Police Pension Fund Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

Let us pray. We pray for our city's leaders. May they lead with justice and fairness on their lips. May they hold in highest esteem the value of human life and liberty. May they never forget those who elected them, nor those who did not. Many of us are worried, anxious, afraid. Who will uphold our basic human rights? Who will protect us from world backs on liberties? Who will lead us through the shadows? Who will remember us? Spirit of life and love, holy presence all around, embrace us with your wisdom and peace. Surround us with reassurance. Fill our hearts with purpose. Empower us to do what is right. May our hearts be expanded as the time comes for us to comfort each other. May our minds be charged with creativity as we find our way forward. May our spirits be guided by our values. May our lives speak, be they gentle and angry or loud and clear. May we remain united in our mission as people of goodwill to connect deeply, to grow together, and to serve one another. Blessed be, may it be so, and amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

For those watching at home, I believe it's still accessible through the YouTube City of Rockford government, as well as if you go to the City of Rockford web page and click on there as well. Thank you. There are five public speakers signed up. I'll keep a timer going for three minutes. When I say your time is up, it will be the end of your time to speak, and you can always speak again. First, we have John Tack Brantley. Is John here?

Good evening. Good evening there. Good evening, our arguments and our citizens of Rockville, Illinois. You know, this past weekend was a Father's Day weekend, but I just want to bring y'all back to where we are today with Donald Trump. You know, in South Africa, they call it apartheid here. And in the United States, we call it Jim Crow. Or another nice, polite word is called white privilege. Here, we got Camp Grant. Camp Grant is a city where they want to build a data center at. We're totally against them building a data center at Camp Grant. Camp Grant was where our Buffalo Soldiers was located at in World War I and World War II. Our Buffalo soldiers couldn't go nowhere but to Booker Washington Center. Camp Grant was run with a Colonel by the name of Charles Young. His parents were slaves, but then he became the third West Point cadet to lead the West Cadet. He also led the Buffalo soldiers who captured Geronimo. He also rode with the Rough Riders with Teddy Roosevelt. What bothered me the most about Camp Grant is they had 200 and 2,500 POW soldiers at Camp Grant and they got fed. The German and Italian soldiers got fed better than our Buffalo soldiers. So now you want to take Camp Grant and put a debtor center there? I'm totally against you putting a debtor center there. How about if we dig up like I took the people to the pyramid and we checked out the pyramid. How about if we dig up the nearest family graves and build a data center on top of his family graveyard? Our data center should not be built on Camp Grant. That's holy ground and I can go on and on and whatnot. But talk about the pyramid. Our pyramid was built 500 BC, and the Native Americans was darker than anybody in this here room and had long dreadock hair. She said something that I will never forget. How can you desecrate our pyramid, desecrate our sanctuary, and then turn around and steal the gold and silver from the pyramids, the three pyramids here in Illinois. And then you turn around and make a commercial out of it where you making money off of our ancestors' graveyard. The building I live in, North Main Manor, is built on top of a graveyard, Indian graveyard. I can go on and on and talk about that. But I'm also highly upset with our African-Americans that's in position, they're supposed to be there to help us. Instead of them helping us, they more ensuring tuning in to helping our former slave mass. I'm against the data center.

Our next speaker is Janie Wilson-Cook.

Hi. I am Janie Wilson-Cook. I live at 1622 Montague Street in Rockford. I am not representing, but I am a member of the Environmental Committee of the League of Women Voters of Greater Rockford. I am a retired technology implementer from Northern Illinois University, and I owned a computer business here in Rockford for 13 years. I understand technology. Everyone talks about a tech bubble, but right now we're in a speculative bubble. The reason why we need to build so many data centers today is because there's a race to be early in the IPO process before government oversight and retail investors in America realize there's no there there. We're ahead of our skis on. calling machine learning AI before it's truly generative AI. When we look at how private equity firms are backing property developers to build data centers to sell to big tech, what we're doing is selling our children's birthright instead of demanding guarantees that these companies will even be here in 10 years. The narratives from the investment companies are always the same, whether they're building six or 16 data centers. There's always 200 jobs. Why? Because it's enough jobs to look beneficial, but not enough to break your school system. These are marketing approaches to overcome hurdles to get tax, zoning, and environmental allowances so they can build it. By the time the workers are on site and trade union contracts are verified, they will say the planned closed loop cooling system Yeah, that's going to be too expensive. Now it needs to be an open loop. But you can't stop it because we've already broken ground. By the time we see whether or not there are 200 jobs to even be had, the people who sign the contracts won't even exist anymore in terms of corporations. So what we need to do is do a registered capital bond. It's a collaborative agreement between the state, the county, and whatever municipality is hosting these, where if you tell us there's going to be 200 jobs, what are those salaries total times 10 for 10 years? And then that money goes into a bond on day one. That day, if they collapse, at least the community and those municipalities will have some form of capital to repair the blight that is left behind when this industry either collapses or shrinks the way all speculative bubbles do. Even though the TIF that you're planning to pass was amended to include not to include data centers in the tax abatement, you're certainly intending on approving a data center because you see dollar signs, but we will pay in ways much more than money. When that time comes, the League of Women Voters of Greater Rockford will be back for that discussion. You betcha.

