one where the city um paid for the first

two years of school resource officers and then biotech would um start assuming that cost and I believe the split is is currently after year two um we'll come to you with an additional request but we're looking at about a 50% 75% and then 100% increase on the biotech site as they grow and depending on um how the project plays out, we could see additional off street by biotech expires. Um and we've had some significant um community complaints in that area, especially regarding oil on streets um and abandoned vehicles. And what this does is it gives us the opportunity to have essentially a city official police officer there that can coordinate responses to those types of issues that we see as epidemic driving. a bit of a question on that. Um again, I think um what you alluded to is the community doing the pressure there. Um so the school resource officer be their um work be beyond you know the the school property as much. It would be more like a community resource officer for that area rather than officer that

you're correct. Basically anything associated with biotech. like they had their community engagement um fair last Saturday. I believe it was May 9th. Um so events like that and then also any complaints in that area whether from Colorado and give them the ability to respond and come up with a plan coordination with collaboration with great comment. This is a great idea because I don't know about some of the other council members. Uh I don't know about some of the other council members, but this is like a growing email chain that happens to be in my email all the time. I try to tell the students that. Um so I think this is a fantastic idea, especially with buying so many properties around where I as well. So

yeah, I'll I'll add I would sus suspect that everybody sitting around this table probably has a similar email chain regarding issues surrounding biotech. So this really is an opportunity for us to get our our foot in on the ground to learn and hopefully as biotech expand we can also help with them with their security plans um and just ensure it's a safe environment for students to come and enjoy. Um, I might have thought that was kind of heavy-handed, but since the university has a police department, um, it seems reasonable, but aren't the hours like people are working there doing stuff late and how how much can one person do? It's not like a high school where you're there during school hours. So, how's that work? Because,

well, we have a security team, too. So I assume that this this position is going to be working with our security team. But to answer your question, we have somebody on campus like students from about 6:30 in the morning till about 2 in the morning. Um so it kind of you know it's kind of but I would assume that they're going to work with our security team as well.

Yes. Actually, assistant chief Tom Smith and I met with Ryan O'Neal and the security team two weeks ago at NYU and um to that point what we've seen in the school district and that I anticipate it really too is the days of us enforcing our ways and investing our ways out of the problem really don't exist anymore. Um and we're starting to see we've seen for several years really collaborative effort with all of our partners had much better results than actually placing people's a little unique. Um I will tell you the clientele there is definitely different than the university. Um, and often times they get clients coming from different parts of the United States that don't have the same expectation that has them there. And I think having somebody on site, I've seen it myself from being there during the event and presenting the questions that I get asked after. One of the common questions I get asked is, "Hey chief, if I'm really driving 35 miles an hour, am I going to go over?" Yes, you're

and that is not the case in California. to the ad. If you're within 20 miles hour of speed broad, so the expectations of different communities really need to be relayed to the students of the day. So they understand that learning. We do have expectations as a community and we welcome welcome them here. Um but we also are going to hold them to those. Chief May, I asked this question at the high school, junior high, biotech. Are these sworn officers, do they carry sidearms? Are they authorized to act just as any other sworn police officer would?

Yes, they are. And we've actually had some conversations with the school district about softening our appearance, maybe having the school resource officers in foldable shirts. And I can tell you um speaking with principal of the high school that is not something that they want. Um and the reason for that is that the high school still has at least with our they still have administrative ability to deal with it. Most of the issues they come across on an administrative side and generally speaking our officer is there as a deterrent but their concern for active shooter type situations. um as we've seen an increase across our nation probably weighs heavier than they're concerned to have an officer and softer parents and I can tell you most of our school resource officers are regardless of what they're wearing not for their enforcement efforts but for any stickers um so much so we actually got a card from we we got several cards from elementary school students this week and one said um the question was what do police officers do well they arrest the bad guys stickers so which is pretty accurate That's that's

so the other ask over here um comes down to the opioid settlement fund that I'll touch on. Um and this is is a couple areas that we've been working on for the last three and a half years. The city attorney has kind of taken um the head of this program and we've been working to try to figure out ways that we can spend some of these funds that were given to us as part of a federal set settlement um to have a positive impact in our community. So, we're really looking at it from the perspectives of um community education, um community crime enforcement, opioid crime enforcement, and then potential rehabilitation options. And the two areas that we've identified as city staff is the continuation of our mental health program. So about two years ago, I came to this council. We're blessed um approximately $20,000 a year in funding for a trial program or for the first year in funding for a trial program in partnership with all um Alb County Sheriff's Department, University of Wyoming uh police department and then the VA. And we saw a lot of success with that program when we had our first case manager embedded in the police department. Since then, we've seen a little bit less success. We hadn't had a case manager embedded in the police department. They do have an open position that they've been trying to fill for the last six months. Um but they have given us some additional case managers in other areas that we've been working with to kind of fill that gap. Um so that was one of um the options that we came up for as council is the continuation of that program and really what that gives us is as a police department is we are not mental health experts. We do go through crisis intervention training which you can read more about in our hand report and other mental health first aid type of training types of training but what we see often times with mental crisis uh and mental health concerns is repeat customers calling the police department for help. So what this program really does is it gives the opportunity for the second, third, fourth calls of service where the client is typically or the customer is more stabilized to directly send those people to the DA and they can build that

relationship and provide an appropriate wraparound services to see success. Um the problem for the higher the salary that

yes so the salary I can tell you yes 100%. And I heard that from um Essie from the BOA who's our partner currently and we gave a presentation to the police advisory board in preparation for this budget proposal and this recommendation was made by the police advisory board for funds program but she did state that part of the problem is the salary recommendations that come from the VA. Um and the criteria for a case manager is a s certification criteria not necessarily a degree criteria. So what they see a lot of times is people coming into the field and being there for a temporary uh amount of time two three months and then moving on as they complete their career fields.

