Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the East Lancing City Council discussion only meeting of April 14th, 2026. The meeting will come to order. Could we have the roll call, please? Council member Whan here. Council member Meadows here. Council member Singh. Mayor Pro Tim Griggsby here. Mayor Alman here. Is there a motion concerning the agenda? Move to approve the agenda. Motion by Meadows. Second. Second by Griggsby. All those in favor say I. I. I. I. Agenda is approved.

And let the record reflect that council member Singh has arrived. Uh communications from the mayor and council members. Um, Council Member Whan,

just a few brief um things. I I we had the historic commission meeting this week and um a lot of great um it's amazing if you've never gone to a lot of our commissions. Um it's amazing how people in the community really are trying to advance the community and also advance themselves. And we've got a commission that really is trying to keep our um neighborhoods with the flavor of the history and also making their places beautiful. I really appreciate the historic commission. Also, I just um attended the RHC responsible hospitality commission and in that we had a good presentation from city staff and also many of the local businesses. It's going to be a very busy summer this summer. Um, just to name a few, there's going to be concert series all summer, basically every other Friday. There's also going to be the Glam Jam, Summer Kickoff. There's going to be East Lancing Pride, Community Chalk Walk, '8s Night, East Lancing Extravaganza, Pumpkin Walk, Downtown Lighting the Christmas Tree in addition to other items. So, um there's going to be a lot of activity all summer downtown and there's um a great staff and community members that are going to be contributing to that and I appreciate all they do.

Thank you, Mr. Meadows. Mayor Prom Griggsby.

Uh yes, thank you. Um, I just wanted to say that we were having a conversation I think maybe a month ago and I and uh we were talking about parks or some to that degree and then I had mentioned that we did not have any parks named after any women and I saw recently that uh that was in the universe and we now have a park um Lucia Angaro Fox Park that's going to be uh happening here in Chesterfield Hill neighborhood. I won't say too much about it because I didn't have anything to do with that. So, I don't want to take credit away from anyone that has been putting that work in and when they make their official announcement, but I wanted to acknowledge that. I thought that was uh important. And um that's all I had tonight. Thank you, Council Member Singh.

Yes, just a couple brief things. One, um we have severe weather coming through this evening and into the night. And I know with our flooding challenges, I know we talked about some items um including trying to keep those drains clear even though the city sweepers do what they can. I think um for those that may be streaming at home, uh if you have a moment, it may be a place that you want to check um as we get ready and perhaps there's other recommendations that are coming, but it was top of mind as I saw those reports. And then just wanted to say that um you know as we continue uh with our budget process for this year um it's an ongoing discussion from last year into this year we have um some challenges and I think um preparing and having thoughtful discussion not only that has been happening at the fiscal health task force um but here around the table that I know I hear from many community members that we want to do more things in in terms of developing a sense of place um and amenities and taking care of our infrastructure. And I really just encourage community members to be a part of this process because um it is a challenging one. And the realities are um that I think making sensible uh decisions which could mean um some cuts to the existing budget but also we have to have a real conversation about increasing revenue if we want to increase amenities in our community. So just want to again have those very topline uh comments as we continue forth on this discussion. That's it.

Thank you. A couple of words about trees. Um, with severe weather coming in, it's worth noting again that we have a block uh tree pruning program um that the city administers to city trees. It started has taken place the past couple years. And in neighborhoods where the block pruning has happened, uh, storm damage after the kind of severe weather we may be in for tonight um is significantly reduced. And so that's an important program for um maintaining our trees, but also saving money on cleanup. And the other thing to remember, if you happen to see a tree disappear, a city tree disappear in front of your house, as I noticed um around the block from me um a couple of weeks ago. Um that is by design. And even if where it's cut off at the ground level, the stump looks like it's great and solid, that doesn't mean that it wasn't rotting up top. And so one of the things that our uh tree professionals do as they go through the neighborhood is they make sure that trees that could could cause problems when severe uh weather comes up are removed before they cause any damage. And so if a tree gets cut down, um it's always hard to see that happen, but uh know that uh people were looking out um for everybody's safety. Mr. Mayor, can I Yes. Could I um sort of rethink my answer there? I just want to mention something for

um Chuck's uh based on Chuck's comment. uh because we did uh there was an application to uh name the Bailey Neighborhood Park after Sally Silver, one of the longtime activists in that neighborhood who helped reduce the number of or the spread of rental housing into that neighborhood. To the best of my knowledge, that is still pending. It was filed in 2020. Requires the mayor to put together a a group of people to name a park. And um I don't think that ever happened. So maybe somebody could check on that, but if that's still pending, we should take care of that that particular application.

Yeah, I I thank you. And I just I don't want to just stop there. I think we have a lot of diversity that we can add in our community as far as representation. So I think it's a great first step and I look forward to seeing not just that, but more diversity in all walks of life. Thank you. Uh, communications from the audience. Um, I have several slips. Uh, first one is Amanda Morgan. Um, I would like to speak on the recent removal of director Elaine Hardy, uh, director of DEI for the city of East Lancing as liaison to the East Lansancy Independent Police Oversight Commission. I come today to speak as a community member at large, not as a representative of the East Lancing Independent Police Oversight Commission. I come as a public member who is has a concern to share to East Lancing residents. Last week, Ellie Pac received a non-confidential memo regarding the changes to liaison to our commission sent by city manager Robert Bellman. This letter informed the commission that director Elaine Hardy, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion department will no longer be the leazison for Ellipo. This memo said this was effective immediately. First of all, I would like to share with the public of East Lancing how instrumental it was to have a director Hardy as our liaison. She was a wonderful support in the liaison role. Um she showed professionalism, dignity with respect towards the city at large. Um director Hardy is someone who cares about East Lancing and all its community members. She has shown wonderful grace while discussing difficult topics set forth for the commission to discuss. Time and time again, Director Hardy has shown she has a wealth of knowledge the city of East Lancing benefits from. What I want to say want the city of East Lansancy to

understand is that Ellie Pac has had a change in liaison before. Shelley Newman preceded director Elaine Hardy. I am used to changes in government as bureaucrats change their roles. That is not my concern. What is precedence here is how the current change of liaison was handled. Shelley Newman was allowed to come to the commission and inform us that she was transitioning off the commission. However, director Hardy was removed without such humane opportunities to transition the baton. We had an opportunity to thank Shelley and be introduced to our new liaison. We even gave Shelley a thank you letter signed by all of us before she left. I recall when city employees reported Robert Bellman bullying he had bullying behavior. I believe at that time director Hardy had encouraged Ellie Pac to give him a try even though he came with such concerning track record. I am sad to say my concern was justified with that memo. What bullying thing to do. I am concerned that the city manager of East Lancing with a history of bullying behavior is using his power to bully once again. Why is director Hardy not being treated like an Why is director Hardy being treated like an object and not a human being who put in time and effort into this commission by Robert Bellamin? Why is the city council Why is the city council of East Lancing going to let this happen? Will you Mark Meadows? Will you? Director Hardy should have been given the basic human decency to come to the commission and inform inform us or at least allow us to celebrate her before she left the commission. I am not sure why the city manager has decided to not allow director of DEI to come and say goodbye. I certainly know he knows how to use bureaucracy to show he has power, but more importantly, he has power over whether or not the liaison for the commission is given dignity and respect when she transitions roles. I am concerned that East Lancing will be removing the DEI department soon, secondary to fain budget crisis

perpetuated by mismanagement of funds. For example, mailing out letters to commissioners cost 72 each, whereas an email does not cost this um especially an encrypted email does not cost $7.92 to send out letters to us. This is just off the top of my head. It has nothing to do with anything at this time. Um I do believe those 22 employees of the city of Sagenol, I'm glad they were strong enough to speak up. I hear them. I suspect we will see a lot more lawsuits under him as well, but that is for another day. Today, I want the city of East Lancing to know that Director Hardy has done a has not done anything wrong. She was transitioned because the city manager decided to remove her. He elected to decide it was effective immediately and that director Elaine Hardy was not allowed the same dignity as Shelley Newman was provided in her transition. It is not a coincidence Shelley was Caucasian and director Hardy is black. This is what is known as microaggressions in white spaces. It can be implicit or explicit, but absolutely reflects the lack of dignity and respect direct Director Hardy deserves. It can um to the people of East Lancing, I worry that this city council is planning to remove the DEI department under the guise of budget cuts. In reality, East Lancing will be the first to allow fashion into this area.

Um as a member of the city council here today, my role is not to or sorry, my role is not to genulect to you. My role is not to show reverence. My role he is here today is to let you know director Hardy did a fantastic job. She is not responsible for the lawsuits arisen against the department of police and the city of LA the in the last few years. She is not responsible for how the commissioners choose to respond to the city manager's need for control rather than collaboration. What will you do about this? Mark Meadows for your comments. Your time is expired. U James Mccurtis. Good evening. Uh, my name is James McCurtis and I am the uh, president of the Lancing branch, NAACP. Police Chief Jennifer Brown needs to resign. And the East Lancing City Council and City Manager Robert Bellamin Noit. The evidence is undeniable. The public has seen the video. East Lancing police officers using excessive force pepper spraying two young black men during Michigan State University's welcome week in August. This alone demands accountability from the police department and the city of East Lancing. Yesterday, the city's human rights commission held you accountable. It concluded in its investigation that there's a pattern of racial discrimination in policing. One commissioner called your actions and the police department's actions a cover up. In a news report, one of your aggressive police officers who pepper-sprayed the young man during welcome week was found to have 11 violations. He was put on probation for his violations. The news station that reported the findings asked a retired assistant police chief for Detroit Police Department to review the complaints against the former officer.

He said, quote, "I understand the first time you might give a verbal warning, maybe a written reprimand, but 11 of them, I think you've kind of screwed your probation. It's time for you to leave." Well, at that time, the East Lancing police chief didn't hold that officer accountable. In fact, in fact, she reduced his probation period. Now, that officer, after about two years on the force, has since resigned as of 11 days ago. One bad apple has left. It's time to replace the other bad apple, Chief Jennifer Brown. Why? Because she fosters and cultivates a culture of wrongdoing, mismanagement, and racial discrimination within the police department. Her response after the pepper spray incident says it all. When questioned about the incident, she stated, "We have a very transient population and over the last month started with starting with welcome week, we have had a disproportionate number of minorities come into the community and commit crimes. And as police officers, we are simply responding to those crimes." Well, according to news reports, when a white citizen didn't comply with East Lancing police, he wasn't met with a toxic cloud of pepper spray. Yet these young men, black young men who were leaving the scene peacefully were doused with pepper spray by the former bad apple police officer. Her words in response to the young black men who were pepper-sprayed are not merely unfortunate or poorly chosen. They are simply racist, inflammatory, and disqualifying. A police chief who views an influx of minority residents as inherently criminal has no business none whatsoever leading a police force in any community least of all that includes a diverse university population. Leadership sets the standard when a chief traffics and racial stereotyping officers follow suit. The culture of a department flows directly from the top.

The Human Rights Commission said in its report that there's a pattern of racial discrimination and policing. Chief Brown has not resigned. That means the responsibility falls squarely on you. East Lancing City Council and City Manager Robert Bellamin. Every day Chief Brown remains in her position is another day you endorse her racism. Every day without action is a public decoration that you stand with her 100 100%. Your inaction is not neutrality. It is complicity. So what is it going to take? Yesterday I spoke with several news outlets about the vandalism that was done to George Floyd's mural in Lancing. We all know what happened to George Floyd. Does a similar tragedy have to happen here before you act? We will not stop demanding Chief Brown's resignation, but make no mistake, our focus continues to be on you. Remove Chief Brown immediately or accept that you own her words, her leadership, and her failures as your own. The Human Rights Commission held you accountable. Will you hold yourself accountable? The residents of East Lancing, students, families, and the community members of every background

deserve leaders who reject racism unequivocally and act with moral courage. Replace Chief Jennifer Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Nadia Sers.

Robert, I hope you have the courage to look at me because I have the courage to look at you. Guilty. Guilty. Jen Brown, guilty. You were found guilty of violating my sons and Mason's Woods civil rights. So, do you choose council money or do you choose human rights? The HRC is a commission group you guys created, but then you went back and did everything in your power to stop them from conducting an investigation into our son's claims. That is called corruption. Thank God those good men and women didn't let you get away with it. The corruption starts at the top. Robert, Jen Brown, Caro, and guess what? You guys are letting these three people drag you into their corruption. When they go down, and they will, you're going down with them because you're all willing participants. Alman, you refuse to honor their foyer request. You refused again when the HRC asked just to gain access to the videos. Then you sent them this crazy bill. When they asked you to, hey, can you remove the charges? You said no. Why? WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF? WHAT are you covering up? What are you covering up, Robert? I want to know. What are you covering up, Jen? I want to know. This community has the right to know. Chuck,

I noticed last night you were very uncomfortable and I feel sorry for you because I think you know you are just another puppet negro on this council and they're keeping information from you the same way they did to Dana Watson. And if you DON'T HAVE THE BALLS to see that, I don't even consider you a man. This shit's unbelievable. Robert, and I'mma say this, when your little ass couldn't control the HRC commissioners, you went after Elaine Hardy, the only black woman with enough knowledge of the ordinance to make sure the commissioners were being fair, concise, and consistent. And if you think this community and black activists like myself and black organizations are going to stand by and let you destroy this beautiful, intelligent black woman. Little man, you're so wrong. That is not going to happen. And then you had the gall to replace her with an uneducated, unexperienced, uncomfortable white woman. But you're still guilty. This is not going to end well for you. Trust me. Not for this city. Not for this council. Not for the police department. Not for Jen Brown. You're guilty. See, here's what you don't realize. Black people, we're resilient. Slavery didn't break us. Hanging your young black men and boys didn't break us. Putting us in chains and SHACKLING OUR FEET DIDN'T BREAK US. KILLING OUR BLACK LEADERS didn't break us. Selling and beating our black men with whips DIDN'T BREAK US. SLAVERY AND YOUR SLAVE MASTERS didn't break us. Making us sit in THE

BACK OF THE BUS DIDN'T BREAK US. Denying us the right to vote didn't break us. To sleep in your hotels, to eat in your restaurants didn't break us. Denying us an EDUCATION DIDN'T BREAK US. AND THIS [ __ ] THAT YOU'RE TRYING TO PULL WON'T BREAK ME. BECAUSE THE PEOPLE THAT DIED AND SUFFERED AND ENDURED BEFORE me made me. Look at my son. My son ain't no criminal. Your officer had more charges than my son ever had. Or Mason. He's the criminal. Your officer Jen was the criminal. Look at my son. My son.

You have 30 seconds remaining. called House of Souls. He paid taxes to this commission. Miss Sers, please address the council. Doing what I want to do. And he paid taxes. Miss Sers, please address the council and not the audience. You know what? He paid taxes to this community for your officers, your kids, your schools, and everything else. And what you do, you call my educated son graduating in a couple of weeks from CMU with on the deans LIST AFTER ALL THE [ __ ] you p a criminal. You're the criminals. Thank you. Christine Root.

Hello. My name is Chris Root. I live in East Lancing. I want to speak tonight about agenda item 3.3, discussion of an update of policy resolution about procedures at your council meeting. I am dismayed at the proposal to limit public comments to topics that are on the agenda of the council meeting and to shorten those comments. Um there have been a number of times various council members have said that public comment period is one of the most important parts of city council meetings. I think it's going to be more difficult to have the opportunity of hearing a lot of meaningful comments if um you restrain what people can talk about or if you make them wait until the end of the meeting. I don't know if that's a possibility you're considering. Um you all don't get a lot of pay for being on council, but you do get pay. People who come to speak are doing it as volunteers. Many people work. Many people take care of kids or take care of elderly people. They cannot be expected to sit waiting for 2 or 3 hours and then get three minutes to speak. There are many issues, many issues that you all care about, that people in the community care about. And not all of them are on the agenda every meeting. And some of them are timely in ways that, you know, people can't necessarily anticipate. um but that are important and indeed timely. Whether it's flooding or um a a big traffic incident or uh somebody wanting to express appreciation for good work of um city staff recently or

raising issues about a civil rights violation that is important um or budget issues that you're trying to deal with that are are major and you're looking for new ideas. So, I think it's really going to be harmful um to make that change. Um I think perhaps I don't know, but perhaps you're trying to apply lessons from the many hours of public comments that occurred uh on the ordinances about people who are homeless. I think there are some other lessons that could be learned from that experience. um public the public comments had very valuable uh input about people's experiences, people's expertise on this subject that were very important um and were I think made a difference in your consideration but the whole process could have been handled differently. Uh we all know there was a cheret that city staff organized and the city paid for on this very topic and the bills that were drafted for your consideration were drafted before that cheret was finished and before the report from that cheret happened. Some of the people who came to speak were at that cheret. Um others you know maybe could have been added to that chet. You could have waited, you you know, our city government could have waited and gotten the benefit of the input that you started to ask for. And I think the whole process could have gone very differently if that had happened. The the impulse to um reach out to people with good information and exper experience was a good start and then it wasn't used. Um, so I think there I I hope that you do not go forward with this um limit on

democracy in East Lancing. Um, I also want to um thank Chuck Griggsby for the work he has done over the years, particularly as chair of the study committee on an independent police oversight commission. I had the opportunity and privilege to work with him on that committee and um it was not an easy thing to do and I learned a lot from how he chaired that committee and I think he did a masterful job and I think the outcome was very good. Um and I appreciate that.

Thank you. Is there anybody else in the room who would care to address the council, please? If you could please state your name for the record. Just leave this up here. Just leave it up. Yeah. Thanks.

