Council Budget and Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is Wednesday, 02/19/2025. This is the council budget finance committee. It is 05:31PM. Call me in order and start off by doing roll call.

Name is Salinas.

Present.

Council member, Bonita Jr. Present. Doctor. Montalvera?

Present. Next is public comment. This is reserved for anybody in the public who would like to make a comment on something that's on the agenda or on the agenda? Is there anybody online?

Staff is online, but I don't no choice.

And is there anybody, in the room that would like to

make a public comment?

Seeing none, I'd like to close public comment and move on to, the, review and approval of minutes. I move. I'll second. So moved by council member Bonilla, second by council member Maffeiro. If there are any objections, I'll do that as soon passed. Thank you. Moving on to item number two. This is a vacancy report. This is an oral presentation by director of human resources, Britney Fry. And as oh, and then there's our city manager, doctor Alvarez, will kick this off.

Yes. Thank you so much, mister Mayor. At the last at the last meeting, we had a robust conversation about what the agencies really mean. One potential level consider as we're trying to create a financial sustainability of the city the city. And so I wanted to introduce the item to the email that we put pencil to paper.

And, while we don't have all the systems in place, which we hope that we will be correcting as we go along, we do have data that I I wanted Britney to share with you. This is an opportunity. This will be your first time as you're seeing a vacancy report. So there's a lot of terminology that might be new, but, Brittany, will be walking you through it and welcome the, the the the questions. My goal is that we have an understanding of what this is so that you can, understand the landscape. And then, as we continue from getting about it through city council meetings so in the future that you that you understand this piece. So with that, Whitney?

Thank you. Let me attempt to share my screen at this point. Hopefully, everyone can see the presentation.

Yes.

Okay. Great. So good evening. I as Anna mentioned or I'm sorry. City manager Alvarez mentioned, I'm here today to provide an update on the city of Hayward's current vacancies.

This presentation should give you an overview of the city's vacancies, and we'll cover vacancy types and rates, which positions are most affected, and, our current and targeted recruitment efforts, and a review of our overall retention and attrition data. I look forward to your feedback and any questions that you have, and I'm told 10 slides is the limit, so we're right there. Mhmm. Okay. So on this slide, what you will see is all of the data that we have for our current vacancies as of 02/15/2025.

So the city of Hayward has a total of a 171 vacancies. 94 of those are considered viable vacancies. So what that means and and that's what we'll primarily be talking about today is the viable vacancies. So viable vacancies that are not viable include overall budgeted positions, or I'm sorry, positions that are over hires, positions that are frozen, trainee positions, and intern positions. So those are not considered viable vacancies because those aren't vacancies that we, need to fill.

So when we're talking about viable vacancies, we're talking about this 55% that you'll see, and the nonviable vacancies are also removed from the city's overall position count, which is, 973. So for the viable vacancies, as I mentioned, you'll see this chart which depicts our overall vacancies, which makes up about 9% or, to be specific, 9.66, which is our vacancy rate Out of our 973 budgeted positions, we currently have those 94 vacancies, which are considered viable. And out of those vacancies, they, are made up of 59 unique classifications. Here, I also wanna share some external data because I think that's helpful as we move through. So the city of Hayward, as I mentioned, the vacancy rate is currently 9.66.

Average vacancy rates for a California city are typically between 1015%. And while not all agencies post their vacancy data publicly, I I was able to find some data for surrounding jurisdictions, including San Francisco, and this is all data, primarily from 2023. So for San Francisco, they reported a vacancy rate of 13.7. Oakland had a vacancy rate around 16%. Concord was at 11.3.

Berkeley and Richmond were at 19%. And then to offer statewide context, a 2024 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that vacancy rates in several California counties reached as high as 30% across various classifications and wage levels. Here, I'm gonna go over vacancy types, and this is will be on the next two slides. So you see two pie charts in front of you, one of which shows you the breakdown of our vacancies by full time and part time positions. So 6% of the vacancies that are viable, account for part time positions, and the other 94% are full time positions.

This additional data point that you see is temporary support. So this number this this includes the total number of temporary employees the city has, which is currently at 61, and these employees help to support these vacancies.

Brittany, just a quick question. So temporary support is considered part of a viable vacancy. Correct?

No. Temporary positions are not considered viable vacancies because we are not required or nor do we have to fill those at any point in time. This data point just really shows you how many temporary employees the city has currently, which is 61. And I think what helps to account for the the temporary employees is, to help fill the need which the vacancies create.

Got it. Thank you. So if there were no vacancies, then would we have no temporary support?

We would likely have a very a a much smaller temporary support pool. So there are some temporary positions. For example, in HR, we have a half time temporary position, which has been helpful for us to fill close the gap in vacancies. That is not filling a current vacancy. So there are temporary positions across the city that are not necessarily tied to vacancies, but the bulk of the temporary positions are typically tied to vacancies that we have and the support that's needed to to help with that work.

K. This slide continues to break down the vacancy types. And here, you have two pie charts, and I'm hoping that they're not too small for you on your screen. But you will see our vacancies broken out by position type and fund. So for position type, we're utilizing the EEO categories.

You can see from this chart that the largest vacancy type is for protected services, which includes police and fire, and the largest fund category is general fund. The second largest vacancy type is for professionals, and this includes positions such as engineers, supervisors and managers, and senior level classifications. And this chart shows our vacancies and how they're distributed across the city departments. As you can see, the police department has the highest number of vacancies followed by public works and utilities, I think, largely in part to the nature of the work. Other departments, including fire, development services, IT, also have open positions that impact their operations.

Understanding these trends does help us when prioritizing recruitment efforts. Talking a little bit about police department, which currently sits at 40 vacant positions, which is our highest the highest vacancies, per department. Looking deeper into job specific classifications, two positions stand out with particularly high vacancy numbers. These vacancies are for police officers, which currently sits at 18 vacancies, and communication operators, which is eight vacancies. Obviously, these classifications are essential for emergency response, and shortages could put lead potentially to increased response times, greater reliance on overtime, and potential burnout amongst existing staff.

Was there a question?

No. Okay. Sorry.

Okay. So now we'll talk a little bit more about the recruitment process. Because we have highlighted those vacancies, we wanna also highlight, what we're doing to fill the gap. So the city of Hayward has a recruitment team consisting of 7.5 FTEs. This makeup includes two technicians, four analysts, one half time temporary analyst, and one recruitment manager.

In general, each analyst supports seven to 10 recruitments at any given time depending upon the complexity. Last fiscal year, we had a total of 37 completed recruitments, 78 promotions, and a 110 new hires. You can see where we are this chart depicts where we currently are for this fiscal year. So the data we use here is since July 2024. We have completed 46 full cycle recruitments.

