Council - Special Meeting

Good morning, everybody. I'd like to call the special city council meeting on May 27th to order. Ms. Cassandra.

Mayor David Romero.

Here.

Councillor Marvin Martinez.

Present.

Councillor Barbara Casey. Here. Councillor Benito Pacheco.

Present.

Councillor David Ulibarri. Here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We do have a quorum.

Mr. Manager, a moment of silence.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let's take this time to reflect on all those that have come in and out of this community and supported the work of this community and passed on. Let's keep them all in our minds and our hearts and our prayers.

Mayor, approval of the agenda.

It's the pleasure of the council.

Mayor, I move approval of the agenda.

Motion by Councillor Casey, second by Councillor Martinez. All in favor, aye. Aye. Those opposing, sign. The ayes have it.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Moving on to our public input. We have no public input this morning. Moving on to our business items. Item 1, request approval of the City of Las Vegas Resolution No. 2624, Interim Fiscal Year 2026-2027, Operating Budget. We have our Finance Director, Mr. Morris Madrid.

Mr. Madrid, good morning, and good morning to your staff.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Council, I would like to approach this item in four steps, with your permission. The first one is I will describe the process that is required by DFA in those conditions, the process that we used internally to prepare this document. This was taken to the Finance Committee last Thursday. some of that discussion very briefly and identify four issues of concern that they wanted to be brought to the governing body for consideration. Since we had two ex-officio members on the Finance Committee, two of our counselors, at that point I'd like to refer to them for their opinion, their discussion, their viewpoint, and then go to the general discussion OF THE ENTIRE COUNCIL AND HOPEFULLY APPROVAL OF THE DOCUMENT. WITH YOUR PERMISSION, THAT'S HOW I'D LIKE TO PROCEED, MR. MAYOR. SO THE INTERIM BUDGET DOCUMENT THAT YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU IS THE INTERIM APPROVAL DATE DUE AT DFA BY MAY 31ST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT IS IN STATUTE. The final date is in regulation, but this one is in statute. So this one is really non-negotiable. There are no extensions. There is no exception. They are specific in the way that we record and report it. They are the ones that actually developed the huge worksheet that we use. with all the tabs and all the pages that you see in front of you, those numbers have to match. They have to tie together. I'll give you the two main formulas. The first one is in your transfers column that you see on the summary sheet, those net transfers have to be zero. They have to balance. If it's $1 off, our budget gets rejected. The other thing is our beginning cash plus our revenues, investments, and transfers minus expenditures projected has to be zero or higher. If there's a red number in that column, the entire budget gets rejected. So those are the two things that will get the budget rejected without even looking at it. So that's not a problem in our case. To prepare this budget, The process that was followed is I developed a three-year history, current year numbers with projections, very simple projections. Some of them had to be adjusted. And a column for the departments to request their fiscal year 27 funding by department or by fund. When those were ready, then we met with the department heads. We sat around the table and went line by line for any items that There was going to be new initiatives. We talked about those. We used two criteria to determine whether they're included in here, and they had to be reasonable and necessary. We didn't only look at the increases, we looked at the history of spending, and we cut where we weren't spending in a lot of areas. I'll use the finance department as an example. If we budgeted 5,000 for office supplies the last three years, but we've never spent more than 3,000, we cut that budget to 3,000 to make it more realistic. We went through this process with all the department heads, including Robert Archuleta, for all of the funding that he is involved in. Where we don't have final documents, you'll see in the fire department we have still some funding that we expect that has not been finalized. We estimated those numbers. We should have a lot more final documents for the final budget due in July. One thing that we did do is we stayed away from, that's the way we've always done it. That's not acceptable in our budget process anymore. There's a lot of back and forth on new initiatives and mandatory initiatives. For example, in the water department, we have increased budget for testing because it's a requirement and we've been testing more often. We have to meet those requirements. Those kind of things are not negotiable. We have to have funding for those. The other thing that we incorporated into this budget, although it wasn't a real consideration during the years because we're in the second year of our collective bargaining agreements, is we did budget additional compensation for the extra dollar for asking employees. In the police department, we did get a list of employees that will move up to the next tier during the year, and we allowed for that. Same thing in the fire department. The governing body has been gracious enough to allow non-bargaining unit employees the same compensation as AFSCME to get the dollar and the increases that are granted to them, so we accommodated that. In the S-1 forms, you will see either actual plus that accommodation or just actual. In most cases, we have that built in. You will definitely see increases in the fringe benefits category. Those had previously been budgeted on the individual level. In some areas, we were falling short because, for example, if I were the finance director that was in place two years ago, and I had single family coverage in my insurance, and I was replaced by someone with four children that had full coverage, that budget would not be sufficient. So we changed that to budgeting on a percentage, estimated percentage, resulted in higher budgeting. So we'll probably have some savings in there, we know that, but we definitely won't fall short. So that is a major change in a lot of the budgets. The major changes are in health insurance, and I don't think we have those final premiums yet. I think that covers our process. I did review the final document with our manager. There are some things that are recommended for inclusion that were not included. We will be having a discussion on an additional FTE in our IT department. There are some recommendations that I'll go over with now that the Finance Committee brought forward. And while they did recommend approval of this budget document, They did it with the incorporation that these concerns be brought to you all. The first one is in the abatement fund. In the abatement fund, we cut that funding because we would not have had the cash in that account to support the normal budgeted amount. So we cut that funding only to the cash balance. We have had Some good news, we did get a little over $6,000 yesterday to put into that account, whereas we hadn't had any revenues at all to speak of. I think it was less than $1,000 last year. So along with the recommendation for transfers I'm about to give you, I'm also going to recommend that we take a more aggressive approach In enforcing the liens and not just waiting for them to come about I've had a small discussion with Scott already in that area yesterday what I am recommending for today and for the final budget not today's document is but that we transfer $50,000 to supplement that fund until we can get those revenues going again so that we don't hamstring our operations. Code enforcement can still be aggressive in doing abatements that are necessary. So that's a recommendation for that one for the final budget. One of their other recommendations was their credit card fees. We pointed out were extremely high. I did look into that agreement. This agreement has been in place since 2019, and I don't know if very many people were aware of it. It's just been kept in place. It is very complicated and very expensive. There are different rates for different types of cards and different types of purposes, and it's hard to understand. My recommendation is going to be that we move forward to formulate an RFP for a single service, hopefully a single rate. There is a demand. We did confirm that there is a lot of activity in payments for utilities over the internet. That's what this contract is for. So we want to continue it. We just want to be smarter about it. And my recommendation is that we do an RFP for that. Another recommendation was that we consider increases for code enforcement officers so that we can better recruit code enforcement officers. That is a consideration that I will be discussing with the city manager. That's going to be part of an overall review of compensation that has already started but Code enforcement has not been targeted, and we will target that particular group with information much like we did in the police department and the fire department. What is comparable for the area? What should the starting be? What should the qualifications be? Those things should all be aligned so that we're reasonable and we're effective. And I think, especially in the police department, we have been effective. So we'll take that same kind of approach. And we'll have a recommendation for that in the final budget. The other one was the debt that we have in relation to HUD and the settlement on the housing issue from years back. That's a payment that is made annually for that settlement. It's $150,000 a year. Is that right?