Next, we have Prophet Yusef.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

In the book of Proverbs, the 22nd chapter, the ninth verse, it says, a generous man will himself be blessed. What he shares is food with the poor. What I want to speak about tonight, confronting the homeless epidemic in the United States. Here's a staggering number. $553,000. Imagine what you would do if $553,000 were deposited into your bank account today. Imagine what you can see if you travel 553,000 miles around the world. That is a significant number. The truth is, that's the number of homeless people recorded in the United States. Yes? The most developed country in the world allows a whopping 17% of its population to live on the streets. California holds a total of 165,000 abandoned homeless individuals. This represents 20% of all homeless people in the United States. Approximately 15,179 are veterans like me, people in this country I turn a blind eye as if this is some new normal. We have abandoned our neighbors, and homeless is a clear symptom. I live each day fighting poverty and homelessness. During my career, I have encountered veterans who once fought for our country, now defeated, and some from PTSD, drug and alcohol addiction, and hope. I spoke with women who through life circumstances, were now selling their bodies to have a place to stay. I see children who should be living carefree filled with hope for the future were begging for food. I still remember my first encounter on the streets of Chicago, Skid Row, March the 29th, 45 years ago. Like most people, I had no comprehension of the magnitude of the problem of homeless, abandoned, until I saw men, women, and children, yes, children, who live on the street. For years, the decay of precious lives had a life of its own, and the ideal survivor had a shallow rest rate. Digest this for one month. Abandoned citizens die homeless in the streets each day, but it doesn't make the evening news interesting. Ever wonder why? Could it be because the problem is a sole reflection on all of us in the United States? Imagine senior citizens who live their golden years in full insecurity or children who go to bed hungry every night. Imagine the little girl who's afraid her parents will be taken away due because she's an immigrant. I imagine families who don't make a living wage and living below the poverty line and can't afford afford to take their sick child to the doctor due to inequity in healthcare. Imagine having to decide to pay for food or your utility bill or Medicare for all ill family members or babies not in diapers. Just imagine. My solution to solve this problem in America? First, we need one million affordable homes. Thank you for allowing me to speak. It's time to wake up.

Next, we have Christopher Bayer.

Before I start, I have some documents for the chamber. I brought plenty of copies. I'm not sure who to give it to, the clerk or someone else.

Thank you.

OK, so tonight I want to talk about the TIF vote, specifically this Global Trade Park South area. Hopefully I'm getting it all right. It seems to have a lot of names. And it's really hard to keep track of all these details. But nonetheless. From what I understand, this area was designated as a TIF in 2011. The RPA and TIF were able to be created under the Jobs Recovery Act, as it did not and arguably still does not qualify for the TIF designation. Currently, my understanding of the Jobs Recovery Act states that no redevelopment plan shall be adopted by a municipality without findings that the redevelopment plan is reasonably expected to create or retain a significant number of permanent full-time jobs. So my current understanding is that this TIF as it stands today has been here since 2011. It has done nothing. Nothing has happened. The whole reason it exists is not for blight, not for reason of inhospitable land or conditions or toxic waste. It was used in accordance to an act passed by the state about job recovery, about other areas have more jobs than us. Fine. Fair and square. That's how it was written. That's how it was enacted. But let's not look past that. That's exactly what it was. That's how it should remain. It shouldn't change whatsoever, because that's how it was intended. So just stay the course. Per the TIF, as of the fiscal year 2024 memo filed in 2025, Global Trade Park South TIF fund has a balance of $351,613. And the city has yet to provide, and this is I quote, this is not my own, the city has yet to provide TIF funding for infrastructure or economic development projects in the district. So my understanding is that no movement has happened whatsoever. Again, no activity on this intended area since 2011. In fact, a balance of $351,613 has accrued. No issue with the fact that nothing's been done with it, but just noting the facts. Again, following the facts of what we're talking about here. Whole lot of nothing. That being said, I did bring a visual aid, or at least a little bit of what I'm understanding as I'm learning along with many of the folks behind me. Monarch Energy had a promotional video showing their development area, which remarkably resembles the TIF district. So when we talk about the TIF district and the multiple investors engaging, we're talking about basically Monarch and then who knows how many people. Because from what I'm seeing in that diagram, following the shape here, Monarch controls a remarkably huge majority of that area. So just to keep that in perspective, So just to keep up with current events here, Governor Pritzker has directed the Illinois Department of Commerce an economic opportunity to halt tax incentives for data centers starting July 1. The best course of action is to delay any decision for a period of two weeks. Just delay it. Thank you. Stay the course. Delay it.

Next, Pam Clark-Reidenbach.