We've received a total of 69 requisitions to fill positions, and we've had a total of 83 new hires and 49 promotional hires. For fiscal year twenty five twenty six, we anticipate a completion rate for recruitments of 69 and a completion of a 103.5 requisitions. Since we did highlight the highest the the only positions with four or more vacancies are police officer and communications operator. So we want to talk a little bit about the specific recruitment efforts that go into those classifications. And I will be talking about some of the things that historically, Hayward has done, but and and more specifically, what HR is working on or has worked on.

But I don't I I would be remiss if I didn't also note that the police department's recruitment and marketing team, have not only been great partners in our efforts, but also have dedicated, dedicated creative and exciting methods of their own, which which are employed and have significantly added flexibility to the recruitment process. I have not highlighted those specific efforts in this slide so that anything that they're doing is in addition to and or in partnership on some of these items. So the two so the chart you'll see here is police officer hires over these, these calendar years. So it's from 2017 to present. And I wanna walk through some of the initiatives that have been implemented during these these years so you can see where some of these increases and dips have come from.

So in 2017, the city only accepted waivers for police officer for the police officer position, which is written documentation that candidates have passed a a physical and written exam with another agency. If there's specific physical and written exam written exams, which are called the pellet b and the WSTB. During this phase of recruitment, we did not administer the pellet b or the physical, the WSTB, in house. And candidates also, after having shared their waiver, also had to share or also had to participate in an additional written exam and oral board at the city before being placed on an eligible list, which created multiple barriers to entry. In 2018, the city began hosting both the pellet b and WSTB exams while still accepting waivers.

The additional written and oral boards were still required as well. In 2019, the city implemented the hiring bonus program, which has many nuances, but for for a very high level summary, it's essentially a $10,000 bonus for communications operators, police academy grads, and trainees, and $20,000 bonus for lateral hires. The during this phase, the testing processes remain the same. In 2022, we took a significant step in simplifying the process by removing the additional written exam and oral boards that were specific to Hayward, keeping only the post required written exam, the pellet b, and the physical WSTB exams. Though we did still hold those exams on different days, so candidates had to come in multiple days, to complete our testing process.

In 2023, we began scheduling the pellet b and WSTB exams on the same day, and we scheduled those during on Saturdays, to allow for more flexibility in the recruitment process. Those are now since 2023 and continue to be scheduled approximately every five weeks. We also, in this year, began accepting the NTN test, which is a national testing network, and, essentially, it's an online written in lieu of the pellet b exam. This clearly made the process more flexible for candidates. So, overall, this data highlights the positive impact of the targeted recruitment strategies that PD and HR have employed, again, with, city council help with the initiatives that have been passed forward.

And you can see the notable increase in hires in 2023 following the consolidation of testing dates and the acceptance of the NTN waivers. Additionally, our vacancy average for the police officer rank went from 40 vacancies during this time to an average of 20, again, demonstrating the effectiveness of these initiatives. Let's say, overall, the city has taken a proactive data driven approach to recruitment in this area, continuously refining processes to attract and retain top talent, by reducing test barriers, offering incentives, and optimizing scheduling. I think we've successfully strengthened our candidate pool and improved hiring outcomes. Finally, we're going to I'm gonna talk a little bit about the retention and attrition rate.

Here on this slide, you can see, that these two data points are looking at the same data in two different ways. So the first with the retention rate is looking at how many employees have stayed in Hayward. This obviously excludes new hires throughout the year, and the attrition rate is looking at how many employees have left. So for both rates that you see here, we've utilized data from 07/01/2024 to present. 42 employees departed from the city in this time, giving us an attrition rate of 5.2%.

765 remained, giving us our retention rate of 94.8%. And then just as an added, point of reference, the average attrition rate for California public sector is 6.1%. Questions? Thoughts?

Thank you for this report. I am curious for the, the vacancies that you listed, the viable vacancies. Mhmm. We were curious about the ratio of requisitions to those vacancies across all departments. So some have been vacant for some time.

And Back

to that slide.

It is oh, yeah. That this slide. That one or the previous one works. But I I'm just curious of the vacant positions. Are we seeing active requisitions to have those roles filled, or have some of them been stagnant sitting there for a long time?

Yeah. That is the data point that we do collect. I would say it's a bit nuanced. I will give you an example. So of our recruitments, the 94 vacancies that we have currently, 74 are tied to an active recruitment process, which includes, having a final approved requisition.

What I would say is that the length of vacancy, is is misleading a bit. If we look at police officer classification, for example, we, when we look at length of vacancy, we're looking at a specific position with a specific position number and the last time that position was filled. When you're looking at something like police officer, which has, currently 18 vacancies, we are filling, vacancies based on just moving forward in positions, but we're not going back to the oldest the oldest vacancy that's been open. And so it might look like a police officer position has been vacant for three years, but that's just because that one specific position isn't the lucky one that got picked when we're filling the positions as we go. I hope that is helpful and makes sense.

Yeah. That is helpful. Thank you.

So so the so the way the way I understood what you just said, So the the the positions are these positions, and and they they simply you know, they don't they don't change When when someone leaves that position, that doesn't change, you know, in terms of, succession or, you know, or, seniority or nothing. That position stays frozen. And then when that person leaves, we just replace somebody for that one position?

Yeah. Essentially. So when we're looking so when somebody leaves a position, that becomes the date that that position has been vacant. And the clock starts on if we were gonna look at how long a position has been vacant, we would look at the last time somebody was in that position. However, with police officer vacancies, we currently have 18 vacancies.

When we're filling those positions, we're not looking to fill, oh, let me fill this specific position number that has been vacant longest. We're just putting bodies in positions. And so it might even though we've hired recently and and continuously, it might look like a police officer position has been vacant for three years, but that's just because that particular, position number isn't the one that gets picked when we are randomly assigning position numbers.

Okay. I I was you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about, like, a, like, a football team. You know, when a linebacker leaves the position, you recruit for another linebacker. That's how I was thinking about it. But don't

think that Definitely. If we had all of our positions filled, in that rank, then we would have a more accurate description. If we just had one or two rolling vacancies, we would have a more accurate understanding of the length of vacancy. But because we have so many vacancies, randomly, position numbers get chosen. There's no, specific intent to choose a the the oldest position number, if that makes sense.

You so this is an opportunity for us to improve our accuracy around the inflection. So next time we hire, being more intentional, let's just use the soft position, for example, but making sure we're filling filling the longest standing, oldest vacant roles so we could begin to understand the average vacancy rate for each department?