I'm Owen Ron. I live in the 400 block of North Lawn Avenue. Um, and I was hoping to talk today about a couple different topics. Um, Miss Rut said it really well. I think the um, agenda item 3.3 is really important. Um, I think the first amendment right that's afforded to um to us in the community to be able to express ourselves is really important and I would assert that it's also important to you all to understand the voice of the community so that you can exercise our will um and and avoid being replaced come next election. Um I'd also like to speak very briefly um about the uh about agenda item 3.2 two on your agenda. Um, which is the uh the budget. As you look over that, I'd point your attention to, let me get the page number, uh, page 82 of 515. Uh, that page shows uh, the relative proportion of the different budgeted expenditures by function. You'll notice that the first item in there is that of general government. Um, and the costs associated with general government are expanding by more than 100% under this budget from 8 million in change last year to 18 million in change this year. Uh, so that might be an area for serious consideration as you go through this budgeting process this month and next. Um, I'd also like to speak very briefly about um the flooding events of earlier this month. Um, I live on the 400 block of uh, North Lawn Avenue, like I mentioned. Uh, that's across the street from Shaw Park for any of you that are familiar in this uh, in this neighborhood we're in right now. Um, we've had flooding issues uh on that street since uh August of

2021. At that time, I lived in Colorado, but moved back to town uh to be closer to my parents. Um, and anyway, um, my home was relatively unaffected by that, but my neighbors were not so uh not so lucky. Um, what we experienced was sewer sircharging. Uh so that is water coming up from the sewer grates uh in the in the curb and uh that ex that occurred between uh 4:15 and 4:45 to start. It lasted about 30 minutes. Um and then at some point in the 5:00 hour um the capacity returned to the sewer system. Uh I was asleep at the time, but my neighbors who were fighting that water um described it as if a valve or a gate had been opened and immediately the capacity returned to the system. Um I know that we had a cso I believe it's referred to um as where we discharged either untreated or partially treated uh combined sewer into the red cedar. And frankly, if we have to choose between releasing that untreated contaminant into the Red Cedar versus into our neighborhoods, I think that the Red Seedar is the appropriate place for it. Um, that's how this community's operated for the past 100 years. And while we certainly have aspirational goals to reduce that contamination, it doesn't belong in our neighborhoods. and it's inappropriate to continue to discharge that waste into folks backyards and expect them to pump it out. All that said, I do really want to commend um uh uh city manager Bellman as well as um Alonzo Chapel I believe is or pardon Alando Chapel um who is the uh interim operations administrator. the two of

them came around that Saturday morning and talked to impacted uh homeowners and uh that makes a big difference. It suggests that the conversation around our uh our situation both on North Lawn and across the city in the areas with combined sewer um has shifted from just a problem of the environment that no one can control to one that is solvable in this community. So, thank you very much. I appreciate your time and attention. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to address the council from the audience? Okay, seeing none, do we have any callers?

There is one caller on the line. Caller with the last name Wagner, you are now free to address the council. Caller with the last name Wagner, you are now free to address the council. Okay, we have one more speaker. Please state your name. Hi, I'm Simone PZA, East Lancing resident. Um, I wanted to run through a little timeline. Before I do, I do want to get out of the way that we have learned more in the past 6 months through public comment than just on the homeless issue than we did in 16 hours of experts in a room being facilitated by an out of town contractor. So to get rid of public comment is to get rid of your own citizens information and expertise um which the city needs. So, this timeline is pertaining to ELPD and Ellip and the recent um memo relating to the Ellip City Commission uh liaison Elaine Harding. So, in August 2025, we had an OCA use of force incident. It's now the focus of two federal civil rights lawsuits. Then in September, we had ELPD Chief Brown addressing June and July racial bias and use of force incidents by stating that starting with welcome weekend, which is late August, by the way, that it was because there were too many minorities invading the city of

East Lancing and committing crimes. And this then the same month, the city of East Lancing releases a statement naming the two individuals now behind the federal lawsuit. In October, we had former East Lancing Mayor Aaron Stevens saying he believed ELPD had implemented a policy to stop including names in pre-trial press releases. uh in most cases after ELPD incorrectly claimed to have stopped a sexual assault in action in 2020 naming a man who was later exonerated. If this is the track record, we we got to stop releasing names. It sounds like the only time we release names is when somebody's not guilty and found to not be guilty. So, um really selective in a bad way. In November, Ellip filed a complaint based on the OCA use of force incident and the misuse of the OCA pepper spray. This was submitted by our commission liaison in the DEI office, Miss Elaine Harding. In December, not much happened in December. In January, I mean, um, we once again had Miss Sellers, um, mother of one of the individuals, speak out in anger during public comment at our January 6th city council meeting. Um, one of many, like tonight. Um, and then in March, uh, we have the city asserting, uh, to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights that race was not a factor. April 3rd, we have Officer Lion at the center of the two federal civil rights lawsuits, resigning less than two years after he was hired. And now today, Ellipot commissioners received a letter from the city of East Lancing's human

resources director stating that they were notified to they were instruct directed by the city attorney to send each Ellipot commissioner a legal memo via regular mail to their home address on Friday, April 3rd. That's the same day that officer Lion resigned actually and it was not the day I got a second email less than 10 minutes later saying the city in the city attorney instructed a the HR director to do this last Friday, April 10th. So, I'm here to get a copy of the memo that I haven't seen, but I'm wondering if it informs us if the East Lancing Independent Police Oversight Commission city liaison from the city's own diversity, equity, inclusion department, the same one who submitted the complaint behind the misuse of the OCA pepper spray on behalf of Ellie Pac last November, And is this the same individual that's being

now taken out of the mix? And at the same meeting that I'm going to pick up this letter to find out what's going on with Miss Elaine Harding, um we're hearing about public comment. Sounds like it's getting in the way. So, I'm going to encourage you guys to um keep this space. It doesn't go away. It just gets louder and shows up in other places. This is a civil way to have these types of conversations. Thank you for your comments. Your time has expired. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to address the council and it's beyond Ela Brown.

Going once, going twice, gone. Okay, that concludes communications from the audience. City manager report. Mr. Bellman. So, just to follow up on uh Council Member Singh's comments, if we do encounter uh severe weather, just to point out the weather shelters here in the Hannah Community Center, so it's the basement, including the storage area, which is accessible by the stairs by the theater. um the pool locker rooms including adjacent family changing rooms, first floor restrooms and first floor level of the central stairwell across from prime time next to the men's bathroom. So just wanted to share that information to everybody in attendance. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Which brings us to item 3.1, discussion of police and fire department updates. Welcome, Chief Brown. Interim Chief Newman. Good evening. Go right ahead.

Good evening, Mayor Alman, Mayor Prom Griggsby, and city council members. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief update on the East Lancing Police Department. This evening, I'll touch on our current staffing levels, recent transparency efforts, statistics, and operational planning for major events over this past month. The department is currently budgeted for 55 sworn officers, and we're currently at 46. While we're not at full strength, we see some positive momentum in our hiring efforts. We currently have one officer in the police academy, two lateral hires who were sworn in last week, one recruit scheduled to begin the police academy in May, and two additional recruits set to start in August. We also have several candidates in the early stages of the hiring process. In addition to recruiting sworn officers, we're actively hiring part-time jail staff, neighborhood resource specialists, and a social worker. I do want to share that one of our social workers is no longer with the East Lancing Police Department and we're working again to fill that position. Achieving full staffing remains top priority as it'll allow us to enhance service delivery and reduce reliance on overtime. With regards to statistics, you can see that this past month we again increased the number of traffic stops compared to last year. So March 25 compared to March 26. There was a slight decrease when comparing March to February of this year, which I believe is attributed to an increase in calls for service during March. At this time, I'd like to thank city council for amending the prohibited traffic stop ordinance this past fall. As a result of that change, we were able to stop six vehicles for noise violations this past month, resulting in one citation and five warnings. Additionally, our new camera trailer that was authorized by city council last fall was deployed yesterday. We are hopeful this tool will hope help to

deter both crime and traffic violations throughout the city. In addition to staffing and enforcement efforts, we've taken an important step forward in strengthening transparency with the launch of our refresh transparency page on the city's website. The refresh launched yesterday and will update monthly, providing accessible and consistent information for our community, includes data on complaints and dispositions, arrest summaries, citations, crime statistics, use of force, and calls for service. Our goal is to ensure community members have a clear and reliable access to information about our operations. The month of March required a significant amount of operational planning to do to large-scale events, including St. Patrick's Day and the NCAA tournament. In preparation for St. Patrick's Day, the department dedicated many hours to planning and coordination. We increased staffing levels and worked closely with regional partners to ensure additional resources were available if needed. This included drone support, additional officers from neighboring jurisdictions, and coordination with emergency medical service interim chief and his team. Our goal was to maintain a safe environment while allowing individuals to celebrate responsibly. I'd love to say that the police department can take full credit for a relatively safe and quiet day compared to previous years, but I do have to give a little credit to mother nature. With temperatures in the 20 and 20s and snow falling, we saw fewer people downtown this year than we typically would on a St. Patrick's Day. Similarly, in anticipation of the final four run during the NCAA tournament, we conducted extensive planning to ensure we're fully prepared. Every available member of the department was scheduled to work, including patrol, records, pace, and jail to maximize our staffing and support. We collaborated closely with our partners in public works, parking, IT, the fire department, and communications. While the outcome wasn't what we had hoped for, the preparation

ensured we were ready to respond to any situation. We are already looking ahead and beginning preparation for 2027 final four. Community engagement continues to be a priority for the department. One example is our volunteer interview panel uh program which invites community members to participate in the hiring process for prospective employees including our police officers. This initiative helps to ensure a more inclusive and well-rounded approach to selecting candidates and strengthens our connection to the community. If you or someone that you know would like to be in uh part of that panel for interviews, please reach out to Lieutenant O'Hario and his information is on the screen right now. In closing, the East Lancing Police Department remains focused on building staffing levels, enhancing transparency, strengthening partnerships, and proactively planning for major events. We appreciate the continued support from city council and from our community. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Questions for Chief Brown. I have not. Okay. I have a one question. The uh the camera trailer which just deployed, could you briefly summarize what it does and doesn't do and how you will use it?

Yes. So, the camera trailer is currently deployed on Michigan Avenue like University Kensington type area. That is an area over the last six months to a year, we've seen a very um many issues in that neighborhood with speeding um uh running stop signs, but especially related to loud exhaust and then turning onto Michigan and then drag racing down Michigan. And so our hope is that with um input from the neighbors, we will start to see trends related to traffic violations and we'll be able to start to track those trends and then be able to provide police officer resources during those time periods so that we can increase enforcement and education.

And how does the camera trailer specifically factor into measuring those trends? So, we will have um our cadetses and our jail staff be able to watch or view those cameras live, but then also again with the help of community input, we will be able to go back and look at camera footage and be able to identify exactly what the neighborhood um residents are telling us in terms of those time frames for trends related to those violations. Does the trailer have a microphone?

It does not have a microphone. Um there is technology um from my understanding that it can capture gunshots and from my understanding the makers of the camera trailer are also enhancing its abilities and pro uh providing technology in the future to detect other types of sound. And so my hope I actually responded to an email today that I'll buy 10 of those trailers if they can detect loud exhaust.

Yeah. Right. So that's where I was headed. Okay. Great. And then um I had a question about PACE. Um are we seeing turnover in PACE positions? The the part-time positions?

Yes, we see a significant increase in or excuse me increase in our turnover in part-time PACE. In fact, um very recently in this last week, we ran the numbers and the vast majority or the average amount of time that a part-time PACE officer stays is one year. And so we're spending a considerable number number of resources, training those individuals, getting them out onto the road by themselves, putting them in uniforms, and then having turnover, you know, months later. At some point, does it make sense to convert some of those part-time positions to full-time positions? Yes, that that makes sense. And I believe that is part of a budget discussion.

Okay. Any other questions? Mr. When? So the cameras right know right now those are not associated with any citations or any kind of enforcement. So we have the camera trailer up as as of yesterday. Um our hope again is to be able to provide resources once we're able to narrow down some traffic violations and eventually we will provide education and enforcement to those that are violating traffic um laws. But as of today, I don't believe we've had any citations yesterday or today related to the cameras. Okay. Did that answer your question?

I just have a comment to to put uh in context uh the number of officers that we have available. Uh because I think when the mayor and I were elected in 2015, um we had 43 officers and today we have 46. You're off authorized for 55. We have hired a lot of people uh in that time period in that 10 years, but we've also had a lot of people retire. And so it's very difficult to bring the police department to the authorized levels that we've had. And to put it in further context, when I left for the legislature in 2006, I think we had 63 officers um operating within the department. So, we've had a huge reduction in public safety, in particular in the police department during those years.

Yeah. And you've you've heard me talk about how long it takes to train an officer by the time we hire them to get them through the academy and then through the the FTO program, um, of those 46, um, I believe we have five currently in training. And so those officers aren't even officers yet to be on their own. they have to deal with a field training officer. And then on top of that, we have one officer that is currently deployed um for military service. And we have another officer um actually a lieutenant who is part of the military military and he's currently off for several weeks. So it's, you know, those numbers sound okay at 46, but they're not really because we're even lower based on the number of folks that we're currently training.

Mr. Mr. Willen, did you have a followup? City manager was about to respond to my point, Mr. So, the camera is not used to issue tickets, right? It is only to notify ELPD when they need to do directed enforcement. Oh, I see what your question was. You were asking if the camera itself noticed somebody speeding and then could mail a ticket. Right. That is not legal in the state of Michigan from my understanding. So, that's what I thought. Thank Thank you for clarifying that. Yes. Sorry, I didn't understand that question. It is an investigation. You could use that as a part of an ongoing investigation or something like that to help provide more safety to the community. That is correct. Thank you for clarification there.

I do, Council Member Singh. Thank you, sir. Um, so I have a a few questions and and these updates are really important, especially recognizing what we've mobilized over the last year. both we have authorized additional positions since we've been here and at least this body um I know you know this is going to be a hard question to answer of the nine positions you have a few uh hires in the pipeline to become full-fledged officers with the team do you have any prediction of when we could be at the 55 or

if assistant creant chief craft is in the room, he's going to tell you that we are going to be at 55 by the end of this year, end of the calendar year by hook or by crook or something. He he he is determined that we will have 55 by December. Okay. Um and that's helpful to understand. And then as you just mentioned, it takes time to train um even when they are full-fledged officers and getting acclimated. um what what does that period of time look like?

So once they graduate from the police academy, which again is a 16week period, we have approximately a two week orientation period. So that is the time that they learn about policies, they do qualifications down at the range, um they get all of their equipment. So that's a two-eek period that they don't even get attached to a field training officer. Then after that two-eek period, they're matched with a field training officer. Each of the field training um steps, depending on the officer and how quickly they are to um learn streets, learn policy, learn procedures, last approximately four to six weeks. So the total field training program is typically anywhere from four to six months depending on that particular officer.

Four to six months beyond. Okay. correct their academy training and correct and we do have again lateral officers um we um as I mentioned had to um join the police department each of those two officers have five years of experience at previous departments and so in those circumstances were able to speed up the process of the field train program because they already been officers there simply just need to learn our policies and procedures as well as our street names. So it's that's why it's so important if we can get lateral hires.

Gotcha. And then tell me a bit about and we've touched on this in a prior meeting in terms you know during your interimm chief time and your current um in the current position the disciplinary actions for officers. What are those? What does that look like?

Sure. So, um I heard some comments during public comment and um as police chief, we have to follow contract and we also have to follow progressive discipline. And so there are steps that we would take um should someone violate policy or procedure, we would follow progressive discipline. And are officers able to be um promoted if they've been disciplined or is there a certain

So the promotion process is um you know of course we take into account discipline um we take into account performance evaluations as well. Um there's a lot that goes into our promotion process um in terms of you know when an officer goes from uh officer level to sergeant or sergeant to lieutenant. So, it's a combination of factors and we would certainly take discipline into account. And are new officers ass when they are assigned to field uh officer trainers? I I field training officers. Okay, I got the words out of order there.

Um is it is is there a potential that those training officers could have had discipline in their past and then then they are coaching new members? Absolutely. Again, that's our job as administration is if somebody is making a mistake that we correct that behavior through that disciplinary, you know, progressive disciplinary process. Um, nobody's perfect. Um, including in law enforcement. And so that's our job as administration to make sure that we correct the behavior. And just because somebody makes a mistake doesn't mean they're not eligible to become a field training officer or a supervisor. Understood. is someone who recently got a speeding ticket out of town.

I am imperfect as well. Um I I am curious though uh um uh now I lost my train of thought. See I make a joke and that's what happens. Um so I want to the other topic I wanted to talk about and maybe it'll jog my memory but the social worker. You just said we just had someone resign. So does that mean we have two operating currently? We have um the one social worker that we've had the department for a number of years. We made that conditional offer to the second social worker. She is our intern. She is just graduating this month. Has to apply for her license through Lara and then we'll get her on board. We anticipate that second social worker now to be on board early June at the latest. I remember my last question. Just going back to the officers, since you've been intern chief or chief, have you had to put anyone on discipline?

Yes. Yes. Both counseling and discipline. Okay. Thank you. um social workers and then um I guess the other we touched on training I think in your last report like and because you know we offer authorize a number of training supports um uh for the officers as well especially in deescalation and and other tactics. So um you know I have all of those um pieces that we kind of supported in finance been completed or there was another session this summer if I recall if you can just remind me.

Yes. So we have two upcoming sessions. Um one was um Joe which is a nationally recognized deescalation um instructor and he is coming May 11th through the 14th doing two two-day sessions. Then we also had um retired police chief Ike McKinnon come in and do leadership training for all of our um supervisors that occurred a couple months ago. He is coming back in the month of July with a couple other instructors and they will be training the rest of that department during that July two July dates.

And then I I my last question is how often do you have one-on-one uh meetings with the city manager? daily weekly at minimum but most days we touch base at least once a day. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions? Clarify. There is also training by Darnell Blackburn. Yes, that training has been completed. Um, we trained all of our officers, all of our civilian staff and supervisors in three sessions January, February, and March of this year. Thank you for that reminder.

Not to mention the mayor as it happens. Um, any further comments or questions? One question about the the camera again. Can the camera detect speed? Not to my understanding. Okay. So you can't it it doesn't have the capability of being a a radar gun.

No, but we do have separate radar speed signs that are placed throughout the city. Um we as a police department own some and DPW owns some of those as well. We use those as deterrence so that people can see their speed and hopefully slow folks down. Um, I don't know how many total we have between the two departments, but we do have those deployed. So, those can detect speed, but again, and they're they're no way tied to enforcement. Thank you, Mr. Meadows.

One last thing. It uh you mentioned that Michigan law does not permit the camera to record and then authorize a ticket to be written. Can it authorize a warning? Not to my understanding. I'd like to know that. Okay.

Um, I just had a comment. I I do have a pretty indepth comprehensive ask of the city manager and the police chief uh regarding all these issues that were brought tonight that um I'm sure once they have an opportunity to collect some of that information um that uh we'll have further discussion on that. But I wanted to make sure that that was acknowledged. Anything further for the police chief? Okay. Thank you, interim chief Newman.