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you in support of the Mobile Grocery Store Initiative, designed to address food insecurity and improve access to healthy, affordable food within underserved neighborhoods in Rockford. Far too many individuals and families face significant barriers to accessing fresh produce, nutritious groceries, and essential household items due to limited transportation, geographic isolation, economic hardship, or the absence of nearby full-service grocery stores. An estimated 15.8% of Winnebago County residents are food insecure. The need is particularly acute for youth with local food insecurity at 20% compared to the state average of 11.3%. A mobile grocery store is an initiative and practical solution that directly brings healthy food options to neighborhoods where they're needed most. With this cross-sector approach driven by collaboration of over 75 individuals that make up the Food and Security Task Force, this initiative has the potential to make a meaningful long-term impact. Mobile grocery services are essentially valuable for seniors, individuals with disabilities, and low-income families who may otherwise struggle to obtain nutritious food. By meeting people where they are, this program helps remove barriers that contribute to food insecurity and poor health outcomes. The mobile grocery store will bring a healthy food-to-people grocery store to their neighborhoods for a discounted price, but will not compete or replace the critical emergency food services provided by local pantries and food banks. Now, some of you may say we need a brick and mortar store or that the project is too expensive. A brick and mortar is all of our desire. But until we are able to address disposable income and density barriers associated with that goal, and conduct the optimal location research through the mobile grocery store, we will know the right location and be in a position to address barriers to build. As for the expense of a mobile grocery, let's compare it to the cost of a brick and mortar. Consulting construction experts, I learned that the cost of a building, the shell is about 125 to 175 per foot. The interior improvements would run around 60 to 120 per foot. Grocery-specific equipment is 75 to 150 per foot, and site parking utilities stormwater estimated around 30 to 80 per foot. These ranges align with the recent retail and grocery construction estimates showing grocery stores among the most expensive retail building types due to refrigeration, food preparation areas, and complex MEP systems. This is a total cost of $5.8 to $10.5 million per site. Multiply that by 10 sites that this mobile grocery will visit, and that is conservatively $58 million for brick and mortar construction. So consider how affordable it will be to bring healthy food options to 10 food deserts and food swamp areas in our community to better ensure healthy Rockford residents through a mobile grocery store. Please support this initiative and help to enhance the health of individuals you represent. I deeply appreciate your consideration.

All right, that ends the public speaking. Moving on to the Finance and Personnel Committee meeting. Under information only, we have the 2025 audit presentation. Ms. Haggerty, can I have a guess with you?

Yes, sir. Thank you, everyone. We have Michael Malott from Baker Tilly and Patty Rohde, our accounting manager, joining me tonight. Mike's going to give an overview of the 2025 audit process. And you all have copies of the draft audit and Baker Tilly's insights, which is the separate document. On your desks, we also emailed those last week. When the documents are finalized, which they should be shortly, we'll get those posted on the city's website as well.

Hand it over. All right, thank you everybody for your time this evening. I won't take too long when I give kind of an overview. I'm not going to get into too many numbers before everybody here. Before I do get started, I want to thank Carrie and Patty. Without having a finance team that is responsive, professional, and does everything that we ask them to do in the midst of their day job, We're not able to be here today to issue the city's audit. So I just want to thank them for all their hard work and effort. It's about a six-month process from the day we start to the day we issue. And it not just includes them, but many other people at the city who have to contribute and answer our questions and provide a bunch of random things we ask for and clean up behind us when we leave. So again, thank you for all their help in the process this year. So I'm going to go through each of the different reports that get issued as part of the audit process, kind of explain what they are, what they represent, what the result is. As Kerry mentioned, they are draft reports we have in front of you today. The plan is for us to issue final reports tomorrow in PDF format. We are waiting on some third-party information outside of the city's control. We received that late last week, so we're able to move forward in finalizing everything. The first document we're going to talk about this evening is the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. That is the big document. That's kind of the fulcrum, if you will, of all the different things we're going to talk about here. It presents the picture of the city's complete financial performance and health as of 12-31-25 in all aspects of operations of the city. I do want to note that it does include a couple different components that we do not audit that we have to kind of assume into the report for the Rockford Mass Transit District as well as the RAVE, their component units, but they are brought in and we rely upon the work done by other auditors for that work. The information in there, it's the city's information. We help put it in all the prescribed formats to ensure that it's compliant with all the accounting standards and GFOA award applications and things of that nature. But really, it is the city's numbers and information. Everything in there except for three pages is your words or your numbers being put out to the users of the financial statements, the public, for yourselves, bondholders, whoever it may be who needs the city's financial statements. The only information coming from us, in our words, is the independent auditor's report. And what that section says is, can you rely upon the information in here? Is it something that is presenting an accurate, clear depiction of the city's financial health? I'm proud to present to you what's going to be an unmodified opinion. That's the highest level of assurance we can provide in accordance with the auditing standards. That doesn't mean we look at every dollar, but means that within the scale, the operations, the city, the information in there can be relied upon to understand what happened during the year and where you sit as a 1231. If you're gonna read anything, it's a big report. As you go, it goes from kind of high level to the further you get in, really nitty-gritty detail. If you're gonna read any section, I do recommend always reading the transmittal letter and the management discussion and analysis sections. Those two sections I always use as kind of tandem documents. The management discussion and analysis presents a lot of kind of big picture of what numbers, what changed, how things went up and down during the year, whereas the transmittal letter provides a lot of non-financial context of what happened, some historical data as well as what's on the horizon in the future. Between the two of those, it presents a really good high-level picture of where the city is, where it went during the year, and what it expects to happen in the future. The only number I like to point out in that report is either the section related to pension funded status and there's historical information. It's not always clear in the statements how that is impacting the city, but all three pension plans this year had substantial improvements in their funded status. IMRF went up about 8% actually being overfunded, which is great. And the police pension and fire pension both went up about 5% to 6%. What that means over the course of time is that you have to contribute fewer dollars per pensionable wage to the plan going forward. Because you have enough resources, more resources in there means it kind of works for you. So the investments go and generate a greater return, which allows you to contribute less to the plan while still funding it appropriately, letting those other sources do a lot of the heavy lifting. There was a really strong investment performance by both of the consolidated plans this year. About 17% for each was really helped out the plans this year. So there's a lot of information in that report. Obviously, it's about six months old at this point, so I don't get any other number of details there. But obviously, if you have questions, feel free to interrupt. There are a lot of other reports we issue as part of the audit process. There are 31 TIFs in which we issue an opinion on compliance. That includes both what money was spent during the year within those TIFs, with the resources generated by the TIFs, making sure they're allowable, as well as some other statutory requirements associated with that. We anticipate issuing those opinions as well. There's two TIFs where there was an adjustment made as part of the audit process, nothing substantial, and it was corrected. The other 29 are going to have clean, clean bills of health on those TIFs during the year. There were two new TIFs in 2025, the Madison and Oak and Main and Mulberry TIFs that were created. But they are not required to be tested for compliance until they generate a cumulative $100,000 of revenue. So once the TIF starts gets going and starts generating some taxes associated with it, over time it hits a number, then we have to start testing it. So those two were new and weren't tested this year. So more just kind of FYI. In addition to that, to the work we do there, we also do a deep dive into your federal spending. It's called the single audit or the report on federal awards, which we'll issue. You had about 37.8 million in federal expenditures during 2025. We tested four major programs of that making about $20 million of your total spending that we dove into this year. So the four major programs we looked into were the ARPA programs, the kind of last go-round of the ARPA funding, Head Start, the Drinking Water Revolving Fund, and the low-income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP. Those are the four programs we did a deep dive into, not just on how you spent the money on during the year, but a bunch of other requirements that the federal government and each federal agency requires related to those programs. And not just looking at were you compliant this year, but do you have the infrastructure and process in place to ensure you remain compliant going forward? That's really what these agencies are most concerned. Yes, question. So it's the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery program, which is the ARPA funding, stimulus funding, Head Start program, the drinking water revolving fund, revolving loan program, as well as the low-income home energy assistance program.