Yeah. It's it's definitely something that we've considered. We are we do meet internally to discuss the vacancies, the data reporting, and position control around areas we can clean up data and how we can be more, effective and efficient in that process. I don't I couldn't I can't speak to it specifically, your question, because I'm not sure what the process is in detail around how position numbers are assigned or if if it is random or if there's a rhyme or reason to specific position numbers. But, certainly, that's something we can discuss. I think that makes sense. Okay.

Thank you.

I wrote I I wrote here on my notes, so the the way from the chart, so public safety and public works are the two departments with the highest vacancy rate?

Correct.

Okay. That's the reason why both public works and public safety are in the in the room. And then I guess the the other question is, may not be related, but a little bit related. I noticed you had mentioned that one of the barriers that we re removed or, you know, sort of rethought was the testing, and, we moved to online testing. And I was just curious.

You know you know, I teach online classes, and, there is a big discussion right now amongst faculties around using AI to take tests online. And I was just curious, are we to are we controlling for that? How are we controlling for that, or how are we evaluating, you know, if whether, you know, our public safety professionals are taking tests online and using AI? Just out of curiosity.

Yeah. I that's a helpful question. So the pellet b is the online exam that we accept, also the National Testing Network. And those are the pellet b is a post exam. That's something that is not unique to Hayward. Same thing with the NTN. So this it's the post entry level law enforcement battery test is the written test that is used, and it's used across the board in varying agencies. I don't we we have the license to administer the test, but we also work with Post directly on a number of those factors. So I I believe they have things in place, to account for that.

I believe they hear me.

But it's not it's not something that we are able to to monitor at that level.

Okay. Because when you when you said turning papers online, I it's the first thing I thought about.

But we do we also still administer these tests in person. We just accept a waiver that somebody has passed to these tests with another agency, but we do still administer these tests in person. That's the every Saturday, five or every once one Saturday, every five weeks, we administer the pellet b and the physical in person.

So you did you did speak, you know, considerable considerably regarding public safety. But just out of curiosity, I know you brought up public works.

Mhmm.

And, you know, do we know what are some of the driving driving forces for vacancy rate in public works? Is it there's not enough engineers in one discipline or another? Or, I mean, is it just a dearth of public work?

Public work professionals?

Specifically, from an HR perspective, I can speak to the fact that engineer recruiting, across the board, for all public agencies is very difficult. This also relates to some of the vacancies in the water treatment facility, which I think has been historically difficult. I will also defer to director Emery if he wants to add there. But when I'm in HR conferences, this is police and engineering are the two hot topics, I will say, and communications officers that, people are struggling to fill, and I think that's just an industry standard. We do have very targeted and specific recruitment efforts that we've done with the engineer classification as well.

We here just highlighted the highest level vacancy is any vacancy that has four or more, which is the communications officer and police officer.

Initial question, but I don't know if there's

or you want to add.

So we have more vacancies in the war, and this one because there are a lot of competition from the districts such as the Dominican Republic. They have more flexibility in how they hire, how they train, and we try to compete with them. I have to say, though, that recently, we've been more successful in hiring staff and begin onboard. I'm hoping that that number doesn't stop there. It's going to decrease over six months to Have we sorry. No.

Go ahead. Have we explored similar, you know, recruitment incentives and programs for your department in the past?

We haven't done Okay. In terms of offering incentives. Yeah. Yeah.

Or just revisiting how we could consolidate the recruitment process a bit to make to reduce some barriers.

We do some of that. Okay.

We need we're not offering.

Okay. I'm not necessarily suggesting that. Was just curious. You know,

something that I've heard out on the street when it comes to policy, particularly around the the water treatment plants, is that in special districts, they just pay significantly more. And we just can't compete with, you know, East Bay Mudd or some of these other places that they'll come here, they get their experience, and then they take off.

Yeah. But I can we do some kind of study on that to make sure that, you know, the pay is competitive because those are critical positions in our wastewater, you know, treatment facilities or in other public work area. I know that the police is 40, but public works is 30. And some cases, these public works jobs are higher paid than the police officer jobs. So

Very significant.

I would really kind of wanna understand that. And then I'm also interested in an aging. If some of these positions could stay open quite a long time, so I just kind of wanna see how long they've been open. And then to council member point, for all of the positions, we should sort of be filling them first in, first out to make sure that we have a clear idea of how long they're being you know, they're remaining vacant for. So those are just some of the things that I I kind of wanted to see.

And then, also, I was I'm I'm it's great to see the streamlined recruitment processes for the police department, and it's clearly yielding, you know, more candidates. So I would also support, you know, us looking to see what we can do to get these public works position filled because I consider them to be, you know, public safety related too because if our wanna say, you know, clean, it's a public safety issue. Right? So I kind of wanna see us put as much urgency behind some of those positions as we and and creativity as we've done with these really important, you know, positions in our police department. And then it's, yeah, it's great to see that, you know, these streamlined police recruitment efforts and then they improved hiring outcomes.

The question that I have kind of bringing this back a little bit to the finance discussion, What what happens with kind of the vacancy spend that's sitting within the department budgets as if this was going you know, all these positions were filled? I think that's the way we do our budgeting. So if we have, like, an average of 30 positions open in public works, does that funding get reallocated for temporary support staff to fill that one, or does it go to time? Or, I guess, what happens with the funding that would be otherwise allocated to pay for these positions? So in utilities, we have enterprises which are basically businesses within Citi.

Their budget, their finance is separate from general fund. So to the extent that the money is not used for staff, it basically remains in our capital reserves until we fill this issue.

The money doesn't go anywhere, stays in the enterprise, like, water fund or wastewater fund.

Oh, and it just, like, accumulates there. You don't reallocate it to other things. You don't reallocate to other stuff. Oh, that's good to I mean, is that the same thing in TV?

So we actually think of position to use for all the things we talked about. Right? So there's a combination putting a lot of staff and supplement. You see, because we don't have those position builds. So, for example, it's not uncommon for departments to hire, you know, who's hiring to serve and do a three capacity here would be what it is.

So that happens. And and part of the issue there and one of the reasons why I said that too, during the last year too, a lot of the work that has been done by the. So we now process all CCW applications. That's one thing that we do. Some of

that funding. The other

the other thing that we use it for is to supplement operations. And I know that, you know, going back to COVID times, I think every department in the city to work that out of work. It's the supplies and services that returned. And so there's still a need to have that stuff done, and we're dealing with now the continual increase in costs. So with silicone analysis, DNA analysis, which the VA's office is requiring for just about every case now if you wanna get charged. Not only is going to increase the cost. And so there's things that we have to absorb doing some of the salary savings.

