Finance & Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

Peter Bergelis. I'm joined Chair of Marina Dimitrijevic is on her way, but asked us to get started early. We are joined on the board by Alderwoman Malayle Cogs. To my right, Alderman Scott Spiker. To my far right, to my left, Alderman Scott Spiker. To my far left, Alderman Moore. We are also joined by legislative liaison Kathleen Bregnos and our staff assistant Chris Lee. Thank you all for being here. And of course, our budget director, Nick Kovac. Getting started, item one, file 251,450, substitute resolution relating to tracking city attorney staff time devoted to Milwaukee Public School related issues.

I am the sponsor. I don't think I'll need to pass the gavel quickly.

This is a trailing resolution following budget amendments. Welcome, City Attorney Goyke. Good morning, Mr. Vice Chair and members. Evan Goyke, City Attorney. We obviously paid attention to the footnote. We understand this companion resolution. Just as an overview in state statute, Chapter 119 as the resolution correctly identifies, the city attorney's office is assigned as general counsel to the Milwaukee Board of School Directors for the Milwaukee Public Schools. We provide MPS array of services on a given day in our office that may be one ACA doing general guidance to the district and that might be half a dozen or more. We do handle litigation.

We handle labor and employment issues and then there's the real estate and then the general counsel guidance. So we do not track or bill our time. We have not historically done so. Obviously, this resolution will require us to track our time, which we will do. We've developed what that hourly code will look like for our employees that work on NPS matters. We do bill to a couple of outside entities, the housing authority, the employee retirement system. So we do have this type of billing for other clients. And then the resolution understandably says begin to work on memorandum of understanding if there could be compensation to the city for the city attorney's time. So we will do that.

Thank you. And MBS has started hiring more in house legal staff as well,

Their current budget does include position authority and funding for two positions. I believe it's two. They have previously posted but then withdrew that posting. And admittedly, there is a challenge of how the district hires and employs legal counsel and complies with Chapter 119 and who oversees those lawyers, who do they answer, who handles their supervision. And so I have made it clear to the school board and to the superintendent that I'm not opposed to them doing that and we'll work with them to effectuate that.

They are a large organization. Just for kind of comparators' sake, the Madison Public School District, which has half the pupils, has three house in three in house attorneys, a general and two worker bees. Most school districts are much smaller and higher private counsel and just have them kind of on a retainer. But given the number of employees they have and the issues that come up, it makes sense that they have a bolstered legal team. So I don't in any way want to stand in the way of that. We do have to address the issue of Chapter 119. Neither entity wants to run a follow-up state law in advance. They want to do this the right way. So they budgeted for it. Those positions are currently unfilled today.

And just to be clear, Chapter 119 requires the city attorney's office to represent MPS as their legal counsel? Correct. But does not require the city attorney's office to bill MPS for their services?

Correct. It's a mandate. It assigns us as general counsel and it provides three different exceptions for when an entity either side must or can have outside counsel and that's when there are conflicts of interest. There are times in negotiations, say, we're directed to advance a memorandum of understanding of paying for legal services, right? Well, the city attorney's office can't be on both sides of that negotiation. So in this instance, very likely MPS, because of this inherent conflict, will have outside counsel representing them as we if this resolution is enacted as we seek to develop that MOU.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Any comments, questions or discussion? Mr. Chair? Alderman Speicher.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess for the city attorney, so it was stated that we are required to supply counsel for MPS. So in the discussion of the MOU, they could, in theory, tell us to pound sand and we would still be obligated under the statute to supply counsel. They

a state law mandating this relationship is an effective argument that certainly that is an argument that they will advance in defense of not paying or recouping. But this is what I'll say. And it's important to say it out loud. We are partners. They are serving the kids of our community.

Their constituency is your constituency, is my constituency. And so we do not approach MPS as other than we are with them and partners in it. So is it technically adversarial as we advance if this resolution is enacted and we advance an MOU? Sure. It would be adversarial if they enact a resolution asking for us to pay for services to them, right?

And so but we don't approach it as a true it's not litigious or ill willed. And I don't know what will come of the kind of final product of the MOU. But current leadership at MPS, I don't want to speak for them, but they recognize that they benefit from enhanced legal staff on-site. Certainly Doctor. Brenda Kaselius, the current superintendent, she had that in Boston and she's made that clear that was a very different structure in her prior superintending role.

And I think there's benefits to that. And I certainly don't want to stand in the way of the district having the resources and the legal counsel that they need to be the best district that they possibly can. So we'll engage in this process if the resolution is enacted and happy to report

back as it goes forward. And following up, so they could tell us to pound sand and we would still have to represent them. You're saying these are our kids here, Milwaukee City residents. But of course, maybe one of the things animating the resolution or I guess one of the reasons I supported it is MPS is a separate taxing authority. They have the ability to levy taxes and have shown no compunction about doing so.

So given that that's the case, if we had all the money in the world, sure, we'd love to shower them with free city attorney time. But we don't. We have to make tough budget choices and you have advocated for your office to be staffed fully. In that. But time we give for free is gift that is exceedingly difficult to justify in these tough budgetary times.

So I allowed the sponsor for pursuing this, very interested in working out an amicable agreement. But even though they could tell us to pound sand, they really shouldn't. It wouldn't be wise. We are mandated to represent them, but not how well we should. We could give them baby lawyers. We could give them our leftover time. We could do all sorts of things. But in the spirit of partnership, we don't want to start the discussion there. But it's not like we're without leverage in this relationship.

So thank you.

Thank you, Alderman Spiker. I want to note that we're joined by Alderman Andrea Pratt on the Board and President Perez here at the table. Also, City Controller Bill Christensen is here. We will move over to the board. Alderman Cox, please.

Thank you. Thank you, mister chair. I mean, thank you for bringing this resolution forward. I would like to be added as a co sponsor. For the for the city attorney, when it does come to, the MOU, I would just encourage you to, think broadly about their payment to us because it can there are things that we utilize for NPS that we are that we are asked to pay for.

Like, when

we have town hall meetings at schools or we use school facilities that give us a bill. So it may not be, like, dollar for dollar. You pay us the, the hourly, whatever. It may be that they no longer charge us for, some of the stuff that they that they charge us. So it's not them giving up a dollar. It's them, kinda like exchanging what they bill us for for that to be less. You get you get what I'm saying? I just I'm encouraging you to be creative when you do the MOU.

Absolutely. Understood.

Alright. Thank you. Thank

you, alderwoman Cox. Any other discussion? Mister chair. Alderwoman Moore.