That's correct, yes, sir.

$150,000 a year. The debt is a little under $3 million. They recommended that we consider paying that off. It is interest-free. I don't recommend paying that off because it is interest-free and because of the present value of money. Any economist will tell you that today's dollars, especially in the times we're in now, are worth a lot more than future dollars. So, if it's interest-free and it's going to be over a longer period of time, then we're more effective keeping our resources here, spending them now, and also in reserve. When we get a new, let me tell you exactly what it's called, Capacity overview. from people that assist us with underwriting, sale of bonds and things like that, that would affect our ratio, our asset to debt ratio, our asset to equity ratio. Those things we want to keep in place till we get that done because we have two things that the city has that look really good right now. We have a clean audit and we have a very strong balance sheet. We shouldn't mess with those yet. until we have that done. That would tell us how much capacity we have for debt. It'll show us where our ratios stand in capital assets and liquid assets and short and long-term liabilities. So my recommendation is not to do that yet. We will consider it. and, of course, take any direction from the governing body. But for each four of these, I wanted to bring a definite recommendation to you. Those are my four recommendations. The third thing that I wanted to do at this point, with your permission, Mr. Mayor, is go to the two councillors that were present for their outlook on the presentation of the document itself and that general discussion.

Thank you. I'll go ahead and but I guess I'll start off with one of you the recommendations and kind of curious and maybe I know we have Mr. Witters in the audience also in the in the two councilmen, but just what was the reasoning behind wanting to pay the HUD debt?