So that was the the first request. The second request was um for a K9 unit. And I had mentioned this to council I believe last year when we were talking about the opioid um prevention funds and I recall one of the council members I don't recall who had had asked if it would be appropriate for for our community partners. So, we actually reached out to several community partners as part of this um proposal. To be honest, I didn't know. So, I reached out to the school district and we actually got a letter of support from Alb County School District One in support of the program. Once again, for a lot of the same reasons that we were we officers in the school as a deterrent and also community engagement effort. We also received a letter of support from the Laram Regional Airport. We received support from biotech um for a lot of the same um reasons. The other thing that um a potential canine, which would be a narcotic K9 does for us is it gives these institutions the ability to enforce their code of conduct, not necessarily for Larry Police Department to arrest people or arrest students. We do have a single point of entry program here in Laram County where juvenile detention and arrest is viewed very differently than the majority of the country and this would would be no exception for that. The other thing that it gives us is I don't know if you've seen Chief Anderson with the university police department who might be training in Jes. He has a German Shepherd that he brings everywhere with him and the community engagement component of that um is pretty shocking. It's there's a lot of people who would never call a police officer any other time but when they walk in a building with that doll um they kind of let him.

So it really is a good opportunity um for us to see if it's going to work. So, our request was one dog um and the budget from the opioid settlement funds which will not come out of the general fund to support that proposal. Do it for a year, see what the numbers look like and see if it would be something beneficial for our community in the long term. And then we're hoping to utilize portions of the funds programs to create an endowment that would support those programs on the land community for the foresee for the future future. And with that, um, one other thing that I will add, uh, we do have a sizable capital request. I believe it's $58,000. And that is for, um, a new cloudbased, uh, communications dispatch system. So, currently the way that we see receive calls is through a traditional phone system. All of our vendors are moving to cloud-based systems as you're seeing with most technologies. Everybody's moving away from opensight servers. So, I've had the opportunity to work on this project um both with Kim Meyer, our large manager, and also through the public safety communications commission, which I'm I'm also a part of, and one of our partners on there, um Commissioner Hoffman, is also a part of that commission. So, we've been able to look at different opportunities um to change our footprint with our dispatch center. And the timing is perfect. As we've prepared potentially uh with SPT funds to move into a new facility, we'll be changing from on-site service through um this capital request to cloud-based vendor services that will also give us the opportunities uh to look at some unique options for our dispatchers. We're right now they're currently working for about 12 hours um in in a tight dark facility. This will give us the opportunity to work um in some remote capacities where they might have the opportunity to walk away and answer from a remote device where they can go outside and take a 15-minute break and still answer calls for service. So, I think there's some unique unique

wellness features by going to a cloud-based vendor that I'm excited to explore. And with that, I'll stand for any questions. I just want to add something about the opioid settlement fund because I think you guys will be interested in this. The $650,000 you see allocated is actually all the funding we have on hand. And you'll notice that there's the establishment of two permanent funds which would be managed separately. And so in the coming year, we will do an RFP for investment advisory services. And those those funds will be managed as true permanent funds, which is a little bit different than our other investments that you know we're holding because we're going to spend that money on capital later, not because it's a permanent fund. And so we'll get a little bit higher rate of return because we're going to manage these funds in that way. We'll do the same thing with the recreation center endowment. Um we do expect to receive about a million more dollars in opioid settlement funds over the next several years. And so the goal um is to fund that K9 permanent fund at $500,000 which would pay for one K9 unit into perpetuity and not increase our operating cost at all.

Why don't we get to the dog?

Yeah. Chief, thanks for the presentation. Just curious in addition to kind of what you mentioned with um UDP and using a dog uh to kind of you know bridge the gap potentially in some of the community outreach things. What you know what other benefit I guess does that K9 unit bring to the department kind of in terms of everything you guys do? Sure. So we have throughout the county we have a variety of different types of dogs. So W's PD dog is actually availing dog. Um, so it gives us the ability to bring a different dog into the community that has the ability to go to PWPD department for narcotics dog. The county also has another narcotics doll. Typically the lifespan for these dolls is approximately 8 years or at least the total opportunity to spend for these dolls. So depending on on a budget cycle and where they're at at the end of those eight years, often times it's far to have additional funding to support the program long term. So we could be filling a gap um to help out our partners. So, Highway Patrol does not have any type of canine in this area. There is one bite dog with the sheriff's department, but I've never heard of them getting a bite, at least since I've been here. Um, yeah, there's a lot of liability attached for my dog. I wouldn't make a recommendation for a bike dog for our community. We have a very low crime level. Um, so to be honest with you, I just don't see a need for this at this point in time. Hopefully, never. Um, so yeah, so it gives us the ability to utilize it with our partner organizations, too. We do have a DCI task force that specializes in our bodies that operates here in Larmy. Um that we do have a task force officers that would also be able to be used this week. Thank you.

By Doug is dog trained to take someone down if necessary. Yes. I'm I'm not sure what the appropriate terms for that purpose, but it's a my trained to apprehend um suspects essentially on command. I will tell you that I have seen it before where they've accidentally been officers. Um and they've been the wrong person. Um I've seen it before where they've been suspects who have been appropriately detained. Um so it is a little bit of a wild card depending on the type of dog. That is not what we're asking for. No. Well, thank you, Chief.

Um, thanks, Chief. Um I just um I I also want to reiterate that that you know the police advisory board has this conversation specifically around the the idea of a of a tracking in and star versus even something that feels um and it also has a history for especially for some people um that is a little bit more traumatic environment um and I think it's a really also cool opportunity to make sure that people understand and have a a community engagement component with this animal. We also um were able to um watch a series of videos of um you know kines uh assisting in the tracking of lost persons um and things like that which I think is going to be a real asset to us especially um as we might like uh leaz with um other search and rescue groups regionally. Um, and then Jen talked to you directly just because I'm not finding it right off the top of my head where the cabal requests are what behavior would be in that world for

I'm glad that you asked about that. Um, so if you are you using the bookmarks in your document going so if you you know oh sorry just looking at what happens. So if you pull up your bookmarks it's really easy. You'll just click on capital investment and by type. If you are not doing it that way, if you start on page 81 for the general fund, you that's where you'll see them. Thank you. Thanks for asking about that.