Can you just give me an idea of why you would choose

so it is not a so there's a kind of a a Process we had to follow and it's mandated by the office of management and budget So they dictate a kind of a methodology with the follower to identify programs Basically, it starts out. What are the biggest funded programs first? What would you spend the most money on during the year? They any program going over a certain dollar threshold? We immediately have to evaluate and if it hasn't been tested within three last three years we automatically have to test and Then we go through a process to evaluate risks of those programs potentially having issues. Then there's a second tier of programs we look at to make sure none of them are required to be tested no matter what if they hit that. And then from there we have to hit a certain percentage of coverage of expenditures we test. So there's kind of a metric we follow. We don't actually create it. It's governed by the federal government. And that's what kicked out those four programs this year. I believe two of the programs I believe had not been tested in a while. which is why they had to be. There was no choice around it. Once it hit that dollar threshold, we have to look at it. The ARPA program and Head Start program, they're just big dollar programs that we had to basically cover our bases on to make sure we were good to go. And the final report has that information on there in terms of what programs they are. But it is mandated by the federal government how we approach that. We don't have a lot of, there's not any art behind that. It's pure numbers and science and step-by-step process. problem so it's part of the testing of those four programs that mention we do look at what you spent the money on during the year various other requirements associated with those programs in addition we look at the processes and controls around them so you know in a given year you could be completely compliant but what the federal government is concerned about is are you in a situation where that compliance was luck or by intention do you have controls in place do people review everything or you know other different controls in place to ensure those programs are being operated appropriately, not just now, but are set to be run appropriately going forward. We issued two opinions in that single audit report. One relates to our testing of those programs, and we will issue a clean opinion on those programs, meaning we identified no major issues associated with them that would indicate noncompliance with federal regulations, which is great because we find stuff in programs all the time. So that is a really big thumbs up to have a clean bill of health on all four programs we looked at. In addition, we have to do some work for the city as a whole, evaluating controls, processes, risks, things of that nature. It's called the Government Auditing Standards Report. And that's also in that same document. It's just required to be included in there. And that's where we look at not just grant programs, we look at the city's operations as a whole. And we don't look at everything, but we look at the most substantial and significant operations of the city. And this year, we are able to issue that opinion with no findings in there, which is last year there were some things. So there were some improvements made, some things we worked through. And this year, there was a clean bill of health issued on that. So that's great. I mean, that's a huge win for the city in terms of making sure that those risks that were identified in the past have been addressed and remediated. Are within the range of expectation. Does it mean there's not things there? We don't look at everything, but it means in those big high volume dollar value transactions that the city operates on an annual basis, we've looked at and identified no major issues. So it's a, it's a, it's a great improvement. Sorry, say that again. So most, right, so last year was primarily some of the accounting things and the financial statements, and we had some restatements in the 2024 report that we worked through with finance to correct and remediate, and those were resolved, and there were no issues this year associated with that. Otherwise, the controls and processes are rigorous, and they're generally considered best practice. Yes?