Mr. Mayor, thank you and thanks Mr. Madrid, Morris, with your team. They were very involved and answered a lot of questions for us as we were here in the budget committee. So we do appreciate that very much. One of the big things I think that we thought of, and in a way it could be a couple of different ways. It could be maybe we can find out what an exact balance is for HUD. And maybe we can negotiate that down and maybe clear that, maybe get some of that forgiven. I guess that's what I'm trying to find out. It's not necessarily to just pay it off. The ideal or the idea of paying it down or off at one point would be. So that we have the ability to either earn back those those properties. Possibly to earn back the ability to to start housing if we decide to or choose to, but it's it's really I don't want to take our budget and pay them off. I understand your point of view, Morrison. and how important that dollar is to get by now. But if we can find a way to get part of that forgiven, I think that would be a good direction to go by.

Councillor, to your point, I'm sorry for interrupting, you're absolutely right. And I should have expanded on that because your discussion, your personal discussion was part of a bigger picture in reestablishing a relationship with HUD and I left that out, my apology.

Yeah, and that was one of the big things that we did talk about. The other four items, including that one, was four items. The abatement fund is, and I'm going to touch each of them myself, and, you know, Councillor Pacheco can, you know, add his comments as well, but the abatement fund, we don't have enough in there to... I think what's going on with the abatement fund is we're taking over the houses that we are abating, But what we're not doing is we're not reselling that property to bring back that same dollar into the abatement fund. If we can grow that fund by the sale of some of those properties, whether they're old properties or maybe even more current, those are options that I'm thinking in my head would be a good possibility to make that work. rather than have to fund it every year, we can always reinforce it by selling off some of those properties, you know, put them up for bid or whatever we have to do as a governing body to make sure that that happens. That was on the abatement fund. Credit card fees, of course, you touched on it. Those are good points. I think we need to do an RFP. That was mentioned by Councillor Pacheco the other day, and I think that's a good direction to go with. The code enforcement officers, there's a couple of vacant positions there. I'd like to fill them. I think we need to get stronger teeth in there so that we can clean up our town. Every meeting that we come to, and some of us have concerns about our neighborhoods being trashed, and we need to fix that, and We need to get more people on the ground and more enforcement out there to make sure that continues. But there again, what you just mentioned, Morris, about making sure that pay scale was proper and that we have buy-in from all the other entities, including Judge, everybody else that could make that possible. So those are the four things that we did talk about the most. And I just wanted to give my input on them as well. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councillor. I won't reiterate many of those things. It's what we did discuss in the Finance Committee. I do want to say about the abatement fund. I think part of the discussion with the Finance Committee was the importance of making sure that we fund that abatement correctly. It is something that of course is an issue here with the City of Las Vegas. It's an issue across many communities. It's not exclusive to us. But if we don't address it and we don't correct it the proper way, well then we never take steps to correct that challenge. So I think the importance of maintaining that fund, because I think initially we were seeing a potential decrease in the abatement funding. Yes. And we felt it was important to at least keep that as level to last year or as equal to last year as possible with the potential for a long-term plan of properties that the city currently has and some of that revenue going into the abatement fund. And I look at the positions much in the way that I do some of the other departments that have been able to excel up to this point. Because we have entry-level positions that are the wages competitive? I don't know. Obviously it's a thankless job. Nobody likes to get a tag from code enforcement. I don't think anybody goes out there and says thank you too much, right? But... I'll say this. I think we have a good example of a department that's had some reorganization, some new positioning, some new ideas with Mr. Marcus in solid waste and gas. And I think we've seen some vast improvements in some of those services and some of the way that those services are perceived throughout the community. And I think If we take some of that same philosophy into this code enforcement area, it may improve our perception in the community as well as the results as to what they're doing. The one piece that I did want to touch on that was not mentioned, and it was discussed, but I want to just throw it out for the record, and I think Mr. Witters brought it up during the finance committee, but the amount of vacancies and frozen positions that are built into the budget. which is, it's quite a bit. And I understand budgets and the way these things operate, but if I go through and I roughly count, it's like 100 vacant and frozen positions in there, which still account for a portion of the budget. Now, I realize it's tough. There's CBA requirements in terms of some of the positions. Can they be done away with or not or things of that nature? But I would just make a recommendation that we work to clarify that as much as possible in future budgets so we get a real account of what's vacant and what's not vacant potentially. And if truly we have, you know, that's our vacancy rate, well, then what do we do? as a governing body, as directors, as individuals that can make an impact on that, how do we lessen those vacancies if that's the true number? So that's all I have. Thank you. Morris, I think you and your team did a great job. It was a great presentation. I know I asked for some things on the fly, so thank you to those for meeting by request in the middle of the meeting and getting that stuff electronically. I appreciate it. Very responsive, very professional, and very knowledgeable about what's going on here with the finances.

Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Kesey.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I ALWAYS GO THROUGH THE BUDGET PAGE BY PAGE AND COMPARE IT TO CURRENT BUDGET AND WHAT THE CHANGES ARE. SO I HAVE LIKE A WHOLE BUNCH OF PAGES. BUT WHAT I TRIED TO DO WAS TO LIMIT MY TIME SPEAKING AND TO JUST NOTE SOME THINGS THAT WERE EITHER A QUESTION IN MY MIND OR A CONCERN. SO I'LL JUST READ THEM TO YOU. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR FEEDBACK AFTER I FINISH READING EVERYTHING. THE FIRST ONE IS, THERE ARE MANY NEWLY CREATED POSITIONS in a lot of the departments, making it really difficult to track one year to the next. So if you have new positions that were not there before, then there's no money in this year's budget or prior year budgets, but they are now. And so it makes it difficult to track from year to year. And what... We don't really know what new employees jobs are because we don't have job descriptions and even the job descriptions that we do have need to be amended and fixed because the ones that were approved earlier this year. In my opinion, we're totally inadequate. So and I know that's not your job to do the job descriptions, but that's just for your information. Long-time employees who have made their careers with the city are being paid less than employees who are new to the city and have been here for a much shorter period of time. And so I would like to know who determines how the salaries are determined for different positions. The next one. Some positions are listed with large increases. And I found one that was listed with a negative decrease in salary. and I would just like to know how that comes about. And I don't begrudge anybody getting more money, but I also wonder who, you know, who figures this out. Who do we give, you know, $2,080 to or $4,000 to, those kinds of things. And a lot of the additions were... the same dollar amount like the 2080 and the 4160, I think, on a lot of the different categories. Some employees have been moved around. along with their coworkers from one department to another. And these are hard to track and find. I was just telling Danny earlier that I spent a long time trying to find Chris Rodarte. So it was like I finally found him. I thought, oh, good. They didn't leave him out. And so, you know, It happened once. It could happen again. I don't expect perfection, but sometimes the changes are hard to track. We do have a lot of frozen positions, which is a concern for me because once a position is frozen, you can never get it back. DFA won't unfreeze a position. I think we would probably have to grovel and beg and probably would still say no I'M HAPPY THAT WE DO HAVE A LOT OF THE VACANCIES THAT HAVE BEEN FILLED, AND THOSE HAVE BEEN BUDGETED FOR, AND I THINK THAT'S THE THING. I WOULD STILL LIKE TO KNOW WHERE PEOPLE WHO WERE HIRED ARE, YOU KNOW, LIKE, I WOULD LIKE TO GET, LIKE, A SPREADSHEET SAYING, YOU KNOW, IN THIS DEPARTMENT, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT WE HIRED, AND THESE ARE THEIR SALARIES. And then I already mentioned the fact about the job descriptions. I think those are very important because I know that although there's a learning curve for a lot of the newer employees, everybody has to learn the system. They have to learn what they can and can't do, what the expectations of their departments are. We need a more clear job description that we can give an employee saying, this is what your job is going to be, instead of just telling them at an interview and saying, have you ever done this, or do you know anything about that? We need a clear job description. And my last one is, I would really like to see pay scales. And as a public school administrator for many years, I am concerned that Some employees who have been with the city for a long time are getting paid less than you hires. And to me, I'd like to see fairness in what is being paid out. And I would like to see each employee have a written contract so that they know this is what you're going to get this year.

And you'll get a yearly dollar increase if you stay for the year or whatever.