I I just wanna acknowledge my colleague's sentiments and as well as attorney Goyke. I completely agree that, you know, the partnership that we have with MPS and the service that we provide. On top of that, you know, my colleague brings up such a really good point as far as the resources that when we try to have town hall meetings, we're not having a a dance or a fundraiser, right? We're we're we're bringing community together and if and I would absolutely encourage if there is an opportunity to exchange, you know, barter some resources that we're able to access for the betterment of our community. I can see that as a win win in addition to what Alderman Spiker shared, our budgets are absolutely tightening.

We had to give provide millions and millions of dollars to our law enforcement that and again they provide a valuable service to our community. But that also means that if we give a lot there, we got to figure out where else do we have to tighten up. So this at least, you know, within this time frame, it also allows us to see how much time is also being expended. That's I think one of the things I would love love to see by, you know, in a year's time like, oh, we're spending X number of hours at which equates to X number of dollars, you know, toward NPS. And I think for us, that's just good fiscal management.

So I appreciate the the the sponsor for coming, bringing this to the table and would love to be added as a co sponsor as well.

Thank you very much for that. Alderwoman Cogs and Alderwoman Moore asking Adam's consent to be added as co sponsors. Hearing no objections, so ordered. President Perez. Again, I just want

to be added as a cosponsor also.

Hearing no objections, welcome to the club. All right. Alderwoman Moore moves adoption. Any discussion on that motion?

Cosponsorship, please.

Alderman Spiker asked to, join the club as well. Thank you for that. Hearing no

questions, I'll be added.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I said may I also be added? And I did also want to add, one thing that MPS has a robust print shop, and that's another avenue in which maybe some bartering could be done.

Alderwoman Pratt asks unanimous consent to be added as cosponsor hearing no objections that ordered. Thank you so much. Alderman Moore moved adoption. Any discussion on that motion? Hearing none so ordered. Thank you very much. Passing the gavel back. Welcome, Chair Dmitryevich.

Thank you so much to Vice Chairperson Alderman Bergelis. We're now on Item number 2,251,454, substitute resolution relating to the use of sales tax revenue for the purchase of a fire apparatus. Alderman Bergelis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, this is a second trailing resolution from a budget amendment. Fairly straightforward. Sales tax revenue is certainly limited based on Act 12 and Budget Director Kovac can shine some light on that. But this is just to have something on the record very clear and some specified timeline before the next budget is before us so that we know all of our options on how we can pay for lifesaving equipment in our community.

Okay. Anyone else wish to speak on this matter?

I'm sure.

Okay. Alderman Spiker?

I guess for the budget office, is there any I know you're going explore the feasibility if this passes in detail, but is there any reason remember we put money towards police radios a while back. Is there any reason that this kind of capital use would be foreclosed? Is there any concern here?

Do think in the COVAX Budget Management Division, we do think provisions of Act 12 only allow sales tax revenue would be spent in certain ways. Roughly speaking, it's for certain eligible pension costs. Some of that limited amount, 10% of the original year's collections can be spent on maintaining current pre Act 12 fire and police levels and then a portion of the 90% plus everything above the original year's baseline can be spent on increasing or furthering the increase of sworn staffing. And obviously if you are going to further the increase of sworn staffing, they need radios, they need equipment of all kinds including heavy equipment, especially in the fire department's case. One thing I would just say though in terms of in order to trigger that eligibility, you are going have to cash finance versus borrow in order to be eligible in a given year.

So which we did do in a couple of cases with radios and then also in 2024 we did it as part of the budget and also with 2025 carryover we did it for the radios. So it's an option given the parameters of Act 12 but it's an option that if you are going to cash finance millions of dollars in equipment then you have millions of dollars you are not spending on pensions and salaries which you do need to pay. So then you just need to spend regular levy dollars on that. So the issue is really is there enough money to pay for pensions, salaries and equipment. And just within the sales tax bucket, at least in our 2026 experience, the answer was no between paying the pension increases and the salary increases and that didn't even factor in, although indirectly it did via the wage supplement fund, but it didn't even know specifically how much the police wage contracted police wages would be.

So between pension increases and wage increases, which are not unrelated, I mean depending on what the sales tax comes in, will there eventually be more? Eventually, maybe. So every year I am happy to explore this feasibility, have full discussions with the council about that Just based on my the prior experience we have had with three budgets now with the sales tax, I think it's unlikely there will be sort of extra or money that isn't already the current eligible once you pay the pensions and salaries, will there be money left is what I'm trying to say. And so far the answer has been no with the exception of the year we had ARPA and with the exception of the year we had carryover. So there could be exceptions to that.

But when you go into a year with your projections, in 2026, the projections were pensions and salaries eat up the entire sales tax. In 2027, it could be different. We'll keep you posted.

And would it be too much of a problem and this would be the data request to have some sort of information provided about where that sales tax money has gone roughly? It would be helpful to have that historical context. Thank

you. You. Alderman Bergamo?

I will move adoption when appropriate. But last question for the budget office. You mentioned previously the audit that Act 12 is required. What is the timeline for that and when can we expect to see something like that?

We've got we the state law provides that we'll report in this year on 'twenty four expenses and then we will report in 'twenty seven and 'twenty five expenses.

And that's the regular audit as normal course of backlog?

Regular reporting is required back to all. That's the cadence of the reporting.

Is that expected to come out in the summer, in the fall and the winter?

I don't have it on the way right now but I can get back to you on that.

Okay. Alderman Berglis moves adoption of Item two. Further discussion of Item two or adoption? Objections to adoption? Hearing none so ordered. We're on item 3,250,898. Communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to the annual reporting of exit survey results to the common council. This is sponsored by all alderwoman COGS. And here we have Department of Employee Relations Director Jackie Carter. And I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. Would you introduce Derek

Riley, Business Finance Manager, Department of Employee Relations.

Oh, so nice to meet you and welcome.

Nice to

meet you. Thank you. Aldwoman Cogs, would you like to begin introducing this file that you requested?

Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. This file is the result of a past footnote. It's just a it was my goal to just have this annually reported because we've done different actions in the past to have every department do the exit surveys, but I've but what good is that if we don't know the information. Mhmm.

So this is just a way to report out any information that I think we should know how you're looking. And it's also to make sure that we're having a DER exam, and we're knowledgeable about any trends or any issues as well. One of my goals with several files, not just this one, has been we went through that period a few years ago of so such great level of vacancies. It's like, how do we ensure we never get back there again? And I think, like, paying attention to why people are leaving and which departments they're leaving from and trying to address those as they are occurring and ahead of time, I think would help.