Seeing no further questions for Chief Brown, we'll call it Derek Ping, community economic development director. All right. So, I'm going to try to use some first names today because I don't think we ever get to do that. This is going to be an opportunity to do so. Um, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to run through the community and economic development department's budget. Um, feel free to jump in, ask questions while I'm going through it. Those kind of been the what we've seen most of this evening and that's great. Um, first off, what I would say is I think overall community and economic development budget is fairly straightforward. Um, as you'll see, um, it's mostly organized in terms of our personnel and operating costs. We then often have general studies, um, plans that we do throughout the year. Those usually fall kind of periodically every twoish years or 3 years depending upon the subject type. And we're pretty limited in capital improvements. We're not seeing we're not generating a lot of projects. And so overall, um, I think as I go through the budget, you'll see some of that information there being fairly straightforward, like I said. And so I'm going to jump in here. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about our staff and kind of what our organization looks like in community economic development. Going to talk a little bit about the budget vision, and then just what some of the high points of our 27 budget.

Okay. Sorry. Wait till you click on the page. Don't tell. All right. So, as you'll see, we've got uh the an organizational chart here. I've included the names of my staff, many of those people that you know. Um as you know, many of our staff are out in the public in different in different ways. Um, not only do you see myself and some of our support staff there, um, you see our building officials, uh, they are out constantly or at the front desk doing different types of inspections, building plan, the permit review. Um, our planning staff are out there doing different community events as well as engaging with the public and many of the different planning efforts that are occurring in the city. Um, probably one of the most uh, involved and impactful people is Ray Sandival. He's out there as our code enforcement officer. You know, he he is uh just such a personality engaging with people in a usually a pretty tough position. Um you know, he's usually not engaging with our public in a positive manner or for a positive reason, but he often uh makes friends and really builds relationships with some of the people in our community, ultimately there to help them out. And then we've got our health inspector, Cody Talbet. He's actually out there doing our restaurant inspections, you know, tattoos and things like that. So, so once again, who are we? Um, you've got myself and Robin Batty. Robin, um, I'll talk a little bit about her. She is our, uh, department director or, uh, coordinator. Uh, she really helps keep our office organized. She is providing not only support to myself in projects that we're working on, but also provides support to many of

our staff as well as, you know, kind of keeping our finances uh in in in check and in straight, making sure payments are getting done. Um, our planning department, many of you know our planning department, you see them pretty regularly at council. uh they are really, you know, in charge of the both the physical and long range development of our community. You know, they're the ones out there developing our planning efforts, uh looking at long range planning, uh completing projects that are usually engaging with our neighborhoods as well as our citizenry about what they want to see happen in this community. Um I would also point out they provide a significant amount of support to our our different boards and commissions including our council. Um we are the staff is often at meetings not only for planning commission uh but USAC DDA city council um our board of adjustment. So, you know, they're out there engaging in those public forums similar to what you all do on Tuesday nights. Code administration, uh, you'll see our three Kodap and staff. We've got one vacant position currently, um, that's unfilled. Um, but they're really, you know, responsible for that, overseeing the construction um, that's happening in our community. I kind of always call the kind of from the ground up building of our homes, our commercial and industrial spaces in the community. um you know they're mostly out doing inspections but then when they are in the office they're usually answering questions from the public taking phone calls doing plan review and those types of tasks. Uh they do also provide uh support to our building and fire code board of appeals. Um that's the board that that hears any uh qu uh concerns related to the actual building code or interpretations of the

building code. So that's the the group which they manage. Our health inspector, Cody Talbot, um we're we're really lucky to have Cody. Cody came from the state. Um brought an amazing wealth of knowledge and information that uh just he wows me with all the time. that, you know, Cody's in charge of all of our licensing, permits, and inspections related to everything that's associated with pools, spas, restaurants, tattoo and body art establishments, and temporary food vending. Um, a majority of his time is spent out in restaurants. Um, and but does work with also our parks and rec staff on our pools and spas uh in order to coordinate the pools and spas that we have within the community. We had a question. Thanks, Derek. Um, Cody's been a total asset to our company. Um, because I remember, you know, when we opened the first one, didn't know anything, right? And then he surprised us 30 days later and he doesn't tell you when he's coming in, right? He just shows up. I kind of know what month he's coming, but I always tell my staff, be prepared for him to come in anytime. And the great thing about Cody is if he sees a challenge, he he educates the staff on it. And he'll he'll give he'll ask them questions and sometimes they may not know the answer because they don't maybe understand his vernacular, but but most of the time, I'd say 95% of the time we got it down. And but now if I see his car at one of my shops, I don't stop. I just let my staff handle it. And he's done such a great job training them. So I I He's easy to work with. He sees an issue. He does a browbe, you know, fortunately maybe we haven't had any big issues like maybe some restaurants have in the past or what have you, but I really like having always on.

Yeah. And I think you know for our health inspection just because of the number of restaurants and food establishments we do have in this community and the fact that we bring in so many people from the outside right every single weekend we have different visitors coming to visit their students whether they're tech elc or the university and I mean we're just kind of that melting pot of the of the United States all coming to this community because of our educational facilities and so providing safe places for these types of things to happen um is is really important and and just to point out so Cody is is three quarters time so he works 30 hours a week is this is not a full-time position um and I think someday we will probably not have Cody available and we probably have to have a full-time person to get what he gets done in 30 hours

