City Council - Regular Meeting

the winner is Don't forget know Yeah. So they went plus or - 5. It is

for a while. I'm like, "Wow,

you got Yeah.

Like 15 Why are you so long? Oh yeah.

Good. I like to get across at least a couple.

I think you you can do it. You can still do it. You can still do it. Okay.

Gavl 10. Well, now that you said that, it won't be. Come on. This mean the Oaklair City Council will come to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. City clerk, please call the role. Council member Burton here. Rooster

here. Johnson here. Miller here. Otto here. Reed here. Sean here. Serrano here. Worth here.

Great. Thank you. Welcome everyone to our Tuesday, March 24th meeting of the Oaklair City Council. Uh first up tonight is our consent agenda. If any of you are here for our consent agenda, just know we uh vote on this with one vote and so when it passes, you are good to go. Uh with that, do council members have questions regarding the consent agenda or wish to remove anything for separate consideration? Okay. All right. Then on a motion by council member Otto, second by council member Serrano. This item, the consent agenda is moved. Any discussion? See the clerk, please call the role. Council member Bergie I. Brewster I.

I. Miller. I. Otto. I. Reed. I. Sh. I. Serrano. I. Worth. Hi.

Great. The consent agenda passes unanimously. We have two proclamations tonight. Um, and we one our first one is Mung Heritage Month, which I don't think anyone is here to accept. I will read here uh from my seat and then we have one for National Public Health Week which Lisa will or director Gizy will meet me up front. But first up u M heritage month. Whereas the M are an ethnically and culturally diverse people with roots in Southeast Asia specifically Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myiramar and China. And whereas during the Vietnam War, thousands of members of the Mung community were a vital part of the American war effort, supporting and fighting alongside American troops. And whereas when the United States withdrew from the region, the Mung faced harsh retribution from the communist, Vietnamese, and Lao governments for their involvement, and thousands of refugees were forced to flee their native lands and later resettled in communities throughout the United States, including Oaklair. And whereas among Americans have lived and worked in Oaklair since the first family arrived in 1976 and have contributed greatly to our local identity and region's rich history, culture, economy, and public service. And whereas the city of Oaklair stands united in denouncing racism and discrimination and remains committed to fostering a safe and inclusive community because all are welcome here. Now therefore, I, Emily Bergie, president of the Oaklair City Council, on behalf of the entire city council, do proclaim April as Mung Heritage Month in the city of Oaklair and urge all citizens to reflect on the sacrifices the M people have made for our comm community country and join us in honoring and celebrating this rich culture and the legacies of M Americans to our community, our state, and our nation.

And I do know there's some uh specific M events coming up. So maybe I'll look those up and can share them in the updates. Um maybe I don't have it in front of me right now, but next our next meeting too. So make sure we support that. And so if uh yeah, Lisa want to meet me up front for National Public Health Week. We have to sign it though. Make it official. So whereas National Public Health Week recognizes the important role of public health in improving the well-being of communities across the nation including Oaklair and whereas our community continues collaborative work to address Oaklair County's top identified health concerns, housing, mental health, substance misuse, alcohol misuse, and child care. And whereas the Oaklair City County Health Department supports a thriving and healthy community through efforts such as responding to and preparing for potential communicable disease outbreaks through education and providing immunizations. Conducting environmental inspections and water testings to prevent health risk and to respond to community needs. Supporting families and young through programs like WIC and nurse family partnership, developing and implementing strategies to address opioid related harm through prevention, treatment and recovery efforts and convening community partners across sectors to collaborate on improving local health outcomes. And whereas the theme of this year's health week is ready set action highlighting the impact of scientific discovery legislation and community initiatives that improve the health of Americans. Now therefore, I, Emily Bergie, president of the Oaklair City Council,

on behalf of the entire city council, do recognize the week of April 6, 2026 to be National Public Health Week and call upon the people of Oaklair to observe this week by helping our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and leaders by working to understand the value of public health better to create a healthy and thriving community for us all.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, President Bergie, and um thanks to city council members. Um it is um really an enormous thanks to everybody in the community that makes a difference in health outcomes in this in this community in the city of Oaklair and across Oaklair County. Health Department absolutely does not do it alone. But the 60 plus people that work at the health department on all kinds of programs and services really do work hard, connect with partners, and um make a difference. But we couldn't do it without all the people sitting in this room, all of you guys, and um all kinds of partners across the community. Um an enormous thank you to the staff that work at our department. Um they have been working hard this year. We have a hot off the press annual report that council member Miller will be part tomorrow at the board of health meeting of hopefully approving. But until it's approved, we will not officially share it. But I will share it with council me with President Bergie. So you all can see in the that annual report the kind of work that we do across all the different program areas. Um, we often say the work of public health is invisible. And I think public health week is a time where we can make some of it a bit more visible. If we're doing our work well, you are not getting sick when you go to the restaurants in the city of Oaklair. And you are not having challenges with um things that are happening related to opioid overdoses. You are having new moms and babies being um given the nutrition and the support they need for success. So when we have all those things happening, right, things look really well in our community and we've got good employees and we have um family member families that want to come to this community. So we'll keep working hard. We count on the

partnership with all of you and thanks for recognizing the week. Stop by for the public health week if you'd like to to see what's going on.

Thank you. Okay, under our business agenda. So, uh, number 12, resolution authorizing 2025 2025 year end budget adjustments. Uh, so 25 to 26 year end budget carryovers and 26 first quarter budget uh, adjustments. and we have Michael here to uh talk through this. So, thanks for being here.

Yes. Uh good afternoon, council members. Uh my item on the agenda today is our standard process of bringing periodic budget adjustments before you for city council approval. Um we have some 25 yearend adjustments, 25 to 26 carryovers, and then some uh first quarter 26 adjustments as well. Uh the following information is detailed on the memorandum within your council packet, but I will attempt to briefly summarize these adjustments so that we have them on the record. and please let me know if there are any questions. Um, so to start with, uh, will be the 25 yearend budget adjustments. Now, these year-end adjustments are required each year whenever the total budget of a fund is exceeded. Um, adjustments are also required whenever a department budgeted for within the city's general fund exceeds its total departmental budget. So, the following items numbered 1 through nine on your memorandum are all related to the year-end budget adjustments. Um item number one, uh the suppression operations division of our fire department requires a budget amendment in the amount of $254,450 and this is for additional funding that was needed for equipment purchases. Um this amendment has a net zero impact on the overall general fund as there are savings within a number of other departments uh that came in under budget uh to account for this. Um item number two, the redevelopment authority fund requires a budget amendment in the amount of $141,664 and this is due to increases on land credit towards um RDA land sales. Uh item number three, the West Grand Avenue bid uh budget requires an amendment in the amount of $3,845 and this is for a bid approved purchase of garlands and lights. Um, and this increase will come out of the bids fund balance. Uh, item number four, the seven mile creek landfill fund. It requires an amendment in the amount of $25,450.

Um, and this is due to increased payments to our partner municipalities um due to increased revenue received. Our partner partner municipalities uh with the seven mile creek landfill would be Oaklair County and the town of Seymour. Uh item number five, the cemetery maintenance fund requires an amendment of $24,156 and this is due to higher than anticipated payroll costs. Um this amount is offseted with uh higher uh revenue uh received than what was budgeted for. Uh item number six, the risk management fund requires a budget amendment of 2,93,39. Um the predominant factors leading to this adjustment are uh there was 1.7 million in insurance claims in 25 and then there was also an additional $200,000 in fleet damage claims in 2025. Um, this amendment proposes the use of 1,119,836 in uh the fund balance usage from risk management's fund balance and then the remaining $973,473 would be transferred from the general fund to risk management in order to help replenish the riskmanagement fund balance. Um, item number seven, uh, this is for the hazardous materials fund. Uh this fund requires a budget amendment of $12,483 due to increase on equipment purchases and payments to organizations and this will come from the um hazardous materials fund balance. Item number eight, the economic development fund. Uh this fund requires a budget amendment of $351,467. Um, a portion of this amendment, $250,000 worth, is a pass through grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. And then the remaining amount of the $11,467

is loan fund balanced that is used for loan dispersements in 2025. Item number nine, the water utility fund requires a budget amendment in the amount of $7,955 or $955,337. Um the reason for this adjustment is a increase in capital project expenditures related to POS remediation and um this uh expense is being offset by a the receipt of settlement funds from uh 3M and DPANT as well as some settlement or funds received through the safe drinking water fund loan uh through the DNR. So that is items one through nine for the 25 yearend carryovers. Um the next major category would be our 25 to 26 carryovers. Um the for the city revolving loan fund. Um the balance of this loan uh fund program will be carried over to 26 to allow staff and the loan board to continue issuing loans whenever favorable applications are received. Um and item number 10 is just showing that the carryover amount for the revolving loan fund program is $1,22,932. And then uh the next major uh category in the memo is the 25 to 26 year end capital carryovers. Um capital budget appropriations lapse each year for recurring programs and then every three years for non-recurring programs. Departments make carryover requests for capital programs that are not yet complete or that have remaining committed costs. Capital budgets uh carryovers requests total approximately $41.2 million. um numbers uh items number 11 through 23 on your uh memorandum are all related to the year-end capital carryovers. I'm not going to read through each of these items because it's a couple pages and that would take uh quite a bit of time.

Um but to list uh some of the funds uh that are requesting carryovers uh the capital funds we have uh water sewer storm uh parking uh transit central equipment environmental improvements the land buildings and equipment fund. uh transportation improvements, parks and recreation, uh tiff number 13, the Canary District, um TIFF number 14, the Monamin Street Redevelopment Area, and then the redevelopment authority fund. Now, the list of these capital projects and the amounts requested to be carried over are detailed on the memorandum within your council packet. And then there's uh just one 2026 operating budget adjustment this evening. It's item number 24 and it's the um the public library has a first quarter budget adjustment in the amount of 17,34 in various gifts and grants received. And then the last category is going to be 2026 capital budget adjustments. Um and those will be items number 25 through 27 on your memo. Um, item number 25. This request came from our water utility department and it is to transfer $147,500 from the Mount Washington reservoir reco project and transfer it to the water generator project. Um the water generator project bid came in over the original budget amount and so they are asking to reallocate the remainder of the funds from the uh Mount Washington reco project to allow them to fund the generator overage and any potential change orders. Uh item number 26. Uh the city received $14,000, excuse me, $140,222 in insurance claim reimbursements for a squad car being replaced and also a

riding lawn mower that was damaged. And this amendment will increase the vehicle replacement budget um in order for them to purchase replacement equipment. And item number 27, the last item on your memo, this is related to $30,000 in escrow that the city retained due to completion of work uh within a development agreement. Um and this item would increase the trail program budget by 30 uh $30,000 which reimbures the city for the work that it had to complete in relation to this. And that is all of the items that I have on the budget amendment memo. So please let me know if there are any questions. Thank you. Council member Brewster. Thank you, Council President. Flip up your tag, too.