And then any other possible increases that may be available through budgetary process. But I think my personal opinion is that people would feel more comfortable and attached to their job if they had a piece of paper that said, you work for the city of Las Vegas. and what that salary would be. Because to me, when I look at the budgets every year, the budgets are a new adventure for me. And so you work with them every single day, and I really want you to know that I honor the work that you do. because I would never want to have to do your job. I don't particularly like numbers, and dealing with money is very difficult, and I did it for many years as a school superintendent, and I don't ever want to do it again, so I'm glad that you're there and you enjoy it and you love your jobs, but I don't. So I think it would be wonderful if we could have contracts for... You know. For people that work with us, so my biggest question though is how are? The amounts for salary increases or decreases determined.

Well, start with that, uh, counselor. Oh, you mentioned a number 2080. That is exactly the number of hours worked in a fiscal year, so that would be a $1 increase times 2080.

I was wondering why there were so many that were the same amount.

Yes, that's the reason for that one. In regard to any negative changes, I'm not sure which ones specifically, but I'll give you an example. We had an accountant in the finance department that retired a couple of years ago. She was at her maximum. Because we knew we would not replace at that level, we reduced the budgeted amount to hire at a lower level. And I think that's probably the reason for some of them, people retiring. In regard to some of the other questions, I'll take a shot at answering most of them, counselor. The newly created positions should all be related to the organizational chart that was approved by the council. There were some additional positions in there. I know that they were discussed at council meetings. So those should tie to that initiative. In regard to long-time employees that may be paid less, usually that isn't the case. If someone is in their first three years, for example, and this year we authorized a $16 minimum, if someone was at... 1480, they got bunny hopped, we try and account for that and try and correct that. In terms of a pay plan, I agree with you completely, we don't have one, we should. One of the theories that I've seen that works fairly well is the one that the state of New Mexico uses, and it's called appropriate placement. And they take every position, and theoretically, without any type of promotion or advancement, at year one, you should be paid this if you're, let's say you're an accountant. And in year 30, at your retirement, you should be up to this amount. Therefore, if you get hired with 12 years of experience, you should be at that 12th step. And everything that is related to your career, relevant to that position, is considered where to place you. And it works pretty well. It is fairly equitable. There's always an agreement. Does cashiering at a gas station count as accounting experience? It can be subjective, but it's a concept, and we need a concept. You're absolutely right. The other thing that in regard to frozen positions, the reason that they're frozen is because as long as they're listed on the S-1, they can stay in place. If we take them off the S-1, they probably wouldn't come back. That's the reason they're noted as frozen and unfunded in order to keep them. And that's just a protective measure. We can look at that also. In regard to contracts, contracts for employees, I think, is a collective bargaining issue because that implies that... Employees that have completed their probationary period, even though they've completed that requirement, may be subject not to be hired the following year when their contract runs out. So I think that's the only sticky subject in that area. we would have to consider contract versus probation. I don't think we can have both, but that's just my opinion. Employees moving around can be an issue, and we don't consider that in the budget. We just consider where they are. That's snapshot. And because, you know, unless it's a disciplinary action, we cannot lower compensation. So their compensation follows them to different departments. And in a lot of cases, it's a promotion. You get an increase and get funded somewhere else. Those are the answers that I have for you right offhand. In the three areas, most compensation is covered by the three collective bargaining agreements and the direction of the council for people that are not covered by any of the three. Also, the directors have the discretion to request merit increases, and that's under the authority of the directors and the manager. And we do see some of those. And that extends to, you know, a policy that we need to review.