So this is just one small way for us to stay informed so that we can be a little more proactive in the future. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Alderman Cogs. We'll now go to director Jackie Carter.

Good morning. Good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to come and and share these results. So, there is a copy of the report in the file and I'll just give a brief summary of the so the data that we use to compile this information came from information that was collected between 08/15/2024 and 12/31/2025. Within that time, we had 1,145 what we call separations and they fall into multiple categories.

So, you'll see on the first page of the report, it kind of lays out the the different categories but the what you see on the report is just from those people who responded, right? So, the 1,145 is total number of people who moved around the city from one for one reason or another that is listed on the report. So, we had of the 144 people who responded and that represents about 13% of people who had some kind of separation action. So just to be clear, separation action is not just a resignation. It could be retirement.

It can mean you left one department and moved to another. There's a number of different things that we consider a separation because it requires some type of action within the human resource system. So, that's how we track these but again, of the the folks who move for some reason, about 13% of them responded to this survey. So, I want to make sure I note that in 2024, the reason that there's like this partial year in there is because there was a change in the way that the survey was issued. Before we went to this method where we issue it electronically via Email to a personal Email address.

We were having personnel officers who would initiate the transaction. So, they would have to send the Email or they would schedule a meeting to collect this information in person from the employee who was affected and so now that we've sent it, we're sending it via Email. It's coming directly to the Department of Employee Relations. The information is limited. There's not a lot of people in our department who have access and we did that intentionally because we want to protect people's confidentiality in hopes that they will be as transparent and honest and forthcoming as possible.

So, getting back to the numbers, a 144 employees who separated responded to the survey. Of those 144, 118 were folks who left city employment. So they would have resigned or retired. Some some other they completely left employment. 24 of those respondents were people who transferred to another department. And I wanna specify when we talk about the separations. There's people who transfer to another department and there's people who will move around within their department. The the folks who do an internal within their department movement, they are not counted. They do not receive this survey because that is not considered a separation. So, they're taking a promotion or something like that within the department.

So, we don't count those. So, I just want to be clear about that but we laid it out. So, separations by type is here. We asked a number of different questions. The way this survey is structured is depending on what you how you respond to a certain question, it will kind of spread out beyond that and and Derek is here to to give some more information if there are questions about that but we basically split the folks into the two groups where whether you are leaving city employment or you're just transferring to another department and then go from there. So I'm hoping you all had some time to look over this and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have at this time.

Okay. Thanks so much. Let's see if we have any questions on item three. We've got the report Alderman Spiker, then Alderman Moore.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess so I thought this was very, very helpful and it was 144 employees, 118 who left City Employment, I think the right number is 26 that transferred to another department. And then the one item where, I guess, I would have definitely liked more information is on Page two of the summary of the survey at the bottom for Q3, why are you leaving city employee recruitment. So that was obviously that's one that's extremely helpful for us in deciding how we're going to attract, retain, elevate employees. So the none of the above obviously grabbed about half of the percentage, but there is no did you have so sometimes when I used to teach and stuff, we'd have anonymous surveys and people would supply comments and we would keep that anonymized as much as we could.

So do you have any sort of narrative, actual sentences, descriptions of why people left to and have we examined the none of the above category for any sort of meaningful patterns?

We so that was one of the things as we noted on the the report here that in this particular question, there was not an option that says other which would allow us to capture some of that data or that kind of narrative information and so in doing this, we did learn some things about the way the survey is structured. We do need to add those kinds of options into some of these questions. However So that we can get that.

Other help.

So So that's would

give them

None of the above.

Well, none of the above is just one answer. If you do other, it then gives you the option to write something else that's not listed. So there's a couple of

questions Oh, in be helpful? One at a time,

you guys. We can't hear.

Just Well, I mean, have a series of questions that I would like to parse out.

Yeah. Just pause in between them because I can't even hear you.

Yeah. When looking at the other category, it might be that there are certain patterns which then you can play forward into the next And version of the so I guess I would encourage it sounds like that may be the direction direction you're already going. But that would be much more meaningful than just the catch all.

Yes. We learned that from different And things. Yes, thank

have you consulted so we have nascent relationships with universities in the city and I have an academic background. So there are professionals who do surveys for like a living. Have we made any attempt or would we be interested in having some sort of connections to an organization such as UWM that has actual survey experts who may be able to offer insight that we don't personally possess in how to conduct a survey in a meaningful manner.

So we are actually in conversations to do a stay survey because want we we talked to some professionals about.

I don't know what a

stay survey. A stay survey means you don't wait till they leave. You talk to them while they're still working. So, you're getting feedback from current employees on their experience and how they see the culture, the the way that we operate, their opportunities. So you can ask these questions in a similar frame but to people who are not moving. Right? So getting an interest in what are they interested in doing, how do we start to kind of line up trainings and different things that might help employees to develop and be better. So

That's not directly relevant to my question. So my question

was I'm gonna answer it if you allow me to finish.

Let me just frame it. So, again, surveying is a professional entity. So have we made attempts to engage those with professional expertise? So if you could start your question there and then branch out.

Well, that's what that's what I'm trying to do, Artemis Becker, is we've engaged with the professional. That was what you asked and what they have informed us is that the state survey is more valuable and so if we're going to invest, we're going to invest in that. That's what I was trying to say.

And what is the professional you've engaged with?

I can't remember the name of the we we worked with them before. We did Gallagher. So they were the ones that we worked with before.

So this is a a private survey firm that Yep. We've Okay.

Well, we haven't hired them. We're just talking to them about structuring something.

Yeah. And is there any reason we wouldn't avail ourselves of the free resource

of No. Nope. I hadn't you just hadn't thought of it. So that's something we can consider.

Yes. Town and gown connections in general are, I think, underplayed in the city and are maybe a fee con source of all sorts of partnerships. So this might be one of them. So happy to facilitate if that's an interest or even if it's not. Thank you.

Any other questions on Item three?

The Action.

Oh, thank you. It would be to place on file Thank you. Alderwoman I'm sorry. Alderwoman Moore was in the queue. Alderwoman Cogs. Give me one second, please. Alderwoman Moore.

Thank you so much, madam chair. My colleague asked the first question that that you shared as far as the how do we parse out that 47%. So I'm I appreciate him asking that. The other quick question that I had was that you shared about confidentiality. Is that explicitly explicitly shared in documentation that they receive? And so the survey, there's a link, and I'm not sure.