Good evening. Thanks for uh allowing us to be here for this. The opening slide there is just a uh informative slide for you to see. This month we held the metro high angle rope training. It was held on MSU campus at the Simon power plant and it is inside the transfer tower towards the back of the power plant that is no longer used. It is a building that is just standing and they do allow us to utilize that. We had seven departments uh from the area that participated in the in that training. There were uh 81 personnel that participated out of those seven different departments. Uh the training was held three consecutive days, the same training each day in order to cover as many onduty personnel as were possible. East Lancing had three instructors there. Lancing had two instructors and Delhigh Township had an had an instructor there. So we had enough instructors for the number of people that went through that training. We had uh it be we begin this time of year each year we begin our uh ridealongs whether it's internships or it is just the ride along clinical time that needs to be accomplished for EMT and paramedic students from different schools throughout the the Lancing area. We also have an internship that is going to begin for a paramedic student from Lake State University. He will be coming down and joining us next month and he will spend I believe he's going to be uh with us for 12 shifts that we'll be picking up as well. It's just an additional training opportunity and growth opportunity for our instructors and our field training officers. The as well as it for the training for

this month of March, we had visitation tours as they used to be called. It's basically a tour of new buildings on campus. They give us the opportunity to not only familiarize oursel with the buildings, the new buildings, but also to identify where the uh life safety system controls are located. That would have been the uh multicultural center. They also did a additional tour of Spartan Stadium. There were some things that changed there and we made sure that our personnel were aware of those changes. But there was a specific training that was held at the veterary diagnostic laboratory uh due to the studies and the tests that they do there change over time. So we'd like to get our personnel in there to understand any hazards that exist, things that change, operational changes on responses and how we will how we actually have to adjust our PPE for any responses within that laboratory. And it's been a busy month of March and it will be a busy month again this April. We are receiving our new power CS, stair chairs and cardiac monitor defibrillators from Striker. Uh that is requiring a significant amount of training. Uh the new cardiac monitors, they're designed and produced for a controlled hospital atmosphere uh when they're utilized. and we're now taking that new technology into the public field to utilize for emergency medical services. So, this unit is I sat through the very first day of class and I realized I'm a bit behind on my cardiac monitors. It is a very advanced uh computer by itself. It actually will with aside of taking a four lead of somebody's heart or working as an automatic defibrillator. Uh it can be

controlled for not only defibrillation but cardio version. It can perform 12 lead uh cardio echo cardiograms. It can also perform 15 leads. So, we're in the process of learning how we are growing our own knowledge and understanding and being able to use uh the technology for the community that we initiated the training with the monitors last week and we will be stepping that up throughout this month and next month as we will be holding our ACLS and PALS reertification classes with those new monitors to make sure that all our staff have the opportunity to utilize these monitors over and over and over and over. uh they there is a small uh cardiac rhythm generator that is used with the monitors. It creates the situations that a patient would present to you. So that way you're seeing it in real time. Your adjustments are affected and then either produce positive results or don't produce positive results and you that's how the stu how our staff is learning off of these monitors before we actually get them on the ambulances. Can we go to the next slide? As far as emergency response in March, we saw an increase overall in every area uh on our responses. Uh in the photo there is firefighter paramedic Kevin Zimmerman who is always has a smile on his face even when he's in uncomfortable situations. And that's just a prime example right there. As far as incident responses, we had 368 EMS calls that occurred in the city of East Lancing, which was an increase of 35 over February. We had 73 that occurred on campus, which was an increase of seven.

There was quite an increase in fire, rescue, and hazmat response. There were uh and I've lost my number, so hold on. Give me just a second on that one. 223 which was an increase of 90. There is not a specific piece that I can draw out of the data to tell you this is the reason why we saw an increase in false fire alarms.

A couple of those were due to false trips due to contractors working on systems. Others were repairs that had been made. A faulty head that was brand new that was not acting appropriately triggered a couple of additional alarms, but they were all small groups of addition over time, which is what increased that uh that call volume by 90. I did last month I was able to give you a uh I was able to tabulate for you the number of calls that were received from adult care facilities. I was not able to get that data for you this time. The information that we're gleaning from dispatch, I had a complication on my end with my Excel sheet. We're working on that. We'll have that corrected and be able to get that information to you uh next month and have that clarified for you. We're also using the data that we're collecting out of dispatch and our EMS reporting system. We can work those two together and I will be able to get you annual comparisons over time. That data has never been built outside of just a total number for a year. So, we're now rebuilding data going back much the same as we've done for the budget going back to 21. We're going to work on tabulating that data back for you as well. not just from this year forward, but going back and get you historical data that you can actually utilize. Uh, as far as community risk reduction, uh, fire prevention conducted, uh, 34 safety inspections. I apologize. I didn't grab my reading glasses when I walked up here. Can we go to the next slide? I believe that's on the next one. No, it's not.

All right. No, I don't believe I believe there was only three that I had data on. I was trying to keep it short so it wasn't overwhelming. We'll we can address this uh this uh slide here. Uh the picture there is firefighter paramedic Tong Vunwin. He is the one in the red helmet. He is actually one of our rope instructors. Uh he is actually been on the department a shorter period of time than the captain that he is instructing and reviewing tasks with. quite fluid in his uh communications and very skilled in his uh craft. He does an excellent job teaching. We had 197 ambulance calls that required firetruck response. So that required additional hands uh to respond. There were without reading all the data to you, I don't need to read a slide to you. Uh we did have additional mutual aid calls. We had uh two structure fire calls in Meridian Township. We responded into Lancing into Delh High Township and Lancing Township within this last month. I know that that data was on the previous slide and I had I hadn't touched base on that one, but I want to keep you uh updated on the amount of times that we're moving as well. Part of the data collection that I will be gathering and also taking back into the past is the amount of calls that we respond to for mutual aid as in comparison to receiving. So there are are times when we are receiving a a significant amount. One of the plans and the communications due to the relationships that we have with Lancing Township and with Meridian Township is on St. Patrick's Day, I was able to just send a simple message to both the chiefs. This is where we are going to be staffed for that day. If you're able to staff an additional ambulance, please do. The reply is simply put to by those chiefs. Thanks

for the heads up. We will handle that. So we know that we have not only do we give mutual aid services to communities, but we are receiving the same cooperation, the same professional respect coming back this direction. And they know that on our high event days that they are going to be taxed either way. So they would rather plan ahead than be caught behind. Outside of that, does anybody have any questions?

Questions for the chief? I think uh a while ago um uh maybe you mentioned that we were requesting more mutual aid it seemed like and that might have been early in the in the school year but um that indicated that we may need more equipment and is that still your position in time we've we have I'll have the data for you but we are We always seen an increase in calls over time and it's not that it is a major swing. It is over a year and then you see that swing but when it's compounded year after year after year and everybody else is seeing the same. Lancing Township has seen their call volume go up. The city of Lancing uh Meridian Township and a lot of those departments have maintained the same staffing levels and they're seeing the same thing we're seeing. The fact that we took a step with three and added three was a significant swing that our outside neighbors are looking at thinking, boy, that would really be a good idea. And without question, it definitely would be because there are times in the year when we are requesting more, but then there's other times in the year I'll be able to show that we're stepping across the boundary the other direction. So, it's a it is definitely a give and take. It's not equate. It's not equal throughout the year. In each month there are swings that come come and go much like you're seeing the run volume adjust itself monthto month.

Okay. Thanks.

We are receiving our fifth ambulance uh next month. We thought it was going to be this month. It'll be next month that we'll be receiving that. There's some work to be done on it before we have it in house. Uh we're making arrangements to be able to make space for it in station one. And the guys are the guys and the gals. Even the gals call themselves the guys. It's just part of the culture. But personnel are extremely ecstatic about the fact that they are going to have that ability to have that extra ambulance on those really high volume days when we staff ahead and prepare. They know they're not just taxing the neighbor and they know that they're not having to burden each other with uh quick response and dump a patient or clear scene that they really need to spend more time on to take an additional call. They're quite quite relieved to be able to have that additional revenue or that additional resource and they do appreciate it. Thank you.

Could I can I can just ask one more question? The um debt actually makes me think about another station. Uh has that been discussed or or contemplated uh to put a station in the northern tier at some location? It has been contemplated, but there are also some other directions and thoughts that are being discussed as to possibly make that work to our advantage without adding the building. Just to give you the information, the conversations occurring, but there's still there's still pieces to data. There's still data to gather and still pieces to put together before we come and actually present something.

Mr. Griggsby, do you have

Yeah. Um I I just want to say thank you both for the time you put into these um presentations. I know when we got together and talked about this and um and just the opportunity to be able to have your time and ask these questions is really really important and for a lot of reasons. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Um uh I just want to say that I'm going to be fully rel released in May. I look forward to doing my ride along here. We had talked about that initially. Uh and I'm excited for that. And then the other side on your side, I'm I'm kind of like I kind of want to get in. I mean there's this high rope training that you got going on and some of these different things you're doing. I really think that is uh really cool. um just from uh a citizens perspective and I know with the ride alongs we have kind of that community interaction and I don't know if we have a program on your side. I know it's a lot more specific and there's a lot more on the line when it comes to some of the type of calls you have when it comes to another person being there who's probably not qualified and all those type of things. But I'm just throwing a seed out there um in regards to some of maybe the training that you do where you can have uh citizens uh council uh be able to have opportunity to to get up high in the air and experience some of that uh maybe uh get opportunity to kind of really appreciate the training um demands that some of the individuals have and I think that would be a wonderful opportunity. Maybe that's, you know, fantasy world right now at the moment with how we have things set up, but I just wanted to say that out loud.

Can I respond? Go ahead.

I will say that we I had conversations with the former um fire chief, Don Carson, and we tossed around two separate ideas. One would be to have like a a community adult academy that ran let's say a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and did um police type like a introduction similar to what we do in the citizen police academy where as you know it's over like a 12-week period but take those um same subject matters. So canines and our detectives and our crime scene investigators give them an hour each. They would have a full Saturday and then um Fire Chief Newman would do Friday night with like EMS and you know ambulance type stuff and then on Sunday would be fire service. We also talked about doing a kids or a teen camp um similar have it Monday through Friday and you know run it for the youth that are in in our community. And so again I think both of us probably have these great ideas but you know we have to have the resources to be able to do them. So hopefully we can both get to full staffing and um beyond and be able to do some of the cool things that we'd love to do for the community.

Thank you. Mr. Newman, did you want to address I do remember that we held a single uh city council fire academy. It was on a Friday Friday afternoon. We actually, no, it was a full day Friday and council member Meadows participated in that and I have to say I believe he was quite taxed by the time we were finished. Well, I learned I I'll say I learned just how heavy the equipment is.

And that wasn't an insult in any way, shape, or form. That was that was us reviewing the fact of maybe we need to taper this back a little bit. Just because we will force ourselves to do this doesn't mean we should do that with the general public. But that is something that I would agree that is something we could easily organize and put together. And I will say that uh you know I learned about the third floor of Hannah which none of us have probably been on very much because it was full of smoke and we had to crawl up the stairs to actually get in there to with our equipment on. So it was a a great day and got to cut open a car. So there were a lot of cool things that happened that day.

So uh just to follow up if I may. Uh so and I know we're just talking right now, but you just said that that would be something easily in concept to do. So I guess um with the realities of everything that we have going on and and staffing and budgets and things like that. um what would the process look like and what would that what would you need from that from us or from staff and in order just to give us an idea of how you think the steps would be to get to that that place eventually I know it's a loaded question I apologize I'm just you know I just I'm just curious

very similar to what I had to say to some of my staff recently was before you react to anything why don't you give me two weeks to see what can happen in conversation and then we can come back and communicate this is the plan. This is how how would it would be possible to get this accomplished because we may have some avenues that would be highly beneficial on both sides. Appreciate you. And so that's potentially something we could address at the next DO meeting during the next update potentially. Okay. If it if it works, I think a month is probably sufficient. Okay.

Yeah. Again, if you're asking what we can do, I mean, again, we have these great ideas, but we need the staffing to be able to carry them out. I would love to run two citizen policemies each year. We have a waiting list each and every academy. We just simply do not have the resources to run twommies or camps or, you know, a community academy like in a condensed version. So again, you know, to council member Meadow's point, I mean, there were time in history, not too far distant past, where there was almost 70 officers that worked for the department, and we're doing the same amount of work and more with, you know, numbers in the 40s. So for for us, we would need more resources for sure.

And that's why I treaded lightly with that question and just bringing it up because I know I just wanted to have the conversation. I know there's some realities with a lot of different things. So, don't uh please don't get the impression that I'm looking for it to be in fruition by um in the next month or so. I just wanted to kind of get that thought there and it sounds like it's doesn't have to be um invented or reinvented because it's already been a template of that. So, any further questions? Thank you for your presentations. Appreciate the update.

That brings us to item 3.2 two discussion of fiscal year 2027 prelim preliminary budget and fee schedule with emphasis on specific divisions. Mr. Bellman, are you taking the lead on this?

Sure. I'll kick off this as uh Audrey Concincaid um gets set up, but Audrey's going to the chief financial officer will present the FY27 budget overview for you this evening. I wanted to touch on a couple of things that I provided you separately. One is the fiscal year 2027 budget process differed from prior years by um starting in February with meetings with you know the police department, the fire department, 54 bit uh B district court, parks and recreation and arts and department of public works and environmental services just to name a few just so we can kind of have conversations around the goal and the process of uh looking at revenues very closely making sure that um those revenues are ensuring full cost recovery and talk about potential reductions in expenditures in order to minimize the um budget deficit in the general fund but also to better understand um the impact on services. Um, I also asked those departments as um and all general fund departments or funds that receive contributions from the general fund to issue a memo to me if they were looking to add new positions. And so, um, or wanted to increase their budget for new programs and services. Um, and I put that out to you in a memo that was, um, issued yesterday and updated uh, earlier today. there was a typo in it and um Justin Dranki had an updated memo he wanted to attach that explained some of the new asks and so that memo was the fiscal year 2027 city budget department requests and other matters. So that

identified requests for additional personnel as I mentioned uh requests for additional programs and services. And of course there were some other items I wanted to bring up such as discussion around deer management. It's important to the city. It's not currently reflected in the budget. There was a proposal from the USDA wildlife services on how we could do it much more effectively. it would require a partnership with Lancing Meridian and the city to hire a full-time biologist. So, that's in that memo as well as um um other items uh such as the uh Michigan Public Health Institute advanced peace peacekeeper program that we engaged uh back in 24 that expires in May of this year. And so that is no longer in the budget in FY27, but may be a conversation that council may want to have, including with the police chief, on what benefits that has and whether we want to look at how do we fund that program going forward. Uh again, I can go through that memo in detail uh either now or as we go through the budget process, but really I'm seeking your direction. Items that would increase the deficit are in that memo. And you know, overall, um, I'm happy to make recommendations. And then again, I'm looking for overall direction regarding the city council's desire to address the proposed $1.7 million deficit that is currently existing in the proposed budget. The other item I wanted to touch on is strategic priorities. Again, I want to reiterate the budget document includes uh city staff. Um presenting suggested strategic priorities to city council for your review and consideration. I'd like

to have further discussion at a very uh near future DO meeting, discussion only meeting or a special discussion only meeting to get your uh review of those and input on those priorities um so that we can finalize them uh in the near future and that can help us guide on how we're investing dollars and the services and where you want us to focus our limited time and resources on. Um when we get to the fee schedule on I believe it's April 28th meeting um I want to talk about the entertainment license. So we introduced a new methodology this year. I don't think it's been working out as it was proposed. And so I want to have a conversation around, you know, how do we continue to provide certain level of police services downtown uh during our weekends and pay for those services. Um I think that's a conversation that we need to have and what does that look like? And I know the chief has been working on planning for next fall, but again, taking a look at our resources, our current position, and where we can afford to invest or what we need to do to balance those uh investments. And then finally, I put in front of you tonight a memo from Eric Dedick about uh grant opportunities and the work that she's been working on. you know, as we talk about identifying new revenues, that's what that uh memo is being provided you to you for is to look at that effort and some of the applications that are outstanding as well as the ones that we have received. So, um I will turn it over to Audrey to kick it off and to go into more detail unless you have any questions.

Does anybody have questions for the city manager at this point? We can cycle back to some. There are some points we need to revisit, but we can cycle back to them at the end. So, please, our chief financial officer, Miss Concincaid. Uh, good evening. Audrey Concade, chief financial officer. So, I drew the short straw. So, I'm sitting up here, but um this document was prepared by um all the people sitting behind me. So, this is a tremendous effort by a large group of people to get the document in front of you. Um I want to do a special shout out to the back row back there, THE UM UM, SO THERE'S SOME MAYBE SOME familiar faces with Andrea Smith, Matt Torak, and Justin Gger. And then we have some new members to our finance team that have really helped with the process. So we have a new budget analyst, Mary Stevens, who worked with DPW throughout this budget process. And then Sarah Reigns is our payroll specialist who um did all of the position budgeting. Um, so if you have any questions for them and I just want to thank you and uh for helping us have a more robust team to address this budget process. Um, again all the people behind me are here and available. So I will try and answer any questions as we're going through. Um, feel free to try and stump them. Um, they are available to answer questions, but we'll also provide a Q&A document after each of these work sessions. So any questions that you have, we may provide the answers during the meeting, but if we have to have follow-up, it'll be consolidated into a Q&A um following the meeting. Um so just a brief overview of the document. So the first 70 pages are are the kind of summary of the whole document. Um easy read, has a lot of pictures. Um so that's where I recommend you kind of focus your attention. Um so that has all of the various graphs and tables that summarize all of the um the entire city's budget and we'll go through those in a little bit more

detail. Um then following that we have the individual funds and then general fund and parks and record drilled down a little bit further by department and then we also have attached is the five-year comparative fee schedule at the back and then some additional debt information kind of the folded um packets at the end of your your document. All right, let's go on to our consolidated um budget. So, this year we're uh oh um we have some uh extra handouts. We're not replacing them um officially, but we're slipping them in. I'm just highlighting them because they're my favorite pages in the document. Um uh there there's actually a couple of edits that we had on there that we just want to slip back into this document for you. Um the totals are all correct. We just had a little bit of categorization changes that we wanted to make for you. Um so this is the consolidated budget for the entire city. You can see that the um the total gross budget for fiscal year 2027 is just over $200 million. Um and that is an increase of approximately $29 million from the prior year's budget. um that is largely due to um issuing debt. So, we'll talk more about those when we get to the utility funds and when we get to the capital improvement funds. Um but that is the bulk of why that there's a giant um increase in the budget. But you can see general fund, our largest fund of the city, is um kind of almost staying flat compared to the prior year. So through the next couple of budget work sessions including tonight we've got a general fund overview specifically please and fire will be talking um I'll be talking about income tax and we have kind of the planning building development um group with CDBG DDA and parking tonight and then um our next