Oh, I sure could. Thanks. You're good. Thanks. Um, I was wondering if you could maybe go into a little bit of detail, if you're allowed to, on the uh risk management.

I can at least provide I talked to our risk management and I was able to at least get some information. So, I can provide you some information that I have. Um there were this year was particularly high in terms of our um insurance claim payments and our fleet damage claim payments. Um the information that I received is that our our property claims increased by 43% in 2025 and our workers compensation claims rose by 45%. Um much of this increase is attributed um to the implementation implementation of a new reporting system which is capturing more accurate and complete data. Um in 2025 we also experienced significant uh vehicle-reated incidents where restitution is unlikely due to criminal activity. Um and then according to our risk manager um they believe the most significant factor in 25 was that we had uh was the incurred workers compensation losses. Um the increase was driven by several high-cost injury claims and uh medical expenses continue to rise significantly and the shortage of local medical providers has led to longer wait times for appointments resulting in extended time away from work between visits. So that was some information that I have for you at least immediately.

Thank you very much. Council member Miller.

Thank you Council President. Thank you Mr. Cobalt for going through that long list there. Um there are a lot of different line items and um different sums going around there. um in the head of the resolution and one of the whereases where is it said that the 2025 general fund will see an increase of $973,000 and some change. Um so that say with all these adjustments giving things that were overbudget things that didn't usually budget up capital being re you know rolled over again that the city from the general fund spent $93,000 less than anticipated to is that how they read that line of the fund will see increase of that amount. um the 973,000 related to the general fund. It's an increase in the the total it would increase the total expense of the budget by that amount and it is going from the general fund into the risk manage to risk management to help replenish their fund replenish their fund balance because of some of the high insurance claim year that we had this year. Um so it will increase the overall budget by that amount.

So increase the amount taken from the general fund not okay because the wording was kind of vague. Like I said, we'll see an increase, but it's the amount taken out of it will increase, not the amount in the fund itself. Yes. Yes. It'll increase. Yes, it'll increase. It's it's um not a savings within the general fund. It's an increased. It didn't look that way, but then that line kind of ran the other way. So, I was I apologize for the confusion. Yeah. Thanks for the clarification. Mhm.

I see other questions. So, thank you, Mr. Corbal. Sorry. So by a motion made by council member Johnson, second by council member Brewster. This item is moved. Any discussion? Okay. Good job, Michael. I heard that. They're just giving them. But uh Okay. No discussions. City. Oh, sorry. Council member Brewster. Thank you, Council President. I always feel like when we're dealing with amounts of money of this type, like we should at least talk about it, but I honestly don't have anything to say. I mean, Michael did a great job explaining and you know, it's all laid out here. So,

Michael is incredible is what I think I heard. So, yes, I have mom ears, just so you know. Yeah. All right. Council member Miller. Thank you. Actually, I had a followup question for Mr. Cobalt, if you wouldn't mind coming up. Um, since we're in the middle of um, you know, many of our sessions on the budget. Um, so this being presented here today, um, had this use increased from the general fund already kind of been I you saw this coming before it got presented for council action today. Um, has the amount needed here been already factored into our 2027 usage of general funds or this going to kind of have to be factored in as we go along these couple of months here?

I in terms of the uh like the in terms of the risk management claims in general fund usage, is that what you're referring to in particular? We are going we're working on the 27 budget now and now we're seeing that perhaps this well that we will be approving uh a use of $923,000 from the general fund. Um is that going to weigh into our uh deliberations as we look at the 27 budget?

Yeah, I think we we are certainly keeping that in mind as we prepare the 27 budget. I think that transfer is particularly high this year. the the risk management fund has seen not just this year but a couple years of relatively high insurance claims compared to usual. So this transfer this year is helping to replenish the fund balance but we probably could have done that you know it we could have done a little bit last year as well. Um so I think it's kind of a culmination of a couple of years of high insurance claims that are leading to this adjustment. I don't foresee that we would necessarily need another $900,000 adjustment next year. I think that would be very unusual. But we're definitely keeping that in mind as we prepare the 27 budget. And why I have you up here and it's probably in the list. How much um does the risk management usually keep in their general fund?

Um in their fund balance. Um so typically for I I was looking over the last 10 years and it's typically runs between about 6.1 and $7.3 million. Um without this adjustment, they would be going down closer to about I believe $4 million without this adjustment. And so I think this adjustment is to get them closer to where they have been historically at least. It's still going to be lower, but it'll get them at least closer to help protect against unexpected um claims and things like that. So, okay. Thanks for coming back up. Mhm. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Any further discussion or questions?

Okay. I believe we moved it. So, city clerk, please call the role. Moved it. Who moved it? I have council member Johnson and council member Brewster. Council member Brewster. I Johnson I Miller I Otto I Reed I show I Serrano I Worthman I Bergie I

and that passes unanimously. Okay. And then donations to transit. A resolution authorizing the community services department to accept a monetary donation from Joining Our Neighbors Advancing Hope or Jonah to sponsor free rides on election day, Tuesday, April 7th, 2026. And we have manager running. Good evening, council president and council.

Um before you is a resolution from um Jonah wanting to sponsor free rides on April 7th for election day. um they've sponsored free rides in the past for election days and they do also want to include paratransit as well. So they work that out with our um paratransit providers to cover the co-pays um for those riders. But um the money goes towards us also marketing that their rides were free and we created some maps of um bus routes to take to polling locations as well.

Great. Thank you. Oh, wait. Let me see if there's questions for you. Is there any questions? Okay. All right. We're good. Thanks. So, by motion made by Council Member Emboga, second by Vice President Worthman. This item is moved. Any discussion? Council member Shown. Thank you, Council President Bergie. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge um how much I appreciate personally on behalf of um our city residents that this donation was made and I'm excited to support this um resolution. Thank you. And thank you to Jonah. Mhm. Thank you. Comments. Okay. All right. Uh, city clerk, please call the role. Council member Johnson.

Hi. Hi. Miller. Hi. Hi. Reed. I

That passes unanimously. Thank you to Jonah. That's very generous of them to make sure people can vote on Tuesday, April 7th. So, our next res resolution is a a resolution authorizing the community services department to accept a monetary donation of $300 from the local ATU 1310 for free transit rides on the day of Earthfest, which is April 18th. Um, and then planner planner, no, I always want to call you planner direct manager. I almost promoted you, too. Thank you. Um, so before you is a resolution to accept from our local ATU 1310, which is the union that represents our drivers and our shop personnel um to sponsor free transit rides um for Earthfest. Um that's the event that previously took place at the Brewing Project. Um but this year it's taking place at the Sonnet Center and it's on a Saturday. Um, we'll have a bus there and they'll do kind of like a a touch a truck event. So, we're really excited to go and attend. Um, and thank you to the ATU for sponsoring it.

Thank you. Do you have a question for Oh, okay. Never mind. It's false alarm. Okay. All right. So, no questions. So, by motion made by council member Miller, second by council member shown. This item is moved. Any discussion? Okay. Well, I'll say thank you. Uh thank you to the local ATU 1310 for free transit rides. Things like this is what makes our community really special and it's really nice that they even think of this idea and then to follow through with it. And I know that requires um leadership and planning and uh I know I'm appreciative of that and I'm sure council is too. So with that city clerk, please call the role. Council member Milogga

I Miller I Otto I shown I Serrano I Bergie I Brewster I Johnson I

that item passes unanimously. Okay we have one item for uh introduction. Ordinance for introduction title 17 land development official zoning map and title 19 storm water. This is ordinance amending specific sections of the code of ordinances of the city of Oaklair title 17 land development official zoning map and title 19 storm water. Uh would council like to suspend the rules and take this up tonight. Okay. Then then we'll move on to announcements and updates by city manager Hirs. Thank you. Uh so in terms of events, please um remember that we potentially have a special meeting next Monday the 30th at 6 PM. Um if you can't make it, let me know so that we make sure we have enough people. Uh and I also wanted to thank all of the people who worked so hard to try to get the innovation funding over the finish line even in that compressed uh timeline. Um, thank you to our departments who weren't able to submit, the health department, library, and fire. And just a huge thank you to uh Pat Newerk. He really lost so much sleep over this. Just an amazing um huge heart. Um so much passion for um recreation. Um grew up in it, still just serves so many people. And um he really wants what's best for the community and was trying to make this work. So, we may have one. But I also wanted to say for those of you who were here last night, I'm sure you agree with me. It was so amazing to hear the speakers come and talk about what they love about our community. If that didn't just fill you with pride and it's so frustrating that we have to make any cuts. We're doing so much so well. We just need to continue it with the funding we have. So, I hope there's a resolution. But I wanted to thank you guys who are here. um the the the user group folks. And I gotta say Christy Castow right there. Raise raise your hand.

I think you're the head of youth hockey. No, I figure skating. Figure skating. Okay. She grew she's living in the house I grew up in and I know how amazing Oaklair was to grow up and live there in the 70s and it's even more amazing now. So, I don't know what we can do to preserve that fabric of our community that makes it so special, but certainly they they gave us a call to action and I'm grateful. I was so inspired to hear all the soccer people, the figure skating, the hockey, and all the others people speak on behalf of our community. So, I just want to thank our staff and and the community members on that. Yeah.