Do you know exactly how that's

laid out you wanna share?

Yeah. I believe at the Hold

the mic up closer, please.

At the top of the floor. Could you identify yourself?

Derek Riley, Department of Employee Relations. The form has a blurb at the top of it about confidentiality. The form can be found at milwaukee.gov/forms. I believe it's Item 16 on the page.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. And sorry for that. Apologies.

You're in the queue.

You're in the queue. Okay. So we'll go Alderman Cox, then I have Regalis, then Perez. Alderman Cox.

Thank you, madam chair. I would I would first say to the director that and and maybe this is more we can talk about offline. I like the idea of this day survey. I just think that why there's doesn't appear to me at least to be a reason why we couldn't do both ends. Yeah.

Not either. It doesn't I don't think it has to be either or. The more information, the better. And, secondarily, I I would say this. I unfortunately, I don't have the report in front of me, but I would like to just hit me with the highlights during the time period that you, examined the, exit surveys, which which department had the most people leave, which department had the greatest participation in the surveys, or were there any departments that didn't really bring forward surveys as many as the people that left? Were there any trends that you saw or any reasons of those who did give? Why they were leaving? That kind of thing.

Yeah. So in in terms of the department data, I can get you that. I didn't include that because again, we didn't want to make it easy for people to try to figure out who said what. So, we purposely did not include that in here but I'm happy to to chat with you about that offline. In terms of the any trends that we saw.

So, there's a little bit of narrative and and I know you don't have it in front of you. So, I'll I'll just go over a couple of em. When we talk about reasons that people left, the top two things were better work environment and higher salary. Of course, we we kind of can assume some of those but there were also quite a few that people that responded with better work life balance, more opportunities for advancement and so, as we're thinking about how we you know, do promotions, how do we train, how do we prepare people, how do we do succession planning, I think that information will be helpful and also helping department leaders to start to prepare their staff or give them opportunities so that they can be prepared when opportunities come up. We asked also did those folks and I'm looking at I started question four.

This is number five. Did you consider any other city opportunities before leaving? Most of the risk, so 24% said yes in other departments, not not or 8% said they did in their department. 9% said in both their department and outside and and 59% said, no, they did not but to know that 38 of those folks responded or the respondents resigned after. They have been seeking, you know, other opportunities and 26% of those were retirement.

So, when we look at that seventy, twenty six of those were people who retired so they did not look for other employment, okay? And when when we ask, would they look for opportunities within the city in the future? So, even though there were people who said, no, they did not look before they left and a lot of those were people who resigned most of them said that they would they would consider it and some said they would consider after it they had exhausted other options. So, there's some information there. That's where the folks who left.

When we talk about the people who transferred to other departments, what were the reasons that they left? Again, same same trend, higher salary, better benefits, and the work life balance better environment. So, were the highlights here again. Would you recommend city employment to a friend? We asked that of everybody and 61 of the responders or 42% said, yes, they would.

Some said they would with reservation. About 24% said no and so for whatever reason, I will say let me just see. 62% of the employees who stayed with the city said that they would and only 38% of those who left said that they would. So, we parsed those out a little bit and then, when we talk about direct supervisor, this is another one of those questions where when we were going through this, we realized that a lot of the responses really lean towards somebody who had a really positive experience and so it it wasn't helpful for us to learn if there was something we need to dig into a little bit further And so this is another one of those questions where we would add that option of other where they could provide some additional narrative. And the final question that we put on the report was we do ask employees if there is any, if they've had any experience with like harassment or bullying or discrimination.

And we had quite a few people who said yes or that they prefer not to say, which we often will assume there's something there, right, that needs to be looked at. And so in the case when we get those kinds of responses, those employees are offered within the survey the option to say, you know, go a little bit further, provide some additional detail. They can also reach out to Doctor or leave their information for a staff member to reach out to them. So that's kind of a broad summary, Alderman Cox. If there's something else you want me to dig into, I will. And I can provide that department data separately as well.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Alderman Coggs.

We have

Alderman Berglis, then President Perez, and then we will conclude on this item. Alderman Berglis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for clarity, this is these are people that separated for in about a year and a half from Yep. August 2024 to 2025. Prior to August 2024, do we not do surveys?

We did. They were just in a different format and so we took this from when we changed that format and so just because those are in a different file and I don't know, Derek, if you know more about how we collected that.

But That's old data.

Yeah. Yep.

Okay. But moving forward, so you did you say that there were 1,145 people that left that were eligible to take the survey?

So 1,145 people had an HR action that would be considered a separation.

Okay.

And of those

13% replied.

What's that?

Of those 13% replied, I think it's I think it's certainly statistically relevant to get data from people who transfer. I don't know if it's terribly relevant for people who retire or but I think it's important to distinguish those differences, what prompts someone to leave the city, what prompts someone to change their department or their task. And I would ask for a comparison now that we're getting some regularity with the data to ensure that we have higher compliance or not look at all eleven forty five as not every HR action warrants an exit survey. And I think more than one, hey, fill out this link if you like request would give us a better response rate.

So just to clarify, the the the separate or the transfers are included in here. What we didn't include was if you work for DPW and you took a promotion to DPW, they didn't get it because clearly you're happy there, right? If you work in DPW and you transfer it to the port, we sent it to you because then we could learn something. So, that's the difference.

Alright. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much. Our concluding comment on this will be common council president Jose Perez.

Yes. I was just so today's communication is that we will now be getting an annual report from you?

That's my understanding is what

this is. Because it wasn't on the books before to do an annual report, right?

I'm not sure.

Okay. And then and kind of towards Alderman Bergalis' question, we've been doing surveys for years, correct? Yes. And do you have over time, has there been a report or analysis done? I mean, you do these surveys every year. How do the results of those surveys play some role in improving the workplace? How is it implemented? I mean, what have we been doing without other information from the survey Because and I'll tell you this, because we've I've been in this committee. We've been asking for a survey results and why people are leaving, especially during the big day of the vacancies. Although my colleagues has had this in the footnotes for a couple and we've even heard commissioners like, don't have survey results.

So does every single because I know different departments have an HR person. Is there a uniform way of doing these survey exits that your department sets the tone for everyone who does HR in every single department in the city so that it's uniform. We're looking at the same thing. We have the same strategy to extract as much as we can and basically what have what has anyone done with the information over the years?