meeting will be all things DPW and parks and wreck. So we'll talk more about capital improvements and then the utility funds and street funds at the next meeting. And then city manager mentioned that he has his memo. If we need to circle back on any of those items, we can discuss that as well. Um, just highlighting that there will be a public hearing scheduled. Um, the public hearing will be scheduled for May 28th, but you'll be adopting that resolution to set the public hearing um, next or by May 12th. Um, okay. So I these are kind of my favorite graphics of the document because it really gives you a highlevel um snapshot of everything. So um again, not just to correct a typo, but really to draw your attention to those pages because I think they're they're um really important. So, um, if there's any other funds, I think we're going to touch on a majority of those funds, but if there's any other funds or specific divisions within the general fund that you'd like to discuss, let me know and we can make sure to have, um, somebody available to discuss those divisions. So, then moving on to the general fund. Um, we talked a lot about the general fund during the forecast presentation, so I'm not going to drill down into every individual line of the um, revenues and expenses. So, I'm just going to highlight some of the things that kind of changed from the forecast. And I will say that um not a ton changed. We um we're actually pretty tight with our budget um our forecast numbers. What improved was our year-end estimates for expenses. So, um what changed from the forecast is our 26 year end estimate. We um added to the surplus 553,000. So, our 26 we're expecting to have a surplus of 918,000. Um, largely that is due to a one-time settlement with BWL. We also received that settlement because we paid utility bills and paid the franchise fee. So,

that kind of one-time um increase to revenue is really the driver of that thing. Um, we also modified some of our uh grant revenue and expenditures. We had some of those in our 26 estimates, but we actually pushed both the revenue and expenses out to 27. Um, so that's what you're you don't you kind of can't see the 26 year end estimates in the whole detail, but it kind of is summarized down in that anticipated operating surplus for year ended June 2026, the 918,000 and teenytiny off to the right. um for fiscal year 27 um as I said there was not a huge amount of change in total to the forecast from the forecast to um the final budget but there there's kind of some large ups and large downs to kind of get us to neutral. So we reduced actually the use of fund balance anticipated um we the forecasted about $2 million use of fund balance and we've reduced that down to 1.7. So, some of the things that we did were we increased our intergovernmental revenue. Again, I kind of we moved some of the grant revenue and expenses. So, that's an offset um to fiscal year 27. But then we were a little bit more aggressive on our state shared revenue based on the information that we have based on our specific situation. We kind of increased those numbers and we're a little bit more aggressive on them. Um I also enhanced some of the income tax transfer numbers for public safety. And then we also um changed the makeup of the income tax transfer um for infrastructure. So $500,000 additional came in not additional $500,000 of the infrastructure came into the general fund as opposed to local streets. So we weren't seeing that in this fund, but it's sort of a again an offset because we have the transfer in revenue up, but

we also have the capital outlay for sidewalks as an expense increase. Um Audrey, which sheet are you looking at? Could you tell me general fund? Just general fund in the not the slide. You're not looking at the slide, but you're looking at the budget document itself. This what were you reading from just now so that we It's just the slide with my notes on it. Okay. Got it. Okay. So, you're looking at the slide. Yep. All right. Thank you.

Um then for expenditures, there was, as I said, there was a revenue increase of $900,000 and then expenditure increases of $600,000. So um the revenue from the forecast to the uh budget document revenue kind of outpaced the expenditure changes. So one of the big things that we did was personnel services. There's a $960,000 decrease from the forecast to the budget document in personnel services. Um this was a recommendation by the financial health team to make sure that we included a personnel vacancy factor and that has as we've talked about a lot of times when we have differences in the forecast from actual to budget a lot of times that is coming through personnel vacancies. So we wanted to incorporate that into the budget so that we don't see those artificial um variances. Not to say that if we're fully staffed, we will always have a personnel vacancy factor, but that is our experience over the last several years. So, it seems prudent to budget that way to not artificially create a budget problem where there may not be one because it takes time to fill those positions. Certainly, that is important to fill those positions, but it takes time. Um, so the vacancy factor is about $643,000 and that represents about four police officers, one and a half positions in the court. Um, partially because they are using a contractor. So we're kind of reducing the personnel services but increasing operating costs. So about one and a half positions in the court and then half a position in finance. Again, recognizing that it takes time to fill the deputy finance director position. Um, so we still have a cola as a placeholder. So you are seeing from budget to budget, you are still seeing an increase even though we have this vacancy factor because we still have a placeholder for uh, cola. The wage study

is going to actually tell that story. But that we have a 3% cola to kind of approximate what that change will be. All of those contracts are in negotiation right now. So, we will fare somewhere around that area is kind of what we're anticipating. Any questions about um I can just kind of finish up the the operating cost discussion. We did increase operating costs from the forecast to include um election equipment that was mandated by the state to be replaced. Currently there is not a revenue source to match it but there are sort of some things are in the works that are sort of frozen. Um hopefully the LEO grant will get kind of unfrozen um or some state appropriations will be directed towards the sort of unfunded mandate um because all of the equipment is being descertified so it has to be replaced. So that's about $500,000. So, we're hoping that there will be a revenue source that comes out of it, but at the moment in time, we do not have that. So, we wanted to make sure that we were conservative in our budget.

Can I ask a question on that? Yeah. Um, so because we had originally a million dollar grant prior to the last presidential. Yes. and to help support college communities. But we didn't buy any new equipment that at that time. Not voting equipment. Not voting. And then now there's a new unfunded mandate that may or may not contains additional state dollars.

Correct. We use some of the funds from that million dollars, but then it was sort of frozen by the state, so we can't access it. Our intention once it's unfrozen would be to probably to use that if or if the state allows, you know, decides. I is Amy or Emily here? No, they're not. Um, they kind of know the status of that, so we can probably follow up with that. Um, but I'm sure they're following that very closely, but that's the intention is to Well, I would hope I just want to flag this. I would hope that if there are additional funds and it is a funded mandate by the state, we use those funds. Oh, absolutely. And not part of the original Melinda. I just want to say that that's a fall back.

Yeah. If so, I understand from Emily after she attended a conference last week that there is money in the governor's budget to advance a statewide effort to replace all the soontobe descertified voting machines, which they do every I don't know, five or 10 years. Um, and then the uh Bureau of Election, I believe, is writing an RFP to

help with the clicks. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. But I think our share would still be the voting equipment for early vote centers are there were a couple that I think it was right around 270,000 that in her u portion of this budget document where she provides that is the clerk provides some additional information. There's some reference to of the 465,000 there's some that may still be uh our responsibility because it falls outside of precincts. So they're looking to distribute some of those funds based on precincts and equipment at precincts.

Yeah. Page 106 of the document talks a little bit more about that in detail. Thank you. I had I did have a question about the vacancy factor. Yeah. Do you budget that basically as an expenditure? How does that work? Yeah. Um, so that we kind of can maintain the integrity of the salaries and wage accounts and the benefit accounts. I left those as if the the position was in there and then we created a new account kind of a contra expenditure so that we can see that vacancy factor by itself and it kind of doesn't gum up the work. So we can kind of easily remove that if we wanted to look at um budget to actual or just kind of actual.

Does it play a large role in the document itself? the budget document, the vacancy factor. Does it show up as as a line item anywhere in the in the budget document?

No, it it shows up within personnel services. I don't think that it is glaringly obvious in any of those three departments um because there are what I will say is the differences that maybe you see in the personnel summary of positions were already approved by council. So, police already has additional positions that were budgeted. So with those additional positions and the cola and step increases net of this vacancy factor, you're not seeing a huge like cliff in their in their personnel budget. Um okay, if

that makes sense. It's it's called certainly in finance it's called out very specifically so you can see kind of that comparison. Yeah. I was just wondering if looking through the budget document if I was missing something if it was sort of supposed to be there in plain sight and it wasn't there. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks.

Um so one other thing regarding personnel that is discussed in the document but um was kind of a topic of conversation today is that the budget assumes that the 9.1% health insurance cost increase is fully absorbed by the city. Um the healthcare task force met today and there will be an employee co-share this year which was not incorporated into the budget document as again it was discussed today. Um my recommendation is to reduce the employer share so that um it provides a little bit of relief for all the various funds that the the insurance fund doesn't boost their reserves any further. I don't think that's necessary. I think providing relief to the the funds is more appropriate so that you will not see and I I'm not sure if if you'd like to see that already incorporated into the resolution or if we just want to see the reduction at the kind of implemented in practice but doesn't necessarily need to be reflected in the document.

I would be interested in just knowing the ballpark figure. I don't know that it needs to be implemented in the document. I think um this is something I was going to actually mention later. I don't think we need to be driven by budget the budget adoption date as a deadline for making all sorts of changes we need to make or may want to make because we can always make them later through amendments of course. So I think that would be fine with me.

This is you know one of the items that the financial health team wants a presentation on. So I'll just point that out. I think you probably already have it on the agenda but uh uh that is a topic that came up during discussion there. Can you remind me, this may be an Emily question, the on the wage study, were benefits included? They weren't or they were healthcare? We did analyze benefits as part of their work. Okay. Okay.

Um, so kind of wrapping up the general fund. Um, like I said, with the kind of modifications to our year-end estimates, our revisions to those and revisions to the um 27 budget request, the general fund is looking at a fund balance of 12.7 million. Um, so and that is versus the 11.8 that we had talked about um at the forecast presentation. So any other questions kind of high level about the general fund um before we move on to the next slide? Any further questions concerning the general fund?

Okay. Um, so next slide is just kind of one more time that uh shout out about property taxes or you know getting this information out there as many ways as possible that you know your property tax bill while a large portion of it um is the city of East Lancing 30% the vast majority is not East Lancing. Um so it's interesting to note that the general fund is approximately the same amount as the full Ingram County share. So, um, just one more time kind of providing that information to the public that your property tax bill is not exclusively the city of East Lancing. And oddly, nobody complains about the county taxes. Everybody complains about the city taxes. Very odd. Good living over there.

Yeah. And nobody Well, that's a separate question. All right. Thank you. All right. So, to be the 23% of the city general fund, 3% of the city waste recycling, and 4% for the library, 30% It's amazing um considering all the pockets that goes to I think we're the only ones to hear it.

So sneaking in here is Andrew to help me talk about the income tax fund. Um so if we could go on to the next slide, you can see high level here is what the income tax funds looking like. Uh this I definitely was more aggressive this year. we've finally started to see some consistent uh increases year-over-year as opposed to kind of the roller coaster that we had been experiencing. So, while it looks like a a very large jump in income tax revenue from the 26 to the 27 budget, um 26 is actually on pace to be about 18.5 million. So, 25, 26, and 27 are a little bit more in line, kind of hopefully up and continuing up on the roller coaster, be an incline treadmill instead. Um so as I said those numbers are a little bit more aggressive to see if those are going to come to fruition. Um but then that obviously impacts kind of all everything um below it. So some of the other information just for operating and administrative expenses in there. There's administrative personnel expenses. We have two employees in that department working on compliance. Um, anything you want to share about?

Um, once again, Andrea Smith, city treasurer. So, we've had um last year you guys gave us permission to hire another um employee for income tax, and we've greatly appreciated. They've been very busy, especially this week, because everyone believes that the taxes are due tomorrow, which they are not for city tax. They are due at the end of the month. Um, but it's been going great. we've been um pretty much she continuously is calling um trying to get compliance with individuals um companies uh and it's been going really well which I think is part of the uptick of the um income we're seeing so I think that has been great um if you haven't seen they do have an internal office now it is inside and not out in the hallway anymore so that has been a great thing also I think citizens have really appreciated that. Um, but I would say that uh going forward that is one of our goals still is to continue getting higher compliance to continue getting the um income and finding uh anyone who isn't complying which is generally non-residents is the hardest one to go after. Um, then I'm going to kind of skip over the supplemental pension, but operating costs are increasing, but they're mostly based on our processing fees are, and that's based on volume. So, the more mail we send out, the more returns we process, the increase of those costs. Um so then the remainder of the things that you're seeing in there are all um the charter required contributions or allocation for uh pension for public safety and for um infrastructure. And you can kind of see that as I said a little bit in the general fund the makeup of the infrastructure allocation has changed a little bit in 27 just based on recommended projects by the the

individual department. So a lot was going to local streets. they kind of have a backlog of stuff and they feel like they've got plenty of dollars there. So, we're moving it to sidewalks and um to some facility improvements for the garage or DPW building. Um if we could go to the the next slide, this is what I kind of really like talking about. I think this is a great representation of of the income tax. So, this is a snapshot of just this year's breakdown. So, in the top corner, you can see the the gross income tax. The first thing that we do is make sure that the general fund is whole for property taxes. Um, and then we have the administrative costs for uh processing returns and the people. And then that net $10 million is what is available to allocate. And that is 10 million $10.7 million extra that the city would not have without the income tax. And that is an incredibly large number. And if you go to um the income tax fund in the the book. There's also a comparable through fiscal year 25 aggregate number. And so we have um allocated 47.2 extra million dollars um to support the city's pension, public safety, and infrastructure improvements. Um, so going to take the opportunity to say without the income tax, that's $2 million less out of the uh police and fire operating budget. Um, that's $2 million less out of infrastructure improvements, park improvements, facility improvements that we wouldn't otherwise be able to um accommodate.

Can I I I just need to refresh my memory. Um and the ballot initiative that was passed on the income tax we that part of that was to issue to pay down the pension investment by what percentage wasn't it a percentage I don't recall I knew what does it say it again 60% 60% 60% of the net income tax goes to pension liabilities and then did we decide the other year to do additional on top of that I think there have been times when there's operating where we do contribute additional for the fire department.

It is part of this allocation. We take it out of the income tax fund and move it to the general fund so fire can pay it into their division but it is still part of the 60% income tax. So we're just meeting the 60%. We're not going beyond it. Correct. We I thought we did. Okay. In years past without the income tax, the general fund was budgeting to contribute supplemental payments. Um there was one year where we had a very large grant specifically for supplemental payments. Maybe that's what you're thinking. Yeah. And then kind of right there is when we kind of flip the switch to do exclusively income tax. Sorry, I'm looking at where we could nip and tuck maybe. But okay, never mind. Are we gaining ground on that?

Yes. Pardon? Are we gaining ground? Yeah, we are over 70 we're over 70% funded. So if we continue if we continue have an income tax, what's the date where we're fully funded

based on the December 30 2024 because we won't get 25 until this summer. It's looking like 2037, but that is only with um a portion of so we kind of switched tactics and we're putting all of the income tax into our surplus divisions which helps us get to our higher funding ratio. And so because we're talking about a year and a couple months ago, we don't have as many dollars, but this next valuation will have many dollars in that surplus division. And so that that date, I'm hoping when we see that new valuation will come in a little bit. I'm hoping.

I do have a question on it because I'm I'm um a little confused. I I do that's usually my case, I think. But the um the way that the income tax was contemplated in terms of the 60%. That 60% was to be paid on an annual basis. And our projection was by the time that we I don't think we ever thought we'd project to 100%. Okay.

But uh our projection was somewhere in the 85 to 90% at the end of the time frame. And uh some of the documents that were passed out the financial health team I thought indicated that we weren't actually putting 60% towards that unfunded liability. I'll be happy to bring that document in, but I did have questions on it. So, are we making a full 60% extra Oh, yes. uh contribution every year. Yeah. Every Yeah. All of these 4 point or 6.4 million will be into the surplus division on top of our required contribution on top of

Yeah. And I think we have made great strides that let me let me put that out there. But um one of the questions I have is that of course we're at the mercy of MS and the changing of their their uh calculation pretty much on a regular basis. You know I know now that I'm going to live to be 87. So my you know and I was only going to live to 83 when this all started. So this um the those changes make a huge difference in what our unfunded liability is. And um but by this point in time, our annual required contribution we thought would be paid down to somewhere around $3 million a year. It's higher than that.

Oh yes, it's about 10 million. And part of and mo I just want to make sure that the public knows that's not because we haven't been doing it. It's because MS changes the game almost every year. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And I and I will say where I said we kind of changed tactics is if you are contributing the supplemental to divisions, yes, you can reduce your annual required contribution, but that's pushing your fully funded date out. Um, so by continuing to make your annual required contribution and anything supplemental going into surplus, that helps your funded ratio. So, I'm going to if you have further questions, I will ask MREs to to help you with that, but that's kind of the the log line there. So, it is intentional what we are doing. Yes, we can still afford these higher payments because we don't want to have to push it out into the future. So, that's why we're we're putting everything supplemental into surplus. And I use those very those terms very specifically because they mean very specific things.

Yeah, Mr. Bman, just to add, I just want to stress the charter spells out how we spend income tax. It calls for 60%. In the charter to go to um pension and the 20% to police and fire and 20% to infrastructure. So, it's not like administratively or council could change how that money is divvy up. And the 60% is called out as being supplemental. Yes. A supplemental payment in the charter. Yes. So it's not like we can decide to substitute the 60% for our annual required contribution. N correct? Yeah. So there's no room to nip and tuck unfortunately.

And and just to confirm this uh comment that is on page 163 that says funds have been held in reserve as the income tax expires in calendar calendar year 2030. um that is authorized and by the charter and the manner in which we're utilizing this, right?

Yeah. So, all of those dollars will eventually be allocated 60 2020, but we're holding them in reserves because we know at the end of because December 30 30th is in the middle of a calendar a fiscal year. So, we know that we still have the um property tax reimbursement that we have to fund and then we still have administrative costs to process for several years for compliance and and making sure that people are filing returns. So, we want to make sure that we have enough in reserve. Maybe it's more than we need at this moment in time, but that we have enough to continue the administration. But once all the administrative costs are complete, they will be allocated 60 2020 per the charter. And then one one last question uh because I know the financial health team is asking this question as well. Is it time for us to start talking about extending the income tax and would that be your recommendation?

That would be my recommendation to absolutely start those conversations. I might recommend a different um allocation of those funds, but I think it is absolutely time to talk about renewing the income tax. It is I ask that question differently. Okay. If we didn't have an income tax, what would be our hole?

Um, so just just looking at the public safety piece of it. So add $2.1 million to that $1.7 million deficit off the top. So infrastructure, while not recommended, we can defer it. Um, public safety, that is going to fund operating costs, people on the ground. So that's we're losing that $2 million right there. And while we're talking about this, so I really appreciate how you've framed the presentation about the income tax. I think I think this is an important communication function and and thank you for your approach to that. Um, you know, the background here is that a quarter of our land mass in East Lancing is not taxable via property taxes, right? We can tax MSSE's property, but we can tax their income. We can tax their salaries. And so that's how we are making up for that difference. And if we had had an income tax since 1907, we would be in a very different situation.

I think the next couple slides will be very helpful for that point. And this is where I come in. Yep.