And then if I may add to that question, did Matthews go to that answer? I also there's also the reallocation of the salary savings from closing positions. These are nonviable positions, like the community resource officers to subsidize the staffing cost for pilot programs like the HART program. And so that's that's meant to be on a temporary basis. It's a temporary financing mechanism, and and that's what they're doing with Five positions.

There's five positions that are dedicated.

And then that's oh, that's a part of the nonviable.

Is it what?

So how many other positions do we have frozen in that? Because I thought nonviable is more like, you know, interns and these kind of other. I didn't realize that we had full time positions frozen in nonviable category.

Sorry. Let me move back. I think it's this this slide. So so here, you will see, the breakdown of all the vacancies. The green or the dark green here, are the viable vacancies. The other are labeled. Hopefully, you can see these labels okay. So, 14% here are over hires. They're training positions. So fire trainee and police trainee are not counted in our overall vacancies because while those are positions that exist, the intent is that they will fill a full time regular position, and so we do not count those as vacancies.

If we are fully staffed, we would not have individuals in those positions. We also have 2% which are frozen. That would include those that are frozen for the heart program and those types of programs. And then we have, intern, again, over hires and temp.

What what what's what's an overhire?

So an overhire, it it depends. But what typically an overhire is used for is, if we know of an upcoming upcoming retirement or an upcoming position ad where we want people to be able to train alongside current employees, we will, include them in an overhire, but they don't get included in the count, because it's truly the intent is for them to fill the position once the individual leaves out of the the budgeted position.

Got it. That that makes sense. Alright. Those are my kind of immediate questions for now. I I kind of had one, but maybe it's we take it offline. But I was wondering, you know, if all of these positions were filled, like, know, in the fire department, I know they're not here, or the police department, you just say that. Right? Would that almost eliminate overtime? I mean, it would be very, very minimal. Right? Because, like because I was wondering, like, you know, in fire, not to use that as an example, but if they have no vacancies right now, then would that almost mean that overtime would be really low? I mean, I I mean, this is offline conversation, but I'm kind of interested in that correlation between overtime and being fully staffed.

Sure. Absolutely. There will certainly be an impact, but I can't say and I don't think that it would eliminate over time. But it will be an

If I could add too, I think there is a constant staffing model, which essentially means that if we were fully staffed, at least, you know and I don't know if this applies to PD. But if, for example, we had constant staffing and fire and we were fully staffed, that would mean that on any given day, we would have enough individuals to do that assignment, but it doesn't account for additional positions which would cover leave, employees on workers' comp, or employees who are taking vacation or sick. And so any of those would require overtime. And so that's when we talk about constant staffing, it is truly just enough staff to fill a need if everyone was present.

That's very helpful.

So in the fire department, to use your this MOU language that requires a certain number of bodies to be present at all times. So when they want to take leave vacation or they're calling in sick or they're going out for training, still on city time, they have to backfill those decisions. Right. I

think, also, it may be helpful for me to add, that while we did highlight the recruitment efforts for police, we have had very targeted and specific recruitment efforts. As director Amiri mentioned, we've seen an increase in, recruitment and fill rate for public works as well, due to those. We just didn't highlight that because those weren't the highest vacancies that we were discussing, but there has been, very robust increases that were analyzed and reviewed during contract recent contract negotiations, which I think has helped. We've also done things, like, look at the testing processes, update those processes. And, when we're looking at engineers, we're looking at things like a list of all registered engineers and sending postcards to everyone that's on that list in California.

So we have made, significant strides there with the partnership of Public Works and Utilities as well. So just wanna highlight that, it wasn't highlighted on the slide, but we we are we do have an intentional look at each of those vacancies. And anytime for any position, citywide, we have a vacancy and we're opening a recruitment, we are doing what is called a recruitment plan, which looks at each stage of the recruitment, looks at the classification language, looks at the salary, looks at, positions, and how we can market those and be targeted around that. So it's a very extensive plan that we're working through with the departments.

Thank you. I think the other comment I wanted to add here was similar to the first in, first out approach that myself and council member, Buddy, are advocating for us to to help us track the accuracy of our our vacancy lanes. I'm also interested in just generally tighter controls around vacancy savings dollars from from the viable vacancies. I understand for director Mary, these are enterprise funds, and so they remain in a capital reserve. I understand those needs from the Harris Police Department as well, but I I think we saw a report during our last meeting that of the $8,000,000 in salary savings, 6,000,000 were spent on what sounds like really meaningful things.

However, I think those dollars are allocated for a specific purpose, and that decision should ultimately come back to the council to decide, okay. We have these savings. Do we go on and continue to spend them in this direction, or does the time call for us to rethink where these dollars are being spent? So, I would just like to see some type of process around that that doesn't just assume that if there's a vacant position, it can get down anything else. That should be a discussion, I think, because these are public dollars. And as we're approaching a tighter, or I think of, you know, a structural budget deficit, I just wanna have more oversight over where our dollars are going. Does does that make sense, or was

that clear?

No. It does make sense. I will defer to, assistant city manager Youngblood and city manager Alvarez to

Yes. That that's that's more of a finance function. And so that is definitely a note that we can take and get improving process going forward.

Okay. Thanks.

And nothing else. I agree with his last comment. Thanks. Okay.

If there are no other questions or comments, we could move on to the, item number three, which is, the 2024 and '25 midyear budget review and five year general fund financial model update.

Thank you, mister mayor. Just to do a quick introduction to give you a status update, we we are still in transition. We don't have a finance director out in but what we do have is we have very committed individuals who have agreed to step up and help us, and they understand the importance of balancing the budget and addressing our shortfalls so that we close in the plan. And I want to acknowledge and and thank assistant city manager, Dustin Clauson, who actually came in and took the leadership in finalizing the media report. And the goal here was to be able to work collaborative with the department heads so that we're being constructive in realizing how to close that gap.

And it was not an easy lift, but as you can see, we were able to, achieve that barely, and Dustin will speak more to that. On the other hand, what Dustin was doing trying to close the year correctly, Regina focused with the team in finance, and they're here today to begin the planning process and understand how do we implement and execute on the priorities that were very clearly identified and voiced at your last budget workshop. That's also in play. And and lastly, would like to acknowledge, the fact that the city department in terms of its operations, they still have not fully recovered since COVID. The city has taken several steps to balance its budget at different stages.

And to reiterate what you heard from our police chief, back in 2020, the departments were asked to do a 10% cut, and he noticed from that. And my honeymoon came to a very quick stop because I asked for 2%. And as I'm trying to understand and peel the onion, there's really not a lot of muscle. There's not a lot of fat left. And so what we're asking the departments to do now is really to have their own trade off conversations.