So that's what this represents is our department taking a lead, taking control of the data, and making sure that it is unbiased. That because what what was happening before, if so, I was HR at the port, right? When somebody left, I had the option to either send them the link or have a one on one with them. If I have the one on one, I'm filling the survey out for them. So, to us, to me, when I'm looking at this, this is much better because it's coming straight from the employee. It's not filtered through a conversation with the supervisor. And they can trust that this supervisor who sent them the link is not going to get the data. So, that's why this is better and why we chose to keep the results clean and only present from what we got from this format.

Okay. So, could you figure out if anyone's done anything with information?

I can.

Yep. And then and then since it's better now in your opinion and moving forward, what is your department gonna do with that information?

So, when there's that's reported that is relevant for the department to know, we do share that with them. When there is something reported that's concerning, we address that. We will follow-up with those individuals. So, we do look at it but again, we limit this to the the folks who would have access to this are folks who are looking at compliance, who are looking at labor relations and making sure that there's no violations and things like that. So, if something like that is flag here, then, they would be doing follow-up. So, it's again, very limited number of folks in our department who has this and that's about making sure people can be confident that this is not gonna end up in the hands of somebody who can retaliate or, you know, seek them out for whatever reason.

Or if there's a pattern of horrible work environment, then what do you do about it?

That identifies opportunities for training. Absolutely.

Okay. Including people at the very top?

Yes. Thank you.

Madam chair, can I just really quick follow-up?

Sure. Alderman?

Just demographic as far as race. Is that something that could be included? Do we

Yeah. So it's not currently a question that's on the form, but, we do ask for the employee ID when they fill out the form and then we crosswalk that against our HR system so we can pull their demographic information.

I would be curious to sort of see how that frames out with the number of people that have left. That would be awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Thank

you. We

excuse me one second. Do we have gender breakdown too? I'm sorry.

Okay. Do. Actually, I have that. Thank you. So of the 144 respondents, seventy eight or 54% were female and sixty six, 46% were male.

Okay. Okay.

And just briefly, have you have you thought about the ERGs helping with the future of the stay surveys?

We hadn't but I'd be we can talk about what you what you're thinking with that.

Because I think the ERGs who are very committed to, you know, groups in the city and. Yeah. Have very specific issues can encourage the stay participation in the stay surveys because then they can be very specific to special needs or issues that the ERGs deal with.

Right. I'm sorry. You said gender was 78?

I'm sorry,

Madam No. It's just that Alderman Spiker has been waiting. So I want to just go Yes. Just wanted

her to

Well, that let's

You said seventy eight percent

Seventy eight people.

We're female.

78 people.

54%. Got it. Got it. Thank you.

Okay. Alderman Spiker and then we will we will conclude. Okay. Alderman Spiker?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I realize that when we do the survey innocent Mr. Riley? Yes. Okay.

When we do the survey, you don't want to get it so complex or else people will say, I ain't filling this out. But there's as was demonstrated by the raceethnicity question, there's a lot of information we can gather on the back end to conduct our analysis and get that way more granular without making the survey itself more complex. So I would when I was looking through this, I had a million questions in my head and maybe those will be provoked by the discussion with the professionals on survey design. But I was wondering like how does this break down when we're talking management level employees versus non management? How does it break down for years of service?

People who are into the pension and vested, it takes a lot to move them out. And they are what's happening there. By departments, I know Alder Cogs mentioned this, I know you want to preserve anonymity, but certainly there are departments that are large enough where there's no threat of the anonymity being violated. And so DPW, DNS, bigger departments, that doesn't mean you have to have deferred comp as its own separate thing. Would just be other departments or little guys.

The department level one, I would think, would be immensely useful information as well. And then my last thing is, again, searching at how to do a better survey. It would be good probably to I wonder if we have looked at what other municipalities have done and if there are any sort of best practices out there for doing exit surveys, not just in our state but around the country. That might be an area to explore as well. And I would close with you guys just did general city? You didn't do police fire?

No. They're they're included. Police fire

is included.

Yes. Oh, then then that would definitely I would want that pulled out because there might be a very different story there as well.

But at and and I hear you, Alderman Spikey, but I think that's when we start getting into being able to identify things and that we're not comfortable sharing because we we really want people to be comfortable giving us honest and transparent feedback and when there's a chance that somebody will be able to when you start listing out titles and departments and different things like that, that's getting too granular.

Titles and departments are vastly different. The police department is the largest department.

Are, but depending on the time frame and how many people leave and the way they respond, you could figure that out.

Yeah. But again, if you're just figuring out, you know, why did you leave? Was it something relating to benefits or was it I I I would explore that question before I dismiss it.

No and well, what I'm saying, we have the data. I'm not going to put it in a report though is what I'm saying because we can explore it and we do go and do follow-up But there that has to be limited. It cannot be something that's gonna go in the record.

So this I promise this is my last thing. So other municipalities I'm sure have looked at this. I'm sure there is a general issue of how do you keep the data anonymous. How do you prevent because again in academics we encounter that all the time. How do you preserve a student's anonymity while still getting useful information? And there are methods. So I'm not saying that what your concern is not relevant. It's deeply relevant. But I would highly encourage us because of the utility of the data we could gather to look at how other people have tried to make the same mousetrap.

Thank Okay.

One thing I'd be interested in is, and I'll defer to you on what would be the best way to do it, but kind of like if people were saying that they had a challenging work environment or I hope not harassment or bullying somehow if they reported it. Because I would think you all as in leadership of DER would want to know had that been taken seriously, reported, followed up because I guess that would be the kind of worst case scenario that you felt that way, didn't speak out about it or that they did and wasn't analyzed correctly, investigated. So I just think that's important. And then diagnosing it that is there a reason if that was the case why people didn't. So kind of like what the President was saying about while we have challenges, we have some positives too that we can work with, with these groups.

Really if there's patterns, I don't want to suggest that there are any, but we often hear from female workers too some unique stressors in the environment and then we can address them. So this was a good thing to bring

up. Benacher?

What's President the action going to be taken on this? Is it the

It's place on file and it was a footnote with an annual report from what I understand.

So Places place on file means it goes away?

No. I thought that means that it hangs out in the system as it has an annual report. That was a suggested item here. What do we think? I mean, it's an annual report.

Madam chair? Yes. Maybe it's a question for Chris. It's an annual report, so does it stay open? Do we just hold it, or do we do a new file every year?

It's the preference of everyone. If you place it on file, the next time this comes up, you can simply open up a

file. Or you could choose to hold

it and use the same file

for future reports.

