City Council - Special Meeting

Progress.

Welcome to the provost council work meeting.

Twenty ninth.

Welcome to the Provincial Council work meeting. It is 04/28/2026, and it is 01:00PM. Who will do a roll call of the elected officials?

Jeff Whitlock.

Becky Bogdan. Catrice McKay.

Gary Garrett.

Rachel Whipple.

And Craig

Christianson. Craig Christianson, we have online, and Travis Hoban will be in a minute. Although it's a public meeting, the presenters and those invited by the council may speak or ask questions. Unless otherwise invited by the chair, please wait to speak until called on by council chair. When speaking, please be sure to use the microphone so the record is clear and those attending virtually can hear you. Please also be sure to limit side conversations as they interfere with the audio recording. If you make a side conversation, please step out of the workroom. It is proposed we approve the following minutes. 04/24/2006 council meeting, April sorry, 03/24/2026 council meeting, 04/14/2026 work meeting, and April 2026 council meeting. Are there any objections or requested changes?

Seeing no objection, all the claim is approved by unanimous consent. Our first item is a resolution amending the council audit committee charter and internal audit charter. This will presented to us by Tanner Tukuchi, and he is our council policy analyst. I wanna get Terrific.

Thank you, counsel, for having me here today. Per our current audit committee charter and internal audit charter, the audit committee is required to review the charters on a regular basis and to present any changes. We've met with the audit committee, we've and discussed a few proposed changes to the audit charters, which I wanted to review briefly here. So the main changes in the audit committee charter that I wanted to highlight are that we're going to allow greater flexibility in the composition of the committee itself. Currently, it requires two councilors and two members of the public chosen by the council.

That will be changed to allow like, a varying, composition between three to five members with at least one member of the public and at least two members of the council, which it currently is right now, after we've had the recent, term ending this month. The next, major change in the audit, committee charter is that it will more explicitly designate the council executive director as the chief audit executive, which is an industry term for the person who deals with the board or, in this case, the committee. So those are the two major changes to the audit committee charter. And then in the audit internal audit charter, it's the main change is changing the terms external and internal and the terms financial and performance to provide greater greater clarity for both the committee, the council, and the public about what the functions of the audit function are of the audit committee are, and also adding a more explicit process for responding to fraud hotline complaints that are issued through the city. So, I created just I sent out a memo that was updated on Monday, kind of addressing some of the principles of auditing and government auditing that have come up.

Sorry.

Quick question. How often do we get broad hotline complaints?

I think maybe Justin be best to answer that. I think it's a few I don't know. Actually, I won't speak.

Yeah. So, typically, the audit committee meets about once a quarter. The average number of complaints come in are between one week and one week each quarter. Really? In the four years I've been here, there have only been two that are actually related to the purpose of the hotline being submissions related to fraud or abuse within the city.

They're typically submitted by members of the public who feel they have been either defrauded by some private business, typically on social media. And so we will respond with standard language saying thank you for your submission. Please report this to x division, the police department that deals with those types of claims. So, sorry. I kinda hit the hit the lead there.

But so as far as real claims, there are very few that come in, but we do receive them and then direct direct the public to the correct place within the the place where they can submit those claims with any kind of a private sentence.

Like, a couple per year, Justin. Right? Because you say Yeah.

Either If a couple. If that,

you know, the one every every other year.

And and none of them have been it's been substantiated that we have commenced?

No. Not at this point.

Thanks.

Yeah.

So and I actually neglected to mention one of the other major changes, which was that members of the committee upon becoming members will be asked to complete a training given by a legislative office of legislative auditor general that covers the the basic principles of government auditing and trying to make sure everyone's on the same page about what the purpose of the audit function is and the best practice of operating as the board of an audit function.

So

And, Tanner, can you put the slide back? Go back one second. When, the council director who is the current council director?

Justin.

Yeah. I'm referring to Justin in that in this case.

So it's it's clarifying that that Justin is the chief audit executive?

That's correct. From my reading of the charter here, it's on the internal audit charter on the first page. It says the council executive director controls and supervises the internal audit activities. For when I read that, my interpretation is that, essentially, the director is functioning as the chief audit executive. This change just clarifies it to make it more explicit.

Well, here's here's where it would be helpful. Brian, maybe you can help us out because Can

you talk more into your microphone?

I'm actually trying to put my mouth right on top of it. Sorry. I'm calling from a long way away.

Let's see who you're saying what.

The ex the it seems like the chief audit executive would be an auditor, like a certified auditor, not a designated person to be an an auditor.

So, Tanner, I think it might be helpful to talk about how it typically is structured in the private sector and how we, of course, have limitations Of course. I I actually agree with you, Craig, but we'd have to allocate budget for that and hire somebody. Yeah. Sorry, Craig. I I didn't have my mic on.

But in in the private sector, typically, you have a chief audit executive who's hired and reports directly to the board of directors. So, you know, HR and and his payroll and salary, you know, might report dotted line to, you know, the CEO or president or whatever. But as far as accountability and hired and fired and such, it's they report to the board of directors so that they have the independence to be able to do their job, right, to be able to be objective and independent and not have be coerced or or feel like they're you know, if you're reporting to the CEO and you find that there's something shady going on, you might be hesitant because they have the power to fire you or dock your pay or whatever. Right? But in this case and so at the county level, it's a little different.

So if we're kind of transitioning to government now, you have county auditor who is an elected official who ultimately doesn't report to anybody but the taxpayers, but the voters. Right? And that's who they report to. So it's just it's a little weird because we don't have the same structure that you would have in, like, a corporate environment. We could as a council, we could hire a chief audit executive, somebody who's an auditor, and they could serve as as that function, and they could report to us.

But there's also some limitations that Brian probably should talk about in the separation of branches of government that we can't really compel. We're not really given authority by the state to really do much. Any case. In any case. So there's just some limitations of what we can do.

But the the reason the thought was just the the council director be the chief audit executive is because, basically, to to to handle the administrative aspect of it, like, making sure that we get the we get the external auditors hired, external and internal auditors hired, and following up on on things. But, yeah, I agree with you. They should be an auditor. But, anyways, that's a lot of info. Just but I just wanted to give you context of kind of what this should look like and then the limitations we have.

Well, actually, that that's very helpful, Travis. Thank you. I guess my follow-up question would be, is there another function in the city that acts as an independent auditor other than this, the position we're talking about now?

No. I would say

I would say no if that was directed to me. Sorry.

What well, let's legally go over.

I can go over the the standards if you'd that'd be helpful.

That would kinda phrase things off

of in if

Well, I think maybe it might help, Brian. I think, broadly, I think we should hear from Brian first and then get into the details Yeah. I think.

And I don't wanna as I said, I I haven't reviewed Tanner's presentation, so I don't wanna step on his toes and Alright. Go over anything that he's already gonna go over. But, I mean, this is a little bit of a weird situation. Travis and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago, we've had some previous conversations before. So as Travis has pointed out, at the state and the county level, code actually creates the auditor position and says what it's supposed to do.

At the city level, there is no such thing. And not even at the state it's not even it's not a requirement that we have an auditor. It's not even a a recommendation necessarily from the state auditor that we have one. It's more of a we've got this checklist that we get points if we have one. We have plenty of points if we don't have one.

Most cities don't have one. Most cities have not even as I understand it, even with the with this point chart, haven't got taken the step of adopting one. And which is interesting because in most other cities with different forms of government, would actually be easier for them to have one than it is for us. But so so we my understanding is from the institutional history is that, you know, we we like points. So when this next scorecard came out, we decided we wanted more points.

We said, let let's do one. And there was a recommendation that that I think was maybe not completely thought through from that I think came from the state auditor's office of, well, if you're gonna have one, it probably shouldn't be in the administration because it's probably overseeing the administration. Well, on on the surface, that makes sense, except that then the practicalities of it become very difficult. Because while one of the council's statutory encode functions is administrative oversight, There is no specified definition of what that means, how that power is wielded, what the consequences of wielding that power are. I mean, at the end of the day, we've had this discussion before.

The way that power is wielded is really through the budget. Right? I mean, essentially, what the council does in administrative oversight is ask questions and threaten how they will use the budget if they don't get the answers they want. Right? They don't have subpoena power. They don't have they're they're essentially completely, at the, discretion of the administration whether the administration answers the questions or not. And and that same problem flows over into the audit function if the auditor is only answerable to the council. So the council can hire an auditor. They can you know, you can create a position inside your your staff office. You can hire an auditor.

You can pay them. You can do whatever you want. The minute that they turn to the administration and say, here's the things that I want to look at, the administration could, under our form of government, say, we don't wanna answer those questions. Now you then have power, like I just mentioned, about the budget, about how you respond to that nonresponse, but there's nothing in state or city code or even guidance from the state auditor's office that grants, that defines any of these powers or says how any of this should work. Right?