And it's more than gaining efficiencies. Now we're getting more into the conversation. It's an old, but an end. So I appreciate appreciate their their cooperation, and we'll continue to to do that as you learn more what we've been looking at. So, Dustin? Thanks very much. Next slide, please.

As as doctor Albert's been willing to do, you know, it was it was a struggling heavy with how to to balance. It was not a small task. You know, I I know we adopted with a small use of 1,800,000.0 back in late May, early June. And since then, we've we've done we've come to agreements with labor groups, which added to this. We've continued to have some expenditures go out the door, and, you know, it's it really created quite a challenge.

And and what you have in front of you does that mathematically, but, certainly, what we've got will could create close close to challenges for our departments. But what we have so just wanna be clear in in in that. Looking at this first slide, looking at we went through and made some adjustments to do have any one? We went through and looked analyzed the revenues as we have opposed them to counsel back in And and we're able to adjust many of those up. When it came to real property tax, we we moved 2,000,000.

We just didn't see ourselves getting there. My hope is that we absolutely do. Right now, it's not looking that way, and so we wanted to adjust that now. The others, we we are are getting better than, like, at this meeting. There's in the property taxes, sales tax.

The most significant here is utility user tax. Alex knows very well. We've got some heavy users that have come online since the time that we adopted and are are seeing great is there. And similar for the franchise fee, I think we underestimated that bit at at the time of adoption. So I went back and used director Mary's assistance in sharpening those pencils.

The rest are relatively small. Was just kind of looking at, you know, the different revenue categories to get us where we were able to adjust revenues up at 6,400,000,000, which is, you know, the the largest of the the factors that that has helped us in in balance Your mid year. What you see there in recommended changes column, that $1,500,000, really, the majority of that is already out the door. I think if it were not, we would not recommending them at the same level. But those largely related to some of the the costs associated with the districting process that we underwent all of the throughout that, as well as a significant expenditure on a vehicle error that, we had a fire truck stuck somewhere that we had to pay to, you know, hopefully, get it all.

And so that was about 400,000. Last line here in red is a salary savings hiring deferral of approximately $3,400,000. This this was sort of what I was speaking to when I when I started here in that, you know, this this hiring deferral we're talking about quarter here, it could be, you know, a lag when certainly bringing folks on board. The impacts to to our operations, etcetera, we're still looking

at what that

might look like. This this this was I will say in the ten years I've been here, it's the most appreciated mid year process. You know, I I say that only in in the portion that I've been involved in. I know there was still work out by the the finance team, but it was sort of, like, you know, Nicole left. It was like, here you go.

So we kinda tried to, you know, catch the ball and not up in. So next slide here gives us I already went through the majority of these. This is the a breakdown of the detail of of what we've got here. The only caveat, to what I said earlier is that that $500,000 line in the middle there, this is for additional plan check, fees, in development services. These are for, fees that we've already collected on and certainly have to, deliver on the the plan checks, for the folks who had either book deposits, pay the fees, etcetera. So next slide, please.

So the the just those are expenses that we just saw?

Yes. Okay.

That's that's the increase of the the one point one point five.

So The increase of 1.5, that wasn't initially much Correct. This is kind of what's coming in.

Yep.

Yep.

What we have here, on the far left column is, what council adopted, at, and then, you know, we we show a use of 1,800,000. Second column, we would show the increased revenues, similar expenditure, increase expenditures, and then also the the savings from the the deferred recruitments. Notice the expenditures here, you know, you see a a basic change in so when you can use 1,867,000.000 or 6,670.00. But, also, the the difference in expenditures, the difference that runs quite large. Though that was sort of what I was talking speaking to early when we're

talking about the the thing in some of

the labor agreements and the the other expenditures as as we've gone throughout the year. So we're still working to update, I believe, the the years, the 02/03, 04/05. Then one by the time we get to council the full council next few day, we'll have a a more updated picture for those out years that seem to want to provide the the update there for for this fiscal year. Unfortunately, even with a small addition to the surplus, we still don't quite get to that, 20% target number, for for general fund reserves. Part of that does have to do with even though we've got, you know, larger reserves there in the picture.

It's a function of, you know, 20% of budgeted expenditure. So as the expenditure number goes up, that 20% target is also. So it's sort of

But 18.6% is not bad.

It is not bad. Absolutely. Nice. And and, certainly, it it is a much better picture than, you know, if if we were to use an additional 10 to $12,000,000, we would have certainly more significant challenge. So

next slide. So we're still using quite a significant amount. Actually, we can go back. One in column two, you have $218,000,000. Now that's jumping to 230. And I totally appreciate the fact that we're we're saying that we balance this, but a large part of that is because we put 4,000,000 in. I mean, that was the driver, and we wanted to actually go to reserves. And if given, it kind of went into this general fund that's now being to pick up this additional expense. So, yeah, it's not such a big hit on the reserve, but if it wasn't for that 4,000,000 allocated, reserve Correct. Yes. That's true. Yeah. Sorry. I just

That's okay. Just a quick follow-up. You know, we announced publicly a settlement for around 200 ish grand. And is that coming out of a pre budgeted risk pool, or have we seen that risk pool for the year already? I'm just kinda curious where settlement dollars fit into this because, you know, it's nice to see a little bit of a surplus for the end of this year, but it quickly gets wiped away the second we have to settle another case for you know? Sure. And those settlements are generally not paid from

the general funds. General fund is the main contributor to Yep. To the, the risk fund. Yeah. But it they're not gonna come dollar for dollar here. No offense, Alex. There could be a settlement that's related to, utilities, etcetera, so they we contribute to that as an internal service fund. Yeah. But, certainly, if it were something to happen here at City Hall or something, which would involve City Hall, it's likely gonna come out of the the general fund where, yes, certainly, if we were to settle something today, yes, that expense would be realized. In the reality of things, a settlement is two years after an incident.

Right? And so we don't necessarily budget those I see. Because we don't know when they're gonna come. Certainly, as as, you may have heard from the the city attorney at times, we will he will do his best to make an estimation before a year starts looking at things that that, you know, legal experts are are saying

Yeah. We're likely to likely to, to settle this in

the next twelve months. I understand that part of it. I was just curious once that risk fund, which I understand is separate from the general fund, it we did the ultimate fallback in the general fund. Is that correct?

Mhmm.

Okay. And so I guess I just I'm a little curious, you know, how much leeway do we have here before it starts hitting the general fund? Are we still is this general sense here that we're still okay because it's not reflected from

the general fund? From from it usually catches up the following year Okay.