Madam Chair, I would suggest we just hold it.

Okay.

If that's the case, I'd I'd like to be out as a cosponsor.

Okay. Okay. So noted.

Madam Chair, please put Okay. Me as a cosponsor as

Moore Perez as sponsors. And then all the Roman and cogs moves hold to the call of the chair on item three. Any other discussion on that hold? Any objections? Hearing none so ordered. Thank you so much for that information. Thank Thank you. Great. Okay. Item four, I'll read into the file but the sponsor has asked for it to be held to the call of the chair. 250946, communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to classification studies or other studies scheduled for fire and police commission action. Alder Roman Moore, you still wish to have that help?

Yes, madam Okay.

Any discussion of holding the call of the chair? Any objections? Hearing none, this is so ordered. We're now on item five, two hundred fifty thousand two hundred forty, communication from the Department of Administration, Office of Innovation relating to current activities and initiatives. We're joined from the Department of Administration by Jim Bull. Mr. Bull, thank you so much for waiting. I know we held you over a cycle and we had a busy agenda.

But you are busy.

Okay. That's fine. So we have your slides. We really appreciate it. We have been able to read those and then when you're ready, we'll take a summary of those slides and then go to questions. Great. Okay.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. Jim Boll, Department Administration Office of Innovation. I wanted to provide this is my semi annual reporting to the committee. I wanted to just gloss over the first two items and in particular Madam Chair, if there is a possibility, I would prefer if it is possible to try to go through these slides as much as possible. I want to make certain that we get to the areas around AI which is at the back end. And if I know that there's a possibility of having a number of questions in between that's been kind of prolonged. So it's important and I want to try to get to that here.

I don't mind doing that but what I've allocated is fifteen minutes for the presentation and then I want to allow for questions. So we'll just I'll be watching that. Okay.

And I just wanted to introduce if I could in the innovation office. We were we had the ability to apply for a Bloomberg fellow who is a postgraduate fellow that joined us here at the very beginning of fall. And that person's name is Srila Srinivasan who joins us here and sitting in the second row. And so from time to time you may wind up seeing her come forward and we're really blessed to have her at Bloomberg's expense for the next two years. Going on to Innovation Office, our efforts are really driven by data, collaboration and experimentation.

We are really trying to push the use of technology and our efforts really focus on areas around fiscal stability and effectiveness of services. The innovation office operations are focused around experimentation, process improvement and learning and our approach is centered largely on areas around ideation, consulting and policy implementation and execution. For 2025, we had a productive year and this presents a large representation of a number of the projects that we saw through or worked on in conjunction with others to successful completion. Some of the areas include areas like legislation, the Wisconsin District pilot revision, the Chapter 98 conduit system modification, the Medicare Advantage Healthcare Plan for city retirees, the workforce tracker licensing agreement and a special policy special event policy and fee changes. And in terms of internal operations, some of the examples include exploring internal and external AI operating systems and establishing the need for and hiring a consultant to improve with police recruitment given the importance of retaining the MOE requirement with the state.

In internal projects and policy, identifying and promoting non consensual towing administrative fee adjustment that was internally and administratively approved and changes to tighten practices on communication firms present a couple of examples. In terms of an overall summary for the committee, below is a list of the administrative and budgetary changes sort of compiled and resulted in an area of $6,100,000 in recognized revenues, much of it reoccurring along with other generalized savings. The innovation efforts have resulted in implementing process improvements around receivables and debt collection in areas like parking tickets, nonconsensual towing companies and communication firms that utilize our conduit system. We've also been at the forefront of promoting multiple avenues for testing or incorporating AI and technology, including some areas that I will address here shortly relating to the city's utilization of GovAI as a system and a pilot that we're promoting with a company called Front Desk. It includes some additional areas like a DPW forestry pilots and a infrastructure services pilot that is also being run.

Our involvement with AI includes training and establishing a rollout plan for the internal chatbot system that we are looking to implement in 2026 and laying the groundwork for needed AI governance updates. Below is a select list of current innovation projects, and I do want to hallmark just a few of them. First, I want to talk briefly about a consultant led telecom audit that is being directed in conjunction with the comptroller's office as well as ITMD. This effort is on identifying unused or unused telecom systems like voice, data, cable and phone with a focus on finding billing errors that can be eliminated or unused or underused services that can be also generated for savings and cost reduction. And it will also look for areas where there may be specials or bundles and the ability to save city additional dollars.

There is the Midtown project. This is a project in the Central Midtown area, what used to be Capitol Court in conjunction with Alderman Chambers and others including Alderman Moore on this committee. City is seeking to innovate and retrofit a vacant Walmart store to include the potential permanent early voting sites, a voting storage location and a central count location as well as potentially considering this as a new home for the replacement of the aging Capital Drive Library. This lastly is a multi phased developments and it includes the first of what we're hoping will be two potential phases of affordable housing in the former North End parking lot of that Walmart structure. On the area of external partnerships with corporate nonprofit and academia world, there have been a number of areas that we have explored generated and hope to bring some items before you shortly.

We've had discussions with the Milwaukee Brewers organization around the acquisition of pothole equipment. The innovation office was able to field a innovation contest that was sponsored by the Home Foundation. There were two selected winners, one that presented an idea around auxiliary dwelling units and another one that wanted to bring technology to DPW in the form of a number of ways. We ourselves were able to go back in the innovation office and are now getting the Home Foundation to sponsor the pilot programs that we are running that are in conjunction with the winners. And so I will be bringing files to you here shortly that will be in conjunction of their sponsorship of pilot programs that will be running both around ADUs as well as a route report roadway imaging tech funding that is being done in the infrastructure services division of DPW.

Additionally, we've tied in certain departments institutions. For example, the UW La Follette School, we had a recent capstone research project that was just completed on emergency management optimization that really is insightful and I know that that is something that Mr. Zollikoffer could bring forward to you guys here somewhat shortly. Additionally, the School of Architecture and Urban Planning in UWM is now going to be moving forward with a MKE parks gathering spaces maintenance optimization study as well. Lastly, we were able to facilitate with the forestry department the ability to have a tie of research done and a project by MSOE students to establish a predictive tree maintenance tool that could provide for targeted mapping of trimming of trees in efforts to reduce storm damage during emergencies.