Anything else? Okay. Council member Miller. Thank you, Council President. Um going back to the um uh the M proclamation earlier today, one of the events coming up um I'll do a plug for volume one has produced a documentary called a half century of home 50 years of mung resettlement in the Oaklair. Um you can read all about it on the volume one website, but that will be hosted on April Thursday, April 18th, 6:30 p.m. at the Pablo Center. Um so they made a documentary and it will feature um the 50 years of um M u living in the Oakclair community. So, I'm definitely going to check that out. Did you say the 16th, right? April 16th at 6:30 p.m. at Pablo.

Great. Yeah. There. Actually, I found other I'm glad Thank you, Council Member Miller. I found a few other um events I was thinking of mentioning, too. So yes, he he caught the the documentary on the 16th. Then also the North High School Mung Club Mung Heritage Month celebration on April 24th and then the Mung Heritage Month Gala on April 25th and then the M American Day celebration hosted by PowerUp Oclair on May 16th. So there are several events that we can participate in um to support and lift up our M community. So any other announcements? Oh yeah, when we have a work session. So, but we will to adjourn first. Yep. So, we'll this meeting is adjourned and then move into our work session.

Can we just forge ahead and zoom right into this? Sure. Let's do it.

Okay. So, um with on the agenda today, you will be surprised to learn we're going to continue to talk about the budget. Um we we have Katrina and Ty here to answer your questions about options for transit for the future. Um but before we get into that I wanted to um do you have can you find those slides? Uh this is uh basically you all most of you filled out the the spreadsheet um to try to indicate where you would how you would try to balance the budget and um I gave that to you yesterday. Um I just refined it a little bit uh today based on what's possible not possible. And so this if you can just take that and ask about this is our best guess of how we will will proceed unless you um really disagree with this path forward. Um or unless we um learn something, you know, it's going to be we're still really early in the budget process, but we're so it is going to continue to be revised as we go. Um, and I also have your questions which I collated and I have to um take a look at those. But it's so our our big question mark with the budget is the health insurance. We're expecting it to increase by 15%. Um, as it did this past year, if it comes in lower, I think um Erin or somebody asked this question about um what are the variables like what's the best case scenario? What's the worst case scenario? If the if the budget increase comes in uh lower then we will have more wiggle room. Um if it comes in higher or if there's some other um uh factor that drives with the budget of course and it could be get even worse could get even worse. So anyway, if you can take a look at this, um, see if you're okay with the the ones in purple. I just made an executive decision to modify in some way. Um, be partly because there are

some cases where we kind of just double counted like we counted a cut twice. Um, so it wasn't really realistic. So I I've adjusted those a little bit. the ones in purple you can look at and then the um the ones on the back page those are off the table now unless somebody revives them. Okay. So now yeah the ones on the back side are off the table. Yeah because people didn't the council didn't express support for those. Okay. Thank you.

Can you explain purple? Purple was where I made a little adjustment. Like for example, the council very much supported reducing mowing, but we had kind of put that in there, but there is really no way you could reduce mowing that much. It would be like turning the whole city, I mean significant parts of our community into forest land, which may be desirable, but that would be a really big um so but and and if it is something you want really want to explore more, we can um you can let me know and we can bring in those departments and have them um talk about their work areas. Do you want questions? Look like there's questions right away. Do you want uh Sure.

Okay. Cashon or Jess? Yeah, we're in a work session. Yeah, right. First names. Um, so I just have one quick question. I notice for the library line item for reducing transfers, the the proposed reduction is 50,000 and I know um I believe all of council received an email today um about well in regards to actually is senior center. The senior center yeah the first one. I take back my question. I was say that the dollar amounts they're not matching up but that explains it. So

yeah. So they had asked to not be reduced by the full amount. We we reduced them last year and then this year um we proposing reducing them by the full amount or um uh coming up with a way that we could contract with services for services with them. Uh council or Larry. Yeah. Thank you. This is my question. I think I asked it yesterday but is for Steve. So if we go back to 2022, we had the referendum about the police and the fire. Can you talk a little louder, Larry?

So I'm saying if we go back to 2022, we had that referendum about the fire. U we asked the city resident for referendum. Mhm. So that we can have we had I think seven firefighters and seven police officers. So right here we are reducing. So how would the committee react with that? How would the community respond? Yeah, because we they already they already okay for police to be to add more police and fire. I think it's and now we are reducing them.

I think it's really not a legal question. It's a um it's more of a a political question. And so when we did the referendum um if you may recall um we really need a referendum to maintain as opposed to expand. And so that's the challenge with referendums is that people will do not want to pay for maintaining. They'd rather pay for expanding. So this would be Yeah. People will not like but it's it's not a it's not prohibited by law. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Thanks Emily. Um, so I'm still a little confused on the purple. So the first two purple about reducing mowing,

I think, um, on our original sheet that you gave us last night, it kind of showed um, reduce mowing at parks 120, cemetery at 50, but you already had on the right hand side kind of council total of 30,000 and 12,500. But that's what I see now on the new sheet. So, right, I just I just changed it, man. In the original sheet, it was 120,000 for mowing in parks and 50,000 for mowing in the cemetery. But the thing is, we've also reduced community services in other areas like overtime and cutting positions. And so, basically, if you put that all if you do all of them, it ends up really really decimating community services. So, that's why I

my my question is really more about the numbers. So, um I mean we have on our sheet 30,000 and 12,500 on the sheet you gave us yesterday under council total. Mhm. So you're you're saying keep it at that level? Yeah. So those are still on the table but at that level. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, Charlie. Thanks. I don't have my sheet from yesterday, but um I am also noticing that the difference between the proposed and then the um I got it right here the never mind.

Okay, that was easy. That was best kind of question. Charlie Josh, thanks. Um so going to the side that um is essentially off the table. Um, one of them was and you talked about, you know, with the, you know, the community likes referendums that expand something and then one of the items was, um, where did it go in the list here? This is rank ordered now by your level of support.

I just want to bring up again um, I can't find it. Fire referendum referendum for a new fire station existing and existing staffing. Um, looks like only two well maybe two or so council members support that one. Um, and I just want to don't want to give that option up yet because, you know, that's something that would be um supported by voters. Um, it wouldn't be have to decision from us. It would require us to, you know, formulate the question and get on a ballot. But I mean, I don't see I'm thinking that the upside of possibly getting this and bring it to the community because it's a community in the past has shown support for public safety. Um, so I'm not sure why it got such type of support among the council. I just want to bring that up again that maybe people think about that because you know if we put the question out there and they approve it then that's you know money for a new fire station that you know the voters will approve and want to come from um from us from our budget. So I just want to not let that one die without you know bring it up again.

Okay Nate. Oh thank you council president. So, with the um proposed referenda, is a a million dollars a a set figure or was there rational between behind that versus a lower amount for either referenda? The No, there was no rationale.

Okay. So, so basically the last time we did this, we hired a consultant to survey the community to try to get and we worked together with the school district and to try to get what the number people were wanted to pay for and what they wanted to support and at that point we settled on I think it was um 1.3 million is that right? And um it want it it earned a lot of support. So maybe we would have been able to say 1.7 million or something like that, but we just you you wouldn't there wasn't a way to know. Car. Yeah.

Just to add value to the million dollars, um you know, the safer grant would be about 5 to600,000 a year um when the staff are going through the levels. So that plus equipment and then the CPI on that. So after a couple years, it would exceed that amount to retain staff. So that's kind of the thought process behind a million dollars. That makes sense. So, we have six existing firefighters that will drop off of grant eligibility this year. Okay, Erin.

Uh, yeah. So, thank you. Um, my question is, I guess about um the police and fire reductions. Is that going to impact us with regards to maintenance of effort? That's a great question. That's like expert uh knowledge. Um uh and m can you explain what maintenance? Yeah.

Um no, there is a portion to um the budget in the fire department and the police department that would not be impacted by thee. So we do have non-union positions in those areas. um you would not want to affect within the fire department the training, the response time, the number of staffing, and you don't want to reduce the budget from the prior year. So, um it'd be almost next to impossible to reduce the budget down um from before the prior year with the the amount of the union increases on the wages and the health insurance. So,

Sure. So, no any reduction would we'd work with both chiefs to um give us proposals that would not impact that. One of those today with um was a proposal to mitigate storage costs for example on the operating side rather than payroll. Follow up with that. Sure. Um so with the uh safer grant coming to an end is that's at the end of this year. Yes. Okay. So, is that included in our maintenance of effort?

And so, if we but like for 27, if we keep the staffing levels that were supported by the safer grant at that point, then we are on the hook for it moving forward, right? Uh thee allows you to um subtract certain areas and one of the areas they want you to subtract are staff that are covered by state or federal grant funding. So those are automatically carved out of the staffing numbers. So it would have no impact if you did not retain those positions. Okay. And that's seven five positions, seven positions.

Uh six positions are covered under the safer grant. Okay. Thank you. Um, see I think Clara, thanks. Um, just wanting to continue on that line of thinking. So those six positions right now are not in the budget. We're we're we're assuming those are not included. Um, yes, we would assume that we're not filling those or we'll look at other solutions. Some items that were brought up were just having positions that offset overtime without increasing their budget. So zero dollars but allowing them to keep the position and it will be covered by overtime.

Okay. And can I if I can ask one more question. So again looking at um yesterday's spreadsheet and today's spreadsheet um Stephanie the you know we have reductions for police and fire. I think in yesterday's we had them 50,000 each. On the new purple we have a 100,000 each. But then there was also a couple of items from yesterday of hold open two positions for police and two positions for fire. One was 90,000 the other was 45,000. So are we is that we're Yes. So

combining them to just one and then they might um they might they would decide how they want I mean it doesn't have to be what they could make a decision how they want to make that reduction. Okay. The thing is about police and fire, but especially police is because they've had so much challenge um and this answers I think your question clear about why it impacts the fund balance is that the fire department has had so much the police department has had so much trouble uh like every police department um achieving full staffing. So they've been very understaffed um which is has all kinds of bad impacts. Um but as a result they've returned um this year actually it's the least which is great for them

but they return that extra money to our fund balance. So then that goes into our the funding that we would use to do one-time um cap capital projects or whatever. But um so if you it it if they lower by one position, if they leave a position open, it might not impact them in terms of staffing for that year, but it does it's sort of like chipping away at the um at the like long it's like a definitely a band-aid. Well, because I can imagine then overtime and overtime is more costly and then people get discouraged and then and then they have a harder time filling the positions and so it's like a you know

but I'm just really trying to keep the numbers straight in my head. So, uh, I think yesterday you had, you know, the 90 plus the 45, that's 135 plus another 100. So, that's 235. And in the purple, we're saying it's just 200. 200 for the 100 for each, right? I think basically because one I think it should be the same for police and fire that the same amount reduction. So, one was like uh le Yeah. I guess what I'm kind of wondering is do we have some rig wiggle room there where we could increase those amounts to to ask hey instead of reducing by 100 can you reduce by 150 each?