And so this is uh we've talked about this in the past and I know you've asked about it in the past is that um the income tax here is this is just a showing that each year is uh the majority of our funds uh come from from income tax come from non-residents. So, as although we do get quite a bit from residents and we hope to go compliance-wise to get more of the non-residents, we do get the most money from non-residents, which are people who work in the area. Um, so what we want to do is continue with our compliance, continue going finding the people who are not filing. Um, and this is kind of confusing because it does not show obviously you're looking at a amount of money that was $19 million. These are only the people who have filed. So people who um, companies withhold for people, anyone can withhold. We get all of that money. Um, but not everyone files. So we can only determine who is a resident or a non-resident if someone actually files their return. So what we are trying to do is go find those people who haven't filed. It's much easier to find a resident who's not filed because they live here. Um it's much harder to find a non-resident who hasn't filed and try to track them down and get them to file, which is why we get state tape. Um the state of Michigan, we have to pay for that to get them to say, "Oh, we have someone in your jurisdiction who filed their state taxes, but they haven't filed their city taxes." Um so those are things that we are doing. um you know finding businesses who aren't withholding from their individuals who work there, going and finding them and getting them to be in compliance and things like that. Um so if you go to the next slide, this is the same information um but on a graphic. So it's just in graph form, but this does show you that the dark blue is um non-residents and the

green is residents. So um it is important to show that yes it is uh the non-residents are uh those who are in our community who are using our you know our roads and things like that who are not paying property taxes but um are contributing through income tax. Is the sum of the non-resident and resident yearly in this graph is that out of the net or is that out of the gross or is that even a sensible question? It's or does it not matter? It would it would be out of the gross. Okay.

Um but well that's not true. It's out of the net because we do reduce out the property tax out of this number. So the property tax payback. Got it. So if you look at tax year 2024, you've got 4 million from non-residents and 2 million from residents. So that's roughly 6 million total out of the 10. Yes. Approximately, which means that about $4 million comes in from withholding that people don't file for. Correct. So there's a lot of money out there still. Okay. All right. Thank you. That took only took me about two years to understand that difference.

It's it's difficult. What happened in 23? So 2023. Um so there's a lot of uh that's a significant amount of money.

It is. Um there's a lot of factors going in. So we probably when this information has been given, I'd have to go get newer information still. um we may not have the state tape yet for 2023 or have not been super into it yet. So the state tapes come quite later and we probably have not been able to go and send out all the notices for it yet and we had been I'm thinking right now we probably are getting state tape for 2023 right now um cuz it's in a delay. So

that makes sense. I I wasn't meaning there's a drastic increase or whatever. So our compliance goes in a delay and so that's why I know we'd been up to 2022 and that's how we start getting the information after that. Um but and then some of the lower in the beginning was because people were during co Yep. Well and when did we do the online system? Uh the online system has only been going for a little over a year. This would be the second year for returns. What other questions can I answer on income tax or general fund as a whole? I

I just want to um confirm something. Our reduction in property tax, a 5 mil reduction that went along with the income tax only exists as long as the income tax sits there. So the fact that we are reimbursing ourselves, our our citizens and some people who don't live there contribute to the reimbursement. It's not just our citizens, but only our citizens would pay the the five mills if the income tax disappeared. Yep. Once reinstated. Yep. Those will go back on the tax bill. Yes. So, they would see a significant increase in their property taxes if the income tax does not get renewed.

Mr. Griggsby.

Yeah. I I just had a question about going back to what you said in relation to having the conversation now and kind of getting that geared up and obviously this is my first row through this but um you know I obviously that's really really huge to get the education out there to the community and to exactly what is expected of them and then also what's on the line by this not going through. And I just I'm really I'm really um concerned about making that concerted effort to the community so they understand and make a decision based off a lot of the facts that we have available to them. And I just like I said, I don't know how the first process went. Um but going forward, especially with how much is on the line when it comes to the need and what that would look like without that income tax being extended in 2030. So, can you just give me a couple sentences about kind of what that would look like? Or maybe you guys can maybe weigh in into that,

what the process would look like. Yes.

That I'm not entirely sure. I'm I think this is the time to start having those conversations because we have several years before the income tax expires. So, we want to make sure we know what's going to happen um when that deadline approaches. I think as you said clarity about what the what our intentions and uses of the fund because I think that's a different conversation than it was in the original income tax. So I think conversations about how we intend to use the funds, how long we intend to have it in place. As you said, it's very complicated. So, I want to make sure that we are very clear with the facts and that we aren't obscuring anything and we're trying to make it very clear um what the intention is, what the uses will be, and kind of the history of of what we've seen. So, there's just a lot of conversation that's probably going to have to happen from that.

Yeah. And is that a lot to do like with public comment or public communication and people coming in and you guys doing presentations? Is that mailers? is I mean is it everything on on the table when it comes to that? Pretty much. Um speaking to the couple that were here at the time. I mean I think there was doortodoor I think there were all of the above. Correct.

All the above. I'd say we went to every neighborhood meeting that we could go to to talk about the taxes. We went uh we went door to door. We uh there were mailings. You know, I think would be helpful. you know, it's um when when you sort of educate us on what's happening with the income tax, that seems to me to be a perfectly appropriate expenditure for the city to tell people this is where your taxes go. These are the taxes that, you know, one of the items is, you know, a lot of those taxes are not our taxes. So, and I don't think people understand that we're just the collector, although we do get 1% for doing that. and the and we want to keep doing it but it is um it's important for us to to provide I think a lot more education if we are going to go forward and try to do this again. It took two elections.

Yeah. By the second election, I think people had had an opportunity to actually look at what we were trying to do, the to dedicate the money uh to let them know this is where your money is going to go because that's I think extremely important to people. And um we convinced the public that that it was the right thing to do. In fact, people would tell me even at the door, I voted against it last time, but I'm voting for it this time. So um and I understand it more it you know especially older people who who got a great benefit from this. Okay so it almost feels like it's a campaign within itself you know that so

that can that vote on that is really and and that's kind of a different way of going about it as far as from the city standpoint as opposed to the candidate but that's what it feels like to me. It's like it's really a lot of on the ground knocking on doors and really just having those conversations. The um as part of this, if you go back a few slides, there's the breakout of where the taxes go u to the county. Uh back a couple more. That is a flyer that is in our property taxes. And on the other side of that is the income tax information if I remember right. Yep.

And that was something we started in 2019 after it was adopted and then it and then it sort of fell away in the intervening years and then we started again I think a couple of years ago, right? And so this is part of every time you open your tax bill, here's here's a piece of information about your taxes and and what what makes it up because it's it's really important and people wouldn't otherwise know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's full-on blitz is what I'm thinking. Y as you guys know that probably Okay. Um, was that you were ready to move on, right? To we were done. Police will be next. Okay. Police will be next. Thank you for your presentation both of you.

Welcome back, Chief Brown. Sir, welcome to Schaefer.

Good evening again. Thank you for the opportunity to present the East Lancing Police Department's FY2027 proposed budget. I'm joined this evening by Administrative Assistant Diane Schaefer, Assistant Chief Matt Croft, and Captain Adrienne O'Hario. I'd like to take time to recognize Diane who continues to serve as the backbone of our department's budget process. Her expertise, attention to detail, and steady guidance are invaluable to our work. At its core, this budget reflects our continued commitment to equitable enforcement, strong community partnerships, and providing highquality police services to everyone in our city. Our officers are not only responding to calls and investigating crimes, but are also engaging with residents, attending neighborhood meetings and events, and working collaboratively to address quality of life concerns. Our goals for FY2027 are centered on three key areas: staffing, training, and community engagement. First, I'll talk about staffing, which I talked about a little bit earlier. We are working really hard to reach our full staffing levels, which hasn't been done since 2019. This is a significant milestone and will allow us to operate more efficiently, reduce resilient reliance on overtime, and better meet the needs of the community. We continue to invest in recruitment and retention through our cadet program, academy sponsorships and mentorships and ensuring that we are building strong, sustainable workforce. Tied to staffing levels is our training. And again, we talked about that a little bit earlier. As we bring in new officers, training becomes even more critical. Today's officers are expected to handle increasingly complex situations, and we're committed to ensuring that they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do so effectively. This includes continued professional education, leadership development, and maintaining compliance with best practices and legal standards.

Third, I want to talk about community engagement. We know that effective policing relies on strong relationships. This budget supports our community service unit, which includes our social workers as well as our neighborhood resource specialists and expands our outreach through events, partnerships, and problem oriented policing strategies. These efforts are essential to build trust and address concerns before they escalate. You will also see in the budget that we're focused um on investing in traffic safety. As you're very aware of, traffic concerns continue to be one of the most common issues raised by residents. In response, we'll be increasing targeted enforcement on speeding, impaired driving, and distracted driving. Our goal in FY2027, when staffing allows, is to dedicate two officers specifically to traffic enforcement to improve roadway safety across our city. In addition, we'll continue to prior prioritize our downtown safety. Through a partnership with the downtown development authority, we plan to dedicate two officers proactively to address issues downtown. These positions have a net zero impact on the general fund as the DDA will be fully funding them. They will focus on problem solving, relationship building, and maintaining a visible presence in our busiest area. Again, we will be able to dedicate these officers when we're back to full staffing. From a financial perspective, the FY2027 budget reflects an overall increase driven primarily by personnel costs, training, and necessary equipment. We are also seeing an increase in legal services due to a greater resil reliance on city attorneys for ordinance compliance and policy review. At the same time, we remain committed to being fiscally responsible. We continue to pursue grant funding to offset costs for training equipment and technology, including traffic enforcement tools and public safety initiatives. In closing, this budget positions the East Lancing Police

Department to operate at full strength while focusing on what matters most, keeping our community safe, strengthening relationships, and providing all the public safety needs that we can provide to our community. We're committed to providing professional, transparent, and responsive service, and we appreciate your continued support in helping us achieve these goals. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Questions for the chief? Council member Singh, did you

I do I'm not um where I need to be in some of my notes, but um what is the um what your current budget is in terms of number of officers? No, like you're you're asking for 16 million in the 2027 budget in the 2025 or excuse me, are you asking the 2026 amended budget number? Yes, that is 16,252,240 and that is so this is another $400,000.

Yeah, I believe it's uh I can't read the screen from here, but it's two about 2% um 2.6% 6%. Thank you. And that Oh, there it is right there in the green. I see. Um and that and the majority. What's the top lines? I know you you may have through your narrative covered this, but what's the bulleted version of the 2.6 increase? Where does it go? Personnel cost is probably the top. Overtime or new positions? New positions, benefits, taxes for those positions. Okay. And the the total new positions you're requesting, we haven't requested additional positions.

Okay. For FY2027. Okay. The cost of those positions has gone up every year. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. There is a the supplemental request that's attached to our packet where you propose uh a couple of additional you propose two full-time pace officers. That is correct. That's a question that you asked earlier and um we were asked to prepare um sort of a wish list outside of what our prepared budget was

and that's um includes additional position one for our records department a full-time records uh person. We've seen a a big increase um in the last couple of years in terms of the workload. One of the biggest things that we see is requests for um bodywn camera footage and that has to be redacted and reviewed all before it leaves the station. And so again, those uh current record staff cannot keep pace with what the requests are. We're also asking for two full-time PACE officers. we would reduce the number of part-time that we have. But um similar to the question that you asked earlier is that we do see quite a significant turn um turnover in our part-time staff. And so we do feel it would be better for the police department and the community long term to have two full-time PACE officers.

Yeah. I mean it makes sense to me. It wasn't clear from the from the memo that you were asking to convert some part-time positions to full-time positions. Maybe I just didn't Yes. closely, but um yeah, converting four part-time to two full-time case officers would cost about $1,600.

Okay. Do you have an estimate of It's probably hard to arrive at this, but do you have an estimate of sort of what the break even point is given the turnover that you've been encountering? So, it costs you a certain amount of time to train new part-time officers, right? And then if their average time to leave, if they stick around for a year, we only really have them for what, eight months? Yeah, six to eight months. Six to eight months. And so that's that's you know 30% overhead on on them that you could apply to a full-time position. I guess that's the kind of mathematics I was wondering whether you had worked through

we have simply just projected the cost of the conversion from the four parttime to the to full-time and and you can see it's it's minimal. Okay. I can speak to when I first started here 15 years ago, whenever we had a full-time PACE officer leave, we converted that position to two part-time positions to save money on benefits, but that's when the turnover started, right? So, yeah. So, that's the the trade-off, right? Okay. Any further questions about police budget, Mr. Griggsby? No, I I I'm just want to comment on the initiative that Deputy Chief uh Deputy Chief

Assistant Chief Craft Assistant Chief Craft, excuse me. I apologize. Um just his initiative to get staffed up in the overtime cost that we have right now. It's really alarming the numbers. Uh and it just I I really think you have an important important initiative to kind of really get that under control. Uh in my humble opinion,

no pressure. I am gonna just take this moment because I know um I think uh the mayor prom was talking about welcome week and some of the fall preparations outside of the additional officers that we already added. I mean theoretically in the budget um uh I do there's other mechanisms that we can leverage which I hope MSU communications communicating to incoming freshmen in terms of community expectations you know whatever the right messaging and framework that they are joining our community like doing a deep dive with them and figuring out what we can do is part of setting a tone and welcoming folks to our community, not just putting, you know, boots on the ground downtown and, you know, trying to leverage other tactics. So, I just wanted to take that moment to say that out loud.

A quick response. As a part of RHC today, MSU is very invested in a good communication process for this fall and they're working with Captain O'Hario and several others to to work on that communication to incoming fresh. That sounds like a future presentation if I can. That's a great idea. But there a lot of collaboration proof is in the details. There's a lot of collaboration with MSU right now. I love hearing that. I can't wait to hear more. Anything?

And so this is for the city manager. So everyone's going to hear all the different options for the budget and obviously we're concerned about any overages and we don't want to run into any kind of deficit. What is the basic increase in revenues projected for next year? So if we hear a projected 3% increase, do we have any I does that mean that's 3% and we're not projecting revenue increases or we just trying to get kind of a a basis to figure out where we solve the 1.7 problem. Maybe that's a too simplistic question for a complex answer.

I'll get you some information. Okay. Thank you. Anything further for police? Okay. Thank you. Mr. Newman, welcome back.

Good evening. So being the first budget that I've been involved with from the bottom to the top, front to back, very educational opportunity, I was might want to just jump directly to uh with the addition of the three personnel that were approved uh to add to the group to bring us up to 57. We have uh the largest increase is going to be on that personnel cost. When you're looking at the fire department budget, there are uh some additional pieces that will be presented separately. uh it is a longterm uh budget process to be able to cover some capital purchases down the road uh that have been have not been planned for for many years back. Uh the one specific that I'm talking about is the self-contained breathing apparatus that our personnel use uh for protective air when they work in IDLH atmospheres. acronym means immediately dangerous to life and health. Making that purchase of the uh SCBA, the group of equipment that we have currently with the number of packs, tanks, and masks is over a half a million dollars. So to come to you and tell you when the city's already looking at a shortfall on budget is that we are looking at having to replace these items in the future uh within 7 years. It will be the time that they are by standards and by OSHA have to be retired and replaced and to come to you and just state directly that

there needs to be a half a million dollars accounted for to be able to make that purchase. I I didn't find that to be uh fiscally responsible. So on a separate portion, you will be receiving a proposal from me uh to consider of creating a basically a savings account for that purchase in 7 years and to allocate 77,000 a year to that account. And at the time it's time to make that purchase and uh take care of that capital capital purchase, we'll have the funds for that without without it directly affecting by half a million dollars in one swing. Knowing that we had the uh increase on the personnel cost with the additional three that created the greatest percentage of increase on our budget getting down to the uh brass tax of services. The services remain unchanged. The uh response remains unchanged. Uh the staffing remains unchanged as proposed. But that 3% or those three additional personnel uh present that additional uh percentage increase in previous uh you can see on the slide in 25 for 2025 actual charges for service was just over $2 million. The amended budget that was proposed and presented last year was 2.9. We are not going to make that 2.9. I'm not I can't I can't figure out where that was all supposed to account from. But currently, we're not going to be able to make that on charges for service. We charge for our services. We reserve specific funding back in

return. But I can't grow I can't just create numbers for you. So to tell you straight up, we're not going to be able to make that as it was amended. Is the reason why you see that $800,000 decrease for this next fiscal year is that is in a realistic range. That 2.1 is realistic. So that wasn't carried over to try to duplicate that same number again. So when you look at those numbers and you're you start to adjust, you can see that overall on the expenses, uh, it's going from a 14 million budget to a 14.4. You take into the account the three additional people and you take into the account that we're not going to be able to bring in the entire $2.9 million, that creates that uh change up of $2.4 million increase for this next fiscal year. We will be maintaining the uh total staffing of 57. This past year, we did not have the two cadet positions filled at all. The reason we did not have those two cadet positions filled was because we had hired EMTs that we agreed to send to paramedic school and that funding for that training had to come from somewhere and it came out of that. It was an adjustment across and we just didn't fill those two cadet positions. Hopefully this next year we'll be able to fill those two cadet positions uh out of that cadet program. We have hired several full-time staff and they have been outstanding. The ones who have stayed within the cadet program and then applied for the full-time positions, they've been outstanding because they have completed their training prior to coming in as full-time. They've been able to establish themselves professionally within the department, understood the operations of the department, understood the standard that they were going to be held to, and it's worked out as a great uh great tool to bring in uh quality

people into the department. We hope to be able to follow up on that this next year with the with the staffing level. One of the pieces I wanted to present at this point in time was we brought on two brand new uh firefighter paramedics yesterday. They started yesterday to fill the two open positions that we had. And I was so excited to come in here and tell you that we were going to be fully staffed and maintained. And I unfortunately received a letter of resignation this week. Uh we have had a young lady, a very high quality firefighter paramedic who has decided that she is changing her goal and she is going to be building her family and focusing on her family. So we are we're bummed that she's leaving, but at the same time you have to respect a goal like that and making decisions for that reason. So, we are again posting for another firefighter paramedic and we'll be running the process again. Does anybody have any questions?

Any questions for the chief? I I need another Remind me. When we buy equipment or maybe even invest, how does that charge work with MSU? Is that is the equipment cost somehow appropriated to what we're charging them? Is that making sense? Yes, it does. That's a difficult one to answer. Okay.