Thank you very much for your answers, because that allays a lot of my concerns that I had. And I want to thank you for... THIS BUDGET IS FAR MORE REASONABLE THAN THE CRAZINESS OF LAST YEAR. SO I WAS VERY PLEASED TO SEE THAT THERE WEREN'T ANY $20,000 RAISES AND OTHER PEOPLE LOSING $2,000 OR WHATEVER. SO I'M VERY PLEASED WITH THAT. GETTING US BACK ON TRACK. I THINK THAT WAS VERY IMPORTANT. LIKE I SAID, I DON'T BEGRUDGE ANYBODY GETTING AN INCREASE, BUT A REASONABLE INCREASE. A $20,000 INCREASE OR A $19,000 INCREASE FOR SOMEBODY THAT'S YOUR BUDDY IS NOT A GOOD THING. SO THANK YOU FOR GETTING US BACK WHERE WE SHOULD BE. a lot of hard work happening there, and I appreciate all of you very much. So thank you again.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr. Madrid. Thank you, Councillor. I just have one comment, and I give credit. I think us as a governing body, those that have been here the past few years have really done a great job as far as salary increases, making sure that we appropriately pay our staff. But I think where we have failed And I know Mr. Manager, you and I and Mr. Madrid have talked about this. And I want to make sure that we continue or look at this one issue. I think in any organization, as you enter into an entry-level position, you always want room for growth. But I think what has happened here, and I think we're seeing this in some of our supervisor, manager positions where nobody's wanting to move up because I'm getting paid without the response. So there has to be a pay plan and a cap in those pay plans. to where your next step is moving to a position where you have some responsibility, some authority. But I think because what has happened is we have, in our organization, we've gone to a point to where, well, I'm making more than the manager and the supervisor, why should I take that responsibility, right? And I really think that that's a disservice to some of our managers and some of our supervisors because they're working, I mean, sometimes 80 hours a week with no overtime, with no extra support. than some of these that I mean they're able to get the overtime and they're making way more money or salary than you know those with responsibility. So that's one of my biggest things I know if we could really you know within HR maybe as a governing body make that one of our priorities and set a pay plan because we have to have that stepping ladder because you know you can't just because I'm going to sit here and I'm not going to have responsibility but I'm making more than you and you're my boss that's totally not fair to those that are you know to have the responsibility I just if we could you know I guess maybe that's something we have to put on the agenda to you know set a priority and put that in place because we do have to have some caps you can't sit in a position for 28 years and not have you know, and you're still making more than those that are, you know, spending a lot of time. That's my one comment on that. I think we've done a really good job in, you know, providing additional salary. I think our, you know, considering the surrounding entities, I think we're doing well. I think one of the big ones that I want to bring up, and I know You know, we all campaign, well, the majority of us, all five of us, except for Councillor de la Brie, but the big topics were public safety, solid waste, you know, keeping our community beautiful, and the other one were roads. And the only thing that I don't see, and I'm going to ask, you know, maybe this might be a recommendation that we look at, is we need more staffing in our roads department, our public works. We have done a really good job in... You know, I think code enforcement's another one that was one of the issues, so I'm glad that you guys discussed that, you know, putting some additional staff to help there. But I think the amount of employees that we have in our roads department that are actually working in the roads doing potholes, I believe is about six or seven. I know we have a street sweeper full-time, and we have some other maintenance crew, but I think that are actually out on the street working on potholes is about six, maybe seven. Am I correct, Arnold?

Yes, sir, that is correct.

So I think, you know, if we want to address some of these issues with potholes and that, I mean, not only are they doing potholes, they're putting up decorations, putting up, I mean, all these other stuff, you know, cutting our, you know, cutting the weeds and city properties, like that's not enough. And I really, really hope that, you know, maybe, you know, as we look towards that final budget or that we really look at additional staff members in that department, you And I guess that's my two comments to this budget. Councilman Ulibarri.

Thank you. Thank you, Morris. Good job. Just a little bit of changes. The only thing I got in my mind is roads, sidewalks. People are always asking for that. And I live in the west side, and I've been there for a lot of years. I can tell you one thing. They haven't put one penny there. That we need to do. Our city managers, they look at that. Our city manager's got to go out there and see what the wards need. The wards need a lot of help in a lot of areas. We all do a good job. I'm not going to say we're not. We're doing a good job. We get so much money that we only can use. But when you see it for years and years and years, and we work here for years and years and years, we look at something like that because we live here. It's a very, very hard job to do, but we're there to support you guys as much as we can and to support our staff. And our staff's out there to look at everything, looking at what we see.