Yeah, and just to allude to the older woman, is there somewhere in here where the

So it won't be in that report. So in the report on federal awards, which I don't think you have a hard copy of that, but that will be issued in final form. There is a page at the very end of that that identifies the prior year findings and basically whether they've been resolved or not, or if they continue on, or if they're kind of partially fixed. It's basically here's what was last year, here was the resolution of that in the current year. So that will be in that report in the results and insight letter that I'll get into a little bit. It doesn't speak to that, but it also doesn't speak to the fact that there's anything new this year as well. So in the single audit, basically clean bill health across the board. There are also some statutory requirements that the city has as part of the audit process. The consolidated year end financial report is a report that has to be prepared and opined on by us for the government accountability and transparency unit that is a centralized, basically portal agency within the state. where they are served as a kind of a repository of financial information for any entity, whether it be a government or somebody else, who receives funding from the state. So all the state agencies use the information that is submitted to them. It's basically a way to regurgitate your financial information in their prescribed format. We opine upon that and issue that in conjunction with the audit. Also, the comptroller's annual financial report, which is a required submission every year, We don't apply on it, but we do compile it on your behalf and submit it along with the audit to the state to make sure you are in compliance with that and issue that on time and submit that on time. So those are all the different kind of audit reports we issue. The last document, which is the other handout today, was the results and insights letter. And what that is is a letter from us to you as the governing body. It basically is a summarization of all the various required communications we need to do in accordance with the audit standards. It covers a wide spectrum of things. our responsibilities, a really high level of what our plan was, and did everything go according to plan, what were some of the significant risks we went in assuming existed in terms of audit areas that we have to look at, and what areas we spent the most amount of time on, and a bunch of other results. Did anything bad happen? I view that report as if there's nothing exciting in there, that is a victory. There is nothing good that is ever in that letter. It is designed to tell you when things went wrong. Kind of the gold star is getting the clean audit opinion. That document is to tell you where you screwed up. And I'm glad to report to you tonight that it's a very boring report. The audit process went according to plan. It went very smoothly. We had no major significant deficiencies or material weaknesses to report this year in terms of your risk and control issues, as well as just really no challenges during the course of the audit that we'd have to communicate to you today. Just the invitation of it, it was a very smooth audit process. Our second year working with the city, it really kind of went off without a hitch. There's some other communications there. In particular, I always like to point out, while we work with Carrie and Patty for the audit and the day-to-day, ultimately, we're engaged and hired by you to complete the audit. So if there's any question, thing you'd like to talk about or know about, I'm always available. My team's always available at any point. So not just here tonight for the audit, but throughout the course of the year, we're always available to you. So if you do ever want to reach out, we're always here for you. So that concludes my prepared remarks.

Alvin Tubert.

Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, it was good to see that you encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management. So thank you to Administrator Cagnoni for being on his best behavior. On the appreciation of the IMRF, and contributions both.

Correct. So if you look at how the pensions are funded, there's really three drivers of funding. It's employer contributions, employee contributions, and investment income. This year, investment income did a lot of heavy lifting, which helps basically exceed the money coming in, exceeding the money going out in terms of pensional benefits being paid out in a given year. So that's what's key is that the bigger that bank you have kind of set aside, the more that can go to work for you. Now, it's highly dependent on investment performance, of course. And this year was a great year. That could always change. But it gives you a foundation to work on. And the stronger that foundation is, even during a dip, it gives you that kind of cushion to bounce back. And we've seen this with IMRF over the years. They were always so well-funded. They were able to kind of withstand some of the really bad economic times and investment periods that they had to bounce back.

So in the detailed report, will there be a percentage breakdown as far as the percentage gap of appreciation to contributions?

Not necessarily. There are a bunch of ratios that are in there that are required by the accounting standards, but that specific one is not in there.

We'll see that in August when our actuary presents.

Thank you, Director. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that there was two areas that we should specifically focus on. One was the MD&A. What was the other?

The Transmittal Letter, or the Letter of Transmittal. I forget how you do it. The IMR plan is actually in an asset position which means you're you're you're actually your investments that are being held by IMR for the city exceeds their actuarial liability the Well, there's a page in here specifically Almost there There is a page where we summarize all that information across all three plans page 81 in the report So the IMRF plan is sitting at a $10.6 million surplus, effectively. It's called a net pension asset, where police is a net pension liability of $218 million, and the firefighter's pension is $239.4 million. So that's the actual liability less the fiduciary net position, which is basically your investment balances.

Alderman Beach.

Thank you, sir. Because of the appreciation of

That would be an actuary's decision. That's way outside my lane.

Well, I guess I heard their say.

Well, it does. I mean, it factors into the actuary's calculations where you're funded in a very broad sense. The better funded position is, the more that investment income, in theory, is going to support future benefits versus more contributions. But the actuary determines what that is and how long that runway is because there's so many other different factors that play into that as well.

Thank you.

Correct. Correct. I mean, your police and fire plans are not...

It's healthy enough where you can lean 100%. They're in the 40 percentile right now, which is better than a lot of cities, but still catching up. And obviously, you're a very large city, so it's a challenge. So just a one-time contribution front, it's one of many steps you're going to have to continue to take going forward to build that funded status up.

Given the market, it looked like it was a good thing to do.