When we buy any capital purchase that we make is understood that the city of East Lancing is making that capital purchase. We do receive uh 3 point roughly 3.7 million from public 289 funding from the state for public buildings that we also receive uh 326,000 from MSU separately per year and that is specific to buildings and structures that they have that are not on camp not on city property. they would be in Meridian Township or in Lancing or just venturing over into Alladen Township. Those properties that is where that funding comes from is to fund us for coverage of those buildings. One of the pieces I think that needs to be accomplished is a true breakdown of response requirements uh level of service required to those properties and then be able to come back with where do those numbers balance out? How do they equate to each other? Are they balanced or is there an offset? Uh we have a uh a hazmat technical response truck that is specific and is through a uh letter of agreement with MSU. The city is required to provide for that service to MSU. That being said, there are benefits that are returned from MSU in the agreement, they provide for us at no cost, specific hazmat training throughout the year for our staff. They calibrate monitors for us. They uh handle minor maintenance on

those air monitors, radiation monitors, and they assist through those through those pieces. That is the way it has been in all of my 25 years. How that actually balances out and measures against each other, that's what we can't tell you because there's never been any data collected to make that comparison. I'm curious, you and I both, and it's taken taken quite a bit of time to even begin getting that information gathered.

Um, and I just want to thank you for comments earlier. Um, I think both your investment strategy that you mentioned during your presentation uh for you know you know preparing for equipment costs in into the future, but also with um council members Meadows um question about having another facility or fire station up on the northern tier, but you considering other avenues to ensure safety, but yet maybe avoiding the cost of having a full-blown So I just want to thank you for thinking critically about um you know what's ahead of us but yet ensuring again that the community is safe. So

there there is growth in the community without question. We all see it but there's also a growth in the demand of services and that is something that all municipalities are seeing and I think that we need to start looking at that from a broader lens. We need to we need to consider gathering data outside of just the boundaries of the city of these lancing and looking at looking at a much bigger picture. Anything further?

Just a very quick comment. your numbers would be pretty much balanced if it wasn't for it seemed like the overestimate of the income because the income was at 2 million and 25 then it was increased potential of 2.9 now it's back down to 21 and you're off by about 800 grand. So it seems like other than that that difference from that income projection for this year, you're pretty close. It's close. It's close. Okay. Any further questions for the chief? All right. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you.

Before we move to the next presentation, I wanted to recognize uh Chief Chief Judge um Molly Molly Hennessy Greenwalt and Court Administrator Nicole Evans. Um, if you would like to have a seat.

Thank you so much, Mayor. And good evening to council and to city manager Berman and Mr. Jopek. Nice to see you again. Um before we move on from police and fire, um Nicole Evans, who I know you all know, she's our wonderful court administrator at 54B and I are here tonight to address one of the items that was on the city manager's uh memo of today. I think it was an add-on and it was um I think titled other matters and specifically other matter I think it was paragraph number three and I know you have so much paper before you so if you need time or space to find that but I that's my best guidance. Um in that item the it apparently it's my understanding that the city is considering changing its accounting practices so that revenue that's generated from court cases would appear as revenue that would be generated by other divisions in the city. So as I understand it specifically revenue um that would be generated from ordinance fines in uh criminal matters or parking matters OWI cost recovery parking fines that are collected by the court would appear as revenue that was generated by police or parking or fire. Um I just want to begin by saying um the court does not retain any collected funds. So, we don't necessarily care one way or the other how the city decides to structure its accounting as long as it's accurate, of course. Um, but there are some considerations that I just wanted to make here tonight and I have four points. The first is that if the K city is considering this, they want to make

sure that it's consistent with the law. And there's a specific statute that governs how district courts of third class like ours is to assess fines and costs. And Mr. Jopek, I can give you that site by email or right now. It's MCL600 8379. And I think this has been provided to the city manager. And it just states that in district courts of third class, all fines and costs must be paid to the political subdivision. So when we collect fines and costs, it goes to the city. It doesn't go to police or parking or any particular division. We will always per the statute transmit those funds to the city. Um, I don't think we're being asked to change our um, what we do, but nonetheless, I think that statute may arguably contemplate that the fines and costs that are collected by the court are um, court revenue or at least court generated revenue. Um I also note Nicole has done some a survey of other courts and no other courts that we know of um the funding unit does not account for court generated revenue in the way that the city is thinking about it. And thirdly, um, some of you may know that the legislature currently has before it a some recommendations about a alternative court trial court funding. And this has been something that they've been working on for a number of years. Um, it's unclear if and when the legislature would ever adopt these recommendations, but I want to share this with you that I think if the city were to adopt the accounting change that

it's considering, it could be detrimental to the city's budget under that new regime of alternative trial court funding. And it's complicated and I would be happy to talk about it more in detail at some other time, but basically under the methodology that those recommendations would use um the city would end up with a higher contribution to court funding if those revenues are removed from the court. Uh and then lastly, I I just ask the or suggest that the city may want to consider if this accounting practice would create an appearance problem. Um not really for the court, but possibly for the city and possibly for the police. Um and I don't know if if council member Whan would be so kind as to just um if I could use you as an example. Um, officer Whan, you know, when you were investigating an operating while intoxicated case and you um decided you issued a charge uh for that charge. Um, I don't think that you expected to collect fines and costs um at the station or on the road. Um, and really quite frankly, I don't think you were thinking about fines and costs, were you? to to respond directly, there was always and again I'm glad that that career is complete and it's finished and I'm no longer by that by that title but um I do think there is a concern with someone saying why are you doing this you're doing this to make money this and that and really I think the intent I can only speak for myself I think I can speak for the rest is the desire was to correct behavior

and not to make money. So I think that there's a pretty important delineation between those two different things. Um and so in juvenile law it's more correct correcting behavior and there is a a correcting behavior or punishing behavior for adults, but I think that keeping that line a little separate makes a lot of sense to me.

I appreciate that. Um, you know, I think that the the point is is that fines and cause for a violation of the law aren't aren't due when a police officer issues a ticket or or makes a charge. They're due after that person has received all the process that they are due. And then a neutral magistrate has determined that they are responsible for that violation of the law. and then that neutral magistrate has determined that these fines and costs are right and just under the circumstances that's when fines and costs are due and and I think that's why the accounting practices historically have always recognized that revenues from court generate from court cases are reflected you know in by the court. Um, so again, um, the court does not retain any of these funds and this is not at all, um, why Nicole and I are are here tonight. But I did think, you know, it would be a change and if the council is going to consider that change, these are some considerations you may want to think about.

Any questions for the judge? Appreciate you coming. Okay. Well, I appreciate all you and thank you um mayor and thank you for squeezing us in. I appreciate that. We I do appreciate the clarity and the information. Thank you.

Okay, next up Welcome. Hello, council. Matt Apostle, community and economic development specialist here with the city of East Lancing.

Uh and Nicholas Prefontaine, uh community and economic development specialists. Um so today we're going to present the community development black uh block grant budget. Um so we have a process where we have a community economic or community development advisory committee um that is just a short committee that spans from around September to January or February. Um and they take in the applications, review them. Um all the applicants uh are there to answer any questions the committee has and then um after that we go through each applications with the committee and they select um how much they're going to uh disperse to each of the applicants. Um we had seven public service applicants um this year. Um and then three of the applicants were for the public facility improvements or um housing rehab which was the Spar Spartan housing cooperative. And then um 20% of the grant can go towards administration. Um and so we uh the allocation just came out around a week and a half ago. So they were basing it off the last year's uh fiscal year's um allocation that we got and then we adjust they wanted to adjust each equally um to what we got um when they released it and it was lower than last year's. Last year's was around 41425 and then this year's was 393 905. So it was a little bit lower. Um and that's the trend we've been seeing um over the past couple of years. It's been getting a little bit lower. It does fluctuate. There's been years where we've gone lower and then we've gotten higher. So, but um yeah, if you have any questions about that.

Um questions. I do. Sorry. Um what historically, how long have we been doing the committee? It was 2023 I think it was create we started doing the committee itself because I think before that it was just uh staff was taking in the applications and diving it up. Um, but Matt probably would know better than I do because I just started here in here in November. So,

I can clarify. So, uh, this iteration of the community development advisory committee was started in 2021. So, we've been doing it, uh, I believe that this would have been our fifth time going through this community development advisory committee process. uh there was a brief lapse where we didn't have the committee uh in the late 2010s but in for many years prior to that we had a different structured community development advisory committee from what I understand that was much more robust than the current process. Uh but we tried to kind of trim down the scale of that committee given that our funds have continued to dec decrease over the years considering maybe in the early 2000s we might have been receiving as much as a million dollars in CDBG funding. If I could throw something in the in the '9s, you know, when I was first elected, we got about a million and a half dollars from the feds uh for these purposes. And we had we actually used the 1% we set aside within the budget to supplement those funds. So, we had a much more um expansive process uh at that time to uh utilize these funds appropriately. And then as time went on and the feds decided to start reducing the amount of money, I don't know what we get right now to about 450 maybe.

We're set to get 393 393. So it's a substantial uh difference. We had advice from staff I think to eliminate the process and then in 2021 I think uh they started a less robust process up again.

Council member Sing your thought. Yeah, I just wanted um I mean I I just want to connect the at least discussions we've had here and now a majority of um the projects that we've been supporting are for unhoused um nonprofits um or communities of color um supports um as well as some youth scholarship. just that's my big top lines of the uh project's reference and it's this idea of if if conceptually and I don't know if it makes sense right but through the unhoused discussion that we've had over the last few months is if we were to have anou between the three COC's what dollars would everyone bring to the table potentially in theory we could bring you know there's about $100,000 that you're projecting in 2027 um Would those go to the same? It's 98,000, right?

Or I'm for this first. I'm not sure where you're finding the 98,000. So that was the requested. Oh, that's the requested. Sorry. That's how much has been requested. Okay. My apologies. So 60 grand,

which is not a lot of money, but if you had additional, you know, two other counties of communities and other communities putting in and may and again I this goes back to some of the work the county does as well with the COC is can you leverage additional dollars to better grant across uh nonprofits? Um which would be a major shift. Um, but I'm just wanted to throw that all out. Uh, you know, as you Matt especially, I know you're engaged at the COC level as we've had a community dialogue on the unhoused community and looking at um elements of the community that can be supported with the CB CDBG. How do we leverage other community dollars to not only benefit our community but actually do something impactful and and supporting the challenges we're seeing um that may not you know provoke a response right now. I don't uh but it's just uh fodder for uh maybe thought uh as we go through this budget process.

Mr. Bman had his hand up. Two points CLC continuum of care. Yes. Okay. Second point is I just had this conversation with Heather today because the allocation to the city is diminishing so much. The point you're trying to make is instead of trying to spread it out thinly over the list of potential applicants, do we take our limited share and do a lumpsum investment in a priority program or service that the city council um is needed. That's another like yes that's a but that's how you get to the dollar amount to leverage you know

moreful. Yes. more impactful of the other two CLC's um adjacent. Yep. So anyway, sorry, but thought I'd take this opportunity to communicate that. Further questions. Are is any of the 498 projected any of that funds coming into us? Are these all funds going out?

So um are they requested by grants? So this is so for so the 498 is what they requested the 393 905 is what we are getting from the federal government and then that is all going out to um all of the line items there all the idea is we're we're still requesting we're still how much are we getting in for the out of the 498 potentially how much are we getting in are we getting in all of that

so I can clarify so the the column on the right is the application submissions by all these organizations. Uh so there was a total of 498 in requests for funding but the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has uh given us an allocation total of 393. Okay. So we're decreasing all of those requests to fit into that budget. I understand. Thank you very much. Thank you,

Mr. Griggsby. Yeah, I I got a chance to sit with these gentlemen and the the whole board there and I came into the process late because they had met a few different times, but uh I was really really impressed with um the commissioners at that time um and just really how they went about these line items, these applications and it was really impressive group. And I was like I was like, "Okay, all right. There levels." And so and I've sat on a lot of boards and a lot of different things. And I was really impressed. But I also want to say I was really impressed by the staff. You guys were I mean they were throwing different things at you, numbers, questions, and you know, you like were doing your magic. So I wanted to acknowledge that because I I was I was I was really sitting there like, "Wow, like this is how you this is how you work it." You know what I mean? So, um I I just wanted to say that because that was my experience and I I really learned a lot in my first go through with that and I look forward down the road uh doing that and learning more and maybe getting a little bit more involved with that process.

Thank you. Do you have further elements to the presentation or was that that is all? That is all. Any further questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Downtown Development Authority, Director Mullins. Good evening.

Hello, Mayor, Mayor Fam, Council Members. Lori Mullins, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority. It's a pleasure to be here tonight to talk about the DDA's budget. And I'll just quickly go through this. The um revenues for the DDA are increasing this year by approximately 11%. And a lot of that is attributable to the Stonehouse Village 3 brownfield plan will be fully reimbursed uh this year. And so those um funds that have been used for reimbursement will now be captured by the downtown development authority. Uh the expenses um the personnel expenses are you know in addition to having a full-time director the DDA has a number of uh different staff members that contribute to its operations including the finance department, the arts program specialist, a CED associate, a couple of interns and then we also have parking staff that assist with our downtown waste management program. Um for operations there's uh approximately well it's 1,42,185 that's budgeted for operations and uh approximately half of that 503,000 will be used for municipal service agreements for the support that DPW and the police department provide to the downtown. And um then the other contract services are envisioned or planned for um include an ambassador program that is being researched right now. Um that would be to add um folks in the downtown that help with welcoming people, giving directions, but also provide that sort of informal surveillance and support to

uh various needs throughout the downtown. Um the then a number of other things including continuation of our rotating art program. Um some strategic planning that we have in mind and continuation of the work uh to connect the Valley Court Park with the core of the downtown. The um DDA is also planning to continue the facade improvement program which has just begun. We've only um just begun to get uh applications for that, but um but we'll be promoting that more in the coming year. For capital outlay, there's uh landscape barricades. Um this is the An Street Plaza improvements, the barricades there to help support um safety in that area. Some other sidewalk safety improvements are planned throughout the downtown. um public restrooms. Uh the addition of a public restroom is something that we've talked about for quite some time and are hoping to get that uh completed in this fiscal year. And um as I mentioned, some more um work with the Valley Court improvements um and the connectivity there, wayfinding signs and build out of a downtown office. So currently my office is here in the Hannah Community Center and the hope is that we'll in this coming year build out a downtown office that would be shared between myself and the um the lead worker for public works who will be dedicated to the downtown and also that would be a space for the social workers and others who are um supporting the vibrancy of the downtown and addressing the different challenges that we have. um to come together and work in the same space and be able to collaborate

effectively. The debt service that you see on here is for the Evergreen property principal and interest payments. We had that budgeted um and and we'll continue to see those until we have those properties sold. Um we're also looking at the transfer out. Um on your in your packet we included that that transfer out of 265,000 was for the um MAC parking garage payments um on the debt service associated with that. It's that amount um for the parking garage is actually 143 325 and we also have a transfer out related to the um payments to the boardw downtown street lighting of uh 121800 and then you'll see the replenish fund equity amount there. I'm happy to answer any questions or provide more detail and um

questions Concerning DDA, I have a couple of questions. One is in the budget narrative for the DDA.

We've talked about this before at DDA meetings. It would be helpful to know uh how much of the financing that comes into the DDA is money that would not otherwise be capturable by the city. Right? So that tiff one and tiff two capture kata and LCC and various other and that's not a small amount and it means that the DD actually performs a pretty important function in terms of bringing extra funds into the city as a whole and I think uh knowing what that breakdown would be would be really helpful um as part of the budget narrative.

Sure. And then the other question I had was sort of more general, you know, that also connected to the idea of tax capture. So the DDA captures taxes that would otherwise flow to the city. It's sort of a city within a city and arguably it should pay for the functions that it depends on as being part of the city more broadly. And um there's been a movement in that direction with for example uh the street light assessment, right? Are there other costs that you think it might make sense for the DDA to absorb because they are functions that occur in the downtown? Um for example, like the farmers market.

Yes. Yes. I think that there are we can absolutely explore other activities that the DDA could support more fully. Um, including things like the farmers market or community events that are happening. Um, they support the community as a whole, but they also are about bringing people into the downtown and supporting the businesses in the downtown and um, and there should be some opportunities to to talk about sharing those costs. Yep. And especially since the DDA's budget is going up, right, in terms of revenue and may go up more sharply with new projects that come online.

So that's the context for the question. Yeah. So, as we um think about the DDA capturing those funds from regional entities and um making sure that the activities that the DDA is supporting are in line with the actual costs of the DDA of creating this environment that's supportive of the whole community. I think that, you know, we need to think about what the the lens is that we're evaluating each of those um those costs that the DDA would take on um how that would be viewed by the broader regional community that is contributing to the DDA.

Yep, that's fair enough. Any further questions?

I'd like to follow up on that. The um most of our community events occur in the downtown. Uh, in fact, I'm trying to think of unless it's a free swim or something, uh, you know, what community event doesn't u happen in the downtown, either the DMB events that were, you know, briefly talked about earlier this evening and uh, the art festival, the jazz festival. We start to do the list. Everything's in the downtown. Should the DDA and maybe the DMB be part of a community events office that manages those and uses the funds uh collected from the downtown to help fund those community events? That's my question.

I think that it's something that can be explored and of course we'd be looking at talking about that with the DDA board and and um coming up with a a way of evaluating um those costs and determining if it makes sense. But um I think it's a a very good question. Any further questions? Thank you for your presentation. Thank you.

Parking Director Sherro, welcome. Good evening, council. Caleb Cheryl, uh, downtown parking administrator. Um, got a brief little presentation and I'll be open for any questions. Um, I'd like to thank Jennifer Lacass, deputy parking administrator who's seated right behind me. She was uh the master behind our budget and I appreciate that very much. Um, so fiscal year 27 budget um outlines revenue projections uh and expenditures and includes the following. We look to continue the 15-minute grace period in all gated facilities. Continue offering free loading zone spaces throughout the downtown from Bailey Street to Valley Court Park. Uh continue the 50% validation discount for businesses and 50% discount multi-use vouchers for patrons. Continue offering discounted monthly parking permits. Discounted hourly parking in Division Street parking garage. continue funding uh assisting to fund ELPD social worker to focus on homeless outreach in the downtown. Uh continue contributing to the downtown management board to uh for marketing of the downtown and contributing to art and placemaking fund along with contributing to our reserve fund to cash fund uh future capital repairs and technological upgrades. Uh we have in this budget a large-scale facility repairs project to maintain the six parking garages downtown along with fall prevention for the uh for the parking facilities. Um there is grant funding that we are seeking um through with Erica our uh the city's grants coordinator. Thank you Erica very much for all your help with that. We're seeking state and federal grants for fall prevention from our facilities for

uh individual safety um at our parking facilities. So, the budget we are proposing is uh you see it's a little over $10 million um for uh revenues and expenditures. It's proposed as a as a balanced budget. It's higher than previous years because that grant funding is in there listed as um as revenues as uh intergovern intergovernmental revenues. Um if the grant funding isn't successful, we would then um seek uh debt service for that uh expense but still continue with the with the fall prevention for the facilities. Um are there any questions? That's all I have

questions. I'll just say that u you know during Sam Singh's tenure on this council this was his favorite presentation and he always had a book full of questions so I feel duty bound to ask a question you don't have to sorry parking is everybody's you know really what I want it doesn't have anything to do with your budget but I want to know the number of available parking spaces that could be leased we have two major projects that we're taking a look at and I want to what's available.