um our last person code enforcement you know this is the person that's going through doing investigations on any type of weeds growth nuisance violations, junk vehicles, um, and you know, ice and snow removal. He almost did none of that last part. This whole winter was very, uh, very interesting year. So, button. There we go. So, what I want to talk a little bit about just as just briefly is just a little bit of a budget budget vision. You can kind of see those are kind of pages 47 through 49. But um as I mentioned, you know, we have some we have fairly limited capital costs. So a lot of times the the main costs you're going to see are plans and studies that we do. Um I think over time as community economic development division continues to expand and start to be involved in some of uh the other types of initiatives and implementation from the plans. I think we may become more involved in capital uh planning and some of the the physical construction of things happening in our community, but for now, you know, that's kind of where we're at. Um like I said, most of our costs come into studies and plans each year that are outside of that personnel are operating. Um we're an evolving department. You'll see later in the in this presentation a little bit about some staffing changes and some different organization. And I think that that'll be something that I'll continue to look at. um as far as community economic development is how we can best serve the community in those areas that this department oversees. Last um we're heavily customer serviceoriented and I think that that's just something that comes not only within the different uh areas that we're charged and serving as we happen to engage with the general public significantly dayto-day in our operations. uh I think that that's just

something that we will continue to focus on and it's a pretty forefront in our mind and idea as we go into each day and kind of how we operate whether it's uh simple things like inspections or broader things like engagement with the citizenry during like public planning events or things like that. So to dig a little bit more into budget uh community and economic development is 4% of the the city's budget. our budgets around about $2 million. Um overall, uh you know, to remind you, the community economic development department is only two years old. Um this department has existed in the past. Um so the community economic development department was a department um in past years. Uh but this reestablishment is provide just that broader organization of you know planning, code administration, the health inspections and code enforcement. You'll see the budget's broken out into about 70% personnel. Uh 30% are operating and long-term costs um mostly in planning and things like that. Uh I'll point out there's a small reduction in our budget from 26 to 27 mostly related to those plans as you'll see each year. That's kind of where our budget bounces between uh because if we don't have any major plans in the year, we definitely reduce our budget and we don't need to ask for any budgetary uh requests for those. Um one thing I'll point out is our our fee revenue. This is related to mostly our building permit fees. Um I think it's an important thing to point out in that the permit fees that we do receive provide uh a great boost to the to the general fund but also u provides you know uh some some guidance in kind of what we're doing within this department in terms of how we why we're charging those fees and

what we're the services we're providing in terms of inspections and planning. So, just some highlights. Um, as I mentioned, my budget is pretty pretty straightforward, but I think that there are some highlights. We do have some uh minimally centrally budgeted requests. You find those on page 40, about $12,000 software related and those types of things. Um, a bigger item here is a new capital project uh for Boulder Drive sidewalks. Um, this is this is associated with sidewalks that are located on the east side of Boulder Drive. The city of Larry owns those properties. There's a detention pond at the north and some commercial property to the south. This is this is fully geared on on future economic development and use of those properties and getting those into some sort of usable u use in the future, whether that's housing, commercial space. By getting the sidewalks in, this makes it easier to develop as well as easier to subdivide, move boundary lines, change easements, and provides us the administrative ability instead of coming to council through a longer process to maybe do that and work more nimly with anyone that might be interested in those properties. The other reason and importance of this project is the Bill Nye Avenue corridor. as it continues to move forward and begins construction in the near future, those utilities will open up the southern portion of that property, making this uh we believe very attractive to maybe future development. Some other items and mostly projects and studies. Um we've got three projects here, wayfinding, and forge comp plan and reconnecting communities that are going to see some carryover from this budget. Um we're almost done with the wayfinding project. Um you'll see many

of those signs out throughout throughout our community. The main signs that are missing are along Third Street, which we're working through with property owners and with LA to get necessary easements in places that we can to try to install the last remaining sides. Um so that project is coming in under budget and it's going to be completed we believe in the near future. Forge comp plan is just in its second year. So that's just carryover funding from the previous year. And then reconnecting communities. We're we're still doing a little bit of work on this project. You all have adopted that plan. Um but we did have additional budget um with us that we are working with the Union Pacific Railroad to try to better understand how we can improve our connections over that uh space. They are a an interesting animal to work with. I'm going to say um they're a large bureaucracy that is sometimes hard to work with, but we're starting to learn and understand through this process how we might be able to work with them. And so we're using some of that budget as we kind of wrap up uh some of our conversations with them. The last item I note is a is a new item here um in the uh fiscal budget of for this year is the $35,000 for concept design for the east and west side of the Garfield Street foot bridge. Uh both in the reconnecting communities plan as well as much of the downtown discussions that we recently had on the downtown plan. This has been a topic of importance. How do we improve those landings and create the the space that we want to see when we get off of the bridge, but also helping connect our west side and bus Larby to the remainder of our town and is the main pedestrian route in our community. Future 2829 uh budgets, a lot of construction uh funds projected in there and we we'll

come and talk to you again next year on those topics. But um it's a pretty good project and I think it's going to be an exciting time to kind of see those improvements come. Last thing I'm going to talk about is a little bit about personnel uh rental housing coordinator. This is a position that we're looking to really focus on addressing uh and working with the rental with rentals in our community. And so, uh this is going to be a position that'll I'll show kind of on the next slide where that will be within the within the department as well as our building another building inspector position. Um, one of the things that we have noted is we are getting to the point where our inspectors are essentially spending 7 hours of their 8 hour day in the field doing inspections. That leaves about an hour to take phone calls to uh do plan review and things like that on average per week. And um that just simply is not cutting it anymore. We believe that having that in addition position uh will help kind of ease ease the ability for not only inspections across the community doing those even in a faster fashion but also uh giving the ability of our chief building official to work on some of the long range uh objectives of the of the building department that really haven't got to be focused on just due to time limitations. So, um, I will point out though, both these positions are two-year limited positions. So, we we mentioned this earlier in the presentation. I think Todd or not in my presentation, but in I think it was Spire's presentation, Todd mentioned, you know, we think we need to kind of try these out and see see how this helps and how our budgets look as we move forward into the future. Um, by doing a two-year position, this gives us some flexibility when two years comes up that um, if we don't have the budget or we

find that these are significantly uh, no longer needed or something, then we could we could pivot and move on that. So, when we're looking at that, we're kind of looking at this rental housing uh, coordinator to potentially be, you know, kind of a new position similar to our code enforcement and health inspector. Uh there's definitely been some talks we may bring code all the code enforcement, health inspector and rental housing coordinator all into one role under one kind of a organizational person. Um and then just our new building inspector would just fall under our chief building official as well. So, um, with that, I would be happy to take any questions and I hope Derek, can you go back one slide and just um reiterate what you said about um code enforcement and rental housing coordinator being qualified under a single position. See all these three positions. Yeah, I think in the future it's going to make some sense to probably house these under some sort of a manager.