And so we continue to look for opportunities to bring forward and advance that. Lastly, I just want to hallmark the MKAE youth force initiative that's listed on here. This is something that is being done in conjunction with some of the great work from Nicole Hagar in ECO as as Mary Read in OEI. This is an effort to explore a City of Milwaukee Secondary School Partnership to expand career exploration opportunities with technical training through a potential dual enrollment initiative with the goal of developing high school youth apprenticeship model with MPS partnership high schools to focus on some of the hard to fill city positions in DPW such as those requiring CDL or HVAC. And so we're really this is something that we're hoping to start on a small basis and grow in the future.

But it is an initiative that I think presents a lot of excitement and melds with a lot of the things that I know that the council has been trying to do around youth apprenticeships. For future targets, I want to highlight a few items including an effort to look at our slip policy, that's our sick control leave policy. When I've looked at this, I think that is inherently inequitable and could be made to provide greater employee flexibility. As was addressed here an item or two ago, we are looking as a follow-up to an employee engagement survey from 2021. That's the stay survey that Jackie alluded to.

This is being done in conjunction with Molly and with Jackie. And we'll be looking to assess employee sentiment following some of the wage and market study increases in particular that have taken place since this study was last done with Gallagher in 2021. It will enable us to assess issues like residency. It will also allow us to assess things in policy such as whether or not an employee home down payment program, something that has been hallmarked by Alden Bergelis and others on the council here, whether that is something that employees would find effective. Finally, and this was something Alderman Spiker that you had addressed, We've been working very heavily with Lee Todd in the Federal Police Commission.

It's something that Alderman Moore knows from her work on one of the working groups of incorporating a heavy component of this with the Milwaukee Police Department to focus on officer retention efforts that the police department is also looking at as well too. That just that has an added component because we continue to struggle and just just tread water when it comes to the MOE issue. Lastly, I want to point out here one of the other items that has potential at least is being looked at yet to be determined. But in MFD non resident motor vehicle accident cleanup fee. This is something that was hallmark by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

We know that there are a number of other cities in Milwaukee County whose fire departments have this a some semblance of this type of policy in place. The fire department is studying this issue. There are some greater complexities to this for a larger department like Milwaukee. That being said, if it would enable us to take a look at charging for motor vehicle accidents for fire department services like the cleanup of fluids, the deployment of absorbents or the extraction of occupants. And we were really like looking at a focus of potentially doing this in a way that it would be impactful of charging non residents versus residents.

There are some communities in Milwaukee County that look at it that way. And I have had some conversation knowing that the council has pushed and promoted the efforts of trying to ensure that capital dollars. Again, this is far from being complete but this would represent unencumbered dollars that are new and so if there was an effort to get programs like this underway, it would be an avenue for spearheading dollars perhaps toward capital equipment in the fire department. So now I wanted to just we're on the last two slides. I wanted to address some of the AI items that we've been teasing and bringing forward here.

I think without thorough detail. First off, we are starting this year as year one post pilot with our selected enterprise AI large language model chatbot system that is called GovAI. The system is tied to the OpenAI five point zero platform and was created for government entities. So it has integrated compliance and safety layers and solutions and searches that are contextualized for government users and applications in mind unlike some of the other private sector competitors. Our contract is something that is that on a first year was put in this year's budget and we thank the council for supporting it moving forward.

It is $48,000 That is not chump change. That does represent a really solid deal for the city of Milwaukee. If you look at some of the comparative companies, if you wanted to look at ChatGPT or Copilot for an enterprise system, you would be looking at $30 to $35 per seat, per computer, per person, per month. That would if we our particular deal with Civia, the company that issues gov.ai allows us to put this on unlimited computers for all employees at the city at that fixed cost and that cost is one that is retained in perpetuity as long as we continue to exist with them as a contract. So there's a huge upside in addition to the things that David and company like to see in with this technology.

We are not only will this tool enable us to complete complex operational tasks and research to be handled efficiently departments. We have the ability to also, in conjunction with this company, build out AI assistance that can be created to handle very specific departmental functions to drive further efficiencies. The information off the innovation office this year, we'll be working with ITMD and Civia to establish a phased rollout with trainings, comms and feedback loops within city departments. So we just had a meeting initially yesterday on that, but we will be devising a plan to that rollout this year. And lastly, the external AI technology pilots.

ITMD and Innovation are looking to pilot a multichannel constituent service platform that is called Front Desk. Front Desk consolidates citizen interactions across phone with a IVR AI system, a integrated voice reporting, SMS or what we will call text as well as web chat into a single accessible platform. So it will provide residents with 20 fourseven multilingual English, Spanish service, self-service of their preferred existing communication channel, whether that's calling 286 or that's using the city's Click for Action or the MKE mobile app. This individual system here will equip staff with a centralized dashboard, case tracking and workflow that will automatically be pulled up at one location from any of the forms that we talked about here. And we'll have integrations with the capability of creating service request tickets using existing city, Acela or internally DPW service platforms.

So on one end and just to kind of like bring this way down on one end, there's an AI voice response system that has the ability to front end our unified call center. And rather than have longer wait times, it can provide answers to questions for citizens who may call and for example, want to know what hours and location of a drop off center would be. And it has the ability to scrape that off of either our city's web system or an internal document that the UCC utilizes. Or the system could also interact and summarize a contact with that resident along with the details of their individualized information as well as details of a request for service that will get summarized and then would be forwarded and passed along to a UCC staffer along with other details that would come up on the system of any prior service related contacts that that person may have had and allow the individual call taker to have a summarized ability to finish an interaction with track and format data for service requests in a way that we've been unable to do. It will provide accessible accessibility of being able to follow-up by text with residents.

If somebody did a click for action and wanted to fill a pothole, it would provide them with a copy of that and could respond to let them know that that service request is now done and the potholes filled. So it presents an ability to create communication and data flow that is that far excels from the clunky systems that we have that don't work together. Lastly, this system will enable us to have a functional backup assist to helping residents during the 40% of hours in the week including overnight and all weekends when the UCC, the call center is not staffed. And so if you call during weekends or in the early morning hours, you will get forwarded to the single person who's sitting in the City Hall operator's office. That person does take lunch breaks.

That person is afforded the ability to use the restroom. And that person is also a single person there to answer calls at a time. For example, this summer when you know that we had a massive flooding event and can be inundated. So a system like what we are looking at provides us a functional system that not only could assist with handling those calls and create tickets, it also for residents will be able to provide the services that I've described with the other platforms including text at all hours of the day. So we are looking at this point a six month $10,000 no obligation trial pilot with this company.