For risk.

Okay. Alright. Yeah. Can ask more questions about it later. But what you're saying is it doesn't factor into this as we haven't fully completed our risk fund, so that's why we're not seeing the here. Okay.

This is a, summary of the the changes to CIT. Majority deductions out. I'm not sure what those are off my head. Mostly related to it. It was just some that's what I thought was some changes.

We think we're double counting or something. Okay. And then the the net change to other funds, we'll have more detail on that when we come to the full council next Tuesday. The majority of those are in our special revenues or internal service funds. I will say that much of the what's what's the only in mid year related to internal service funds, they're going to be using, fund balance for, so they're not looking to the general fund, for those those expenses. So that won't have a so I'll never put in general.

So

next slide. That's it. Happy to answer any questions that I can. I will say I can't pretend to be that much of an expert. You know, only having been involved with with this process and not so into all the city finances to sit. And this room might be so but it's where I can look to my goals. Well,

great.

So I I don't have as many questions as much as just saying thank you for this report. This was very helpful. And, you know, we definitely appreciate all of the efforts that everyone is going through and all of the hard and creative thinking to, you know, kind of look at how we make sure that we're able to, you know, kind of keep the city financially, you know, afloat. Because at the end

of the day, I'm sure there's a

lot of things that we all wanna do, but the reality of it is the revenues of the city that are generated by the sources that we just discussed are only gonna carry us so far. So now we have to figure out how we sort of do some internal belt tightening, and I know that that's always a tough conversation. So I just appreciate everyone for staying engaged in that conversation and for moving that forward because you can clearly see that the expense trend isn't sustainable with the way that it's growing in relationship to revenues. So what it says is that, you know, our community can't necessarily support some of the expenses that, you know, our city is putting out there, so we sort of do have to figure out how we rationalize these expenses to bring them more in alignment with, you know, what the revenue projections are. Because, know, I think as we move out and we look at some of these larger clips of reserve use, I think that that's where the council, at least for me, is gonna start to, you know, get get nervous again.

But I am really pleased to see that, you know, we're not using reserves this year that are you know, overall, our reserve is still at around 18%. So yeah. But but I do appreciate the hard conversations, and I think that it's important to start the conversations out like you guys are doing because a lot of these trigger you know, a lot of these triggers that need to be pulled or a lot of the actions that need to be taken do need to be kind of thoughtful because we wanna make sure that it's not abrasive on the community or on surfaces. So when we're thinking about, you know, how we restructure things, how we create efficiencies, or how we do whatever, Those are typically longer term discussions and sometimes require restructuring or rethinking of programs or the way that we do things. So it's good to see that we're getting on this now without waiting for the cliff to then be like, oh my god.

What do we do? Let's freeze everything and let's panic. This definitely feels like a much more strategic approach to how it is we're gonna go about balancing, you know, the budget. And I appreciate everyone for for focusing on doing that. And thank you again for this report.

Ditto. I I can't say better than that. I think I just have a question around one of the last slides with the what was it? Outgoing expenses. Would you mind pulling that up one more time? It had a 2,000,000 number. Is that referring to what we're seeing here with, like, measure c one?

I think it's on page eight.

Page eight. Okay.

Yeah. Your local.

Next slide, please. I I apologize. Yeah. They should have mentioned more in the report. I remiss. My apologies. Alright. One thing that that we will be bringing forward for the council to consider is $1,000,000 ask for Saint Rose's. Mhmm. And so that that is included in that, mid year fund. Other funds that change as well.

Got it. And then I'm also seeing in this measure c k one fund, the transfer out for prioritization six, for 3,200,000.0. That doesn't seem like it's included in this number here. I just wanna make sure I'm understanding what the total is. Does that transfer out or not? That I see as an expenditure, or we already budgeted for that in the past? It's on page seven of 11.

Perfect.

This

was, something that council.

And so that would be considered a carryover? Or I just wanna understand the discrepancy between the number on the screen.

Yeah. I think what that is is the netting things. Okay.

But I think that's Okay.

So then we can get back.

Okay. So, I mean, we're not making any decisions on this tonight, but I would appreciate some clarity around these numbers when it gets to full counsel. Thank you.

The one question I had was the, the the 18 per the 20% policy that we have, and I I forget what it says. But is there a range in the policy between does it say, like, you know, we should have a reserve of eighteen, seventeen to 20, or is it just 20?

It's just you know, it's it is a a goal of 20% of, like, indirect or, sorry, expenditures.

Okay. Great. Alright.

The other thing is the one question I asked is, you you know, that I was thinking about was, I know you're asking all the departments to to present, and, you know, they, they, you know, how can I put it, brought to your attention that they already gave 10? And so I guess the question is is, you know, how is that going? And, you know, what, how much consternation is that is that, you know, departments because I have another question after that.

Yeah.

Well,

we've given departments a little bit extra time. They we are chief of information. Once we can speak to you today, but given the nature of the assignment changing what they had expected, we've given them to the end of the month. Our acting budget officer and also our analyst in finance have been working very closely with departments to help them to source out how they could think differently about their budgets. So there is definitely some angst for sure.

Anytime you have to be asked to make cuts, those are hard conversations and hard decisions. However, what we have expressed to them is that, you know, we want them to to because they are considered better experts on their business to be the ones to talk about what could be traded off, but to also let us know the impacts of those changes. And just because they're putting that in the system, we may or may not take those cuts. As Dustin also said, in the out years, those revenue projections that have changed for the midyear haven't been run through about the entire five year forecast. We So may see some additional improvement in our forecast and might not need to pick 2% across the board. If if

you take that same trend that you know, well, how do you kinda justify that with the expense trend going up then?

Mhmm. Expense during is going up as well, but I think they're also asking me to take cuts. So that expense trend is gonna be all lower. Right? So we're gonna have a little higher revenue going forward, a slightly lower starting point for expenditures going forward. And so there's a possibility for us to also to enact some of those other revenue side

Yep.

Strategies that we haven't talked about since the budget workshop, like transit occupancy taxes. Yes. There was a lot of

Yep. So so okay. So expense trend, let me let me sort

of tease

that out a bit. Is, do these do these numbers also reflect the the the sort of progressive increase in OPEB and and retirement and

Yes.

And so forth? So the reason why I say that is because when I listen to you talk, I get nervous. Right? I get anxieties. But we've been seeing this increase. How long have we been seeing these increases? I mean, we've been seeing these increases for a long time.

Yeah. But this isn't really driven by OPEB. This is driven by the contracts we just negotiated, maybe.