Oh, okay. After the two years in the in the future. And I think and I think that that's yeah, that's probably two years out, maybe even longer. I think that split management structure is going to make sense there to help with with all of those efforts that kind of fall in this like inspection rule. um that's uh going to be needing some some more focus that maybe not some of our other staff can provide.

Counselors if I could add that maybe comes a little bit from my direction. One of the big struggles struggles in municipal government was one position department if somebody leaves the impact of the upheaval is so difficult and fill in. The idea behind that type of structure is to create some verticality where somebody maybe has the general knowledge through all the positions that can if somebody leaves and can be covered or they understand there's a broader understanding of what's happening provides better continuity of service for us and chance that somebody does retire or leave for any reason.

Thanks Derek uh for his name. Great. Um, you know, I've heard from a few folks about the rental housing coordinator and, you know, people in the community saying, "Do we need to add another position, you know, for in this in this title?" I guess could you just describe kind of the need and, you know, adding this position? I think it's great that if there's two years to kind of look and see if this is an underutilized position, then maybe it's not recommended in the future. But kind of the the role that hasn't been filled in the city government, if that's the way I want to phrase it, like what this would bring to like community economic development team by adding that position. So here's what I would say to that. So currently right now Nancy and her team are fielding complaints for any issues surrounding the rental housing code that was adopted by council. Right.

And one I would say that we know that and I'm going to speak for Nancy. She is a busy person at her apartment is is is is not the size and usually not equipped to handle a lot of those calls. Um, I think that this position is going to be able to focus on one responding to rental housing complaints, which is a large component of the rental housing code, but number two can start working on the incentive side of the the the objectives that this council has talked about, whether it's promoting good rental housing practices, uh, developing, you know, whether it's seminars or, uh, going after grants. for smoke dete whatever it is that we're we're talking about on that non enforcement side of things. The other thing about the rental housing uh program that we do know is that we don't have full compliance. We know that there are no rentals that are out there that are not signed up. We just simply don't have the time and that person that's dedicated to do to do the job to reach out, contact the places, do the research and and get get those rentals registered so that we could start to do what the ordinance was intended is to provide the basic life and safety for the people renting these units. And so, you know, although there is the that that enforced insight, I think that that's going to become, we hope, a small component. Um, I will say though that does take a significant amount of time. It takes coordination of multiple departments to go do an inspection, often preparing reports, and this will allow that person to kind of be prepared. The other thing that I think is going to be really important about the rental housing coordinator is building relationships with the different people that own rentals. Um, you know, ultimately we

want to provide safe rental situations for people that are renting, but also we want to be able to provide opportunities for people that are renting their properties. maybe programs or abilities to reach out and make connections with city staff to, you know, fix issues, solve problems. That's where this person's going to lie. And, you know, when we have such just a heavy rental market in this community, I think it just makes sense to try to provide them and say, good customer service in that area to the best that we can.

Yeah. Thanks, Derek. I I really appreciate that response. I appreciate that response and answer. And I think that's exactly what I'd be hoping to see. And uh my last thoughts uh on this would just be I kind of could see this position maybe filling the role of like a a convenor of kind of like we did with different developers and contractors, you know, facilitating feedback. I could see that being, you know, for either people renting places or for landlords or people owning rentals, you know, it's kind of a way to to do a think tank or get feedback. And I could see that that role maybe filling that position at some point. Um my second comment is I think we need to add more award on NY's um agenda not I do not support that

word that's like outside the scope of the state expertise she's got I mean public outreach will be important I I think I I would I really would emphasize that I think it's going to be building those relationships like I said with like the university and you know different management or different property managers and property owners and things like that. Thanks. That's good.

And this would also add to the small landlord improvement program that we've been trying to work on to try to get the amount of manpower to work on the initiatives that council has been important to push forward. And and far and wide what I see across the city is there's great ideas, all this going on. There's just not enough hours in the day for us to get them done. This is one way to try to send something

really appreciate this. It feels like it's a long time because every year we're like why why here? Why is this not working? You know, I'm not due heard that time. I'll say two things. What that we're going to try this for the SL program, right? We got that approved and budgeted and then kind of other things took priority because bottom line Jim I don't want to take a chance. So it's it's really nice that we're going to try this and we're going to try this for two years. The other aspect of this that I've heard um is the people who have registered their rental goals, right? And then they, you know, I don't know if any other council members have talked to some of those, but you know, they'll say like, "Oh, well, I know XYZ over here hasn't, so why should I keep doing it now? We have somebody who can go after or help XYZ understand why we have this right." Um, and then lastly, um, I don't think this position will take away from slip because that takes a budget amendment, right? Um, and I think that was something that I saw online that, you know, if we're going to add in this position, what are we going to get rid of so far? Nothing, right? Um, so I I appreciate this and I think it's going to get the SLO program or the land board recognition programs really going where we want them to.

Thumbs up. Thanks, Brandon. You've been waiting all day for that, huh? Absolutely. counselors. I'm not seeing any more questions for uh Derek. We do have We were hoping to get through it tonight if that was possible. We're getting clipper right at the 8:00 hour, but I think it'll be a brief presentation with a few questions and then our intent is to push uh Nancy and Patty. Oh, are we going to try to get through HR tonight? Let's get through HR. So, ID and HR tonight and then we'll push Patty and Jen to uh Thursday. Okay. It's been a long day.

And yes, page one. There should be a G.

I like it. I'm not sure what it is, but it's the new age.