I mean you guys can do what you're the boss so you can do what you want. Yeah. Thank you. And also if there's a I mean we probably will figure out a way to have if there is this kind of spreads the pain I guess but if there is a department that's really impacted we they probably will want to come and talk to you guys. Thanks, Charlie.

Thank you. So, the in this new sheet, the reduction or revenue column are the values that you're now proposing. And if I just cherrypick two, for example, um like specifically with the paid parking just at Carson or in neighborhoods, Carson was 84, now it's 42. Neighborhoods was 175, now it's 43,800. I know this was a change from last night, but how does that So that's now your expected revenue, but if you were like expecting 175,000 and now you're saying 43,000, like if you hit 43,000, do you then just stop patrolling or metering or what is the

uh so just to know the reason why it's less is because the ones that were like had lower support, I just reduced it, which this might not have a rhyme or reason, but that's what I did. Um, so I would say probably we would come up with a a pilot. I this like and maybe Dave can comment on this, but I I'm just talking off the top of my head to say you pick a smaller area and it would be a pilot and it would and maybe you make sure like I know some people said it's really important that everybody who lives in the neighborhood can park for free. It has a permit and a guest pass. So it it just puts less pressure on the program to

So essentially like the the it's just the percentage of your value that was proposed. You're just taking that the percentage of what council is supporting and that's kind of how you're getting these. I just kind of buck yeah I just low the ones where there is less support but still some support. I lowered the amount and this I'm assuming this is coming out to 2.2 million. It's 2.0 2 million right now. Okay. So, it's a little Yeah. Oh, okay. So, this is where we would just we would go ahead with these, you know, and and it's going to change a little bit and there'll probably be some roadblocks and maybe we'll have some other ideas that come in and and but this is kind would be kind of our marching orders for the next few months. Okay, Nate.

Oh, thank you, Emily. um with parking fees since um Charlie mentioned is has this um does this assume a fixed rate regardless of time or event or is there no assumption like is it within the realm of possibility to have variable rates depending on events or times of day or anything like that? I'm gonna have the parking master come up. One of the parking masters. Who's that? Sometimes he's the trash master and sometimes he's the parking master. There's so many labels. I don't know where to begin.

Hello, city council. Um that that would we're we're looking at that right now if it's if it's operated like downtown parking, you know, if it's 50 cents or a dollar an hour. And we were talking with Hobs like that. Um, one option that we've been throwing around is, uh, you know, would our park system operate like the county park system where, um, you pull in, it's $5 a day or you get a a pass to go between those. Um, another option would be event parking. We used to try event parking downtown where we would staff the ramps and it was a straight $5 and the arms would go up. So, um those those final numbers on what they would be would be um the ones that we would be determined and then city council would pass um because we would have to include that in our fee and license tables um that go along with the operating budget. So,

okay, that's we're going to try to find what makes the most sense um that gets us to our revenue estimates and is the easiest to follow for people. So, thank you. Great. Clara, you have Sorry. Yeah, I'm uh I think I'm going to re ask the same thing Larry asked or Charlie asked. Um so on the sheet you gave us today, the bottom line. We're at 2,25,000 and we need to get to 2.2 million and that's you made some reductions in some items based on what you gauged was council support for these items. Um

Okay. So, is is that the purpose of what we're going to review now is to see what can we increase to get to that 2.2 or how Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wanting to understand first of all understand what we what we're looking at and then like what's our next step?

Yeah. So, I think mainly we just kind of want some general guidance and I think we so it's really stressful right now in the city and um one of the most stressful thing is the uncertainty. So like I think once we have some certainty then we'll we can probably deal with it and go forward and so we kind of just want some preliminary marching orders to continue to inch forward. I think this is fine if you guys are kind of okay with this or you want to sleep on it or get back to me in the next few days. um we'll just inch forward with it and um there might knowing that there's going you know there could be more cuts in the future or savings and you know we can refund some of these and you know we can come back to you with those. This is still like I said really early in the budget season. So we have a lot of time but we do want to do like public engagement and start moving like we have to move employees to avoid them being laid off kind of thing. And and then I have another go ahead after these guys.

I think Larry let Larry go.

So thank you a minute. So I have a question which direct to Steve direct to uh Steven D to Winters D to Dev. So this is one question. So this morning I was at Fairfax running and I ran with this guy who used to work here and they asked me this question then I I thought I will just put this that question here. So I don't think he's here. So if we are talking the budget he say how much gas does the city car use? How many cars does the police have? Why do we have one car for one police? Why can't we have one car for two police? How many cars do we total do we have in the entire city? Maintenance, auto staff, we need to look from that side too. But it's not here. So that's why I say I I could not answer that question. That's why I'm throwing it to you guys. All four of you guys.

I don't know if Steve Nick knows the answer to that. But I do think Mr. Lane might know or Mr. Oh, know I'm sorry. Strangely enough, we were talking about the number of uh police vehicles today. So, they do share some vehicles. Um so, we don't have a one ratio. Yeah, we don't on all of the vehicles in the fleet. Um I don't know if that kind of answers your question. So, there's cost do we have? We can Oh, I have that written on a paper in my office. It was like 30 28 27 or 28.

Yeah, there's 27 or 28 and then there's a differential. It's close to that figure for mark to unmarked, but we can get that exact number back to you. But they're running kind So basically when we put a when we put a vehicle to auction, it has been idled or running like 24 hours a day for years. And since we just have one person cruisers, so it's just one person going out in the car. We don't um have two people vehicles, so it would just be one person for that shift. But but if you'd like to have the streets and fleet manager um come, he could tell you a lot more about it. So do you guys after 100,000 miles in the car, do you guys have um what's the

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we do re-evaluate the vehicle and um sometimes we even replace the seat because that's what's getting worn, not the actual vehicle. Um and we are within the city limits whereas, you know, sometimes counties can treat theirs differently because they cover a large larger area. So, um they're evaluated individually and then we do share within or decommission and sometimes use them in other areas as well. Yeah. So like our recreation vehicles or former police cars and that kind

they do have benchmarks on mileage just like every vehicle like our ambulance or fire truck or um but we don't automatically do that. We evaluate each vehicle so they do they do try to stretch things out um like that. I know neighborhood services has a has one of the jeeps I believe and we did replace one of the the seats in there. How many bikes do you have? Bikes. I don't know that that answer. I can look at that. We got other people other questions. Okay. It's okay. Jess.

Sure. Thank you. Um I just have a a comment um based on something you said, Stephanie. So, I appreciate like I I really am um sympathetic to city staff and how stressful it probably is right now knowing that there's this deficit and not knowing exactly the direction that we will head in and addressing the deficit. But I also want to and like I appreciate actually how proactive um staff have been and bringing this forward and prompting conversations about the budget. The one thing that I have just in terms of like my practical nature is in just a few weeks we will have um spring election and also presumably an appointment um process moving forward. So, we have two new council members um on council that aren't here for these discussions. So, I know you like staff are really eager for direction and some more information, but I just wanted to flag that as

like um I'm thinking about tonight as, you know, an opportunity for a substantial amount of council members that will be here when the budget's passed to give feedback. But I also just have that in the back of mind that we'll have potentially two new council members that aren't here and sharing their feedback and they might have, you know, totally different opinions. Um, but anyways, I just wanted to share a good point. I think ultimately you you can amend on the floor. Is that right, Steve? Here's your chance. Do you would you like to go to the podium to to answer?

No need. But it's true. You do ultimately adopt a budget in November. So these are important preliminary directions that you're providing. Uh but ultimately council as it's seated in November takes the votes that count. Yes. So you can change your mind. You know, you can do whatever whatever you think. So, but we but whatever guidance you do have, we'll go with until we have more information, then we'll share that. Okay. Uh Erin, thank you. Um I'm wondering if um Erin, put your face right by your microphone. Oh my lord. Don't need it.

No. Um I'm wondering um if you think there would be any benefit in having uh staff, especially directors and managers also do this if they haven't. And I I I don't know uh what that collaboration has looked like up to this point. But I'd be interested in in seeing, you know, what staff, especially ones that have been here for a long time and really intimately know the city are or what that would look like. Um and also um if perhaps there's more um more options that could be on here and I just I just don't know.

Well, I'll say two things about it. One is that uh the one kind of guidance I've given to the staff is that I really am not I really don't want them to find savings in other departments because it's it's just yeah

like really not good for morale to do that. And what I those of us who get are privileged to be able to work with all the different departments and as you know they're incredibly different. So being a mechanic is really different than being an accountant which is really different than running elections and being a paramedic. So like they're so different and so it's pretty easy to be in one department and your intuition is to be like oh well I don't know what those people do over there. So like whatever we can do to pro to help people understand what the other divisions do even though they're so different is what I want to promote. So I really don't want one department saying like yeah I'm not sure they just seem to sit at their desk like okay you know so no you can't go and you we want to affirm all of the things that people do. So I I don't want them find people finding cuts in other departments, but the the the departments really are being asked and in our regular OSAT meetings and lots and lots and lots of discussions, we talk about al all kinds of ways to add revenue and cut services or create efficiency. So I do think that that's happening and it's really neat seeing the departments collisions collaborate across each other. So, like our community services, which has some really awesome um managers, some of whom are in this room, I mean, they're all awesome. Uh they decided they said, "You know what? I think Janice, neighborhood services should be part of community services. We we she she's a lot of overlap, a lot of synergy. We collaborate on this. So, we're going to invite her to all of our division head meetings." So, now she's just basically been adopted by um community services. So, that's the kind of exciting connections that we see across departments. Uh, I don't know if there's a second point to that, but Oh, but if you do want to I I don't know. We can have if you want to have the departments come, you could have each division head come and present. It'll be a really long process, but they can talk to you about like the pain points, the their ideas and that kind of thing.