And so that's why in one of the previous conversations that we had in the audit committee about this, I said, well, if you really want this to function the best way possible, I think there needs to be an alignment between the administration and the council about what the audit what the auditor does, what the auditor is. Right? And in some ways, they would actually have this is somewhat ironic. In some ways, they'd actually have more power if they were an administrate an executive branch employee than if they're a council branch employee as long as their duties were defined somehow. You know, we could build that into title two of the code and and define what their what their powers and responsibilities are.

But those anyway, I've probably gone on too long. Those but those are some of the struggles in the sense that there's this real very real

Yeah.

Limit on what happened. Everything works fine as long as there's cooperation, and then there are real awkward logistical limits if there is if there is.

Well, on the downside of having it, somebody who reports to, say, the mayor is what if not right. Our mayor would ever do this or Scott would ever do this, but, like, what if they're like, let's just keep that on the down low and not let anybody know about that. You're my employee. You do what I say. Right. So it goes in the flies directly in the face of, like, the independence of auditing, which is, like, the number one Yes. Aspect of auditing. Right? But but I get the practical considerations.

But the flip side of that, and this is why at the county and the state level, again, now recognize at state level, state auditor is not answerable to legislature. And at the county levels, the county auditor is not answerable to the commission for the exact same reason because having an auditor that is answerable to either branch of government but only to that branch of government creates the same problem because the council could Yeah. Wield the auditor in a political way in the same way that the mayor could. Does that make sense? So

But you got seven of us. You'd have to make sure of those stupidity by it there, is gonna be a lot

harder. Yeah.

What are the points for? Do we care? Is it, like, best in state? We don't

have to

do this.

Well, I think we should. I think it's good for transparency for our people.

Right. But And

I think it I think it helps people feel better about where their tax money is going. But what are what's the point system for? Is it, like, best in state?

Do do you wanna speak to that? No. You can. The point system just gives you a feel for the level of responsibility that your finance department is is undertaking. So, for example, a 180 to 220 points would give you an a rating. And currently, we we're at one ninety even, but then adding the auditor function puts us at two ten. So it's just a a way to show how effective our finance and audit functions are in the city.

And so does the state put this out on some website that Provo City is a grade a No. No. Financial institution?

Well, it could

be your Amazon. If somebody really wanna look it up. It's not like they're posting it, but it is something that is correct by the by the state.

So, again, why do we care?

So each year, it is a requirement that cities go through what's called the front risk assessment. It's actually required, and it's after, we receive our audited financial statements from our external auditor. And to to counselor Garrett's point, so there's a variety of questions that are asked. A majority asked about controls. Is there separation there?

But it's it's this awkward question of do you have an audit committee? Is there, you know, do you perform independent audits? The questions are asked and points are given, but it's also not a requirement of municipalities. It is for school districts. So it's this it's this place in code that doesn't quite match up. They're trying the fraud risk assessment list is this kind of one size fits all, checklist for taxing entities, but all of the questions don't necessarily apply to everyone, if that makes sense.

Right. But it nobody has really answered my question of

But if I

why why do we care if we're rated in a, c, d, or e rep?

I I mean, I think Travis answered your question by saying we're overachievers. That's literally why we care.

Okay. I think

There's no flat month finance as well. There's no

I bet if you came in paid in probably start to get some pretty oversight from state auditors. I would guess. Right? So They would look at Yeah. They would certainly look at you more. Yes.

But isn't some of the sorry. Aren't a few of your comments a little orthogonal to what's before us? Because we already set up this structure, and they they can partner. Are you just getting you're just getting broad context

for us

to understand?

Well, I'm giving broad context because of questions that have come up inside the audit committee since it got set up. I mean Got it. It may not be Tanner is giving you recommendations about how to improve the charter. There are some baseline questions about how effective it is at all with or without the changes. Right?

Because and some of that has to do with who gets selected as the auditor and what their role is and what the in my view, what the committee's role is in kind of overseeing that auditor and coordinating with the with the administration about, you know, having kind of some shared vision about what the auditor does.

I'm gonna give a few examples of just broadly why I think the audit committee is important. So, in recent months, the hot the fraud hotline, we had one tip about an employee, And we're still looking into that if that's, you know, even relevant or valid. But somebody sent a sent a tip in that said, hey. This employee is using their position, you know, whatever. And then we had another one about a department that we need to look at.

And so those are coming to the audit committee. Well, they weren't. For some reason, they were they weren't being typically, they would come to us, but I think there was a glitch in the system and we weren't getting them. But but those are coming to the audit committee, and it gives us the opportunity as kind of an outsider to take a look and say, hey. Is this something relevant, something we need to look at in more detail, in more depth, something we should be concerned about? I I think if those go to the administration, then you have the the fox guarding the henhouse, so to speak. Right? You're these are these are concerns about the, you know, administration. And they're we don't know if they're valid or relevant or just just know, guys. Like, we get all sorts of stuff.

But it's the ability for us as kind of an A check. Checking a balance on that. Right? And if you do a way of, you don't have that. Not to mention, we also, like, Jeff Miles, our auditor, external auditor who audits the financials, HPE, I think, is the name of their firm. You know, we can be a check and a balance on that. Like, are we just hiring the same guy every time because he get you know, tells us what we wanna hear, or are we are we, you know, going out to bid legitimately and and taking in entertaining out of So it's just a it's just a checking of balance. It's another set of eyes. I think there's a lot of value in it. So I don't wanna overcomplicate it and say, like, you know, well, how how effective is it even?

And I would rather have it and have it maybe be only so effective than not have it at all, right, is my 2¢. But

But, counselor, Will, like, I I mean, I think you may you raised a good point. I talked about a lot of stuff. It's not necessarily what's in front of you. It's because there's been a lot of questions over the last six months. Right. Travis was asking me a bunch of these questions happening anymore, so I kinda went off. Right.

I'll Yeah. Frame work. Just wanted clarity. Mostly, I wanted clarity on what does the state what authority power does the state give us, and it's basically not. So

But why is it not? I mean, he's saying that

It should be clarified. But

He's saying that we can do whatever audit we want.

I think the difference being We can attempt to

We can ask to do. Yeah. So so the county and the state, they can do whatever they want or within certain bounds, and nobody can say no. Unfortunately for us, that's not advice.

Right to the information effectively.

To access unfettered access to certain things, and we don't.

So, Brian, could we codify some of this and say, okay.

The state would Then we have to be in state.

It's gotta be the state that does it. We can't codify here.

Yeah. I mean, I think we could I mean, we have a lot of positions that are defined in our code. If we wanted to create a position and define it in code, we certainly could. We can't I mean, it but on the other hand, the the specific prohibition on the council that says you may not direct executive branch staff, that is in state code and would supersede it all. It supersede anything that we did, so we couldn't codify something that violates that principle.

Right.

But we could

certainly clarify some things. I do wanna say we haven't really had any problems with the administration, like, working with us on the audit committee. So, you know, we're it's kind of like, let's make some improvements, keep doing things that we're doing them, and if they needed to change in the future, they could. I don't think anything's broken right now is what I'm saying. Like, I don't I think we were just more so doing some housekeeping and cleanup on how we define things. Right? And who does what. But, Craig, did that answer your question?

Sure. Yeah. Sure. Actually actually, yes. It's very it's very helpful. And, I guess my response would be, as a citizen, I want an independent audit. I I want someone looking. I don't care if the state requires it or not. Just because it's not required doesn't mean it wouldn't be prudent for a a city like Provo or every city to take a a higher standard, especially when it comes to how we use tax dollars. So I applaud the good work that's going on in terms of the audit committee, and I would encourage us to instead of asking the question, what's required?

I think we ought to be asking the question, what would be in the best interest of the citizens and an independent auditor who is looking anywhere and everywhere. And as a check and balance, I think is good for the administration. I think it's good for the council. I think it's good for the city just overall. I I appreciate what we've what we've done, and I would I think we could do even more.

Yeah. And let me let me clarify, and probably everybody was jumping up ready to say this that the state does does require that we do hire an external independent auditor for the financial side of to look at the finances, the city's finances. So that is there. Where there isn't clarity is regarding anything outside of that. So, yeah, that's that's the issue.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay.

I I have I have just a couple questions about sort of the changes before us. So previously, we require the composition of the body required at least two members of the public. Correct. Now we could have two councilors and one member of the public. That's correct. Could you explain the thoughts on that? Were we having a hard time getting people? Like, generally, I think Qualified. Yeah. I'm just curious about that.

Yeah. I think the ability to have more or or fewer members of the public is just a matter of flexibility depending on what the pool of applicants would be for those members of the public for the public positions.

Well, from a governance standpoint, though, you want to ensure that the council members are the majority vote

Right.