Yeah, we're currently doing uh our by- annual counts from our last counts. Our peak um occupancy is 65% Thursdays at around lunchtime. Um you usually don't want to operate a parking system that low of occupancy. Um, so what we did to figure out what we could offer to maybe uh comfortably offer to 530 Albert or the Howard, which are the two um most current that are being proposed, um is that we took that that comfort level of um taking Albert is our busiest garage, Grove is our busiest garage. MAC garage, we have a condo association where there is obligation there that we have to keep spaces available for hotel utilization. Um, so we took the Charles garage, division garage, um, and we factored in what's still available in the parking system and divided that number in half. So that comes up with a very comfortable 215 to commit between the two developments. You don't want to commit all your spaces that you have available to uh, particular developments because you also want to have spaces available for customers that are coming to visit your downtown. So that 215 is a very comfortable number that we would be willing to commit at this time. Um obviously anybody above and beyond that can utilize. Um if they're MSU students, they can park on campus. If they're um if they want to use public transportation, they can do that. Um so that's where our number that's how we came up with our number that we were able to we were able to comfortably want to commit to that.

All right. Thank you for that information. Appreciate it. Just go ahead to clarify. Um, so the challenge is is the west side doesn't have as much parking as the east side, right? The west side is busier. Yes. So if there was a potential of providing some kind of parking on the west side and the developments are in something that could relieve the pressure on the east side because it seems like graduate and other areas west of Abbott come over to the Growth Street ramp, right?

And then and then that pulls people and then it fills people up all the way east. So potentially, I know back in the day they have a trail, I'm sorry, that's called the division street ramp. They call it Yeah, it's the division street parking garage or the colorful garage. Um the colorful garage in the past wasn't very full for a long time. It seems like as our development has grown on the west side or right downtown,

it's grown. So that's just I you don't need to respond to that. Well, the west end the west end is busier and we are we are actively seeking um an analysis done by possibly our previous who did our parking master plan walker consultants um to look at what it would look like with these proposed developments to have a garage at the west end. From a parking person's standpoint, I wouldn't want to add another parking garage myself because you don't want to operate a parking system that's underutilized, right? So that's a tough tough balance to try to figure out what's acceptable, what's not. Um, but we're going to have that looked at by uh by a consultant to analyze it a little further with proposed developments.

I think as part of that is there's wants and needs, right? And defining within a parking system and looking at other examples. Thank you, Robert, for starting to write this down. Um, but I think that's important to this discussion in terms of I mean, listen, we have a culture of driving in the state of Michigan. But at the same time, I don't you know, I'm not sure I we've talked about this around the developments. Like, does every person that lives in one of those developments or multiple people in a unit, do they have to have two spots? I don't know. Anyway, yep.

I've got one more followup question. I'm sorry with my thing if I can't go. Um the fall prevention. Okay. And I understand the huge concerns there. I've been there and huge huge concerns. So there's $3 million hoping for a grant and then the $6 million. So So if we do get the grant and there is no bond funding, right? Are you trying to supplement that with income or if if we don't if we don't get the grants or if we do get the grants and then we then we don't have to do bond funding. Is that what you said?

That's what I think there's a three and three thing, right? 3 million to 3 million. Yeah. It's like three 3.5. Yep. For that. If we don't get the federal grants or let's say we do get the federal grants federal and state are the are the two and there is no let's say we don't have a bond right would you want to cover that in fees or it means

so any excess revenues that would be coming in because of that grant funding then would go to a reserve fund to help with future future technological upgrades and capital repairs projects like the the other piece of this whole um the capital outlay is that we're doing a the six garages. We're doing a large one one of our largest yet um facility repairs project. So every 3 to 5 years um we try to do a repairs project to maintain the facilities. Um so it would just go to a reserve fund um to to help um with those future investments. And in the not too distant future, we're going to need a whole new parking access revenue control system. Um so that's in our capital improvements plan. So, it's there's more millions of dollars that need to be reinvested into the parking system on a regular basis. So,

thank you for that. I appreciate all you do. Um the fall prevention could be staged in over a longer period of time.

Yes. Um so, right now we're um this is my first big grant funding experience. Um but so the repairs project we're currently working toward. We can continue on. We verified with this with the state and federal representatives um for the for the grant funding that we can continue with this piece of the project the cap the uh the repairs the general repairs but with the fall prevention we would just bid out once we find out about the grant funding whether it's successful or not. So the state and federal grant funding. So, um it's my understanding that sometime in the fall would be we'd find out about state funding and then a little later most likely or or maybe a lot later for federal. I guess I'm not quite sure. Okay.

Well, I understand there's a lot of moving pieces with that. Yeah. So, we'll still be in process with that. Yeah. So, it would be two separate pieces. So, the fall prevention would be coming later once we figure out whether the grant grant funding was successful or not. So, thank you. Yep. Mr. Reynolds, can I can I confirm one thing? The if we do build parking on the west side, of course, we have to accommodate the developments that are probably going to occur on the Evergreen properties. So, it isn't just that we'll have extra parking over on the west side that we can you that pushes uh or allows opening of additional parking on the east side. Is that right?

Yeah. So, yep. you could hopefully then pull people from from the east end of town to to fill up more stuff at the west end because it's been busier. So there hasn't always been availability at some of the permit areas that are on the west end. So question about the 215 that you'd sort of allocated potentially for one of those projects. So that would not necessarily be in the division street garage. That would be distributed over the system. Right.

Correct. Not in one particular location. Um so division is our slowest. So we'd probably have most there. We'd put some in um Charles Street garage and we would be able to put some in other garages. You just wouldn't wouldn't be able to put a lot in other garages, but Albert Garage and Grove are the ones that experience full scenarios most. Um Charles Street garage, there are some things we can play with there. Regarding uh Michigan Flyer, for example, um they have take a lot of spaces in there, so we can um kind of work with Michigan Flyer. Haven't redone their um their looked at their rate in a while. So, it's been since I think 2016. Um, so we can um play with the numbers that we allow them to park in that lot and also possibly increase their rate some um to uh to bring those numbers down so then you have more parking available on Charles Street garage. So,

great. Thank you. Any further questions concerning parking? All right. Thank you for your presentation. I think that concludes the budget presentations, but we had the city manager uh raising a number of issues with us at the start of this presentation seeking our direction. Uh Mr. Bellman, is there a refresher you'd like to give us about what you'd like us to

So again, the memo I provided you yesterday, updated it today, um lists out a number of items. So, departments have um asked for additional positions um including the city clerk asking for a second part-time administrative position. What I do is show what the cost of that request is and what the budget impact is. So, when you run down the list of requests, uh city clerk, fire department being a training captain, uh parks and recreation had three additional items. Um all three of theirs is really taking existing positions and either adjusting them to meet demands. Um for example, the part-time school age care specialists. Um the impact of the budget is 27,000 but it is a fully funded program uh either by fees or grants. uh reclassified personnel trainer to a regular part-time that is funded through fees and or contribution from the employees uh the city's healthcare fund. And then the marketing and sales specialist is about a $10,000 increase but would have someone dedicated to try to generate revenue for this building by renting out uh this room and other rooms that are available um in the building. Uh the police had as chief indicated two positions. One is a police records assistant and then the conversion of four part-time uh PACE positions to two full-time PACE positions. Um overall total costs right around or impact of the budget is about 462,000. And knowing that we've got a 1.7 million deficit, that would just drive that up

if there are not offsetting reductions. Comments on the city manager's comments. I'll just say I'm not really prepared to say anything about it. I think looking at the entire budget would inform us on whether we think uh those additions would be appropriate. So, Council member Singh,

I would just say, you know, again, we have more work ahead of us and combing through um all the departments. I think when you look at the budget on the surface, it's hard to think about adding additional positions. Um and I think I think that's the extent I would offer this evening. Um I think you know generally speaking we know things are tight and we've always kind of generally t or shouldn't say we but I think there has been discussions where we've talked about you know what are sensible cuts coupled with you know we we have to take a serious look at uh additional revenue you know the landscape has changed

um and those are the realities So, and I know that's that's tough on uh in terms of from a staff staff perspective, but um and I think that you know I was thinking about the parking piece just coming off of that. It's like and or the DDA piece like are there other examples of how we can look to other communities or creative ideas where we can bring in additional revenue. You know, again, when you think about taking care of our core services, infrastructure, public safety, but what makes us uniquely us is what often falls, you know, off or that has to be considered for cuts and that's not a great place to be because then you shortside who we are as a community. So, are there like I was thinking the I shouldn't think about this market rate potential housing like do we say okay developers you're not guaranteed any parking and then we're going to run a lotto or like some sort of unique pricing structure to drive up parking income. I don't know if that's ethical but you know I I'm just trying to think of ideas um that could be considered to you know increase revenue. So that's all I would offer this evening

and I echo that um carrying so much cost and so many incredibly wonderful programs and services is a priority but we can't spend more than we make right so I think that was a mandate from um when I was running for council is that we need to be responsible we need to not go beyond our resources And that does I think we absolutely have to have more revenues coming in from different avenues. Um that is the concern and I think also people are important. Um if there's a choice of um cutting some programs as compared to cutting people, I think programs um need to be evaluated um over people. But I think now's the time to not thinking about expanding in a lot of areas, but more making sure we're taking care of our own.

Couple of comments. Um, I think pretty consistent with what others have said for things like these staffing uh requests in in this add-on memo. I'm looking for guidance from the city manager. I think um I can't evaluate these things as well as somebody who's got their finger on the pulse of the operation. Um I will say I saw sort of two two buckets of proposals there. Some that cost very little that seem to make a lot of sense like converting part-time officers to full-time pace officers. But then I saw others that you know for for new positions that I just can't evaluate without recommendations. Um, I think that a projected $1.7 million use of fund balance plus additional positions is more than I'm comfortable with. I I think and so I would like to see some scenarios involving cuts um in so far as it's possible protecting core government functions like public safety, public works, departments that we need to regulate under state law, departments that run the internal functions of the city. Um, I would characterize those as as sort of core governmental functions, protecting those and looking at what it would take to cut $500,000 out of our deficit. I think that would be educational for all of us. Um, I do want to mention that we don't necessarily I don't think we have to meet we don't have to do all of this before we adopt the budget on May 26. We can do stuff afterwards through budget amendments. I think we we shouldn't feel rushed into doing stuff before we have full information. Um but we are in the middle of the budget cycle. So now seems as good a time as any to start thinking

about these issues. But um I don't think that we need to um target May 26 as the as the deadline for these things. And then I have one other sort of procedural comment that I wanted to float for the information of my colleagues. Um, I would like to avoid as much as possible uh last minute changes to the budget that come up on May 26 that we haven't heard about. Um, I think that uh we all staff and all of us and the city manager all deserve an opportunity to think about proposed changes whether they're small or large. And so I would encourage people if they uh if they might want to change a fee or propose another change to float that as early as you can so that we have a chance to do our homework and think about it um before we ultimately have to make a decision. Anything final on anything further on the budget issue? anything from the city manager that we might

Nothing nothing. Okay. I I was going to say concerning the the budgeting change for the court. Um my assumption is that you propose that for a reason and so I defer I personally defer to your analysis of what the benefits and the cost of that would be. Um

moving forward on that one item. It was really, you know, where we reflect in every other department revenue generated by that department. So, it gives you a true picture of that program's cost. Right now, we're reflecting in the court's budget money generated by other departments through fines and fees. And so, it's really just where do we account for it? And in the budget document, when you look at 54B, we say the impact is 1.7 million roughly um when in fact the revenue that's predominantly reflected in that budget is generated by the police department. And so it's very misleading. And I did have that conversation uh with the judge today and she did share the alternate district court funding mechanism and I shared that with Audrey. Neither of us have had time to really review it to digest if that funding alternate funding method is implemented by the state um what our maintenance of effort amount would be and whether this change would adversely impact that. Um but as she stressed they don't keep any revenue uh generated by them. And so when I look at, you know, the fines and forfeite of $1.3 million, again is reflected in the court's budget, but generated by other city departments, be it building, be it fire, or be it police. And when we met, Nicole indicated that any fines or fees generated by MSU through parking is just automatically sent to MSU and so it's

not reflected in their budget. But our method is treated somewhat differently. And so that was part of the conversation if you recall uh that got kicked off when Chief Brown came to you about adding additional PACE officers. why isn't that revenue being somehow reflected in PACE's efforts? And so there's a disconnect and that's what generated that point that was brought in my memo. And I think that's a really important issue because we need to be able to figure out whether hiring additional pace officers is going to is going to be worth it, right? And the issue is compliance there. We want compliance, but we achieve compliance through citations,

right? And the question is whether uh it's it's a budgeting question for us. And so I think from that perspective, it seems to make sense. The change seems to make sense, but I think it's it's going to be up to to you to to give us a recommendation. And it sounds like we're not ready for you to d to ask us. No, I want to be able to digest some of the judge's points that she made

this evening, but like I said, we had a meeting at about 11:30 this morning and we talked about it. I let her know it was in the memo. So that's the reason why she came tonight. But again, when you look at the total cost of what's reflected in the budget for police, it's right around 15.2 million. But fire, their costs are 14 offset by revenue brings it down to 6.4. Yeah. So we're treating departments different. Y and how we're reflecting the revenue that's generated by them and that's what prompted this conversation.

Okay. Anything further on budget issues? All right. Thank you all. That brings us to item 3.3, discussion of updates to policy resolution 2019-5, a resolution establishing procedures for council meetings, resolutions, and the preparation and content of the council agenda. There's a a lot in here. Perhaps Mr. Jopa could give us an overview of some of the content.

Certainly. Uh I'll I'll do my best. Um this uh this draft is presented uh to you in followup to some prior discussions with city council uh regarding various uh items in its rules of procedure and uh other aspects of uh resolution 2019 uh to update it to address various issues uh that some council members raised. Uh and in the course of doing that, we also identified a few things uh that could pro possibly be worded better and also some things that could be made more clear in connection with how the charter reads. Uh and in a couple instances, uh some concerns over whether some of the one or two of the items was in compliance with the charter. And so, uh, there were a number of things, uh, that first it started with the comments from council and trying to work on those and bring something back to you, right? Uh, to give you some things to think about, to talk about to show you what it would look like, some of the things that you were talking about. And then it kind of morphed into some additional things that we saw along the way and plugged in there. Uh you can see some of my side notes identifying some of them for you to help you see where they came from because they didn't come from a discussion with you. Uh and um um also generally speaking um uh at the beginning I reference uh or we reference uh at the very beginning that this refers uh is an amended and restated version of your council meeting rules and other procedural and rule uh guidance that's provided in resolution 2019 5-5.

But there are other resolutions going back in time that I've noticed and and I haven't seen them all that either have similar provisions uh in the past or have parts of this in them. Uh we would need to do some more research, but it's unclear whether those other former ones have been repealed or are they still on the books. So at the end kind of have an open provision to do some more work on to to see and we need to be careful because some of those other and and that's why I noted we need to look into it because some of those other former resolutions going back decades um identify other things and other policies and rules that you had in other areas that aren't covered in here. So we're going to need to do a little work on that. I'd suggest focus on some of the items this evening it's presented to you to get your feedback. I don't know if you want me to go through them with you or you just want to start at the top and provide comments. Mr. Mayor, I leave that to you. Um, and I know Mr. Bellman, you also had um some involvement in this and and you may have some thoughts as well.

Well, let me ask the council how we want to proceed here. Do we want a blowby-blow of the changes or a summary of the some of the more substantive questions? I will say just before we have a before we launch into this discussion, I think some of the substantive issues come up in um article or section uh one paragraph 7 concerning uh the structure of a meeting essentially. And uh there are several proposals in here for essentially all targeting uh trying to make meetings end a little earlier in the evening um with various means. Uh these are all things that we have talked about at various times. They are on the table for our consideration. Um we might not want to we could adopt none or all or some depending on our taste. Uh I know I have some views about some of the things proposed in here but I thought I would open it up to other people to see how they would want to proceed with us.

Mr. Meadows proceeded you know however you want to do it. You know I have a lot of comments but um if we want to do it section by section that's good. However you want to proceed is fine. I just want to like it's 10:30 and for policy purposes to get the crux of this and you know we also have severe weather that is passing through so I'd rather be at home than with you all. I sorry to say that out loud. I do not take offense but um at any rate so I think if we can focus on the feedback that would be helpful on the policy piece and then y

you know figure out the next step. Well, from my standpoint, I gave uh the city attorney a copy of my comments. So, to the extent that we might be discussing those or he might be changing what he's recommended, then you know, I'm I'm satisfied with waiting. Um so, dealing with unless that you feel that we need to get this done, you know, as soon as possible.

Well, there are some questions that since we're on this, I want to pose some questions to all of us, okay? and we'll try to do it relatively efficiently. So, one is do we want to change do we want to think about changing the start time of meetings? Currently, it's 7 o'clock. We could start them at 6:30 or 6 o'clock. This was again something that came up at the orientation in January. Um other uh other arms of the city have done this. Planning commission, ZBA, BBA have sort of all sort of moved earlier for various reasons. Um in principle, starting earlier would mean we would end earlier. Um but work has a tendency also to expand to fill the available time. So I don't know if people have thoughts about that issue.

So you know my topline is um I I would like us to vote when people are awake and um this may be legis when I used to work in the legislature. It may be a hangover from you know when they would have all night sessions but I would like us to vote and have discussion uh during typical uh waking hours. I am open and am able not every council ma member in the future may be able to meet at 6. I think that was something we've run into in the past or have enough of a buffer between work and then you know at home responsibilities before the meeting. I you know as a part of this council for my term I am able to meet at 6. Um so I'll start there in response.

Other thoughts Mr. Whan?

I am also able to meet at 6. My slight concern is public comment. I want to make sure enough people that want to speak can speak and I'm not sure about if that is too early for people to come in and make their comments. I it's a question I don't know the answer to. Um but I do think that voting on very important issues so late at night is a concern. I want to just like make a comment too. I gotta tell you, I I probably when we're coming when something is on the agenda, I pro there's probably I'm probably 80 to 95% sure of where I'm going to vote when I come in here.