The IT supplemental budget requests are found in the budget book on pages 50 and 51. Um, so tonight I'll just give a brief highle overview of what it does, where we see technology needs going in the future, the reasoning behind the budget requests. So technology is now integrated into nearly every aspect of modern government operations and services. So both city staff and citizens rely on technology every day for all their communications, information access, and essential services. So what it does is we ensure that every department and division across the city has reliable access to the applications, systems, and information they need to effectively serve people community. Our role is to make technology reliable, secure, and accessible so departments can focus on serving citizens. A little bit of numbers. Um, it supports hundreds of desktops and laptops and servers across the organization, including system maintenance, security updates, replacements, ongoing support. We also protect and back up a significant amount of data for the city both locally and in the cloud. From a connectivity standpoint, it maintains and secures network and internet access across more than 25 city facilities. We provide both wired and wireless access for city employees as well as public Wi-Fi access within city buildings. So, kind of the strategic direction where we're going. it plans to continue strengthening our cyber security protections for the city and its citizens while striving to remain as unobtrusive as possible and min minimize disruptions to city services. So as technology demands continue to grow and you've seen that in already in some of the presentations that you've had some of the presentations that will be coming technologies been mentioned

software has been mentioned of this new thing is going to help us and so it hopes to expand the areas where we can support departments with their new softwares in order to improve operational efficiency and better software driven workflow across the city. So, as part of that service expansion, it is proposing an additional position. This is a two-year proposal and a department reorganization internally to focus on improving software support and end user training both generally and for specialized applications used across the city. This would allow it to expand service capabilities while maintaining the infrastructure and support levels that we currently provide. As far as the operating and equipment request, the recommended budget includes a modest increase within operations and equipment budgets. This is to address announced and anticipated vendor price increases for software, hardware, licensing, and support services. I believe the overall amount is around $10,000 when the additions and subtractions are taken into account. And so it's nice and short for it. the that's kind of an overview for our department and the direction and our 27 fiscal year 27 budget request. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you gentlemen. Um this isn't a question and it's not even really a request. Um but you know there there's so many departments that we liaz with and we get to see you know week after week after week after week and it is not one of them. Um we see you and so I even think I would at some point I'd like to see the flowchart. I'd like to know who our like the the rest of our team is and and what they do and and have those opportunities that we don't get with the same, you know, regularity that we get with Jen staff or Philip or or Derek staff, etc. Thank you. The team often likes to hide in the background and be behind the the keyboard on um we do have a great staff, especially as we as we propose a reorganization um through our city manager. that might be a time we can come in and show showcase some of that. Some of my team did get to come before city council when the the crowd strike thing happened and we got to work a couple days straight

but we have a great staff. I would add to that but I think uh if I would ask Jonathan if you could put your organizational chart together and get it to me we'll get it out to council. But the other thing is don't share that because we don't want their names getting out. We want people to head hunt them away from us. And I'll just say councelor Bullan, you must be really good and careful with your computer cuz I see them a lot more. I'm getting better though.

All right, no further questions for Jonathan. We'll move on to Patty Russell, our director for later. Good evening. How is everybody? Yes, sir.

So, the human resources is a department that either people love or hate. We like to hate the ones that they love. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Ivory currently has three full-time employees and one part-time provisional keep us really busy. We support about 450 full and part-time employees. We are, as you can tell by the earlier screens, 1% of the city budget set up really easily. What do we do? Well, first of all, budget for this year, we're not asking for anything extra at this point. We're going to keep things the way they are until we know something. So, um we're not asking for additional monies or changes in fiscal year 27. While we work, we want to ensure that we plan well in the use of funding that we currently have. What is human resources? It's a little bit of absolutely everything. HR is a field that touches every department of the organization. We are truly the liaison between our employees and management. We ensure the following of city, state and federal laws as well as administer the employment related practices and policies. We not only work with each department but also every employee who works for the city either full-time or part-time has to work with HR at various times during the time their time within the city whether it's new hired orientation or when they leave the organization and sometimes in the middle for benefits. Our work actually starts before we employ anyone. First, we need to recruit, interview, and hire the best qualified employees in accordance to our policies and the federal employee, I'm sorry, equal employment opportunity laws. HR sits in the majority of the interviews that we have with the city and works with our hiring managers to find the best fit for

their environments. Then onboarding with employees begin. Our new ARP will include a recruiting module that will also interface with the payroll module within the success with successful applicants. But entering all their information at the very beginning takes time and takes effort in making sure their benefits are all written at the same time. We facilitate the onboarding process before their first day of work. We meet with the successful candidates and start the hiring process to include their paperwork and drug testing. They they then come to our office in their first day of employment to fill out the remainder of their paperwork and learn about and sign up for their employee benefits. All employees have been required to participate in different mandatory training than we have including sexual harassment, driving, anything that we need them to to participate in. Um, sorry. This is done in small doses several times a year as is our driver's training. We have additional trainings for our supervisor staff and we're working on including a new supervisors packet and training as as well as current employees training that way. So, a lot of employee relations that we had to deal with. Not only do we have to deal with people coming on board, people leaving um emotions, anything like that, we have to work with our supervisor staff on their performance management, not only human management performance evaluation process, which is also being updated with our new ARP, but we work with supervisor personnel on performance improvement plans, disciplinary actions that are needed and sometimes unfortunately terminations. We are also the keeper of all employee files. So any documents for the employment cycle of our employees kept in our office. I have a sign on my desk that I make sure everybody sees. It says did you documented? That's us. Everything gets documented and put in files.

We do compensation and benefits administration. I'm continuously looking at the benchmarks or salaries for continuing for various positions within the city to ensure we are classifying and paying our employees correctly. We want to make sure that we're fair and consistent within the organization and keeping up with benchmarks that are within our area. The other thing we work on is performance management. As stated earlier, it's it's also something that we help our managers with. All full-time employees are evaluated at at least once a year. This enables the city to support the decisions that we need to make in promoting disciplining termination. We rely on documentation to help us make decisions regarding regarding employee actions. Once again, did you document it? Compliance and regulatory obligations. There are a lot of laws and acronyms that we had to follow.