On the audit committee because we're the ones that are elected and have invested interest. Right? So you would never want one council member and two members of the public, and then all of a sudden, you know, the the audit committee is kind of dictated by public only, not the people that ultimately should be part of or ultimately in control, I'll say this, in control of governing the audit committee. Right? It should be council members. So right now, we have two members on the audit committee from the council. Yep. And so only one, the member of the public, to ensure that the the governance is still in the hands of the council. But we could go to three, and then we could have two members of the public, which would be ideal, but then we just need somebody to volunteer from the council.

Or three in one.

Okay. Just

not saying we need you, but just throwing these out there is, like, having a concept of, like, a observer could be an interesting concept. Like, a lot of times in boards, you have you have board observers who are there and can be part of the conversation but don't have voting rights. Okay. That could be a way to have more public Yeah. Kind of input, but not have them have control.

You would just wanna be sure that the observer would observe the confidentiality and other things in the discussions that are mentioned in the charter as well if they have that position. And I also suppose that if we were, like, right now in an adversarial position against the administration, there is a lot that the audit committee could do with Grammar request and gathering information that very adversarial way to help perform their audit. Sure. That would be more expensive and more fun for the lawyers, but

That's fun.

That that would be the workaround if there really is no possibility of cooperation.

I I agree. My suspicion is that, you know, again, if we're looking out at the edges Yeah. Or if we're looking at the edge cases, probably a lot of the documents that you would want in the edge case would be protected.

Yeah. Your position would be fun then.

Yes. That would be fun. Well, fortunately, I don't review the grammar. Alright.

Terrific. So, if Jeremy, if it's okay, I could just if I can just directly address Craig's earlier question about the qualifications. So, councilor Christensen, I'm just pointing to the internal audit standards. This is, just in what's called the red book. And it says while the global internal audit standards apply to all audit functions, auditors in the public sector working in in political environment under governance, organizational, and funding structures that may differ from the private sector, these differences may affect how audit functions apply to standards.

And I also pulled up this paragraph here, which says, while the list which includes, to Craig's point, the ideal of them being a certified internal auditor. While that list includes ideal competencies and qualifications, the chief audit executive may be selected for other qualities or areas of expertise that are supplemented by the competencies of other members of the internal audit function. So if the council executive director, for example, were to go out into contract with a consultant who has auditing experience, the director would be connected to the areas of risk that the council has pointed out, the priority areas that the committee wants to study, and then they would also lean and work with people with actual auditing experience in order to lead that team. So, hopefully, that also kind of addresses your concern there,

That's helpful. Thank you.

Awesome.

Another question I had was so with the council director being also the director effectively of the audit committee, do we I didn't see, like, a refusal process or some other do we need to spell that out if, for example, there's a conflict of interest as the audit committee is looking into things?

An interesting question. If there's a personal conflict conflict of interest, I think that would, in most cases, be covered under other areas of statute because the counselor or the council executive director's area of, like, super supervisory influence would be limited to our branch of government, while the auditee organizations would be in the other branch of government. I don't see any problem with trying to explore in language to to cover that. I imagine that would be covered by other areas of statute, but I can't say for sure.

Everything

he does has to be approved by the council chair.

I can see a world too whereas that, you know, fringe scenario too where the administration isn't it wants to look at the finances of the council budget or something like that. You know? I don't know. Like, it's it's just hard. It's hard because we don't have no. There's no explicit controls lined out. You know? Savory.

But still, I think it's down to finance, right, which is under them. Yeah. And even our our budget, our expenses, and everything goes through them. So I would say, in a way, they kind of audit us anyway.

Yeah. I guess what I would say, we we can definitely look into that and see if there there would be something to add to the charter under city employment. City employees also do sign confidentiality and gosh. What's the word on the Conflict of interest. Conflict of interest disclosure.

So I think that would if that gives any kind of comfort, that is there. We can look at expanding that language. But also spelled out in the charter, council office employees, and whatever you wanna call this position, to it. Direction is taken from the audit committee and then kinda taking a step back in the council role from council leadership and the council of the body. So there's never a perfect scenario, I will say.

You never you never know who people are, but I think there are adequate controls in place for that, but have to look into that more. Yeah.

K.

So What

did you look into this year?

So we started looking at the 03/11. We're looking at 03/11, but we didn't make it through due to a variety of things that ought to be completed. So have a few ideas for the upcoming year, probably, to talk we would talk about it in that closed session.

And business license fees

to some extent? But did we talk didn't we talk about that?

We did. We talked a little bit about how the council had prioritized this licensing and code enforcement process review as fitting under this, but the audit committee still wanted to look for another project or or audit project that would fit within that scope of whether it be an internal audit or performance audits or some other type. So, that's ongoing, and the RFP is out currently, but still look pretty.

Yeah. Good. Good. You know, you kinda asked me that question. It brings up a good point that it's probably a conversation we should be having more with the full body of the council of, like, what do we wanna what do we wanna look at this year for internal audit?

You know, maybe the audit committee comes up with two, three, four ideas in conjunction with the administration and bring that to the council in a closed session maybe to discuss if if there's something sensitive. Right? Because sometimes there is. But this year, we we because of some of the issues around lack of clarity, we we had some issues with the internal audit and the contract and such, so it didn't didn't get done, unfortunately. But that's why we're hoping to clean some of this up so that we can move forward a little more smoothly in the future.

But to your point earlier, Craig and and sorry, Tanner, to hijack your presentation. No. It's on me. But the this council is the decision body to recommend to the audit committee. How many members do you want? Should we go to five? Add another counselor? Yeah. How much budget should be allocated? Are there areas you want the audit committee to focus on?

We could do audits all

year if you wanted to. You know, if you wanted to allocate the budget, we'll give you five or six. Right? I mean, it's all a matter of we don't have to just do one thing and one thing only. It could be it could be an on more of an ongoing function. Knowing that the more we direct, the the more budget we would need to Yeah.

Fund or allocate. I do I do think that Travis councilor Hogan's last point actually makes a lot of sense, though. If the committee if the committee came up with ideas, brought them to the council, the council approved them, and then the committee executed them. That actually, I think, would resolve a lot of the issues that I talked to them before as far as establishing legitimacy of the of the of what's happening.

Yeah. If

nothing else, just make sure we're on the same page.

I I really agree with that. I think it makes a lot of sense to like, because it effectively gives us legitimacy from the council, having kind of the official council, you know, into its seems like good governance. Absolutely.

Perfect. Well, the only other things that I prepared to talk about were the general principles of the auditing that I've heard concerns from counselors in the past, independence, the prioritization of audits, risk assessments, including input from the council. So because we're coming up on time, I don't see a lead necessarily to push on that, but you can talk to me anytime unless you like me to continue. But other than that, I feel if if if the committee is satisfied to consider this in a night meeting, that's the proposal.

Do we need to add to this? Do we need to add the process of talking about it and voting on?

I like that idea.

I think that'd be a good amendment or update to these proposed

kinda codify that codify that. I mean, not that it couldn't happen before, but if it's in there, it's more likely to we'll be consistent with it.

Are you talking about I just wanna make sure I'm clear about, like, having council input on the risk assessment.

Okay. The council input on the scope of the audit, we'll call audit charter Yeah. Audit yeah. Sorry. I'm sort of

like it's audit priorities for The plan. The plan.

Yeah. Was looking for the right word. The audit plan for the year.

Yeah. Okay.

I can make those make sure they're in there for the night meeting.

And Craig has a comment.

Go ahead, Craig.

I was just going to say I would also like the idea of us having further discussion discussion about it. Anything we can do to create greater transparency, greater efficiency, I think is is time and money well spent. So I'm I'm very supportive of continuing this discussion. Terrific.

And I just wanna say thanks to the council and the administration for making the audit of internal audit function a priority. I mean, we're one of the few cities who's doing it, and I think that's great. I really think that's commendable. So

I have a quick question.

So in having the audit committee check-in with the rest of the council and doing the plan, is that something that we would want to just do by email or that we would want to do in a work meeting? Because I could imagine that the items that we may want to investigate could potentially be sensitive.

Some of them would be yeah.

They I think it probably depends on the on the subject.

So it could be a closed session too then?

Could be. I mean, there's very limited number of things that we can talk about in a closed session. A lot of things that might be the subject in the audit probably wouldn't qualify. So I think it's ultimately gonna depend on the topic. I think that's probably something for the audit committee as they come forward with recommendations and stuff. Let's let's talk amongst themselves and say, okay. How are we gonna present these recommendations to the rest of the panel?

Right. And maybe take that to council leadership for the decision as whether or not it needs to be a big meeting type of thing or k.

Yeah. We need a we

need a motion on this for my meeting consideration, or are we good to go?

It's not code.

K. I mean, I don't know.

Okay. Previously, the council had adopted the two charters by resolution, so we can bring those back by resolution for an update.

Alright. Any questions for Tanner before he goes? Alright. Thank you, Tanner.