So I just emailed to you all the 2024 single audit and pointed to the page where the issues that were identified are described. So you can take a look at that. I also I want to thank you know, this is our second year with Baker Tilly and The transition has been about as smooth as changing audit firms can go and they've been great partners We really appreciate the relationship. I do just want to say You know Patty is here. She manages the audit process on the on the city side and does an amazing job but the the work of compiling this financial report involves staff throughout the organization doing their job on a daily basis and doing it well and this is really a team effort and I just want to thank all of the staff that are involved not only with daily transactions but also putting specific work together for the completion of the audit you stole my thunder it's so good that we have a boring yes you're not here with the hit list of nine

Things were we've deviated from the yeah, you know generally accepted accounting principles involving municipalities. Yes, that's fantastic And I want to thank Patti I know how hard you work on this and the fact that we did not have any hiccups as a testament to carry Thank you. Thank you. All right Moving on to committee reports. Item number one is approval of vouchers in the amount of $15,480,571.48. Is there a motion to approve vouchers? So moved. Second. All is in favor indicate by aye aye Opposed matter passes item 2 is an approval of a lien reduction request from Z financial to release liens on various properties from 1987 2017 in the total amount of fifteen thousand four hundred ninety five dollars and fifty cents upon payment in full of $10,000 is there a motion to approve Any questions or comments for staff yes all the graph

Um, so is this, uh, are they going to be building something here or what, where, what is the, um, I believe I can answer that question, chairman.

Um, this request came into our legal department. It is over multiple parcels. Some that have existing structures, um, on this, um, the owner is looking to, is two weeks ago when it came up related to whether the ownership was under the existing ownership when these fines and liens came about. I believe that is the case on all, if not a majority of them. We went back to the individual and suggested that their settlement amount of $5,000 was insufficient and requested $10,000 and then they agreed to it. And that's why it's back on the agenda tonight.

So they're going to sell, they're going to pay the liens off and then they're going to sell the

Any other questions? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by aye. Aye. Opposed? The matter passes. Item three is an approval of a memorandum of agreement with ASPE Local 1058 regarding financial incentives for telecommunicators. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Second. Any questions or comments for staff? Alderman Beach.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a couple of questions here. If someone's on vacation or... are taking a leave and they ask to come back for whatever reason, are they paid differently? What is their pay at that time? I'm having a difficult time here seeing that we're suggesting that we pay people to come back to work. And I need just somebody, I'm reading here online here, it says that the for employees who voluntarily accept overtime assignments to cover last minute staffing. And then it says here that they're gonna be paid twice the amount. And I guess some would need to help me understand why if a department is suffering and they need help, the employees wouldn't want to help without having to have incentive to come and help. Help me get over that hump to understand that.

I'll let Chief take a crack at maybe the first question and good luck on the second.

Thank you. We have historically struggled to keep full staffing in the 911 Center for certain positions, so this is not a unique situation. that we ensure that people are coming to work on a regularly scheduled shift. As far as voluntary sign-ups for overtime, well, we don't want to get into a situation where we're constantly forcing people back into the 911 center. So this is just an incentive to number one, with voluntary overtime versus mandatory overtime. And we are currently working to increase our staffing level. It just takes a little bit longer on the 911 side of things to get someone through the training and then onto the floor where they have another six to eight months of training before they're actually signed off to count toward the staffing number.

Is it possible to outsource these shortages?

Any further questions Seeing none all is in favor indicate by aye aye opposed No

Item 4 is approval of an IGA between the city and RHA in the amount to be determined per weatherized scattered site unit. The agreement does not require a cost match. The agreement terms from the date of the execution with a potential one year extension. Is there a motion to approve the IGA?

So moved. Second.

Any questions or comments for staff? Seeing none, all those in favor need to keep their aye. Aye. Opposed? Matter passes. Moving on to resolutions. Number one is an award of bid for City Yards Wash Bay drain replacement repairs to DPI Construction in the amount of $118,630. It's a one-time project, a funding source for the property fund. Is there a motion to approve the bid? So moved. Second. Any questions or comments from the staff? Received there was one bid for this Correct It was close to our estimation slightly Howard slightly higher but very close Not at this time no we estimated it would be roughly $100,000 for this project I Opposed?

The mayor passes.

Item two is a warranted bid for rails to trails, Rock River shoreline repair, Coop and Haver construction in the amount of $570,582.94. The contract duration is through October 16, 2026, and the funding source is a 1% infrastructure sales tax. Is there a motion to approve the bid?

So moved. Second.

Any questions or comments for staff? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by aye. Aye. Opposed? Matter passes. Item three is a resolution approving appropriation of motor fuel tax funds for improvement under the Illinois Highway Code Region 1 Planning Council fiscal year 2027 funding in the amount of $91,308.49. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Any questions or comments for staff? Alderman Meeks.

Thank you so much for allowing me to speak on your committee. Can I just get a little back story on this? No on the Region 1 Planning Council and the 91,000. I just kind of looked at the... It was something with the Department of Transportation.

There was an application. We contribute to R1 as a participating organization under an intergovernmental agreement. So this resolution is authorizing the city, required by IDOT for when we expend motor fuel tax funds. we're just asking for council to approve using motor fuel tax funds to fund the existing obligation that we have under an IGA with our one for our contribution to the organization that that is just an application required by I dot anytime we spend motor fuel tax funding

And so when we fill out that application, whenever there's like a program or proposal.

Yep, when it's a construction project related to motor fuel tax or we're using it to pay for road salt or something along those lines, every time we use, we have to fill out that application. Gotcha. Thank you so much.