As stated earlier, we had to follow local, state, and federal laws that maintain the records of our employees and all documentation. Our policy had to be followed and enforced according to most of the laws that are listed here plus a few more. I got done with the presentation and I found like five more than I should have. I'm trying to see how many I know. It's a lot.

Risk management is also part of HR. We um not only do we administer the property and liability claims that come through the city, but also our employee related issues and federal laws such as harassment, discrimination, unfair labor practices, terminations. Risk is something that we discuss not just as a department but as a city every single day. Key areas of employment discrimination and harassment claims. Luckily we do not do not have many of those. Wage and hour violations. Actually we don't have many any of these. Thank goodness. Workplace safety incidents. Our teams are really really good at providing us information about what goes on within their department safety wise so that we can always cater our training to what needs to be addressed. Um we work with our insurance carrier warm on also providing training as as situations come up. Um for example the city of CA Cheyenne has had some major incidences with backing incidents with their sanitation department. We had actually brought that back to our department here and said here's some things we can do to make sure that that that doesn't happen to us. I don't want our names to be mentioned in the more meeting saying look whatever.

So we also look at mclassification whether it's exempt or non-exempt of our employees as well as making sure that privacy and confidentially confidentiality is taken care of. HR is an integral part of the organization. We work with every single department. We work with all of our employees. We our job is to protect the city and our employees and ensure legal compliance and our HR practices um reduce risk. Any questions?

First I have this kind of a question. First I want to say I'm so proud of our staff like everything we learn about what they're doing. And so that's why it's important to me and I'm sure most of council that that we keep wages competitive and I know that you've worked on that because we know that to replace an employee is expensive and and you you lose a lot of time in that training. So my question is um we seem to be goodly again I'm going to just take credit for the whole city. We seem to be good about that continuity like passing on skills. So that um um so that when we when we lost Malia for example, we weren't like, "Oh no, how do we do all this?" So is that something that HR encourages like within each department? Make sure you're training people down the down the track or is that within the department, they just know to do that

within reason. We try to have those conversations with a lot of our departments, especially for key positions, on what would you do if this person left or if if something were to happen. We try to make sure that um our key responsibilities within the city are always something that we can we can work on and we can we can address even if that person I say wins the lottery and moves to Jamaica. I've never had to get by location. This won't happen. So, I do try to have a conversation with a lot of our department heads. I try to have that conversation with some of our managers. Um, we have if people leave, we have certain pumpkins that have to be taken care of and we all I think as department heads we all know that and have conversations with about that as well.

That's correct. We actually encourage secession planning so that we know what's happening. And I can tell you that even in the realm that I'm at that director way and myself have been talking about what does the session plan look like? What does the future look like just in this realm and we're constantly encouraging our directors to continue to think about what does the future look like because the next will be here.

Thanks Patty. Um I have a question maybe for you. It could be answered by like any of the directors or or Todd or whomever. But um just in terms of talent acquisition from an organizational perspective, what are some of the biggest barriers to recruitment to the city?

I think Brian mentioned that a little bit earlier is the newer generations don't don't look at the old ways of doing recruiting anymore. They don't look at the newspaper for a job. They don't always look at the hiring sites like Indeed for for jobs anymore. I actually was excited that that Brian had suggested his part-time person had put in the job description work with human resources because we want to make sure we get into that ability of reaching the right people to come and work with us. So that is one of our toughest. If I add to that just a little bit, some of the specific skills are hard to hire to uh director Wade's uh the CPAs and that knowledge. It's becoming fewer and farther between uh director Teny and the building inspectors. You know, you've got to have somebody that's got building experience and balancing that wage competition versus what they could make working for the city versus what they could make in the building realm. You know, those are the things that we see. um far and wide once we do get an employee in they realize that the city of Miami is a great place to work um and they they typically stay with us for periods of time and it's tough to find those skills and it's also tough sometimes to find the right fit

because they have to be able to fit you to work as a team. It took me it took me six to eight months to find somebody for my team just because we needed to have that good fit of somebody who could do a little bit of absolutely everything because we're a small apartment. We all have to lean on each other for test and to comment biotech has a career fair every three months right and it's actually this week so like this is like kind of something that you guys can hit on um they'll only use like NP and they won't look anywhere else and so like

you know our students could do like 12 interviews each a day um for two days. But then like I had one student who was like I'm not doing any I put my rest on Indeed. Somebody will call me and like that's the mindset of some of these younger people. So I'm like really excited to see like what this new um position will do for hopefully we can fund them out to other departments. Right? Matty, I just want to say thanks for the presentation and I think similar to it as councelor Bowie mentioned or will I should say um you know I think in my year and a half on council been really grateful for the times that HR has been in the room when they're needed and and you guys are kind of unsung heroes and I say that similar to Jonathan's team where there's a lot going on behind the scenes and if we're not seeing you that means it's probably working okay uh you know and so just grateful for all the work that you do and and same with sort of those other departments that aren't quiet in front of council is saying in the same way. Thank you.

Counselors, I hope you've enjoyed these presentations tonight. We'll pick them up again Thursday. But now I think it's time to go back into the uh reformalize the work session so that we can go through uh agenda review for next week. Yes.