And

the application process is open for counselors to join the audit committee.

Wait. It's not bad. I'm just Fine.

I'll I'll observe it. I'm not gonna do it That's good.

It must be. Yeah. Seems to really. Yeah. That's funny. Alright. Next presentation regarding conservation. Alright. Sented by Winnie Fisher, executive director. He is director of mutual consent.

Welcome back, Wendy.

Thank you. Who said that?

Oh, okay.

I was like, wow. I'm so glad I'm here. Do we have okay.

Had a episode.

Oh, alright.

Good. This here is this your slide?

These are the slides. Yes. Look at that. The computer decided to. So some of you counselors, witnessed a very similar presentation, oh, boy, almost a year ago.

I'm Wendy Fisher. I am and the executive director of Utah Open Lands. I've actually been with the organization for thirty seven years, now. What Utah Open Lands does as an organization is we hold conservation easements primarily with the purpose of protecting agricultural, recreational, wildlife, scenic, and open space resources throughout the state. And, we work with a range of landowners, a lot of private landowners, that we work with, but then we also work with various different government entities.

So I've given a very short list here of some of the different governmental partners that we've worked with in the protection of open space, everything from Wasatch Mountain State Park, where we protected about a thousand acres. The Jean and we Dean Weeden Farm Park is actually now with Salt Lake County, all the way to Bridal Veil Falls, which, of course, many of you may remember that we worked with Utah County. And right here in Provo City, we worked on Bunnell's Fork. Yeah. Can I do this?

Yes. It should work.

I'm assuming the well, one of the buttons are gonna work. So, again, here's just a list. I'll try to speed my presentation up so that you can get on track with where you're at in terms of the agenda. But we have worked with a number of different agencies that range from city to county to state, government agencies, including groups like the Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands. And one of the first conservation easements that was ever placed on a state owned piece of property was the Snake Creek Conservation Easement.

And here you can see, the governor of the state of Utah signing that back in 1995. Just to give you a little bit of background in Utah Open Lands, we were established in 1990. We were the first local land trust in the state of Utah. We are a five zero one c three public charity with special designation under one seventy h, which usually is not a huge issue with respect to working with government entities. But one seventy h really clarifies what a conservation purpose is for public benefit.

And I think that's important to understand is that is part of what the public benefit is all about when you do a conservation easement. From my perspective, I feel like I'm in my home territory because I grew up in Utah County. I used to ride my horse. Actually, it was a different one. But I used to ride my horse through the orchards with permission, and all the way up into the foothills.

And one of the reasons that I became dedicated to doing open space preservation in the state is because I do believe that our long term term economic vitality is tied to our quality of life. And a huge part of that quality of life are our open spaces. If there was any better statistic for it, just look at 2,020. When we were dealing with pandemic, we saw a 300% increase in the amount of people utilizing our open spaces. But, increasingly, what we see is even when you look at things like the outdoor recreation grants that are available throughout the state, there is increasing funding put into the state trails and recreation and those sorts of open space funding by the legislature because they recognize that the people that come to our state of Utah are really attracted, whether they're business, visitors, people who want to live here because of our great outdoors.

And so it does make sense from a long term economic, perspective to do that. And additionally, from a personal perspective, when I look at the places that I used to go when I was a young kid, we're losing some of those. And I think that they're really vital, really as as our entire civilization grows here in the state of Utah. So what is a conservation easement? This is definition that comes out of, different places through the Utah code.

I chose the best one, I thought. But it bay basically is an encumbrance on the landscape. I think that there have been questions in the past, and I certainly want to continue to answer those questions. But I think one of the things that's important to understand is you are not giving Utah Open Lands the land. We are not gonna become owners of the land that Provost City owns When we talk about Slate Canyon or we talk about something like Bunnell's Fork, you're essentially giving us an obligation.

You are giving us an obligation to ensure the protection of these landscapes in perpetuity, And for that, we have to defend these landscapes. It was interesting not to throw you back to your previous conversation, but to listen to that element of independence. And I think what Utah Open Lands provides in conservation easement from really a government perspective is a little bit of a check and balance. Really, you will remain continue to hold the ultimate power in what you wanna see done with these landscapes. But in making this decision, bless you, what you're really looking at from a city council perspective is saying, this is something that you've seen that your constituents are interested in.

You see this as a long term economic vitality, and maybe you wanna have a little bit of a check to make sure that that stays protected. If down the road there's a real legitimate reason as to why you wouldn't want to have it continue to be protected, there are provisions within a conservation easement that it can allow you to do that, especially you as a government entity. We can talk about that in a minute if you'd like. The other reasons that I think that it makes sense to do conservation easements with an organization like Utah Open Lands is we can partner in management strategies. Just this last Saturday, we were involved in some wildfire mitigation.

We've done an extensive research on forest health. We've done some extensions, research on certain water quality issues. And right now, actually, we own a landscape where we are doing some regenerative agricultural practices, working with various different farm farmers and ranchers that we think actually will apply to even broader land management, priorities. You get that for free. I think some of the other things is, as I've mentioned before, it guards against rash decision, and it guards against private benefits by ensuring the public benefit that accrues from a conservation easement.

And I think it really does codify what it is that the community is looking at. What you'll see in a conservation easement, because hoping hoping that we get to that place, what a conservation easement, you'll see basically, bless you, the intentions that are codified in these recitals. Then you'll also see the what the rights you were giving to Utah Open Lands and all of these things that I've put up here. But I think probably one of the focus points is, one, we have a baseline documentation that identifies what the existing condition of the property is. So this isn't that we're requiring you to enhance it or restore it or any of those sorts of things.

The next part of it in terms of the permitted and the prohibited uses, this is really something that you all as a council along with your staff end up identifying and really visioning for the property. I like to tell people that a lot of times people think that a conservation easement locks in the fate of the land, and yet development locks in the fate of the land far greater than conservation easement would. And if you talk to any farmer who's ever tried to farm or reclaim a property that had been concreted, you'll know that that soil depth is no longer there, for example. And so what when you look at when we go forward and we develop things, there's a lot of visioning that goes through that. Conservation easement, these permitted and prohibited uses, the same sort of idea in terms of coming up with some visioning.

We can also work on a management plan provision. I think when bundle we did Bunnell's Fork, we did not look at a management plan provision in part because your parks and recs and your, public works folks already have some really great visioning and plans that are already in place, and the conservation easement really is intended to mimic that. This is just an example of what you might see in terms of some language with respect to, for example, the baseline documentation, and then this section here, which talks about a master plan. This actually came directly out of a conservation easement that we did for, Bonanza Flats. So if any of you have been up to, the big and little Cottonwood Canyon, you've gone up to the top there, and you've ever hiked to Bloods Lake, that's Bonanza Flats.

We worked with Park City to ensure that 1,500 acres is under a conservation easement. There it is. In that particular instance, we did work on a management plan, and we divided the property into sort of a a a headwaters area, a backcountry area, and a front country area. I think one of the things that's interesting that shows sort of the value of having an organization like Utah Open Lands involved in the protection of a piece of property like this is we actually garnered about $500,000 in funding to allow for trailhead development, trail development. There was an old Yurt platform that has now been totally taken out and reclaimed as what we're calling the Aspen Gathering Place.

We're also working on some interpretive sites that open up some accessibility to this area. And, really, that's one of the successes that we've seen in the partnership that we've had on that particular property. Our role really as an organization is to act as a steward. We provide you with annual, at least, sometimes more than annual reports on the status of the property. We are there as a continual partner in things you might wanna accomplish on the property.

As I mentioned with Park City, we've written numerous grants. We also wrote a grant, for the county when we were working on Bridalve Falls. But, fundamentally, our role is to ensure the terms of the conservation easement are adhered to and that the property itself is continues to, remain as the intentions that are set forth in the conservation easement.

Pretty sure that's my last slide

other than that beautiful picture of Bonnell's Fork. Yes.

K. Any questions for me? I we have most of us have the

Yeah. I know. I I feel a little bad for you. But

So Jeff or or if you have questions or

So did you say I thought I caught if they needed to, they could get out of this?

Is that what you said?

There are provisions within the conservation easement. For example, you could condemn it. You're a city. You have condemnation powers.

We could condemn our own property?

You could condemn the conservation easement. That's a Well,

I mean, that's up to you. So the the easement itself is a property right. You could condemn that property right. It's it essentially results in what's called merger where all the rep right now, with with the conservation easement, the rights are being held by the underlying property owner and the easement owner. And through condemnation, you would merge those rights back into each other.

You'd be gathering your whole bundle of sticks.

Right. Rachel's bundle of sticks. Okay. So then tell me if we hold the power to bond us in an easement and we also hold the power to get us out of an easement, why go with the easement in the first place?