Our directors... That's happened over the last several months was in conjunction with Mr. Madrid and our human resources team, Consuelo and Marcia. We took a deeper dive into employees across the board time and tenure, skill sets, job descriptions, pay equity across the city. We took a look closely in particular at managers and supervisors and went across the board and looked at carefully how long have they been here? How many people do they supervise? What type of work do they do? And is there pay commensurate and is there parity from one department to the other? the mayor noted very appropriately that there are, there were some more glaring discrepancies associated with pay, which some of that was connected to the CBAs. And so some of the CBA agreements, for example, in the police department, have really kept pace when you look at cost and pay rate. But when you compare back against some of the other members' in the police department that have higher tenure, there wasn't that equity balance. So what I do regularly is not independently by myself, but within each respective department, we're going to continue to dive deeper. We've already made some adjustments that I made in accordance with direct communications with the department heads. And that evaluation that I just talked about, years of service, skill sets, workload, what are we finding out? We're finding out that some job descriptions don't necessarily fit the workload. And so we're working closely with each department head to make those adjustments and accommodations so that the work fits the job description, fits the appropriate pay. It's a larger process, it's a larger project, I agree Mayor. It's a broader scope that we need to work and build on and we're gonna continue to do that. But I wanna commend the department heads of what we've done thus far, because we made those adjustments. We started to already make those adjustments that are contained in this budget. Where we've gone in and made actual salary adjustments commensurate with workload, skill set, work due, because that's already well in motion within the parameters of my job responsibilities sitting here and within the individual responsibilities of the department heads. The last piece associated with that, or not the last piece, but a continuing piece, is a review that I've asked each department head to do deeper down into their employees, all the way down to their lowest paid or lowest rated employee in their department based on job description, right? And so we're doing that process, we're excited about that process, and it absolutely will bring a better parity and distribution of Work, pay, workload, skill set, and job description. And so I commend the team. Between now and the final budget, there's duly noted items that we receive from finance committee, duly noted items that we receive from yourself, mayor, and council. We'll work on those. Mayor, I'm lockstep with you relative to your recommendation relative to streets. The finance director and I have already had that conversation. So there are going to be some additional recommendations between the final package. The other piece that I think is really important is we're at the cusp of spending in the next three to five years over $200 million of resources here in the city of Las Vegas based on the work of mayor and council and the whole team sitting here. Coupled with that, We need to bring back some recommendations on a larger capital package that I think we can bring to you in addition to that $200 million with leveraged opportunities to spend more money focused on roads and other infrastructure that we'd like you to consider. And so we're going to work on that capital package in conjunction with coordination with the Finance Committee, coordination with the Finance Authority, and other mechanism that can help us. So we, you know, we heard loud and clear and I hear it from Mr. Witters and others that we have a lot of reserves at the city, but we want to be cautious about sustaining those reserves, but we also want to expend resources on capital package. And so we're going to work closely with the finance authority, the finance committee and others to bring back some recommendations that will bolster the nearly $200 million we already have in hand that we're going to spend, possibly $20 to $30 million of potential more capital for the city and for infrastructure. But we want to do it carefully, and then we want to do it with other leveraged resources from others. Did I summarize that particular piece?

Correctly, Mr. Madrid. Yes, you did. And the other thing that was discussed at the finance committee was in regarding spending our resources. One of the reasons that we haven't, as I informed the finance committee, is that we haven't had to. The city has done such a great job in getting external funding. We spend other people's money. And I said, we're pretty good at it. So we do that first. But yes, you're correct on describing our resources.

So the other thing I wanted to note in closing is that absolutely we should negotiate with HUD. That was a different agreement done at a different time. It doesn't mean it can't be brought back to the table and renegotiated. I think we should try and figure out how we can renegotiate that and how we might reduce that amount owed. I also agree wholeheartedly with the Finance Committee's recommendation and the feedback relative to the abatement fund, building on it and increasing it. The only item I would add as a cautionary item for us to consider is As we consider affordable housing opportunities, those abated properties are proving to be an excellent resource to immediately buy down the cost of being able to make a project cash flow and work. And so I hear you loud and clear that's bolstered the abatement fund, but also that's also an opportunity that we can continue to do with affordable housing and building opportunities there as we consider that on tandem tracks. Code enforcement, I hear loud and clear. Let's take another look at the pay structure. Let's take another look at the structure itself. and take a lesson from things we learned in solid waste and gas and elsewhere and improve upon that. Vacancies, I hear you, all of you, when you bring up the frozen positions and the vacancy challenges, we'll continue to work through those to have a more accurate representation of the reality of the money that we spend as opposed to what, and I heard this straight up from Mr. Witters and others, going into the budget full well knowing there's a certain percentage of those won't be filled. And so we'll work on how do we better balance that representation and information moving forward. So that's all I have, Mayor and Council. I thank the team, every single one of them, for their work, their efforts, including all the leadership.

Thank you. So Mr. Madrid, I don't know if there's any other questions, but I just want to, you know, for the record, your recommendation, I know we had the committee's recommendation, but we had your recommendation of 50 to the final budget. And, you know, tonight we're, or this morning we're. approving this preliminary as is, but for the final budget recommendations of a 50,000 to abatement fund increased salary for code enforcement RFP for a credit cards. Is that the three items out of the four?