I think that's used like how we used to do it, but yeah, during our budget discussions, uh, directors would come up and just it helps. And with two new council members, it's actually really helpful. Definitely do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we could set that up for the budget season, but it will be a lot of um it'll be really long as there's like 40 divisions or something. Very informative. Uh I think Clara, you had

Yes. Thank you. So, um our bottom line right now in kind of what the proposal on the table is 2,25,000, which we are short still. I'm still unclear on how many of the innovation funding items are included or not included here. I'm I'm really unclear of I I guess maybe that's I don't know if that's next on the agenda where we're going to talk about status on the all the innovation funding. I think yesterday you said most of them were off the table.

Yeah, they're all off the table except for soccer perk but the hobbs but you heard people refer yesterday to the HOBS plan. So, the user groups have been working with Pat to try to close the subsidy on Hobs. So, that would be covering that subsidy. Um, and then the soccer park is the one that's still alive. So, so we're actually quite a bit further away from balancing than what I don't know. Oh, this is all it's all reflects where we're at right now. That the 2 million 25 already strikes out Yeah.

the all the other innovation funding things from yesterday's shift. Well, the health department wasn't going to benefit this thing. It would just benefit the health department. The library would have been great, but it was like very complicated. And then fire was just many, many unknowns. And in fact, they might go ahead with combining with Chipua Fire District, which would then mean that we would no longer serve Altuna for ambulance. So that's kind of taken a different direction. Okay. I I think I understand that now. So So those are already removed. Yeah. Thank you. Andrew like to speak next.

Thanks. Um, this reducing mowing at parks, reducing mowing at cemetery. I'm really glad this is on here. Um, do we have an understanding of what the total amounts for both of those items are roughly? Like is it half a million for parks mowing and quarter million for mowing of cemetery? Any rough numbers on that? We can get that to you. We'll pause.

Well, uh Kit's going to look for it so we can come back to that. I guess I just I would I I would hope I wonder if there's a way to get a little bit more out of that like a little closer to the original proposed than the 30 and the 12 depending on of course how much is in that overall budget. Um you know that's a big difference proposed but only 30 really doable. Uh that's let's I let's do a little research on this. Okay.

And the thing is we do have our cardigraph um information now. So it has been sort of surprising how not expensive some things are and expensive some other Oh tell us.

I was just going to add to it that we have hours in here. The budget um would be partially available for each of those areas with Cardigraph. I think we used it for about a half a year but we can tie numbers to this for the cost of mowing. So, we'll update the figures and get that to you probably within a week and a half. So, but just I guess like part of my reason for reducing it is that we also like for example remember we got rid of the um uh what was it called the curly pond leaf treatment and then we were going to p bring hire another staff person but we didn't hire another staff person and then we also have here eliminating positions and cutting overtime so it's kind of like a cumulative impact of and then like canary park is coming online and stuff like that so I don't that department is really really getting squeezed And so I just want to be aware that, you know, and there that's also forestry and um

yeah, it's really over the years it's just been compressed and compressed and compressed and we haven't really like offloaded stuff. I guess the could I ask a followup just the part

going back to council member Brewster's on police and fire. Um I wasn't aware that there's this difference that like some of some of the police and fire operating budgets are under that maintenance of effort um category some part of their budgets not I assume I don't have any idea how to conceptualize what are we talking about is it is it 5% of the of their budget is is outside of ane is it a quarter I have no idea raw numbers or like what are we talking about and whether a h 100,000 is a huge deal to the to the budget um of the out of the none or a 100,000 represents you know 5% of none I have no idea so if we can get some clarity around that

right now no or later okay all right uh Nate yeah thank you uh just a thought um I agree that it's too early to provide clear guidance um for this and um in talking with constituents, there's an interesting thing with transparency. The amount of transparency has been fantastic. In fact, it's been so much transparency that we're sharing things that are not yet determined. And because these are not yet determined, people think or some constituents think, oh well, they can't have a straight answer, so they must be hiding something. So, it's sort of like a

a paradox of transparency, like a trans paradox. Um, but I know I'm sorry. Uh, but it is um I do think it's a good thing that we're we're airing on the side of sharing more than less. Um, but I I agree that it's it's a little too early. We do need more conversation to set clear or I need more conversation set clearer opinions on direction.

Can you share what that might look like? um like how the parking structure might look. Um whether it's just events or whether it's more regular consistent times um whether referenda are the full million or a different amount. I mean those two just stick out in my head.

Um so so like I think what we we can get into the weeds but we can't get into the weeds on all the possible options. So that's why we kind of want like we can go forward with if this is the plan, we could go forward with it and and unless and until we find a roadblock and then we can turn turn back. But if you really think a referendum is the the plan, that's the one you really like, then that's a kind of a different path. So it's really helpful for us. We're at a juncture early on and it's we can't because it's such a small group and we're going out of you know it's just too much. So we really need some like guidance now and then but knowing that so basically if you can at least tell us that at the this particular juncture knowing that it might not work out like the path might not work out. So if you do think a re referendum is the way to go that would be like get the feedback from here and we can go we can pursue that.

Okay. Thanks. Um they have Josh next. Thanks Emily. Um I was looking through some messages. I couldn't quite find it. Maybe I imagine it. But um given the fact that this is going to be um you know a deficit budget year and there's people in the community that are not going to like what we have to present or or pass in the end. Um and I'm hesitant to ask require more staff work but um I think for the public it might be helpful if it's possible to have maybe once this gets a little more formed. You know it's pretty raw right now. you know like May or June may have like um just the library a public forum where this be presented directly to the people. I really would strongly urge once you get some sort of solidification here to have the public have a chance to inter

engage here directly and then ask questions. So yeah, that'd be great to have for sure. Yep. And we supposed to be doing our spring fall district discussions too. So that was my plan was to take this out and refine it further with public and kind of like what Nate was saying. It's like chicken and egg. I I still think it would be good just to have a a singular one just on the budget at the library sometime. Erin, uh thank you. Does the um the mowing cost and stuff are we already taking into consideration the native plant savings? Um or is that not sure how we can do that yet?

I will tell you. So this is what we learned from that process was that we really thought that would be a savings, but as it turned out mostly we ended up doing a pollinator in the right in like rightway large tracks of rightway um and um areas that are not as mowed mowed as frequently because we were trying to avoid being close to um actively used perks. And so, um, the streets maintains those rightaway mowing and they only do it like a few several times a season. So, it doesn't, um, it was like this just kind of shows you like it's actually to get rid of this much mo like 170,000 worth of mowing. It's really hard. Um, because in that case, we tried we tried really hard and it is going to be awesome and it does save time, but it doesn't help the parks staff very much.

You know what I'm saying? So, um, but it's, you know, we'll see. And then to do other large scale pollinator conversion, we probably want to find an alternative to the herbicide and then that's like kind of what that group is working on, but it might take more time and effort to make those conversions.

Clara, thanks. Um, I think I had submitted a question about the day resource center and how much is that? Do we have any way to be able to gauge or estimate how much the existence now in the opening of the day resource center will save in terms of a police department workload over the course of the year? I know we're early now. It's March, but is there a way to project that? Do we have goals? Do we have um metrics that we're trying to reach with the police department related to um the unhoused population and the and the strain on our police department?

I don't know that it it is I think it makes it like a better response to people who are unhoused and I hope it has better outcomes, but it certainly takes a ton of time to coordinate with the DRC and just all the other entities. So, um I don't know that it would reduce their time and then even if it like if it did reduce their time then they would hopefully go and do like traffic enforcement which we get lots of requests for and stuff.

Right. I'm just that's what I wanted to understand because I think when we were talking all about that investment and that that we really thought it was going to alleviate the burden. We heard a lot about the burden it it places on the on our police department. I hope it does, but just like I went out with the cleaning group this Monday and um there's a big push to try to preserve property for example um that's left behind which makes sense but it's very large and so our one of our lieutenants spent I don't know quite a bit of time trying to figure out what to do with the property um to transport it someplace which takes like a truck because it was more than one person could carry and then it didn't have any identification so then that person coordinated with the DRC to try to um so like maybe the DRC will create a a storage facility and then um we would transport the materials to that storage facility anyway.

So we're still figuring it out. Yeah. And I I don't know that it's you know I I I hope I don't know that it'll take less effort. I just hope that there'll be less better outcomes I guess for the people who are unhoused. And I'm also curious like did other council members I mean are there other ideas that came through when you when we did this spreadsheet exercise? Uh did do we have any any other new ideas that were not have one idea to um use the CDBG funding?

That was my idea. We actually just awarded our CDBG for this year and um we could that could be I know there has been interest in having more conversation about that but they it's um it all goes to those nonprofit providers right now. So like Habitat and uh Western Dairy Land and Monk Mutual. Um some of it goes to the housing authority. Um, so you could you and then this year the health department actually proposed they normally have gotten uh like maybe 70,000 or something like that for um their housing um like the uh or weather right was it weathering weather like inspections inspections. Yeah.

And re like trying to get remediate like um uh poor living conditions basically. But so they increased a little bit so we could award that which would help offset the health departments. But but basically you would be robbing Peter to pay Paul which maybe we want to do. And there's also you can only spend like a h 100,000 on public services which is the most flexible category. So it's um that was one idea and maybe some can go that way but it's that's not like a lot of money. That was my idea and and I was thinking about the health department knowing yeah that a chunk of they do they will well depending on what gets awarded they could receive I think it's like 80,000

I mean and it's wonderful we can provide that support to nonprofits but just like we're having conversations about the senior center and deck like it's I I just wonder if that should be part of the conversation for you all to have because I won't be here but yeah but CDBG funding I was thinking Yeah. Um, yeah, let's see. I think Charlie,

thanks. That'll be quick. I just, um, sounds like there's still plenty of discussion to be had on the front of the sheet. Um, but maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you're looking from some feedback on the back, whatever the 16 items are that you crossed off. Um, I will just I guess I know now I'm not in favor of bringing any of them back on. Um, particularly the referendums. Um, why what's that?