Again, I I find it interesting that you had that conversation from an auditing perspective. Right? I think that, fundamentally, it's not gonna be an easy process. It's not like you get to wave your hand and say, okay. We agreed to get into this. Now we're gonna agree to get out of it. There is a process, and that process gets outlined in the conservation easement. So it really becomes one of those check and balances. I think it becomes a part of the transparency, in terms of a piece of property. The reason we got involved with Brideville Falls is it was headed for development, and nobody actually knew that there was a developer that was bidding on the development of it.

We've seen that similarly with the Galena Suncani property down along the Jordan River, large piece of open space in the Jordan River. I actually worked with the legislator who put the legislation in place to see that 250 acres protected. Several news news articles about ten years later, and a developer had gotten onto a public authority that had some authority over that area and wanted to see that land exchanged and taken out, which had a 4,000 a 4,000 year old archaeological site on it and developed. So it becomes basically a check and balance, on some of those similar things, I think, in terms of the quest conversation you're having even in terms of why have an independent auditor. It basically provides, one, the vision for what you wanna see move forward with this piece of property.

Not all property is gonna be the same. And I think, actually, last time I was here, we we had a you know, we had a good conversation. I think you had some really good points about not all of these properties are properties that would be appropriate for a conservation easement. And I think the one that's being brought forward, Slate Canyon is one that has, again, watershed resources, recreational resources that really fit hand in glove with the concept of a conservation easement. And so, essentially, what you're doing is you're just really codifying and identifying what the intention of the city is for its constituents and for this landscape with respect to honoring the protection of those recreational values.

That's what I see from having been doing this for thirty seven years as as why I mean, there's not because sometimes I ask my question, why do I go to work every day to do all of this? Because it isn't like you're giving an asset to Utah OpenLands. But I have I've seen the other side of it, and I think that we should have at least a little bow around certain sticks that you really have to intentionally untie if you're gonna bring those sticks back in and you're gonna potentially destroy the protection of the piece.

Have you ever I mean, you guys have been in use of thirty seven years? Yes. Have you guys ever had one undone? Nope. K. Thanks.

We have not.

Marsha's@Hope.com.

Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who had this vision and has worked so hard. I know that there's been a lot of time and effort put into it. I think it's really important to protect our spaces. You said it great, so I didn't wanna take a ton of time. But I just wanna say I'm really happy and excited to be able to support this effort.

Wendy, what's that picture of?

It's done for

vinyl spork. There's a oh my gosh. She was throwing me. Like, I thought it was vinyl spork, but I saw the electrical lines, and I saw the little trailer below it. I thought it had a

Gondola?

I thought it had a gondola. I'm like Oh, wow.

That's Vietnam. You

were scaring me. I was like, wait a minute.

Yeah. I was like, where is this? I swear it was. Thank you. Alright. Well, thanks, man.

It. That's up at Bridalville. Yeah.

Chair McKay? Yes.

Just a couple other thoughts with councilor Bodwin's question before. I agree entirely with Wendy that condemning something is harder than just putting it on the surplus property list and selling it. So it would take longer. It would be more public processed. The other two reasons why it's harder is because you can only condemn for certain purposes. Oh. So under state law, you can't just condemn any purpose that that you can think of. And two, if you do condemn, you have to pay the property right holder the fair market value of the property right that you're taking away from. So it would be both a cost and limitations on what the state would allow you to do it for.

Now wait.

So, yes, you property rights have values even not just property has value. Property rights have value. So easements have monetary value, and so you can't so where you're going with this, I think, if look at your basis, you could end up giving away a property right for free and having to pay to get it back if you decided to condemn it.

Just just give me a ballpark figure on what an easement

10%? Value. And I think gen generally speaking, like, if, like, if I had if if I had a big, if I had a residential lot in Provo and my neighbor needed access to drive his car across it, generally speaking, charging him 10% of the of the value of the property to give the easement across my property would be kind of a standard

situation. And In that case, Brian, that doesn't make any sense because we would be buying it back from ourselves.

Well, but you're not because you don't hold the easement. You're giving the easement to Utah Open Land. So if you condemn it from them, you have to pay them for the right that you're taking away from them.

So that's that's the disincentive to take it out of an easement?

Yes.

And and I will just jump in having worked with your staff, and I know, Tara and I have had this conversation. You you you can't the way that we have worked with Provo City to draft these, it is not a huge amount as they're saying it's that 10%. Obviously, when we've worked with private landowners, depending on how that is set up, there is potentially like, if they're taking a tax deduction and, therefore, they're receiving a value for it, the percentage of what that property rights holds to the overall value can be quite a bit greater. But I think that, you know, I know Tara was involved in that very much in terms of making sure that the that the way that it was written, it's enough of a safeguard, but it's not that you are giving it's it's it's a pretty I'm not gonna say a nominal amount, but it's it's a it's a pretty small amount, quite frankly, in comparison to even what we've done with Park City. Typically, the percentage of the property right that they end up giving to Utopa lands through the conservation easement is quite a bit larger.

And there are many different raise reasons for that, everything from open space bonds and things like that, which is not the case here, so I don't really wanna go into it. But I saw your face too, and I don't wanna have it seem like you are giving us this huge value that then you're gonna have to buy back. It's just enough that it creates that dis disincentive. So, Brian, we only have to buy it back if we don't condemn

it for one of the reasons that the state allows us to condemn it for?

No. No. I'm saying the part of the condemnation so let's move out of conservation easiness for a little bit just to be more simple. So if you wanna build a road and you condemn somebody's property, the private citizen's property in order to build the road, you must pay them the fair market value of the property. That same principle applies here.

If you give away a property right in this case, an easement, whether it's a conservation easement or not, let's say it was let's say it's not a conservation easement just for simplicity, and it's like the one I just said a minute ago. It's just an easement to cross somebody's property. If you later want to build a electric substation on that property and you want to take the the easement that lets the person drive across it back from them, you can condemn it, but you have to pay them the fair market value of The easement. The right of the easement right.

Okay. So we have built in our conservation easement that we have the right to build substations. We have the right to build parks. We have the right to build I can speak.

Yeah. I that's the next item.

This one this one, we haven't necessarily done yet. But, yes, generally speaking, we're gonna preserve most and and this is where, in some ways, it's again, it's it's kind of a hypothetical nonstarter. Right? Because the intent would be to build almost all public purposes into the conservation easement so we could do them anyway, and nonpublic purposes are the kinds of things that the state wouldn't allow us to condemn for anyway. So the idea that we would We

can sell it to somebody to build a subdivision on.

Correct. That's not something that you can condemn for under Utah law.

K. Thank you. Alright. Thanks, Wendy. K. Perfect. Glad there's not a gondola over there. Yeah. Next, we'll hear from Malia on a presentation regarding specifically a Slate Canyon conservation easement. Thank

you, Wendy, for the intro to conservation easements. This is specifically for Slate Canyon Conservation Easement. And I'm just gonna jump ahead really quick so we can orient to where we are talking about. So green green shaded parcels are city owned parcels. Internally. So here's the state hospital, and then Slate Canyon, and then this is Slate Canyon Drive.

The State or State Street or something like

so these are all city owned parcels up here. It totals 115. Well, 115 acres have been recommended by the committee for the easement. The city also owns this parcel here. This is 47 acres, and the working group that has been working on this is not recommending that, which I'll talk to in a second. Anyway, these are this is where we're talking about. I also have this picture. This is currently designated as Lake Canyon Park. So all those parcels minus south of, say, Cheniere right here, and then

the one parcel that's just

a little bit more. So there's nothing recommended south of, like, Canada Drive?

For The Eastman.

Currently, it is included, and we can I'll talk to that in a sec. Is included just because it's all one parcel, but we can change that if you would like.

Okay. Going

back. So this is going to be a really I'll go quick, and then if counselors Christianson and Whitloff would like to jump in. This originally came as an issue sponsor request from counselors Whitlock and Christianson to just discuss potential conservation easement on Slate Canyon. So we met along with a lot of staff from the administration from almost every city department, and the mayor's office to kinda discuss our initial concerns, what we're excited about, what we're not, if there's, things to take into consideration what went well during the bundles for conservation easement, what we wanna change, who do we wanna partner with. So after all of that, we came to this idea of a Slate Canyon conservation easement to place the city owned parcels we just discussed into an easement with the city as the landowner and then Utah and Lands as the easement holder.

This is through the same section of code that we used for bundles, which allows the city to provide nonmonetary assistance to nonprofits without receiving fair market value compensation for that. We just have to do a public benefit study, which we did for. So that would just allow us to then, put the prop those property rights into easement. We have talked to Conservita Valley, a local nonprofit, who has offered to cover the initial stewardship costs of placing this into an easement, which is around $10,000. So that'd be another partnership in this.