Well, I know I'm about to I have to uh bring we are back under rule support rules and procedures and so our next step is to ask is there any public comment on this agenda item. Thank you, honorable mayor, members of council. I'm listening intently to to all these descriptions of what the departments are doing. And the only thing that concerns me about what I'm hearing tonight and also what I've seen in the documents that are posted online is that we seem to be growing the city government many times faster than our population. Uh L's population grows about a half a percent a year. And here we are talking about adding with several percent to the to the size of of city government and that's a bit of a concern. Um some of the I think some some of the positions that have been proposed tonight are definitely needed. I I definitely hire another building inspector because for heaven's sake we have construction projects that are held up for days because people can't get their work inspected. That's definitely a positive thing. On the other hand, hire when we have six complaints under our rental housing ordinance per year, hiring for $100,000 salary per year, um a rental housing zar seems a bit excessive. Um, and uh, there's a concern there that not not only would this be wasteful because we don't have enough business for that person to do, but also that that person might go fishing for more things to do to justify that $100,000 salary and actually harm the situation with regards to rentals, which has already become problem due due to regulation. A lot of people are are divesting and selling and otherwise

getting out of the business. So, I would caution you to look this up carefully. try to be, you know, try to be a little bit more efficient about this and and and don't uh and don't overspend, especially at a time when we have a referendum coming up on the general election ballot, which would greatly cut our property tax revenue and therefore cut the money we have to spend on this. Thank you.

Any further comment on this agenda item? Okay. Thank you uh to those who have attended tonight. Uh next, uh council updates. Um councelor Newman. None. Vice Mayor Richardson.

Emma, there you may pass. Uh councelor V Hill. Yeah. Thank you, mayor. Um, just for me, we heard it at the beginning of the meeting. I just want to express some appreciation um for tonight's vote. Uh, I'm really excited to um be going to Texas for town gown and um I will come back with an extensive report. Thanks. Councelor Shway, no updates. Thank you, councelor Boling.

Uh thank you, Mayor. Um really the last meeting I had with police advisory and it was almost the same presentation that we got tonight. So on that um it was the same day as the suspense. Oh and we had youth council on last Tuesday last Tuesday but then they immediately presented to council. So there you go. Thank you councelor Lart.

Thank you mayor. um attended a planning commission last evening and they ended up with board of variance which is they're going to have something we're going to look at. The issue was a house that's almost finished ended up with some siding that is very top of the line sighting and but at the last inspection after it had already been put on and not building inspector did not know it was not allowed and it's very top of line. So after about an hour discussion, it was postponed so they can work on a text amendment to go through us because it's top of the line, but yet it's not allowed in the in the code. And so it's going to be very interesting. And the entire planning commission came up to me afterwards like you guys are going to be for this, right? They they want this to happen for this children. So um so I'm really excited to see that. That that's about it.

Thank you. Uh let's see. Uh councelor Freed. Thank you, Mayor. Um no new meeting since the last um work session, but on uh Wednesday at 6 p.m. the parks and rec board will meet uh for a regular monthly meeting, but we'll be doing at Lante Park outside. There's a presentation and we'll walk around some of the updates from the Lante Park project, which is pretty cool. Then the ranch range advisory commission works or meets uh on Thursday the 14th at 1 p.m. in this room. Um and there will be no traffic safety commission that day on the 14th due to the city council work session. That's all I have.

Thank you councelor Lordy. Um, I'm just lurking the advisory commission on disabilities, but I know they're planning on having a booth that freedom has a birthday uh to and pride in the park to inform the public about disabilities. And I know one of the issues they hope to address is to encourage people to um to to understand what's available for voting. if you have a disability, how how you can vote. And then um that's it. I mean, thanks.

Thank you. And then I attended the Albany County Housing and Land Trust uh steering committee meeting and uh we are continuing to move forward with uh organ organization and creating structure. Uh we're currently uh as far as membership goes looking now for additional communitybased people uh who can contribute that perspective to the group especially uh we're looking for someone who is a renter to provide that perspective. Uh so that committee is moving forward. On May 2nd, I attended the UW Art Gayla as the guest of uh Rocky Mountain Power and it was really the intention was uh to bring us together and I was able to have really a long probably more than 30 minute conversation with the president of the Rocky Mountain Power and was able to promote you know our town, what's going on our approach to economic development and he's real interested in pulling a meeting together where we can just sit down and brainstorm. Uh um he told me that uh they tend to work on three to five year minimum plans and that a community that comes to them and wants it tomorrow is not going to be able to get something. And he said also uh you can't build it on dreams. You have to have a plan. So with that, I think we're in good shape to uh have some feasibly productive

conversations. I've had a number of constituent meetings uh probably about 1, two, three, four, five in the last two weeks. And that's been helpful to get out and talk to people and spend time out in the community. Um, and then uh I did a video with Owen uh expressing gratitude uh to the public for the six penny vote. Um I and this week I'm engaged in civil service all day meetings. Uh so today and tomorrow and tomorrow at 8:00 there's the airport board and um and then uh on the 18th I'm one of the readers at the library for reading day and that's going to be fun. So I'm going to be uh reading at 8:30 in the morning to a group of school kids. So I'm really looking forward to that. I remember it for this

if it's okay. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry.

For everyone's knowledge they have started, they're working with you who wildlife system and they are graphing all sort of images. they have thousands like 60,000 images or something like that and um are also utilizing AI through those find images of wildlife that process um but the initial data was really interesting um just to kind of see how migration is changing or not a lot in a lot of ways so if anyone is interested in that I can be sure to repeat that where they are so far on that

very good Next, counselors, if you could take a look at the agenda for next week. My first question would be if there's any suggestions to move an item from the consent agenda to uh the regular agenda.

Yes, councelor. I I don't know that it would need to be moved necessarily, but I think the public would be interested in the u the Laram Lake bus route. So, I don't know if that could or there just isn't much information yet to share about that. So, it's 9H.

Yeah. Council or council already through mayor. It's certainly your option. It's just a figure extension of the existing amendment. So there's nothing new. Uh the work the summary does talk about the 10ear strategic public transportation plan and that this is establishing the baseline and maintaining our baseline that we currently have and that gives us time to work on and work with our partner on hopefully extending that into the version hopefully. But I don't need a thanks.

Yeah, I will say that the vice mayor and I had questions on 9G. of I think and 9H and these were just was it 9G? Anyway, these were just renewals uh rather than new contracts. So, um we decided to leave it. So, if there no other suggestions, if we can look at the regular agenda, is there any questions or concerns? Seeing none, uh that concludes our meeting and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you very much.