Any other questions? Seeing none, all is in favor, indicate by aye. Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Passes item four is an award of non-competitive contract the purchase of two police vehicles to Rockford Ford in the amount of fifty two thousand three hundred and twenty two dollars and twenty six cents This is a one-time purchase the funding sources the state drug asset and forfeiture funds. It's your motion to approve Any questions or comments for staff? Alderman Prunty

I believe the the police department worked with Rock River Ford to identify vehicle used vehicles These are not new vehicle purchases, but to identify used vehicles that would meet the specific needs of that operation Correct I just like to know those two vehicles are coming with

Thanks for pointing that out. All right, any other questions? All right, seeing none, all those in favor indicate by aye. Aye. Opposed? The matter passes. Item five is an authorization user request for proposals for the development of eight townhome units at 966 North Court Street. The motion to authorize.

So moved.

Second. Any questions or comments for staff? Sure. Yeah, could you give us a little bit more of a Overview of the of this item five things a little bit different than I have sex, correct? Correct. Yeah, let's start with 966 North Court Street.

Sure so years ago through our neighborhood stabilization program we were acquiring properties and demolishing units that were on there and or we were developing properties, or we were doing homebuyer assistance, it was a great opportunity to be able to utilize those funds. Within that program, we gained four parcels that, two of them were 966 North Court and 974 North Court. So through our program, we have to meet national objectives, and we already did that with the demolition of the properties that are on there. And so now we have an opportunity to develop that land. And with this program, RFP that we're putting out there what we'd like to do is to have a developer come in and build eight townhomes and then we'd also gain ownership of those townhome design templates that we could use throughout the community and So the question was were we looking for something specific in the templates generally on this Land we can have up to eight townhomes built that fit appropriately on that land and so what we're looking for is a a developer that can go ahead and develop that land and in those templates we want to be able to have ownership of that so we could go ahead and do that on other city-owned lots or private entities could go ahead and use those same templates so it would just be a townhouse style single unit that can be used throughout the community the design of it would be up to the architect that's designing the

Right, so the advantage to doing it this way is these lots are similar to other ones that we had. We demolished a lot of homes throughout a lot of the wards, right? Plans that we would get what we're asking is for someone to propose back to us how they would do it on these two Lots like how they would how they would envision the space. What would it look like? What kind of plans would we end up with like the efficiency of it the costs of it? What would they estimate and then? You know we bring that back to City Council to award then the plans that we thought were the best ones to move forward with And we do this development the advantage to it was where we're structuring it so that we don't just get these townhomes we get the architectural designs the city would own that then and then we could use that we could find other lots where it would fit in the wards where we've done other demos and we could build and that saves the next builder the cost of the architectural designs

Any other questions? Alderman Bell.

Thank you for allowing me to speak on your committee. So these parcels are in the 13th Ward. And I had just a quick question on that. This initial developer, say they're granted the authorization or the ability to develop, their plans would be used with the city's future development strategy throughout the community. So this developer would take on the burden of the cost for the drawings.

And we caught that in the RFP. We're going to specify that we would purchase and then the city would own them.

So I actually had a developer reach out, and their one hesitation about it was that the city would retain ownership of the architectural park, geez, the designs, and the documents. So thank you for clarifying that.

Yeah, thanks. And I met with Alderman Granath before this and realized that was something that we need to clarify in the RFP.

Thank you. Alderman Beach.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So let me see if we can follow that a little bit. If we're going out for a request for proposal, are we giving the architects the specs of what we want from that proposal, the size of it, the number of rooms, the number of bathrooms? Are we telling them in this request for proposal

Yeah, I guess, you know, we didn't write it that way. We wrote it to like, here's the land that, again, pretty similar size lots to what we have in other places. Again, we combine these, but we wanted to see what they would propose and what would fit there and what would be structured best for that size lot. So that's why it's an RFP is we're, we're putting it out for the design professionals to say, we think on this lot, would be the best way to construct something on this lot. We think we could do it efficiently and we think we could do it for a cost that would pencil out. Because if we said three bedrooms, two baths, it's potentially that we're imposing on this program something that's too expensive and won't cash on that property. We're asking them to look at it and propose back to us what the best design would be for townhomes, for a middle housing solution on lots that we own.

Well, I appreciate that. what criteria it is. We already know we don't want it to be more than X number of dollars. I mean, it seems to me that the proposal should call for all of that so they could be a competition, so to speak, to develop these homes for this price of money and this amount of square footage. Right.

And I agree. I give it to you. So we have two, so let's say comparing the two things that we're proposing to and market rate. So we're not offering, well, we want to buy the plans and we want to have it on land that we're providing at a different cost. a way that it pays for itself it doesn't need an incentive and doesn't need a gap finance from us when we talk about the second program that one we're going to have to design in a few phases like whereas this one we're doing one proposal these two lots tell us what you think you could build here and what would make sense for the market and how you would how you would see these these properties back in production so that's why it's a design and build the second one to your point where we want it's a single family and we do believe that it has a little harder road to go so we're going to do that one in stages and so i think we can explain that one next um where we will explain like where they'll we're going to ask for designs for three single family homes that could be um constructed on a number of different open lots that we have We're asking for the design so that then we can build out a program, a pilot program for single family infill, but we need the designs to build out the cost because we're anticipating we will need get financing for that construction. So we have a lot more answers we've got to put together before we come back with a program for that. We're separating out this town home one because we do believe that the market will bear this one. There is a way for a developer to do this and to meet their cost needs, and they will not, we don't believe they will have to have gap financing from the city.

Thank you. All the way to Meeks.