They've offered to fundraise and pay those initial costs. And then the why behind this, it supports a lot of goals in our master plans, and then it's also support from counselors Whitlock and Christiansen. This is a simple process. So first, after if we there is a motion of the majority of the council here in this meeting to go forward with this process, then this is what that would look like. So you'd have an MOU between Provo City and Utah Open Lands that would just say, the city is not going to offer monetary funds for this now or ongoing, but that we want to enter into a conservation easement with you.

And we've already spoken with legal, and they would work through that for us. And then we'd work on drafting the easement. So this would involve administration, legal, public works, parks and rec, development services, fire, Utah open lands, just to make sure every consideration is taken when drafting that easement. I can speak to when we were drafting the Bunnells Fork Easement, we went through the parks and rec master plan, the public works master plan. Public works really was great about visioning what they might need as far as watershed needs and different infrastructure. Parks talked about, well, what if we went fully? We wanted a huge park. We went all the way. Like, what that would look like. Made sure that was in there.

Made sure that the city had everything it needed to manage that land according to our master plans. So the same thing here when we're talking in our working group, multiple representatives from development services, public works, and parks were all there making sure that water infrastructure, street infrastructure, easements with there are a lot of in this map, there are a lot of other public utilities from other some private companies, Rocky Mountain Power, Enbridge, the state, others who already have easements on the land. Already working on a coordination plan with them to make sure that that is all taken into account when drafting the easement, making sure it's also in line with parks and rec master plan for Slate Canyon Park and the visions that they have there. So that is all being taken into account. Along with drafting the easement, we'd also be drafting a public interest valuation study.

The council staff would take that on and have that reviewed by administrative staff to make sure we're not missing anything there. And then finally, it would come to a resolution to the city council to authorizing the city to place the property into an easement, including a notice public hearing, which is what we did with Bunnells.

Okay. I do have a suggestion request. Okay. I this this is slated to be a park one day. One day. Yes. One day. And we did take out the provision that they could sell off pieces of this in order to pay for the park. Correct. So I don't want people to come and say, okay.

Now that we put this in a conservation easement, we're getting a park tomorrow. I I don't want that to come across when we do this. I I want them to realize that funding for parks is few and far between, and it could be decades before they would even get a park on this land. And by putting it in a conservation easement that kills any idea in the future that any portion of it could be sold off to be placed as money back towards the park. Because I think that also needs to be in their cognitive space.

That today or yesterday, we fought against someone that came and gave a proposal to the city council, and it didn't even make it anywhere. I don't even think they filed anything with the city. Right? It was just insane. But, and we did that because of the response, but I also want it very clear given to them that that doesn't mean that you're gonna get your park tomorrow and that this option will be taken out for future generations to even have that option to get money for a park? Because there are some parts of this that are buildable. Correct? Some of it is just not in the

There are slim portions. Most of it is above 30% grade, so it's not buildable.

Even West Of Slate Canyon there in the north part?

On this part? Yeah. There's some parts up here that are

West West Of Slate Canyon? There. Yeah. There you go. That section there.

This part, works. They mentioned that this is, like, all infrastructure, that this would be a basin, water. It would all be for Doesn't it kinda, like, gully? Right now, there's a big hole with, like, satellites in it. And Right.

So is there a plan to just fill it up,

or is there a plan to just not He's not

sure of their plan,

but I can follow-up and get back to you on that. But I know in our discussions, they talked about the amount of public infrastructure work that needs to be done in this area is a lot in their master plan.

Yeah. We had initially discussed, and part of the initial proposal was having that small sliver of a property on the side of, like, Canyon Drive, trying to, like, consider, splitting that parcel and not including it. But then public works came back with that feedback, so we didn't push forward with doing that. There is, you could argue, like, a little bit a little tiny bit in the kind of the the northwest corner of it that potentially if if I can see on it's like this area here.

I have Like this area. Okay.

Yeah. Where you potentially could sell and build that land, but it's very, very small.

It's kind of how would

you get to it?

And if there's a nice bike course on it now.

Oh, is there?

Yeah. That I use that. I love riding on with my kids. But so

When when you say that that sliver is infrastructure, like, explain a little more what they wanna do with that or what they will be doing with that in social security. A a lot of

this is a large basin.

Yeah. I mean, I I just I know there's satellite dishes in there. And

They're do water they wanna do a water retention basin.

Yeah. Okay. That's my

So, like, with Buckley Draw, they're building a huge basin down Bicentennial Park for their Slate Canyon.

This is the same, like, half of the water.

So we're looking at, like, a little reservoir, or are we looking at maybe storm water retention?

I do not know. I can get details and get back to you, though.

My understanding is when when we had that flooding, it was, like, twenty, thirty years ago, that that a lot of infrastructure was put in so that because if you have a very, very heavy snow year, that's Lake Canyon runs quite aggressively, and then they started flooding down 3rd South.

I would go ahead, Craig.

No. Go ahead. I'll go after you.

I've had multiple residents speak to me about how they wish there was more recreational places to, like, eat and sit, enjoy food and stuff. Like, they've talked about how you can go up to Immigration Canyon and do things. You can go up different canyons and have these like, we just have Sundance. It's always busy. It's hard to get into. I'm so curious, Wendy, talking about a conservation easement. Like, I remember eating it at Rainbow Falls back in the day. You know? You can't do that anymore. Like, does a conservation easement total like, we went to Mill Creek Palmetz.

I love how they have food incorporated into that whole thing, in their park. And and I wonder if does a conservation easement negate the city having a food thing or selling popsicles? Or So I

can speak to in the Bunnells Fort Conservation Easement, we said that the management plan of that will follow the Parks and Rec and Public Works master plans. That was kind of the management plan we built into that. Similarly, Parks and Rec and Public Works have requested that for this easement as well. So Parks and Rec master plan for Slate Canyon Park would include a concession stand or, like Okay. So does it have to be

written in stone now? It could be a plan that

we have. It would have to within the uses that are outlined in the conservation easement. But Parks was involved in these discussions and wants to make sure that this is a featured amenity of the city.

So Is it, like, today's master plan, or does this conservation easement change with each master plan every five years?

Changes. Okay.

So that is built in.

So it's in it's in conversation, and we're working with Utah Open Lands on our master plan in these parks to make sure

So in fifty years from now, if they decide, hey. We want just this big old food truck pad up there, that's still gonna be permissible.

Well, I'll let Wendy speak to that.

She can speak to Wendy is is on the, Go ahead. So

so, again, I think as Malia is pointing out, we don't have the best answers because we're still going through kind of discussing what the terms would be. But, yes, every management plan that we've done, with government entities, what we call an adaptive management plan. And so it adheres to the general principles. Right? So you wouldn't be able to do something in the master plan in the future that was a private benefit oriented idea.

But you would be able to do certain adaptations that, again, follow through with the overall goal. And I think as we experienced with Bunnells Fork, there's already quite a bit of vision within the city as it stands for how they'd like see some of these recreation areas move forward really to respond to what residents want. And that would be something that we could even build into the adaptive element of this adaptive management plan. So that, I think, is part of the answer. I think also with Bridleville, I think there you're there was built into that particular easement.

You may see some of those concessions, and you may see some of those things come back into the future. Part of it was funding in in some areas that were, I wanna say, blight, that that had not functioned very well for a while. So a lot of those things need to come into place as you were just mentioning. Right? There seems to be this area that has maybe less conservation value to it just because of some of the debris that's already there.

Well, how that gets visioned into the future is something absolutely we can put into the conservation easement. It the way I like to think about it is really what we're trying to provide are these these major guardrails. And as long as we're okay with what those major guardrails are, we can kind of work within that. So I think that's fundamentally what, as I understand it, is gonna be brought back to counsel is what are the major guardrails of this conservation easement? And then it's up to you all to say, well, within those guardrails, do we have enough adaptability to accomplish the things that we think are gonna be necessary for residents, you know, a hundred years from now.

Yeah. Like, in Southern California, there's a beach we love to go to. I cannot think of the name, but it's a state park. But you go down, it has one restaurant Oh, exactly. That's packed twenty four seven. But, like, my my in laws can't walk well, and they can't. But they can go there and sit and look at the sunset and watch the beach for it's, like, their happy place. Right? And there's people who wanna enjoy. So that restaurant makes money. It's a profit center, it has to be. But it's in a state park. And so those kind of things could be written into it.

Yeah. And I think the the best example of that is is we've looked at some of the projects along, for example, the Jordan River. If there's some of those same

There's lots of space.

And

You might because you want people to be drawn in. And, again, it's it's all within the flexibility of saying, here are, you know, the major guardrails. I think there are probably gonna be things as we look at Slate Canyon that the community wants to be able to say, no. We would never wanna see that. But, you know, are there gonna be improvements to the bike park?

Sure. You know, are there certain improvements that, you don't wanna see? All of those things become conversations that you have, and I think part of it is looking at not a real estate is gonna be able to provide everything for every person, but if you look at where it is in terms of the place, who's gonna be attracted to it, what the goal is, as I understand it from Provo City, is to really ensure that this meets what what you all see as future needs for the recreation values that are part of the purpose.