Because I don't think it's smart to go through a referendum right now, especially with some of the potential referendums we could be having in the future that could lead to um long-term revenue like a sales tax um or convention center referendum. I do think people uh residents would be referendum out and another one at this time potentially a failing one just set you up for failure even more so in the future and I don't want to take that risk when there are two great opportunities in the future for um referendums that could provide that long-term uh financial revenue. I just don't think it'd be smart. So I wouldn't be in support of it. I just wanted to share that feedback now. Thanks Charlie. Uh Larry.

Yeah, you talk too much. Anyway, thank you Millie. This budget is for 2027 and the people have been asking about they're scared it would be this for like this summer, right? So next year we there's like we might have a different state government.

Mhm. So if we if the this body give you direction to make these changes and we have a new state government, can if if they give us more shared revenue, can we go back to the original? Is that your question? Yeah,

that is a really great question, Larry. And it's I hope that that a year from now we'll be in that position of having more revenue. And I am here to say that if that happens then we are going to have a whole lot of other hard decisions to make about because there is so much pent up demand for services and adjustments like every single department in our city needs twice as many people. I mean, basically like everybody's doing twi like at least 50% more than they should be doing and plus our community is growing and they so um you know I I hope it happens and I think it'll be a really exciting conversation but it'll also be a hard conversation because there is so many people that need so much. Um, so but yeah, we will go back to this list and try to um hopefully we'll continue to be thinking out of the box and like doing in making it hard choices and really like the thing about having no money is that we're so careful about every penny and we want to be as disciplined when we do have more money so that we have really great outcomes and that's a future problem if it happens. Um, but I hope that we will be trying to answer that question, Larry, like a year from now. I will hold you your feet to the fire.

Thank you. You go. So, do people generally feel do you want to think about this some more or do you kind of generally think this is an okay direction for now providing that we do community like take this forward to community input um get back on the some of these questions to you um and in continue to update you as we fill in the blanks on this. Are you guys okay with this direction? Maybe just say like if you have any comments, try to get them to you by the end of the week. Yeah. So you can start moving forward. Yeah. I also feel like I want to study this a little more.

Yep. I can send it to you as well. I I'll I got to double check it one more time and then I'll send it we can put it out publicly and stuff like that. It's just hard because it's really affects I know I was kind of like joking around but this is really sad and serious. All of us are a little like um punch drunk or whatever because it's we've just been talking about this so much, but it's super heavy for the people. It affects our staff and also the community, you know, all the people who are imp impacted by this. So, we appreciate all the time you're putting into this and the hard thoughts you're hard thinking you're doing, too. Okay. So now we're going to Oh, Larry, you want to say something?

No, for me I wanted to say I wanted to to second what Jessica said. So I think we should all until we have the news council present and then it's only a little less than three weeks. Well, they can come in with their own um ideas, I think, and then shape the conversation going forward. But I don't think we can ever I think you you're the body right now and and then who who comes forward is going to have their say and they can Yeah.

Okay. Now we're going to transition to transit. Um and I have a just a little handout here. There's more.

I don't know. Hello again. I only have a couple slides. Um, but we just wanted to run some ideas by you of and they're they still have to go to transit commission. They still need public input. Um, but just based off of the initial comments we received within the last month or so. Um, the first thing is talking about updating our fair structure. Um, so increasing revenue. Um this is pretty hard to predict because you don't know at what point um do you raise a fair so high that then people just opt for a different option. Um we're thinking this is kind of a unique way about going about a fair structure. I don't know if anyone else in Wisconsin does it this way. Um but our idea would be that if you buy a ticket for one day, it's good all day. Um, we do currently have a day pass like this. Um, that is 375. Um, it's pretty underutilized. I'd say the majority of people that take the bus frequently have a monthly pass. Um, but this would bridge the gap for people that um there's quite a few people that buy tickets and they probably should buy a day pass, but um they just don't like the risk of knowing um how like they don't know how many rides they're going to take in a day. Um if we were to increase the day pass cost to $4, um that would mean our elderly and disabled um price and income qualifying price would be $2 a day. Um so that would be up from 85 cents per ride. So, um, when you think of it like that, um, I think it's, uh, I would say also the

majority of our folks do use the income qualifying and elderly and disabled pass. So, going from 85 cents a ride to $2, it's capped for the day. Um, I don't foresee that being a huge issue to people. Um because oftent times when hardly anyone carries around just 85 cents in their pocket, people usually just round up to a dollar. Um so what this does is we could set our monthly pass at any amount. I did project it um being higher, but it gives this sense of oh I have an unlimited pass. Um I could take more rides. I'm not constrained to um you know traveling on certain days. Um it just makes more sense. get gets people in the bus more than um just if you were to pay cash or with our single-use tickets. The big cost savings from this or revenue generator would be paratransit. Um our paratransit cost is capped at double the price of our standard fair. So, this would make our standard fair $4 and um it would mean that a paratransit ride would be $8. Currently, it's $350, which it is quite a big leap for those folks. It doesn't have to be $8. That would just be the max that it would be. Um paratransit is unique because um the more rides that we provide, the more expensive it gets, whereas with the bus, the more rides we provide, the cheaper per ride it is. So, um, every ride we provide, we get build from Abby Vans, $45. So, um, not only would it be, um, creating revenue going from $8 to 30 or sorry, $350 to $8, but um, it might make people change their habits a little bit more, rely more on friends and

family. Um, we did see this with the increase of our agency fairs um, this year. So, that started January 1st. If you recall, it used to be a $20 ride and we upped it to $45 per ride. This is for folks that um live in like a long-term nur nursing home or um have a provider that it's the state is funding the transportation costs. So, we raised that price because um group homes were basically being able to profit from us subsidizing them. So when we made that change, it's only been two months. Um but we have seen um more savings than we anticipated by that. Um each month we had 200 fewer rides with paratransit. Um majority of those agency rides are to employment. Um so that stayed about the same. Um the the rides that declined were um mainly social rides, so people getting out and about. Um so we do think if we made those changes, we would um our general fund um savings would be about $140 um,000 increasing um the fair for all of those. Um there are pieces we cannot anticipate of how many people will opt to not take a ride. Um but that's what we're proposing. Um if you want to give feedback now.

So um if you could explain to everybody again including myself revenue estimated increase of say 96,800 with the increased fair structure local share impact. Yeah, that is what?

Yep. So, um our total budget for transit, you take all of our operating expenses and then to get the federal and state fair or state share, um you subtract all of our revenue. So when we make a dollar, it actually only impacts us locally 50 cents worth. Um because I can see the diagram in my head, but um essentially you subtract all of your revenue or profits and then that total amount or net operating deficit is what gets um divided by half federal local roughly. So when you make money, you only see the impact of half of it. I knew that was the case for expenses, but I think I'm I'm seeing more clearly now that if we have increased revenue, we only it doesn't well it does come to us, but then our uh subsidy uh gets reduced.

Yeah. So when you say it, it's the um the less money we make, the more federal revenue we get. Um but that also means we have to bring the same amount to the table. So, um, with the K through 12 waving those fairs, which has been going really well the last two months as well.

Um, I think we, uh, budgeting it, it only impacted us locally 10 or $20,000 worth, but um, like the value that we've seen has far surpassed it. So, um I did just look in February last year we provided 8 800 or eight sorry 1,800 um K through2 rides and this February we provided 3,100 rides. So, it's been pretty pretty really it's been really awesome to see the increase. But, um okay, I don't know if anyone else has comments on this. Thank you. Yeah, Erin. Oh, sorry. I missed you.

Andrew Andrew had his on first. Oh, thanks. Um, so we've gone through a couple fair increases during the time that I've been on city council, two or three. Um, and we have numbers to show what the wrership change is. And I wonder if you might be able to share that analysis back with us. So it's like there's a way to kind of see if you increase it this much,

here's how many fewer people will take the bus. I know that exists somewhere. Yeah, I'll go through and um I know the last fair change was it's been a while. So, and a lot of people have been pushing just it's $1.75. A lot of people just put $2 in our fair boxes. So, kind of making it right in that regard would make more sense. This also um kind of moves us towards the idea of fair capping which is what um a lot of agencies do. A lot of other agencies have technology to help fair cap but fair capping is essentially like a no risk way of paying. So um you pay per ride until you hit a certain amount per day and it's capped and then in a month you pay a certain amount and then it's capped for the month. So, it's because a lot of our folks, you know, they might not be able to upfront $60 at the beginning of the month, but um you know, there's ideas too like do we implement a weekly pass or um that really we can do whatever you want um with what our pass structure looks like. So, any ideas? I'm happy for

uh Yeah. So, my brain just snapped something when you were talking about the fair capping. So, would it be like, you know, you buy enough once you buy enough daily passes to justify a monthly one, you just like bring them in with their dates on them and be like, "Here." Um or would it be something more like an electronic profile that that people just somehow keep track of? Yeah, we we are um I was thinking of it more of like implementing a weekly pass. So then it's like, well, if you know you're going to be taking the bus, sure.

Um, three times a week, it's a no-brainer to more of a I don't know that's a good idea of bringing in the passes, but um I think it would be really challenging to uh do it without electronics, but we are looking at a fair payment system that Milwaukee County Transit has. It's called Wisco and it's a a state contract where other municipalities can sign on to it and Appleton Waua I think um they've signed on to it. So it's one app for many systems. So we are looking into it um to do it electronically but have a followup.

Yeah. Um so if you could give us a little bit of background in with regards to paratransit and um under what what uh parameters we are required to provide it. My understanding is that if if uh a person's residence is within, you know, x distance from a fixed route. Yep. Um then and they can't make it to the fixed route, then we're required to do paratransit. Is that accurate? Yep. It's within 3/4 of a mile. Okay.