Thank you so much. I was just curious, if there are building codes, like I'm thinking in the future versus the plan, but If there are building code changes, would that impact the plan in any way? Would we have to kind of go back in and get a new plan drawn up if these changes occur within the year or something like that?

I guess potentially, but normally plans can be updated pretty quickly. like we could go back for you know with an administrative cost things that could change um on a town home like sometimes in the energy code there's things like we were now in 24 that changed some things about how you test things related to HVAC system and that. So one of those kinds of changes to your point, like will these plans last perfectly for five to 10 years, maybe not. But we're hoping to jumpstart some production now, right? And then we can make, I think administratively, we'd be able to address some of that pretty easily. Thank you so much.

Honorable Bill. Thank you for allowing me to speak on your committee, Chair. Really quick, can you share one more time the change that you and all the women granted discussed earlier?

No, when we were discussing, we went through the program session started, and in going through it with her, noticed that there wasn't a specific note that we would pay for the plants. That verbiage should have been in there.

So you guys will be amending that to include, okay.

Yeah, we'll be clear. It was always the intention to do that, so sorry that it wasn't clear.

All good. So I am not on this committee, but if I was, I'd probably make an amendment to include that on the floor instead of vote and then allow it to go through with staff. I don't know the proper procedure. Obviously, I'm not on this committee. So I just shared that, Jeremy. Maybe you all can potentially make that amendment. Or how would you guys go about it?

I don't want to. So basically, if you're okay with us moving forward, but that's the one change, potentially, I guess, to continue the amendment. If there was anything else that wanted to be talked over before, and maybe we did something at city council instead, but I don't know.

Motion to reflect All right any questions on the amendment Just to our leading director, can you share for the record the exact verbiage that would be included? I mean, I don't know if I've necessarily heard the full...

I can hear the woman in the back.

Yeah, it's pretty quiet, I guess is what I'm saying. We don't have the mics working, so... Did you hear the amendment?

Can you restate your motion?

The motion to add that the city would retain ownership

Right now It has in here that there's a purchase price and at the minimum the purchase price must be current fair market value What that probably should have said instead of purchase price is just cost involved with it and then had it combined and said

that what are you going to go ahead and purchase it for and then our cost to have those templates as owned by the city of Rockford so that we could do whatever we want with them in the future. So it just has to clarify in that purchase price. It would just be cost instead. And this is a draft.

Can I just suggest that we'll have a clean, updated version of the RFP for the council vote next week?

That'd be perfect. Thank you. All right. So that will be withdrawn. Alderman Tumor.

Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate this lot being addressed. It was across the street from the old third ward map. In this, it says that wards 5, 6, 7, 11, and 13 are going to be about 70% of the vacant lots in the city. What if a lot in the third ward, if somebody's ready to go on that, can that jump in there, or are you really strictly dead set on those other wards?

Sure. Thanks for the question. So generally, what I did was I took that directly from our con plan and annual action plan. There are vacant lots that the city owns throughout all of the wards, and all of them would have an opportunity to participate in any of these future programs that we're designing.

But specifically, because we're going to be using We did need to acknowledge that the HUD consolidated plan says that 70% of them are in those wards, so we do need to make sure we pay attention. But to her point, it doesn't limit it. All right.

So the third ward still does have a shot. All right, good. It's also, it can be up to the developer whether it is going to be used for rental or selling as...

For 966 North Court this first item that's on the agenda number five I believe it is that can be for rent or sale It is up to the developer to come and present what they feel would be best for that lot When they come in we will have to come back to City Council to present which one we want to award

So it would be another chance for you all to look at the mix of what they want to put and what audience they're saying and make sure that you are able to weigh in on that.

Yeah, good.

Thank you. We're still on 966 North Court Street. Let's make it clear. Alma Beach.

I'm sorry. I just want to talk again. So you're looking for actual on affordable housing to go anywhere in the city of Rockland, specifically now, a court street, not to be developed? Or are you also, in addition to design, want this developer, a developer, could you use that word to actually develop what they find to be that developer?

Right, so we are using 966 court offering these plans.

So that word development there does not necessarily mean a company that's going to build it. You're just looking for someone to draw you a plan on housing.

No, not for the first item you're voting on. So the 966 North Court, that item, we want them to design, do both elements, design a in a way that we end up with the architectural drawings, but we also want them to build it.

So we want them to design something we don't know what they want to design. What's that?

I, thanks for the question. Um, so what we're actually getting is that a developer will go ahead and develop that land, but they have to come to us and tell us what, how they're going to develop it. And they're going to pay at a minimum of fair market value to purchase that land. And then build the townhomes and they're gonna have to come back to us with plans of how they're going to develop that and out of that besides us being able to Have some type of control on what's going to be going at that in that land in that space We're also going to get the townhomes to be able to utilize them as our own Will own them and be able to tweak them however it's needed for the future or anything like that and Throughout the city of Rockford because we're earning own those so this 966 North Court is going to be for a developer to come in purchase that land Provide us with what they're going to build and then we'll have ownership to those templates to use throughout the community All right seeing no further questions on item number five all those in favor indicate by aye aye opposed

Passes moving on item 6 which is an authorization to issue an RFP architectural design service to develop a minimum of three single-family residential design templates for a new residential infill program is there a motion to approve I'll second any questions or comments for staff on this matter Seeing that all is a favor to keep aye aye opposed Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second.