K. Thanks. Councilor Whitlock. One one bit

of context in this vein that might be helpful is when we were meeting, doing our working sessions on this. Parks, for example, wanted to they had in their plan this idea to host a, I I believe I got this right, a Frisbee golf tournament that is quite large because, know, they're a Frisbee golf course in this area, that was something that we were going to ensure that could be compatible with how this was drafted up. And that and they would bring vendors for a short period of time. Obviously, they're just temporary, but that's an example.

Yeah. You want festivals. You want people to do things and have

K. Movies in the park.

And That'd be a bumpy. That'd a bumpy. I've not been Very steep. But I feel like I know it's

To Trees?

Yes. To Trees?

Oh, sorry. Councilor Christensen.

Yeah. I'd like to just jump in and say every once in a while, we have a chance to make a significant difference in the city. And when we can take a beautiful piece of land like this that's already up in the hills, it's already the mouth of Slate Canyon, very little of it is commercial grade, you know, that could be built on. What this signals is a commitment to our citizens that we're serious about maintaining what makes Provo so incredibly unique. And so this is not a loss for the city.

This is not, you know, a a trade. It's not even an equal trade. This is such a gain for us because for generations, we maintain this with all of the wonderful things we just talked about. Yes. It can it can include amenities. It can make sure that it addresses all of the needs of the city, but what it will prevent is it from being overdeveloped, and it will keep it as a as a wonderful gateway to Slate Canyon. I I just so I'm so grateful for everyone who's worked hard to, to make this happen, and I think will be a a tremendous gift to generations and generations to come.

Thanks, Craig. Yeah. This is a no brainer, and it's something that the council's always been supportive of. Councilor Whitlock.

Yeah. One one other comment to this effect that, I think is helpful is I had a I've had a lot of conversations with constituents about this, and I think a lot of them recognize that given the infrastructure needs, the park is a long ways out. Maybe if we're really successful in our economic development, it won't be as far out as it could I think, but it's a long ways out. And I think to them, the city doing this as as setting the vision of, like, this is what this land is for, and we're preserving it for future generations is a is a is a win that they'll be grateful for and and recognizing it may take a long time to actually build a park.

Great. Alright. Any other questions for Malia or Wendy? Or

No. Thank you, Malia.

It was very helpful.

So, Malia, I see you in the next step.

Yes. I was gonna say yes. I was going to next steps. First, we need a council motion, and I was also gonna talk about if there is a council motion of majority support, then we are tentatively planning a public open house at Slate Canyon Park to do education on conservation easements, Slate Canyon, and then a little group hike and snacks.

We always want snacks.

I would make a motion that we move forward.

I'll second it.

Beat me to it.

Alright. We'll take a any comment on the motion? Alright. We will take a vote on the motion. Councilor Garrett?

Yes.

Councilor McKay, yes. Councilor Christensen?

Yes.

Councilor Whitlock?

Yes.

Councilor Bogdan? Yes. Councilor Hoban? Yes. Councilor Whipple? Yes. Alright. That passes seven o.

K. And the open house is June 13. Now that it is planned because he motions.

So efficient.

Thanks, Wendy, and thanks, all the good people from CUV. Alright.

Yeah. We are we are grateful to conserve Utah for paying those fees in covering the administrative part of that. Alright. Next resolution appointing public members to the council standing committee, and this will be presented by Tanner Taguchi.

Thank you, counsel. So back to the business of audit charters.

Do you begin, like, out of line there with

us? How do you

have a break?

Under the current, audit committee charter, as written, it requires that citizen members participate and that they be approved by the council. One member of the current, audit committee will not be returning. Dave Shipley, is unable to Mhmm. Return to his responsibilities. However, Rick Anderson, who is an incumbent member of the committee, has expressed willingness to continue to serve in that role as as citizen member of the audit committee, and the council would just need to be able to approve that.

So I sent a little bit of biographical information in packet about Rick. Those who have more experience with Rick than me can also speak to his experience on the council and his professional life, but that is what

I'll just say he's been he's been he's contributed. He's been active part of the committee. He's added value. So if he wants to continue to serve, I think that's great. If we add another council member, we'd love to add another citizen member to the committee as well. So at some point, maybe we come back and do this again. Sad to see Dave Shipley go. I'm grateful for his service that he provided the committee. He has a good financial mind, and it was nice to have him on there.

True. So there are no other questions about it. It's it's it's other than the the resolution before, there's really no other information that I have to present.

Alright. Next. Presentation regarding the year 2627, budgeted revenue comparison. I think we're running over. Let's take a break now.

I

wasn't speedy enough. No. We're good. Okay. Well, let's get started. Oh, thanks, Kevin. Okay. So f y '27 budgeted revenue comparison. I just want to give you the caveat. These slides were prepared a couple of months ago. So rather than focusing on, like, exact numbers, I think it'd be more beneficial to just focus on some of the trends that we're seeing, which will set the stage for the tentative budget that you'll receive next Tuesday. So as long as we're all on board with that, we'll just keep going.

So I think let's start

with general fund. General fund allocations are, you know, about the same, as we've seen in previous years. Sales tax is our biggest revenue source. Transfers from other funds is right up there, and then the others are, you know, the other half. Oh, sorry.

Going back to this. So the reason why these two revenue sources are kind of highlighted or grayed out is because the city, like, the council and the administration don't have a lot of control over a lot of the general fund revenues. We're really dependent on what's happening in the economy, what taxes are just flowing in from the state, and so on. Property tax, though, and transfers from the utility funds, those are areas that the city has a little bit more direct control over in terms of balancing budgets. And so just wanted to kinda highlight that.

You might say, what about fees? And, yes, we can look at fees, certainly, but there's a ceiling on what we can charge for fees. They can only cover direct costs. And so just something to keep in mind. They're not gonna be generating revenue above what, the direct cost could be.

Is the that's just tax break up?

Yeah. This is the BNC Roads tax. Yes. Exactly. It comes through the general fund and then covers the street's operating budget, and then it flows into the BNC Road for capital projects into that CIP fund. K. This is a property tax bill breakdown from last year, basically. Just good for residents to know, in the f y twenty seven budget, there's no plan for a property tax increase, whether it's general operations or library. So if any of the city's portions go up, it's probably because your property valuation has changed. And so that's that's what the tentative budget would assume for the next year.

And, again, remember, this is an area the city does have control over and influencing, and we're not gonna touch it in the tentative budget. In terms of the utility sales, the transfers to the general fund, if you remember this time last year, there was a proposal that the transfer of utility funds go from 11% of utility revenues to 12 and a half percent as a way to balance. And that was great last year. We're gonna keep it at 12 and a half percent this year. We're not recommending any changes, and so, that's just something to keep in mind going into next week.

The reason why we haven't really had to worry about transfers from other funds or the property tax is because sales tax is looking really strong. It's been looking great for almost twelve months now, and it's amazing. Because last year, when we were preparing the budget, trends were not looking as good. There are a couple reasons why we're seeing this change. The first one, and you may have heard some of this last year, but last year's numbers were kind of weird that we are getting from the state.

There were some abnormalities that we hadn't seen in other years. The first one was there was another taxing entity in Utah that was getting some of our sales tax revenue. And, luckily, John was amazing last year. He was able to identify that this was happening, and we were able to recoup that money later. But it wasn't until about June that we got that money.

And so that's one reason sales tax revenues were down. The other abnormality was that there had been a entity, a business in Provo that had been overpaying sales tax for several years. And the state identified this and understandably, you know, refunded this entity for the overpayment, but it hit Provo all at once in one fiscal year, that reimbursement of what we had received from this entity that was

an overpayment. So k. Counselor hoping Was

that was a large entity then, I assume? It was it wasn't such an impact?

It was an entity that was large, but we can't really go into details on what it was just for privacy of the entity.

Know how that occurred? Was it their fault? Or the

It I think it was the entity's fault. Really?

Like, I

think they overpaid, or there had been something where some of the revenue needed to go out of state, and Utah got more of it, something like that. Anyway, that's probably all I can say on that, but it was an odd situation, and we haven't been seeing that again. And I don't think

What was the impact of that?

Oh, I can't remember. It was

Like, seven figures?

No. We're talking, like, maybe 600,000 if I'm remembering from a year ago. I can get the exact number on the impact,

but That's alright. Just curious. That's interesting.

Of these hits, like, in the fall and you're trying to project out what the rest of the year is gonna look like, it's influencing the projections. Right? And so I know that we had tried to account for that in some degree, but, anyway, it ended up working out better this year for us, and we're very grateful for that. Another reason besides the abnormalities of why sales tax is looking so good this year is in July, the state adopted a new dataset for use for population numbers. So, previously, the state had been if you remember, like, for sales tax distributions, part of it comes from population.