That is true. That is true. But that's all about

Yeah. Yeah. That's fine.

We saw at the budget workshop, we talked about the different growth trends that are placed in each of those different

That's fine.

So that's all.

So yeah. So I just wanted I just I say that because I just wanted to put it into perspective because I do while we all share that concern, you know, we, I just wanna be careful on how we sort of project. So that's so that's one point. The other the other point I wanted to talk about was, you know, how would we how would we know how would we know, if we are to use an old city manager's, you know, reference. How would we know between us just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic versus actually doing something that is gonna change the course of the Titanic?

I mean, how I mean, what are the indicators of, like, of, like, structural deep structural change? I guess that's the

Yes.

Mean, is it is it you know? Because I, know, I was I'm thinking about, you know, count you know, counsel buying our own dinners. You know, I'm thinking about, you know, you know, how much do we trim from the sides and all that versus how much are we really giving back or giving up.

You know, I I appreciate, Virginia's Right. Your question and her answer. Because, it's moments like this that provide the opportunity for organizations to reimagine or rethink the way they do the work. And the challenge here is not just gaining efficiencies, but also what makes it really tricky and what makes it equally as exciting is to say, do you gain the efficiencies and do the structural changes without impacting or without losing the impact that we have on the priorities from city council. That that's that's that's the magic.

You tell me do your magic. It's about the council priorities in terms of how we are contributing to the quality of life of residents, the things that are really important. And it really makes you rethink from a different lens what are those core services. And I just had a very sobering conversation conversation with with the leadership in the fire department precisely around that. What are the core services?

And what are those services that may not necessarily they may not feel is part of the core, but maybe a council priority. So where does it really belong? And the short measures and pilot programs that we were running, they they need to be we need to have a frank discussion of their are we being effective? Are they working? If they are, let's finance them correctly and structurally and not just by a band aid approach.

And that's the exercise that we're going through. And, yes, it creates a little bit of ends, but I also I have seen people say things like and I don't wanna name them, but department has say, I am this really forces me to look at my operation. I understand the camp's priorities. I understand my challenges. I am moving things around, Anna, so that I will be cost neutral, and I can meet both goals.

Also, with I had a conversation today with our city clerk, and literally, the conversation was about the meals. And I said, well, the approach is is not a it's not it's not an easy as a yes or no. It's what can we do to minimize that and what would be the impact in your budget. Can we so you get there incrementally, or if there's an interest by cancel, we can certainly take a look at that. But the number is $7,000 when we try to resell for, you know, millions. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that's and that's

my point. The update.

That that's precisely my point.

And, of course, there's the there's the optics. And, you know, and just for the record, up until recently, I guess, I don't know how

how long ago was Marquez, I think, introduced that to Marquez.

Yeah. Because we used to buy our own names. We still, like, pay, a $100 a month or something. We still just contribute to a pot, and then, you

know, it goes but, anyways,

that so as you're talking, one of the things I'm thinking about is, you know, if we are to get at a you know, at at these conversations, you know, maybe I don't know how this how it looks like or how it, like, sort of manifest. But if we were to have, say, another slide, not more than seven. If we were to have another slide on, you know, on, like, what are the core services? Or, you know, if if, you know, you know, if I were to give permission to the executive team to push back. Right, push back on us and say, listen.

This is the core service. This is what you know, your priority, and, I don't know if we can hit that priority. I mean and if that's, I mean, if that's a conversation I mean, we all I mean, I know we're elected and, you know, we we respond to the community, but I think we also need to be very honest with ourselves in here, you know, as to what we can deliver and you know, at least for right now, you know, at least, you know, in short term. But

I appreciate But

I don't know.

I mean, I'm just sort of putting that out there.

I appreciate that wholeheartedly because it is a difficult exercise for staff who dedicate their lives to public service. And it's also a difficult conversation with our partners who who receive funding from the city. But we're asking the same questions, and and I'm asking folks to look at the bigger picture, not just focus on the one program or the one element of an overall program. How effective are we being? What how what was the return of the investment for the city's contribution?

And then how many programs are we do we have in place that we're subsidizing? And how are they how are they working together? Do we need all of them? Or are we meeting the goal on with three out of the five? And those are very hard questions. And to go back to your to your question, how are they responding? I just shared with Dustin earlier today. They're they're looking at their answers. I see a lot of emails. I see a lot of conversations because I'm asking the questions.

And and the it's an exercise to and I'm asking people to think with a bigger picture in mind and to put their hat on as a representative of the city, not just their individual functions that they carry or their pet project or the pilot project. And I and I'm asking, that has been a pilot project for how many years? You know, how we're measuring and what are the metrics? When do we report out? And how effective are we being?

And most importantly, how much is this costing? And and people are it's creating energy. And the energy at times is is exciting, or there's many of us who love to resolve our problem, a difficult problem, but it also makes people uncomfortable because I'm asking difficult questions. And I'm and it's not and like I said to a young lady, are you processing paper, or are you using your judgment to to do the work of the city in a transformative way since reimagining government? Yeah.

And that's what's called for. It's not the pleasure that we're taking to doing this. The circumstances cause for us to be able to meet the moment, we have to go through that exercise.

So well stated. Well, you

know, I I can't I can't help but to keep reflecting, you know, when we have these conversations. You know, when I got here in 2010, and I know Alex Murray was here and, you know, Abby, There was and, you know, we were in an economic the economy was imploding all around us. And, you know, Sweeney and and and and the council, I mean, I was you know, we had essentially put some spending on merch on, you know, on almost everything. And, you know, I I I couldn't imagine, you know you know, as a council member bringing to that table, you know, some of the proposals that we brought, you know, that we brought over the, you know, last seven years, five years. You know?

But, anyway, I I say all of that because, you know, I don't I hope I'm hoping as we move forward that Mhmm. As a council, as the three of us with our colleagues, you know, if, you know, if staff brings back to us, you know, hard hard decisions to cut or to stop and or pause or you know, I don't wanna plant any seeds with the public right now, but, you know, we're we're we're really gonna have to sort of toe that line and figure out, you know, how we do this. And and I'm here I mean, I think I'm hearing that from

from here. But Yeah. And we're not even that we're not even really in that bad shape. I mean, when you look at $215,000,000 budget and you're asking for 220,000,000, well, that's, like, less than a 2% difference. Right? So, I mean, asking for a 2% reduction seems pretty rational to I mean, so you're right. It's not like we're like, oh my god. The sky's fault. We have to figure out how we do all these major changes. I mean, like you're saying, we can start to make these incremental changes now that can really have transformative changes later to make sure that we're able to meet the financial moment that's called for right now.