Um we do have a contract with the county um to provide rides outside of that 3/4 of a mile buffer. Um but the county is build for those that we otherwise wouldn't serve. Okay. Um and then the other question is um like how long is the are the paratransit contracts are they like a year at a time? Are they like five years? No, I think this last one is a fiveyear contract and I think it's done in 2028. 2027 28

28. Okay. So we we do know um we do know like each year the price per ride increases um from Abby Bands. I do have a slide um I did have a slide on it but Oh sorry um

no it's okay I can send it out too. Basically we have all the comparable not all of them. We're still waiting on some comparables from other communities in Wisconsin where it's like contracted versus in-house cost per ride, service area. Um, and I can share it. Lacrosse did a lot of the heavy lifting of it. Um, because they also have Abby Vans and their contract is up. So, I'm very curious to see where their contract with them comes in. Um, currently their contract price is $32 per ride and ours is $43 per ride, but I think it was just where um the like where the contract terms start like the year end started and ended.

Um, are there any places that you're aware of? This is my last one, Emily. I promise. Um are there any places that you're aware of that use the same uh vehicles for paratransit and some form of microtransit? Yeah. Um Green Bay uses both um their um they use via paratransit and microtransit. Um there are other communities that do as well. Thank you. Good questions. Larry.

Yeah, thank you. H just curious uh the student use a lot of we have a contact with the the university. Have you guys reached out to them and Yeah.

Yep. Um we have uh I recently met with them I think two weeks ago. Um we were talking about microransit with them. Um, and we can get to that in a later slide, but um, the university makes up half of our riders and um, through their contract they pay so um, that the university students don't have to worry about a pass or their fair. Um, and that local share, so they're a part of our local share that doesn't count towards revenue. Um, so we can use that to um match our um federal dollars. So I do love and same is true with um Altuna and the county as well. So local partners um I think that's a really good opportunity um to move forward too like any other like Mayo buys passes from us but those count as revenue. So if we had a contract with Mayo um we could use that money a little bit farther. So things like that. All four.

Okay.

No, I did not. Did you say you have more slides? Yeah. Okay. Maybe can we hold pause the question? I didn't know that. No, it's Yeah, I thought it was. Yeah. Yeah. No. All right, let's keep it moving.

Okay. So, a lot of people have um been asking us or we've been the subject of many questions about ridership and different hours of the day. Um so, we did just have a transit development plan created. Um and within it were many cost neutral changes. Um we do think that some of those could lead to cost savings in the the long run with um some consolidations of routes. So my team has started running some of those routes. Um and in the summer we will be running a lot of different ideas on how we can serve areas of town better or more efficiently. Um so when we're talking about service reductions, I did just want to get some feedback on what is the most important things um to you. So there are basically three things that we can cut in transit. It's hours of service. So, does it mean ending um our evenings earlier or is it changing hours on Saturday? Really, it's just when we serve the public. Um another change would be geographic coverage. So, um would it be making our routes shorter um or just eliminating areas of the city being served entirely? Um, so when I talk about consolidation of routes, it would be that idea of just having maybe one route serving areas that are currently covered by two routes, but some of the areas that aren't um, heavily transit used currently. Um, maybe cutting them out. Or then the last option is frequency. So we know that our most frequent routes are the routes that have the most ridership on it. um that's how you're going to get choice riders because um if I own a car I um but the

bus only comes you know once per hour it would have to really fit into my day um for me to feel inclined to use it. So, um the 9 and 19, which is our university routes heav he heaviest usage by far. And then, um the 8 and 18, we have two buses on the 8 and 18 right now. Um it's a very wellused and loved route. And then our um routes one and six both serve the mall and they're at the mall every 30 minutes. So, um we see the best ridership at those times. But it's really a question of do we want ridership to increase or um do we want to maintain the unique users for transit? So really we know we could serve a small area very very well or would we rather serve a larger area of more people um but only really serve the people that need to be served. So that's kind of the the question that you know we could design it anyway um the system anyway but really what what matters to everybody here.

Okay. So you're looking for feedback. Yeah. Okay. Josh, thanks. Um you can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that um reducing frequency is the worst of the three to do for a transit system. Like I think once an hour right now is kind of the minimum. I think anything less than that people would just stop using it. Is this Yeah. Well, you're okay. So I would be not want to frequency and and try to get um surf potentials out of the other two factors because you know one two hours who's who's going to take that and y probably nobody. So yeah, Erin. Oh, sorry.

Uh thank you. I guess if I had the magic wand, um I would figure out like four maybe five routes at the most and run them as frequently as we could afford to do it and then u have uh paratransit micro transit uh combo that was always appointmentbased. So like instead of the the on call stuff like you could always call in if you needed one in five minutes but you might not get it right. Mhm. Um, and that way we can ensure that people that are using that service know exactly when they're going to be able to get to work because they're they're making those calls ahead of time. And

I need a a transit for I don't know what we would charge, $6 or $10 if it was that. Um, I need it every day at at 8. And then they're built into our our framework. Um, to me that seems like an easier option for us to do without expensive software from someplace else. um as well as something that's more um like more uh I can't even think of the word, but like something that you know people can count on like they can on on a fixed route as opposed to reliable. Yep. Reliable. Yes. More reliable.

Um on a on a like schedule basis, not that it's never going to show up, but you know. Yes. You might, my understanding is with the the Northern Light, like if there's calls that are on the way, like three people will be picked up and it might delay your arrival where you're trying to go significantly. So, I would much rather have the whole system just be like a call and schedule for areas that we don't have fixed service. So,

thanks. Um, I'm I agree with what both Josh and Erin have said. uh cutting frequency would be the least uh attractive of this and I'm I'm really would like us to I think we have an opportunity sounds like you're looking into maybe rethink the whole the whole system and if we rethink the whole system um really thinking for the future so really thinking about frequency in the places that we expect bus riders to live

and so that we actually the bus service could influence where people will live and work potentially. So, um again, your planner hat I'm sure is, you know, uh thinking is is trained to think in that way. So, um yeah, I'd really like us to think about the planning for this and from what I understand about transit design, frequency is is the goal. And also just from an environmental point of view, fewer vehicles coming into the downtown I think is really really important for us to continue to think about is having different transfers uh out in in different places. Maybe it's microtransit feeding into a few routes that all come into downtown

uh on a very frequent basis. Then we can really pretty much get everybody where they need to go quickly. But um so lots more frequency, substantially greater frequency I think would would really dramatically change the way people ride the bus. Yeah. Um I'm open to us looking at that hours of service piece. Um, I thought Phil when he addressed us a couple weeks ago, I think it was, talked about, you know, sometimes during the middle of the day, you know, maybe we can go to or have a gap on some of the routes because we're just seeing so few riders, if any.

Um, but then in the evenings and later or sorry, early in the morning, later in the evening, people need it. Um, so I'm I'm open to that conversation, but I'm with other folks on frequency. Okay. Thank you, Nate. Oh, thank you. Just thinking about the type of customers. I understand there's a spectrum between on one side many who find it convenient versus the few who rely on it. So on that spectrum, I'm I'm like right here like cater

to the people who rely on it more so than the people who need it on the spectrum. But however that would be done um I'm open. I agree with my colleagues on the frequency. I just want to say too since the school uh routes are doing really well or kids getting to school. I think I want to keep those intact as well. Not um because that's great because those are future you know they're learning those skills now that will um hopefully keep them so as they stay in Oaklair you know they can

keep riding the bus. So, yeah, I'm really curious. Um, our, uh, busiest express route is Dong and I'm excited to see once those kids go to high school if we'll see a movement to North and Memorial, but it'll be hard to track and we got years to go, but um, do they use it for after school sports and activities, too? I would think that's a big thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So, we um, we've or I've just heard from um, drivers uh they see people or students getting to like after school jobs often. Um we do we have more kids um around the three o'clock hour in our transfer center waiting for other buses, not just the express routes that might drive by their house on the way. But um that uh that maybe means that they could have taken student transit but are opting not to. you know, they might be outside of that two-mile area or maybe it's a custody thing. I'm not entirely sure, but um we are seeing just across the board more um students on all of our routes and not just our express routes. So, it's been cool.

That's great. Well, I've been on a school bus and a transit bus and I mean it's a nicer ride, I think, on the transit. Yeah, the kids are all excited because they um the seats are full oftent times and so um like you'll see middle schoolers holding on to the little ropes on the top. I love that. That's great. Oh, you have more and you have more slides, too. Just so just Yeah. Okay. But you guys have more to say on transit. Yeah. Um is that okay if we keep moving? Okay.

Okay. the um we've been talking about microtransit with our pilot program and I've been able to meet with um probably half of the stakeholders I want to so far um I'd say the the feedback is um largely positive um some of the agencies have really hit the point of safety for the people that they serve so CVTC wlair um BPAC I think have all mentioned um that like when it's dark at night, it would be really nice to know, okay, my vehicle is coming in um a couple minutes, which is the same for the bus, you know, when the bus is coming, but um and it's going to take me exactly where I need to go. I don't have to wait at a bus stop. Um so, kind of a an unexpected thing, I think, for me to hear back was just they're excited about the the doortodoor just for safety purposes. Um and then the other piece of feedback was that um over time they think that this will get um pretty popular with folks especially given the low price point that our um pilot is at right now. um we haven't seen that huge surplus of that people anticipate but if it was open to um the entire city um there was concern over like paratransit the more rides or the higher demand um the more expensive it gets versus the bus where more rides means cheaper per ride. So um those were like the main points of feedback I'd say that I've gotten. um other groups like CBTC really excited about the potential of serving outside of um areas that aren't currently served by the bus. Um, so our thought was if we were to do

microransit in the evening, would we raise the price um to be more of a um like a competition for Uber or Lift, I would say, but then also being able being able to serve the people that really need it, whether it be a monthly pass or um so kind of a combination. Can I just point out this?

Um, sure. So this uh handout that we have here is was something we worked through with VIA to model the cost of evening microtransit and if we did it inhouse it would be a little different. Um and uh also you could just do like um you could keep some fixed routes and you could do some microtransit. Um, and also like if you do uh paratransit in-house, like if we purchase vans rather than the full buses as part of our next CIP, then it may be possible to do to basically mingle like to try some paratransit. Um, I should let Katrina talk, but anyway, it seems like there might be some way to in to like explore this further, but this spreadsheet shows you that if you did microransit in the evening, um, it would you would you could save money if you charge more. Um, and then that would also cover paratransit in the evening. Um, so this is just this like if you change the assumptions, it comes up with different savings or cost or whatever.