Yes.

Okay. That's correct.

The fourth one I did not recommend paying off at this point.

And I think there's more discussion as, you know, as was mentioned, maybe put a little subcommittee together and have more discussion to see. I think that's going to include also having more discussions at the federal level, whether it's with Senator Benry or congressional delegations on that issue.

Understood. And that is a bigger issue than just dollars. You're correct, Counselor. Yeah.

So we have the recommendation of the committee, the recommendation of our finance director. City manager was pretty much agreeing with the finance director's recommendation. What's the pleasure of the council?

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the City of Las Vegas Resolution No. 2624 at the interim fiscal year 2026-27 operating budget. Second, Mr. Mayor.

Motion by Councillor Casey, second by Councillor Lillian. Roll call.

Councillor Pacheco?

Yes.

Councillor Martinez?

Yes.

Councillor Casey? Yes. Councillor Livari?

Yes.

I have a motion by Councillor Casey, a second by Councillor Livari. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Motion carries.

Mayor and Council, before we adjourn, I would like to express my gratitude to my team, and I think they're all here. Anna Marie, are you here? Anna Marie is our council payable specialist. During the budget process, we have questions about what are we spending here? What are we paying this vendor? What's it for? We need those answers, and she gets them for us. Roberta is here. Are you here, Roberta? Roberta is our payroll specialist. Any questions we have in compensation, For any individual or any department, we need a report at the table while we're discussing things, And she gets that for us. That's 75, 80% of our budget. To my right, we have Shastri. Shastri is the one that is not afraid to express her opinion and gives us the whys and why nots. And believe me, the whole crew is not afraid to express their opinion. Anthony, he's a little quieter than the rest of us. But he's one of the most knowledgeable. And he's the one that we go to, can you prepare or design a report that will give us this information? And he's got it. And the finance committee got to see that the other day. To my right, we have the rock of our department, Dominic. Dominic has the history and the knowledge and the expertise to tell us what we need to know from the past and from today to make better decisions for tomorrow. And I told the finance committee the other day, you could take either one of us out of the equation, you would still get a quality document because we are truly a team. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to our team. Thank you.

Mr. Manager?

Mayor, Councilor, well said. But I want to point out the work of the finance director and highlight his numerous years of experience sitting up there Sitting over here and sitting over there. He's been in different positions and roles, but he's an individual that's one of the people we've leaned on for background information and support and history across the whole spectrum. And so the same kudos he offered his team that I ditto and replicate and say thank you to all of you. I give to you yourself, Mr. Madrid, and the efforts of finance and the efforts of accounting and the efforts of our audits and the whole ball of wax. So thank you very much.

a motion to adjourn. I do want to also acknowledge that even while working through budgets, doing the day-to-day work that the finance department does, I think sometimes we even forget to recognize the amount of work and RFIs and through FEMA, I know Mr. Robert Archuleta, you know, through the Capital Outlay reporting, all that documentation and information that's always, I mean, that's beyond just their day-to-day, you know, that additional work that they're always on top of it. I couldn't imagine, I mean, especially with the RFIs, because I just see a few that we talk about in meetings, but I know there's a lot more that, you know, are requested, you know, behind the scenes. But thank you guys for that additional work, because I know that's cumbersome, especially the FEMA stuff, and you guys have been doing a good job. So thank you guys.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilman Martinez.

If I can, I'd just like to make one comment. We've got a new finance committee, and I think they're doing, I think they're all here for the exception of one individual, Christine Doody, and we went through that document page by page, and everybody had input in it, and that was a good thing, and I just want to commend you for putting that committee together, and I think we've got a good committee moving forward. Thank you.

Do you have a motion for Councilman Pacheco?

Yeah, I just want to echo what Councilman Martinez said. We have a great committee. I want to recognize one of the committee members out there in the audience right now, Mr. Witters. He brings a great deal of knowledge and experience and a great perspective, as well as many others. But he had a lot of questions. He opened up. my perspective on something, so thank you, sir. And he's here at every committee meeting and city council meeting, so very vested in his community. Thank you. Thank you.

With that, do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved, Mr. Mayor.

Motion by Councillor Casey, or a second by Councillor Pacheco.