And it doesn't even have to be super big because the gap we're trying to address isn't major, but it does have to be addressed before it becomes major and then snowballs and then has this, you know, multiplying effect. Yeah.

I think that's a great segue for Regina's presentation.

My presentation for today?

Yeah. Mhmm.

Okay. If you don't mind. So my question is We're reviewing the agenda. For his notes on the. Okay.

So so that so okay. So that's it. Okay. So I will close item three. Right? I'll move on to item number four, which is and approve the 2025 agenda. Mean

Okay.

And I don't think we've had so many people in this room before because I am burning up.

Bernie, you have to sit here.

Just say.

We will hot seat.

K.

So when when is the budget workshop, the the marathon day?

I think that Chris is gonna be pulling you off on May 5. Would you have a?

Is that the second weekend, second Saturday of the month? Actually How long is it Mother's Day weekend? Got it. And we also wanna hit with the third weekend. But

is?

It's the Rancher Radio. What? So, you said the tenth?

The tenth.

And Mother's Day is on the eleventh? See if we can bring our moms a balanced budget. No.

Good asking.

Hey. Yeah. Glad that you're a budget narrative. Beautiful. Thank you, mom. Yeah.

And so the the the budget, so the the budget workshop is gonna be essentially the same format that we've followed in the past. Just each department, and for the red.

Like, five, seven slides.

Less than 10.

Less than 10. Pretty sure.

Shouldn't be very much to talk about.

Yeah. And and because I'll be honest with you. I I I think this year I think this year is gonna be we're gonna get a lot more questions amongst council. And and, you know, and I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again just to say it. But, you know, the reason why the reason why, you know, I've, you know, I've become sort of a a sly, you know Stick learner.

Stick learner. Is is because, you know, in the past, I felt that, while staff delivers great content, I mean, know, they're they've been you know, after we get done with a 32 slide deck, you know, counsel's drained, and we don't ask we don't answer quest we don't ask questions. We don't answer questions and so forth. Sure. And I'm not saying that we don't do those lengthy slide decks.

You can produce them. Put them online. Let you know, for the public. But, but at least for presentation, I think we get more of a rich exchange while we're on the dais, you know, asking questions. Last night, I think, was a great example of sort of all the questions that we got. You know, It was very few slides, but we had a lot of fun. But except for the GAD, you know, the GAD can you know? But I'm just saying. Anyways okay. You had a question?

Thanks. The Hare Community Foundation update. I'm curious. I feel like did I

request for that to get put

on the agenda last time? It's okay if I didn't. Just maybe in one of the slots, which is nice to know. I think there's been a question that at the very bottom, it says Hayward Community Foundation update, one of the nonscheduled items. Well, I just feel like it I think since I've been elected, it's been floating there for a long time at, like, some kind of update whenever it's convenient for staff. I don't think it's very pressing, but I'd rather just discuss it so it doesn't live there any longer or just have an idea of what we're trying to do with it or some kind of vision for it. My second question was, do we have an expected date when we'll receive the draft budget so we

can start reviewing it?

Yeah. I

wanna say it's April and that's Friday. Okay.

I think it's that Friday. April 28. We'll have about two weeks to review ahead of time.

Okay. April 25. Okay.

Twenty fifth. Perfect. Okay. Great. Thank you. Gonna block out that weekend. Okay.

I agree with about that community foundation update. You know, I'm even thinking about I don't know if this is too too much, but, you know, kicking it up to, like are we on break in August?

August is the or moderate. It depends on the count of that.

By the August, the more outbreak. So it might just So maybe September

the day before the nineteenth when.

Oh, okay. Well, maybe September 17, maybe we can do the Hayward Community Foundation update because I'd like to know about that too too. Yeah. I know in the past, there's been some things that we've attached the foundation to. Anyway, like, the community benefits stuff.

I don't know

what we can do with it too. Right? Like, is there room for creativity with it? And, yeah, I just I I haven't been briefed on it personally, so I just

wanted to

Is there money in there?

I haven't I haven't been briefed on this yet.

I forgot

a copy

of there?

So that's I work with Upwork Mary on. We should probably clarify the foundation is, which we don't actually have a Hayward Community Foundation. There's a full backstory behind it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Need to clarify the actual definition of what we're

Okay. About

And so this is coming out of the city manager's office?

Initially initially, it was. And then during COVID, I worked on it with

just

Gotcha. What what could be helpful given that September is a few months away, maybe I'm permitting a brief demo of these total for it comes to budget of finance so we have additional That's publicly we say it's come to a standstill, I worry about air

and dirty laundry. It's necessary.

Isn't it necessary in every organization?

We were partnered with the prior organization. Work with that center for some COVID thing that brought on the idea of, hey. We're creating its own foundation, but we never moved forward with

that. Okay.

Okay. That's fair enough.

Yeah. But but but the foundation the the community just historically historically speaking, the community the Hayward Community Foundation was established when we when we set up, the cannabis ordinance. Right?

We have we have 7% of those funds set aside to go to this organization. We haven't officially, like

I said, we haven't created that actual foundation. 1% of the 7% tax

Yeah.

Has been tracked separately and is sitting in an account that can be used. What what was initially set as policy was wait until there's a million dollars in there Yeah.

Program. Mhmm.

It sits there today. I don't know the balance off the top of head. Okay. It's getting towards half 1,000,000, like, 400,000, something like that. Okay. Okay. But it's sitting still on our books. It's it's sitting there.

But it's not in the Hayward community foundation.

It's in a city's it is a room, in a closet somewhere? Mhmm. It's an idea. They're in the, 1730.

And then I was wanted to flag. I know February parcel sales update is on here. I'm not necessarily recommending it needs to come to the Budget and Finance Committee, but this was something that we discussed prior given that there is some money set aside and we're looking at balancing our budget. I think it was discussed at the council meeting that there was more conversation that needed to happen around it to understand what we wanted to do with those dollars. I'm just curious about the state of that conversation. Does that

have to happen here? But I'd like to know, you know, what's the

advantage of those funds.

Thank

you.

Okay.

Is that it? No other questions? Committee member and staff announcements. I just wanted to, just wrap up, just make one report, one announcement. I just wanted to, say thank you to the finance team for, for stepping in and stepping up and stepping in.

And, I know, you know, it sorta happened kinda quick, and, you know, you guys have done a doing a great job. When I see, our old finance director on social media, San Leandro promoting her and all that, I quietly grind my teeth, but that's okay. But, no. I just wanted to say thank you, and thank you very much for everything you guys are doing. So Alright. With that said, meeting adjourned. Alright. Thank you.