Okay, Josh. Uh, thank could you um it seems a little counterintuitive on on the surface that um the more that microtrans is used, the more expensive it is. Can you delve into that a little bit? Yeah. Um, so there's you get you get to a point where um adding more riders would mean you would need to add more vans. So really that threshold of like when we need to add another bus is much higher than you know a five car van. But

so I I guess it kind of ratches up like once you have one more it's dip and you can get back in but you're kind of dipping your way up and down. So when it's like a perfectly efficient system, that wouldn't be the case. Like we want it to be as busy as possible without being um burdened, I would say. Um but yeah, it is kind of like So you you like to be using 4.9 out of five vehicles and not using 5.1 out of five vehicle. Y Okay. Okay. I don't know who was Clara. Um, thank you for all of the brainstorming here. Um, this sheet that we got, the spreadsheet,

I would love to go through that in a lot of in complete detail because I have a lot of questions. I see a lot of numbers with a lot of line items and perhaps this isn't the right time to do that. I don't know. But I I'd like to see I'd like to get walked through the spreadsheet. The other thing I guess a comment that I have I know uh last time we talked about transit we had talked about the idea of modeling in housing paratransit and also modeling a microtransit that is like uh Erin said earlier not on demand but

uh by reservation sort of uh so I'm I'm really interested in those models. We um we are too. It's very uncharted territory for us. Um we do know we have all the data from Avivance. So that's really exciting to know um you know when and where and why people are going certain places. So, um, within our CIP, not to give spoilers, but, um, we do have, please do,

we do have, um, some smaller fleet vehicles that we're interested in purchasing, um, to potentially trial, um, some pair transit inhouse, um, on a, so we have subscription rides, which is um, a ride that we can count on every single day, whether it's diialysis or employment, we know, like you said, you know, that we have to provide it. So, we do have some hubs within the city that Abbeby vans might have six or seven vans there every morning. And to me, it's like, well, if I could have one driver go and pick up everyone and bring them here, um, that could save us a lot of money. So, um, we have been researching software for this. Um, you just with the amount of reporting we did do, um, we can't just do it pen and paper. Um so um we have been getting demos from a variety of different places and um it's it's also interesting with our um contract with the county too. It's like at one point um like I really enjoy working with them as a partner and I think their service to everyone in the county is really great. Um but I do know that Abby Vans has 26 vans in Oaklair serving everyone. So that quantity is a little bit daunting to me but um if we got to start somewhere. So

so so my question is is there a plan to do this to model it and bring it forth to us? Should we expect to have a presentation on a more detailed model? I I would just say just manage your expectations because it's a you know there's just um like one person. So, um I I don't think we would bring Yeah, that's I think it sounds great, but we might not be able to figure like it might have to be think about like an incremental step like and then so the software is a piece of it. Um and actually it's the same software for like you can use the same software for microtransit and paratransit.

Yeah. Um VIA provides for both and um many of the other companies that do paratransit also co-mingle with microtransit. So it's just a change in the setting, but you can have a system where you you count all microransit as paratransit. So So but basically if you say like we really want to go all in on paratransit and take it in-house if that's what you're saying. Um I I think we would I don't even know if that's something like I what would be like a tiny step we could take next year. We would not bring all of it in house next year by any means, but um

so a couple of the um like the career development center and reach incorporated um like starting there or we know um there's some disability support groups that meet monthly like if we even save on some of those rides. It it does go really far. um like we see the spreadsheets all the time and it's like wow if we just had one van there. So just small like you know you can count on this ride is going to happen. Um I I guess it's really hard to say that this is a really good idea till we do an analysis of it. I mean I feel like we need a a pretty robust analysis because this is complicated.

Is that something we could hire a consultant to do? Yes. Uh yeah. I mean, do we'd have to figure out a funding source is the thing, Erin? Yeah. Um, so I'm wondering how all these moving parts would impact our share of of federal and state funding. Um because my understanding and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong is that one of the reasons that our you know funding has sort of been stable at least statewise is that other places are reducing their transit and so you know there's actually money available to come to us

um at least from from the state area and so I guess my concern is that if we uh lower our budget. It's actually a double hit to transit. And then in three years, if our funding is more stable, if we try to get it back, we won't. And I don't know if you could speak on that or let me know in the future.

I will say just state funding um for transit in general is not um going up at the moment. um especially they moved the transit budget into the general fund instead of in the transportation fund at the state. Um so transit is now competing against schools or like it's not looked at as transportation. So

that is something that um our we're a part of um Wisconsin Public Transit Association and we have lobbyists and um they keep pretty good um pulse on things. Um so I I'm not sure if I guess I'm not concerned of like if we were to cut we wouldn't be able to get it back um at this point. Looks like we're done. So, what's Oh, nope. Don't worry about it. You know it already.

So, what's your do what are people feedback about? I just want to go back to the um the consulting about the paratransit. I am, as you know, I'm not one to say no to stuff because I love the big ideas, but I do I'm I am getting worried about our capacity to pull off these major like we're doing the trash is going to be huge and then our parking is going to be really big and so and we're not back filling as we just talked about some positions. So, it's going to be the same folks like stretch pulled different ways. So, even though it'd be consultant, it's still like a lot of work. Um, so it might have to be a smaller That's just my reflection. And it might have to be a smaller bite. And you know what I'm saying, Katrina? I mean, Clara,

I hear what you're saying. I mean, you can't do what you can't do. Um, it's just hard for me to give feedback without really understanding the financial analysis. Well, just for next year, what do you want us to which of these do you want us to to explore? I think I'm going to say it again that I I think I need to see a more detailed financial analysis personally. Can other people chime in? Like specifically which things should we focus on given the limited staff?

Well, if I could I mean I I the fair increases seems I hate to say it a no-brainer. I mean, the way you've you've you've put it uh forth and um again, it seems like you see lowhanging fruit opportunities for consolidating some rides and doing something with um I don't know, paratransit, I don't know how that impacts our contracts if it if you can do it peace meal or if it then blows up your whole thing and you have to rethink the whole thing. That's that's a little unclear to me. But um this evening paratransit model I'd like to do a much for me personally I need to see a much more detail.

So do we have feedback from our transit commission on these ideas because normally we would look to them for a recommendation on policy. Yeah. Um I have not brought these specific slides back. um they are in favor of looking at um route changes and um looking at the times of routes as well. Um so support on that. Um they were very supportive of um when we increase the agency fair. I there will be push back on any fair increase um from the public and

from the commission, but if it means not cutting routes, I think like I I would think that they would agree to it, but we will be bringing it to them. Um I just had to cancel this month's meeting, but Oh, okay. That's helpful context. Sometimes people who ride the bus a lot and have experiences. Yeah. Erin, do you have Yeah. Um, just just one last thing. I I do think having using the the day pass and and maybe some sort of day, week, month

situation um is on the right track. Um because I my assumption I guess is that you know the have the I think you're supposed to buy a second fair once you get to the transit center, aren't you? You get a free transfer. A free transfer. So, the day pass would actually get rid of some of that. Um, we do see some like fair evasion in that way of people saying they're a transfer, but they're not. So, a day pass would eliminate that. It's not it's not a lot. It's it's people that really need to ride, but yeah, I like that idea. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Oh,

just to throw something we discussed a while back. I'm advertising on benches. Uh, let's keep that on the table. Keep that on the bench. On the bench. Two pun limit. Two. Are we at the We're at the limit. No, two pun limit. I said the second pun of the Oh, and I missed the first one. Transparent. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay.

Um, so yeah, I think you got pretty light feedback. We went along like reducing frequency not good. any other things stabilize or increase revenue or writership. I would be interested to hear what does come out of uh transit and BPAC. So once it's going through those committees maybe just like in a meeting just submit a report update. It'd be good to hear what they have because you know like Andrew said we we do lean on the expertise of of those who are most engaged. So that'd be good.

So I just wanted to reiterate that we are talking about cutting 115,000 from transit. So I know there will be push back in general about making a cut but just to understand that this is what our you know recipe has and if it doesn't come from there then it needs to come from somewhere else but every department's pretty much but wait a minute where we're talking about an increase the fair increase would cover that. Yep. That would cover it. Well, um, except don't we have to cut 330 with the federal or is that including the subsid from the general fund trans subsidy is cutting 115,000? Yes.

So, this would cover it. The fair your fair revenue if you go back. But if we're we got one last question. Yeah. Is there things that um could be cut or restructured in such a way that it wouldn't impact uh our federal or state shared revenue? Um the only thing would be like the switch of revenue to partnership would be like Mayo.

Okay. Um and I have started talking about um that with the DHS um because the um unhoused voucher program um was ARPA funded and that was $30,000. So um we have made it very clear that it needs to come from um a private entity if we were to continue that program. But um DHS serves that population very well. So there have been talks on um if we can have a partnership in that way. I don't know if that answers that's the only thing I can think of that wouldn't uh

because because the matching funds is for the entire operating budget basically. So anything that's in the operating budget impacts Yeah. Uh yeah, there we've thought about other things with um like we rent CMF right now, but then I don't know, they're kind of like very small incremental ideas, but that's kind of how we have to save money at this point. But we have a lot of ideas and they're not all good ideas. That is true. There's the core of the night. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Katrina. This is it.

This is it. So, if you have any other feedback on this sheet, let me know. Um and uh we'll just keep going ahead and we appreciate all of your efforts and all your many meetings and hold uh March 30th at 6 p.m. Can it be earlier? Huh? Can it be earlier? It could be earlier if that we do it. We're going to have a special meeting to potentially approve the agreement with the soccer partner. Does every do people prefer four or five? People prefer five. Do you like five? Raise your hand if you can be there at five in the morning.

Okay. Sorry. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So, as long as we have No, I'm joking.

Okay, so five. I'll move it to five. Sold. All right. Thank you guys. We should live the dream. Sarah