Now, we take in email comments. There's meetings. There's there's a variety of points that we take and meet with constituencies um and residents to shape our opinion coming in to vote. So, I just want to make that point that public comment is one way. There's other ways. Um I absolutely agree. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go back and forth.

Please. Um I absolutely 100% agree. I just want to make sure that we continue the value of someone even at the last minute that wants to come and speak on an issue that they're able to do that. Um, and maybe I'm naive to think that people can't come in at six o'clock and maybe people would prefer that. So, I'm not saying that is a pro or a con. I think it's just part of the points that I think I'm speaking for myself. I think we can speak for most everyone up here that we want to hear from the community. Um but so I have no problem. Yes, some of my commissions start at five, some start at six. So um question for Mr. Bellman. What about from the staff perspective?

I have not actually asked the question. I mean okay everybody works until 5 so starting earlier. I mean makes sense to get the evening over but again I am concerned about um accessibility and whether it's implied that this time start time would be adjusted if we do have someone who's elected as uh council member uh Singh pointed out um that can't make the start time that we go back to revisit to adjust accordingly. So let's put a pin in this for a bit because I want to talk about a couple other things. I just had a quick question. Yeah, please. Mr. Griggsby, just so I understand.

Um, so if if there was a change made, uh, our schedule was laid out for the year. So, is that something that we would then vote on as a group and then we could change it immediately or do we have to wait a certain amount of time for that to happen? Because I know we have it we voted on that so we can do another vote to make that adjustment if we were to go into that direction.

Yes. uh if if you let's say for example you approved amending and providing for the meetings to start at 6:00 in this document right and you establish that as your rule the um regular meeting schedule for the entire year would have to be amended and reposted now that's not an issue and and I know the clerk isn't here right now um but I can't imagine that would be an issue to change that on the notice you've made a decision to uh modify the time of your meetings. The open meetings act allows you to do that. That's lawful to do. Um also you don't that is the controlling document and you do approve that each year. Okay?

So each year theoretically you don't have to have a time in here to start your meetings. You could do it each year that you approve that agenda. The agendas for the whole year to come. Could we say we'll convene no later than seven on these dates and then we discuss the agenda? I'm sorry. It does need to state the time on that regular meeting. The calendar the calendar that calendar but in our rules we could say you could say that. Yes. say our rules, we will convene no later than seven and then we have flexibility pending agenda items, pending what the council wants to accept as their calendar.

I think that's a great idea because then then it's a separate question whether we want to move the meetings. We can just do this now, give ourselves a flexibility and then decide down the line if we actually want to move the meetings.

Yeah. Just real quick, I I have no issues with six o'clock. Um I know uh that there's a couple of commissions that started sick. So the concern about um future council members not able to do that. I think that's a part of the commitment and and having that availability to do that. And then the other thing I'm not too concerned about it with public comment because there's so many different ways people can participate in in relation to um if they're not even here to make it that time they can call in. They can do written communication and and whatnot. So that's just my thoughts on that.

Again, I'll just throw in my my two cents. You know, I'd keep it at seven. Uh and not because I can't make it at six because I'm retired. You know, I can make it at six. Uh but I do think that we need to to be cognizant of the fact that a lot of people uh who might come to this microphone actually probably about a vast majority of our citizens who live in this city may have a job until 5:00 and might have a family that uh wants to have a dinner and might have interactions at home. Uh, and at 7:00, we originally started at 7:30. We reduced it by bringing it back to 7 at some point in the past. And um, I think we should be careful about uh, moving the time and at least I think uh, generate some public comment about the possibility of a move. Uh because yeah, I don't think it's terrible to have it at six, but what I don't want to see is people who show up here to talk and we're already done. We're already done with public comment. And you know, we're also contemplating moving to three minutes, which I support. So that reduces the amount of time hopefully that we'll be listening to to public comment and we'll be getting our business portion of the meeting underway a little bit earlier anyway. So I think it's a combination of factors, but I would really like to hear from the public more about moving to 6:00 because our boards and commissions, even though they're meeting earlier, we don't get a lot of public comment at boards and commission meetings. So you we're not dealing with this same issue that we have here.

I just need on the on the discussion on the five minute or three minute. I just want to say one piece that I reflect on if we were to make that decision is 3 minutes means people can come and be able to comment um in a fair a more efficient way um than the five minutes. On top of it, I've most my prior professional work was at the state of Michigan. All of our public comment was at 3 minutes. Um I was actually surprised that we had five minutes and I know a number of the neighboring communities um have 3 minutes. So I think it's twofold. I know we've talked about I just want to put that perspective as a mom like if I was juggling if I were home you know and you know was trying to do pick up my kid do dinner try to make it to counsel and then get him to soccer practice like having five minute public comment for you know 30 50 people however many folks that evening it it becomes impossible to be able to do that as a parent.

Well, the you know the the clock has made a difference. You know, in the past uh we you know our our rules only require us to require the mayor actually to say please try to keep your comments to less than five minutes. And when that was the rule and that was actually functioning, we hardly ever had anybody talk for more than a couple of minutes. Occasionally we had the long talkers, you know, come in and we had to deal with that. But, uh, I think when they put the clock up on that screen, people feel that they've got five minutes and they're going to fill the entire five minutes before they sit down, even if they're repeating themselves. So, um, that has made a difference by moving that to three. I think we're we're doing everybody a favor. You're keeping it concise. you're getting to your point and we can make room for the next person. And there may have been people even tonight sitting in the audience who would have spoken other than the fact that we are already, you know, 45 minutes or an hour into the meeting and um they would have um they they would have just prolonged everything that was going on. So

So let's skip ahead to actually talking about the the changes for the for the um time for speaker. So, there's a bunch of stuff outlined in paragraph 7 of section one. Um, and one of the changes there is going from five minutes to three minutes per speaker. Um, and since we're on that subject, do other people have thoughts about this? Mr. Whan,

I I think our value is to hear from the community, right? And I I know for a fact when it's when it's a long period of time, there's some people feel like they they can't wait that long. They can't they want to speak up and they want to speak. And I think we are being we've been prohibitive of people's freedom of speech by the length of time it takes sometimes. So I think to try to get more comments is the goal. And I think we'll get more comments from a a three minute perspective than a five minute perspective. I also um the other side of it is I think all public comment should be before the meeting because I wouldn't want someone that's got something to sp say about a different item that's not on the agenda to make them wait for three hours or four hours. So I think that also as a part of a training that I was a part of through the Michigan Municipal League, it was asked of a pretty large crowd of about 100 people how many people had three minute as their public comment. I didn't see anyone that didn't raise their hand. Um so it's not a scientific poll, but most municipalities go to three minutes. So I think that that values public input, it values public speech, freedom of speech and we want to hear from them. My concern is that it will be twisted as a wait, you want to hear from less people or you don't want to hear from people. And I think that's not at all the the point. And I think that would maybe be um for Mr. Mr. development, if this is something we do would want to go to, we'd want to really articulate this through our um our

public um information. So, yeah, those two things are my point is that I want to have more speech and the way I think we can do that is by three minutes and having all of it in the beginning of the meeting. Mr. Griggsby, do you have comments?

Well, I I guess I'm the lone wolf on that. um respectfully and I understand uh the the the um consideration of changing. So I mean I don't disagree with the principles of what you're talking about. Um and so that's why I felt like being open to 6:00 um would be better um as opposed to then tampering with the length of time. I I know I know that the five minutes now in today's terms is outlier uh to what most people do um and what I think is probably more time um sensitive to kind of really staff time sensitive to our personal lives and things of that nature. I really hear that. Um but for most times um and most public comment and and in in my short tenure here we've had some very very deep discussions about some very important issues uh and perspectives and I think it's just kind of a a real a unique start of the term in my terms and what we were taking on that really made the public comment morph into what it to what it has in and I just don't see that on a consistent basis throughout the tenure of the year and throughout and I could be wrong. I don't I don't know, but it just it doesn't seem like we're going to be in uh a packed audience wanting to talk in in regards to that much time. Now, I do again um really want to respect also personal lives and families and what's important. So, um that's my preference. Um, and if if the the will of the council wants to move into a different direction, I'm not going to be

devastated by that. But I just want to make it known that I'm most likely uh not seeing it that way.

I appreciate those comments and I think I think they make perfect sense. I I just want to add that um I've given testimony in in Lancing and MSU Board of Trustees and uh Berdian Township and those are all threeinut jurisdictions. So I think it is it is more common and I think maybe one of the reasons it's so common is it's a better balance between time at the microphone and time to get to the microphone that that we've sort of been talking about that. So, I'm inclined to go with to make the change to three minutes. Um, there is another provision in here that council member Whan referred to. There's a a proposal to divide public comment between items on the agenda at the start of the meeting and general comment at the end of the meeting. This is something that some jurisdictions do. Kata board does this. I know. And it's something that was endorsed by the MML speaker that at at the training we were at and also who also did the the board and commission uh parliamentary procedures training here was Chris Johnson. Um longtime former mayor and general counsel for the MML. So other jurisdictions do it. Um there's a some good reasons to do it that way, but I think it gets complicated um pretty quickly and it makes it hard for people to figure out exactly when they're going to comment and it does require the presiding officer to do a little bit more content policing um because we have to figure out whether comments are actually on the agenda or not on the agenda. So my inclination would be to just stick with keeping it simple and do all the public comment at the beginning. Mr. J, did you have something you wanted to add to that? It looked like you might want to say something.

No. Okay. I I did not I was just listening intently.

Got it. Okay. All right. Appreciate that. So, that is one of the provisions uh in this paragraph 7. And again, it's in there to to to to be a topic for discussion so that we're all aware of it. But I I'm not going to be supportive of that. I think we should keep it the way we're doing it and just move to three minutes. And um those were in in my mind really the substantive changes that are in there. There are some additions that the city attorney added in terms of the procedure of how somebody submits a form. Um and then it also formalizes the idea that uh comments from the podium should be directed at the council and not to members of the audience which I think is actually pretty important. Um to create an environment where everybody feels comfortable speaking um and but I think those are sort of not the main substantive issues. So my inclination would be to go with the three minutes and not have divided comment at any of the meetings and just have it all at the at the front of the meeting. Mr. Mr. Griggsby, you made a move.

No, I was I was waiting for you to finish that cuz I wanted to ask him on something you mentioned. Please go ahead. I'm done.

Um, and I know this is very difficult uh and probably not a good question. The way that when it comes to conduct and language in public comments and the way that uh people address uh audience members um not directly to council, that's one. but also in the tone and the type of language. Is that just under the um role you have as a public servant in regards to I mean because some of some of that some of the language and some of the different things that in my short time from getting started here it seems that um it's been very very abrasive and accusatory um and and it just it's kind of one of those things and maybe it's just me where I just need get um an understanding that's just is kind of who we are and what it's all about. But I was just curious um if I'm asking even a question with it, but I'm just I'm just curious of how how much freedom you someone has in regards to being able to talk in a way that um I'll just say not productive. Yeah, it's it's a a a very common question uh for public bodies to to deal with uh and to um figure out how to handle. Uh where I always go is the Constitution. Um and we're talking about free speech rights when we're talking about getting into the content uh and way a person is communicating. Um we're but with that said there is recognition in the courts that you can adopt rules to keep order in your meetings. Okay. So there's the line. But

if you get into content and say um and you prohibit um um somebody from using foul language, for example, that is not going to stand up in court. Uh it may not be the best decorum. Um it may not be appreciated uh um but uh you can't prohibit a person from swearing in a public meeting. The courts have ruled on that. You also have to you can ask them to not use abusive language uh or uh um but you know especially when it's directed at you they're allowed to come to their government and be critical of their government uh and and officials to to some extent. So um that's part of the right to grieve your government that is also um important and it's part of free speech. So those are the things uh that you can't do uh as far as directing the comments to council that I believe is something that would withstand challenge because you are the body that they are to be addressing and you're reinforcing that and you're avoiding members of the public especially who are in attendance at the meeting and um there's such a thing as a chilling effect. The government can do things to have a chilling effect on speech, but so can speakers at a public meeting. and um to and by that I mean if a speaker is attacking somebody in the audience and directing their comments and turning toward a member of the audience and the public um the members of the public may be less likely to get up and speak uh and they may in fact leave the meeting and and and so forth

or not come ever again. And nobody wants any of that and that goes against and that is the chilling effect that that a rule like that is helping to avoid and keeping your government open. Uh similarly uh you see some language in here about um uh clapping and expressing support or um or um disagreement with another speaker's statements there. Again, that is uh something that yeah, you're clapping is a form of speech. Um but if it's a rule that keeps order in the room and also enables everybody to have an equal opportunity to speak and not result in people's rights to speak or have a chilling effect on their willingness to get up and talk at the meeting. For example, if you know, one side is jeering at another side, and I'm not saying that happens, but it could happen. It's the same as clapping. Clapping is support perhaps, and jering is going against. Um, one is positive, one is negative. They're both um having an effect on other people in the room and whether or not they might get up, decide to get up and speak on a subject. So, so those areas uh are areas that I think you I it's my opinion you can get into in terms of these regulations and they're there for you to consider. But um um regulating the content and the manner of delivery.

Yeah. Uh is is an area that you have to be very careful of and at best I would say you can ask a speaker to uh perhaps use better language or or different uh and or not swear for example but you I would not recommend and advise you to require it.

Right. So, um, thank you. And, um, I think, you know, it just comes with the territory. And I think, um, that's really not my main concern. I just my I think my concern is a little bit more of the the aggressive environment that prevents maybe someone who would want to speak um, who may be the minority of the issue of the room and it creating a environment that doesn't allow that free speech to happen. And so I I guess that's more of what I have seen in some examples that seems like it has been um a little disruptive and I think that you know it's hard to manage that. I mean you know we got people who are really speaking their truth and I and I and I really appreciate public comment. So don't get me wrong I I I think it's one of the best ways to um govern um in relation to what the community is trying to get accomplished. But I I was just I was just curious. I wanted to understand that because um I I think sometimes the the conduct um and the way that these comments are being addressed is not directly always at us. So

I agree and that's that's been a concern of mine. Um and that's sort of the one thing where I've I've tried to intervene in two areas. One is the time and the other is when people turn around to address audience members. That that has been I think because of the chilling effect concern. I have zero interest in trying to police tone or the terms that people use. That's just I and I like to tell the story that I have I have been in the audience and being not happy with the people sitting in these seats when the presiding officers asked everybody to be civil in the discussion and that just made me more annoyed and so it's counterproductive to try to police tone. It just doesn't work and and um and so I think the expressions that we've had from the podium have been authentic and completely appropriate. Um

so Mr. Well, question. Yep. The storm has begun. Okay. I believe um so are we we're discussing this for a votes for next week or it's more procedural or

that's a good question. So let me address one other issue and then we'll tie it up a little bit. The one other issue is the question of when written communications re received by council are posted to a meeting agenda. And there was a question, what we've been doing is comments received by 4 p.m. the day of the meeting of a regular business meeting get linked to the agenda. There was a question about whether we should do that the Thursday before the meeting. Uh I think that was raised by council member Meadows. Would you care to speak to that issue?

I don't remember raising it, but I do agree that it should be the Thursday before. Those are the ones that would go on the agenda and be easily accessible for people. And um that puts a you know a little guideline for everybody to get their comments in. And what we generally have is not things specific necessarily to an agenda that we're dealing with the following Tuesday, but there are usually general comments on things we've done, things we should do, and things like that. So, somebody who wants to address anything on the agenda has a microphone and we've made it we'll be making it clear that it's okay for them to come and talk.

Thoughts about this? Council memberson. I I think if it if staff is able to if 4 pm the day of the meeting on Tuesday, if that is achievable by staff, I think that allows folks to comment via email once they see the agenda and knowing that it makes it into the packet at that moment. Again, it's multiple pathways to provide insight to council on perspectives agenda based. I would rather do that than a Thursday before before people have seen the agenda. That would be how about then making it four o'clock on Monday. Why why can't it be 4:00 on Tuesday?

Well, again, you know, it puts uh you know, a burden on staff in case there's a lot of cont. Is it achievable? Are they they've been doing it, right? So, I have no problem continuing with our practice. It was just because of the discussion at orientation of what the expectation was, but it has been done by 4 p.m. on the day of a meeting. To address council member Willen's comments, that was the last loose end that I had identified. Um I think we have guidance to produce a final version perhaps factoring. So there was one other item and that is rotating votes. Oh, that was brought up by the city clerk to give everybody an opportunity to really be the first to kind of cast a vote on.

So, there's text in here implementing this, right? So, this is just to draw everybody's attention. So, what this would do for roll call votes is that I'm in support of that. Yeah. Okay. I'm always first. You're always stuck. Yeah. I used to be I used to do that. Um, so that would implement a rotating pattern for roll call votes with the mayor voting last because the mayor does things last. So my question was, you know, why would anybody care? But apparently somebody does, so I don't have a problem with the change. Yeah. All right. So I think we've given a fair amount of direction for what a final version of this would look like. Yes, please. I I have a lot more comments than that. But I you know I don't know if we want to do those now or

No. Okay. Well then the storm underway but you've got you've communicated them. I've already given them to the to the uh city attorney. I do want to comment on one because it is paragraph 7. The the last paragraph basically that talks about members of the public shall not disturb speakers. I think that's very important language but I don't think it belongs in paragraph 7. it belongs in the section back here that talks about decorum uh during the course of the meeting and so I've suggested it be moved there. So just so you know

so I think the city attorney could work on what we've said here and then the comments supplied by Mr. Meadows and develop a final version for us to look at uh potentially at our next meeting. Is that too tight? Uh no I I can certainly do that. I'd just like to is there any I I know it's getting late. Is there any sense in discussing the resolutions part of this? Uh I know there were a number of comments in there from council member Meadows. Um do you want to have I'm happy to do that but um I can just discuss those with you if you'd like. And yeah, why don't you two Yeah, we can talk about together on the phone for that.

I'll just note one thing before we go. This is the packet of changes that have been made over this these operating procedures since they were first enacted. So virtually every council has changes that they want to make. So this is not unusual anyway is my point. I I would love to get a copy of that. I'll make a copy for of all of it for you. That'd be great. Thank you. Any further discussion, Mayor Prom Griggsby? I no I I was about to move on to the next thing. Anything else from anybody else on this issue? Okay. Uh which brings us to uh item four. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Moved by Singh.

Second. Second by Whan. Uh all those in favor say I. I. I. We are adjourned. Thank you all.