50% is 50 or, like sorry. Part of the sales tax distribution comes from your populate population numbers, and the other part comes from your point of sale. And so the population numbers had previously been derived from US Census Bureau data, and I think people at the state were a little bit unsure of how reliable that 2020 census had been since it happened during COVID. Yeah. So they switched to the Kempsey Gardner Public Institute, over at The U. They switched to those numbers, and it helps Provo. Like, we got a couple extra thousand residents added to our, population for the sales tax allocation, and so it bumped up our revenue from that perspective, which we're grateful for.

When did we become

It happened in July 2025. No. It was not. I wish. That would have been really nice, but no. So it's been basically this fiscal year, fiscal '26, that we've been seeing that benefit from the population numbers. And it's boosted our sales tax for sure, but I think it's important to note that if you look at our sales tax revenue, like, 60% of our sales tax revenue in f y twenty six has come from our population numbers, and then you have 40% coming from point of sale. So it's something to keep in mind as you're doing your economic development study just in terms of how to generate maybe more point of sale tax revenue?

We know how point of sale is looking relative, like, if we were I mean, is point of sale looking good?

I mean, it's I mean, I think, ideally, it would be a bigger portion of our sales tax revenue coming in about, like, maybe 50%. It'd be fifty fifty. I guess what

I was asking is, like, are we seeing a trend? Is are people spending less? Are they spending more?

So I would say I point so, like, the third reason, this will answer your question. The third reason why our sales tax revenue is so strong is just because the state of Utah's economy is looking really good. And so I would say that people are spending. And whether it's, like, in Provo or just the state, we're seeing a benefit from spending overall. And I can just say that Provo's point of sale is only 40% of our sales tax revenue. So Yeah. I should know.

Yeah. Makes no. I just ask us 35 or if it

was 40. Have to go back and check. Oh, it's like a trend. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think Dan just looked at the numbers, and I think we had dropped to, like, 39 something percent for the last look at the projections for sales tax revenue this year. So I wouldn't say that's the best trend, but maybe it's fluctuating. We'd have to do more of an analysis. I think we have some data that we could look at,

but I don't have that right now. 40% ish we get. It's a 100% of

our sales point of sale.

Yes. It's city of problem.

Yeah. Like, out of our sales tax revenue numbers, like, we're basically saying 60% of that money is coming from the population portion of the allocation and then the

40%. But then how does this population allocation decide? And why do we get 60% of population?

Well, it's not it's not really we get 60%. It's just saying out of the revenue that's coming in, like, the the state breaks down. Like, out of all the revenue that we're bringing in for sales tax, it's saying out of this pot of money that you get each month, like, here's how much is because of your population, and here's how much.

It's it's basically like what happens is, of the total sales well, if someone spends a dollar of the seven point whatever percent, some percent of it is attributed to point of sale, which comes back to us. Some of it goes into a general state pot, which then gets reallocated to the cities based on the population.

So is that 40% comes back to us it's point of sale, and then 60¢ goes into that

It's not

40% coming back. It's saying of that 30,000,000, 40% of that 30,000,000 is attributable to point of sale, and 60% is attributable to our population.

Ideally, we wanna have a stronger point of sale.

Yeah. Correct.

Because then you get

Still reliant on our Right. Right. For our sales because

What's the equation for it? Like

Yeah. That's what That's what

I I can look it up. I'm pretty sure we have a PDF.

I just don't have like,

the mayor knows. So so the the wholesale tax that you pay, 1% of that is the local sales tax. And so they take 1% of all the sales that happen in Utah, and they look and and then they look at all the sales that happen in Provo. So half of that percent goes to point of sale all throughout Utah. Right? So we get our half percent. Gets their half percent of all the does that make sense of and it's the sales that happen here that's the point of sale. Then, like, she said, they take that other half a percent, and that goes into a big bucket. And then they divide that up for population. So that 1% is fifty fifty.

What what

this is

saying? What this is saying?

50% of it? So if Paul brought in

a $100 in sales tax

We keep 50 of it, 50 of it goes

to the states or in

that state then distribute

percent of that $50 So is divided. Yeah. Dollar.

So of the 100. Right? 1% would

be Yeah. 1% is a dollar. So then of that, 50¢ would go to point

of sale for us. So we keep 99 and a half percent.

No? Well, then the other 50¢ of that dollar goes into a big pot. Okay. So it's divided up of population

But the re throughout

the why it's but the reason why it's $60.40 for us is because our population is spending less relative to our pop like, we're not spending that much money here locally in Provo, and we relative to our population.

It'd be like so my guess is $50.50 if we had a good balance.

Correct. Exactly. So it's like, my guess is some, you know, like, Park City or whatever is probably sixty forty the other way. Maybe even more.

Oh, that's probably. Yeah. I'm just they're the numbers, but it have our data volumes. Oh. It would be, like, really close to one. Yeah. And we're, like, possibly the lowest. I don't know. It's really successful. That if you're looking at

total numbers, it's because their population is so much lower, and they just get the exact same amount per person that we do. So

the city. Not as many in Provo. Worth it.

Yeah. I'm writing about

We can

Probably, like, 20,000 full

time residents. We can certainly do, like, a deeper dive. I mean, it sounds like there's pretty like, I appreciate the comments on explaining how that works, but we are happy to provide some material or do a deep dive on sales tax. Yeah. Thank you, counselor.

Five people residence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my my guess is yeah. Yeah. So my guess is that they're probably seventy thirty. They're probably getting 70% of their sales tax from point of sale and 30, or it could even be eighty twenty, like, in the opposite direction. Yes. So so when you

say ideally, it should be more

I'm I'm just saying Are you do

you have, like, benchmarks in your mind? Or

I I don't. It was more of just an an a point for the council to be aware of is that while while sales tax is something we really kind of just get and just get money from the state every month, and some of it's based on population, some of it's point on sale point of sale, it's just good to know that if you want to increase sales tax number, then point of sale is an area that that economic development study might shed some light on.

I guess probably the way that it mathematically works, fifty fifty is the average. Right?

That would make sense.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that makes sense.

Overall, though, I just want

oh,

wow.

Okay. Oh, is there a?

I just have a couple quick questions.

Yeah.

So on the enterprise fund pie chart, it's a there's a a 166,400,000, but then the changes table has a 100 and 58.2, and I was just wondering what that discrepancy

I can get to that. Again, I a lot of the numbers have changed. And so I think, like, next week when you get the f the 27 budget in your hands, like, it'll have all the updated numbers and more accurate comparisons. Anyway, not to dismiss that question. It's just I think you'll have more relevant information.

You're gonna

go all this again soon with the exact numbers?

We can certainly do that if the council would like us to. Yeah. Part

sorry. Just say one one question that

I was also relate was interested in, which you kinda spoke to, but it'd be interesting to get more details on is of that, $4,000,000 sales increase, what would be attributable to the population reweighted versus underlying just retail sales growth?

Yeah. We can look at that.

I'm just making some notes here.

The the ignorance, the increase on the road taxes, that's pretty significant.

It's based on trends. Again, old numbers. I'm not sure if that's what's it's gonna translate into in the tentative budget, but that's kinda what it was looking like two months ago. But, again, we looked at the numbers again shortly after the slides were prepared. So I just I just want you guys to know, like, this is not final.

No. But still, mean, even if it levels out to a million dollars, it's still a big jump.

And the road road tax has been coming in strong. I know that there there was some legislation that was happening up there.

So high? Is that it?

That this would have happened before the gas prices. And so I think the legislation the legislature, I also know, just passed some some bills about the gas tax, and I think Public Works has also been concerned about how that might play into some of our revenues there. So we've been revisiting some of the numbers there for those reasons. Ultimately, though,

I think Garrett.

Yes. Related to that, I would just want

to confirm that the transportation utility fee is included under fees and not road taxes.

It would be included, I think, in its own fund. So this is general fund specifically, but, yes, it would not be included in these road taxes. You're right.

Yeah. Well and the reason I'm asking, you know, because that's a million dollar difference. Is that something we can control? Do we anticipate that coming in the future, or did we do something differently? Did the state do the so it seems like Yeah. To understand that would be useful.

I'll take a look and see what our updated number is for that one. I do agree it was it was quite a bit higher coming in, but I know that our actuals were looking good as well. So, yeah, we can see if we can identify, like, the exact reason why that would be higher. Yeah.

It'd be good to understand.

Good. I think the main takeaway for this is just knowing that when you receive the budget next week, know that sales tax has really been a strong factor in balancing the budget in terms of being able to fund things. And, it's it's just a big player this year just like some of the other factors, like the utility transfer was a big player last year. Sales tax is kind of bleeding out for f y twenty seven.

That's good to know our sales tax is good.

Yeah. It's good to know.