Madam Chair, I would absolutely love to bring that company in. Alderman Smiker saw a demonstration in the CIMC. But I think that this is something that is vitally important to bring to you and allow us to show you the bells and whistles of what we think is a really sound project. And if out of the no obligation trial, we can simply shut the door, we could look at other competitors. But if we did decide to move forward, there is a very, very low cost point for staying on over the long term as well too. With that, have

One second. So let's we do need to conclude. I think that's a great idea. We wouldn't do that in a committee format though that could be like a groupings of officials like to come in and if we do that all the time to like tour and stuff. But I think maybe not the committee. Okay. Did you want to

read your question?

With that, this will be the conclusion. I'm very happy for your questions and thoughts. If we get to a point where there's something that either comes up or you didn't get a chance to answer it, I am very happy to invite you to our shop or to come out and meet with you describe and go through some of the other projects we're working on or certainly hear your ideas. Thank you.

Yeah, on that and I see a number of people. I know I took you up on the opportunity when you were asking for Aldermanic ideas. Do you feel that some of the stuff that you're working on is reflective? I didn't see a lot from my list. I'm used to that. My things don't make the cut sometimes. But did you get through a lot of others and get a lot of ideas in there?

I did not get as many as we certainly like but we're very small shops. So our ability to do things is that our hands are throwing a lot of balls in the at one point as well to all the women. So if nothing else, our efforts are always not to lead things. There are sometimes where we can kind of get the ball rolling and ideation and share that. So I certainly welcome the more, but our ability to kind of stridently work with some things is certainly limited by our capacity of having two individuals.

But you recall that we met and had Yes. A Alderman Bergalis?

Thank you very much. I just want to focus on one of your innovation balls that you have up in the air. The accident recovery fee. This has been something that's been talked about for a while. Of the 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County, 18, I believe, charge an accident recovery fee or something like that. It's been tossed around for a while. When is that ball going to land?

Thank you for the question, Alderman Bergelis. There was a media source that shared that 15 of 18. 15? Okay. So did reach out to one that I thought was supposed to be on that list of 15 and they didn't have it, although it's interesting because the city manager there is a former aldermanic intern of mine and when it was he and I had the discussion, they were looking to bring it forward here in 2026.

Because this accident recovery fee isn't necessarily something that's going to impact people's pocketbooks. This is generally paid for by insurance if there's an insurance claim involved in the vehicle accident, insurance pays this.

Yes. There could be a collection component, particularly if it is something that we focus on strictly for nonresidents as West Allis is one example that does. Know that

Sorry, so West Allis charges? West Allis

decides not to charge residents who are involved in the access

Because they already pay

property Because they pay property taxes for those services. So it is easier and I think they're in the area around 30% of their collections go to non residents. We've taken this to the fire department. I know that they had some discussions with a consultant. They were looking at sort of ways long term in terms of a number of issues including like assessment of what percentage of residents are do we have ways of assessing what percentage of residents are involved in accidents are non residents.

I think that there were some complexities certainly about obtaining information that they were trying to work out as well too. It is not something routinely that the fire department is currently does is you know they don't necessarily even when they respond walk up to somebody who has an accident say can I get billing information from you sir based on this and so there were some logistics that they are looking at?

They could bring a swipe or a credit card reader to the accident and start asking for donations.

They have They have been moving through this. I know that they were looking I had an opportunity to reach back. I've not had a follow-up conversation to the last time I spoke with them about this, which was like in the third quarter of last year.

Fair enough. Right. Thank you very much.

Thank you It very is on the radar screen of the Fire Department.

Alderman Spiker? I'll wait. I'll throw one more pass, so it's on you.

It's on me. Okay. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. So with respect to GovAI piece, so the plan is a phased rollout with training comms, feedback loops. Could you say a little bit more about how you plan to phase that rollout? What sort of mechanism you have for training? Whether this will be, hey, this is out here for you to use versus an expectation from department heads that there would be any sort of systematic engagement with the chatbot tool.

Alderman, I want to have Shriela introduce herself and she can opine a little bit further. I will say at this point, we have sort of scripted something out in IO. We first had a conversation with David in a meeting yesterday, David and his team or was that Monday? I think it was Monday that we had a conversation with David and his team. And so some of it is conceptual. We will have to work in with Civia, which has presented itself with a plan. But maybe Shri La can just take a minute and opine a little bit on that.

Thank you. Am Shri La Srinivasan. I work with Jim as an innovation fellow at the Innovation Office. As Jim mentioned, we did have a conversation with David and his team about the rollout. As of now, we are trying to figure out a method in which the phased rollout can be planned considering that we would need significant amount of training and also coordination with the company that is providing us with the technology. We do not have a plan yet, but we should be able to get it in place within a week or two.

And then I know we've had discussions at CIMC about this and as Mr. Bo mentioned, we had the demonstration. Is there so at CIMC, we have as it were the tech experts of the various departments all convened. Do you think it would be advantageous to have a discussion with them before launching a plan I guess on high from David and company?

Alderman,

certainly we'll work with David Henke on that. Sometimes I think it is an opportune and an appropriate location to take it. Sometimes one of the biggest challenges maybe just the the nature of quarterly meetings depending on when things fall. If nothing else, it certainly can be a reporting that goes out if there's a document if even in advance that goes to that and then just summarily gets reported at corresponding meeting. But I think that that is appropriate venue for this.

Yes. And I plan to put forward something to make us a little more robust in our meeting schedule so that we're not doing quarterly because I don't think that's sufficient in the current context given everything that's going on. But with respect to you mentioned these or it was mentioned in the slide that you have these custom assistants you could potentially work with Civia to create. Obviously talking to the tech folks in the departments, they might provide use cases for you all that then you can take back to Civia. I don't know what the slope of the climb is to get Civia to create something or if we can use other tools to help us create them.

But I guess I would there's a decision point to be made here and I don't want us to just make it unconsciously, which is should ITMD in the form of Mr. Henke and company be driving this down to the departments or should the departments have some sort of interplay in making the decision about how this tool is going to be most useful in those departments. So that's something I think it's not just micromanaging to ask that question of how the direction should go. So I just wonder if we've had any thoughts about that, if that's an open question or it's already been decided in somebody's head that it's going to come from ITMD on down.

Alderman, we've had some preliminary conversations with Civia and their COO has expressed a willingness to work with the there's a gentleman that just got hired to replace John Enes who retired after a long time at the city and serves as like the technology manager. One of the benefits that we see from working with a company like Civia and this is something Shriela can attest to as she worked here about a year or so back with UNESCO and onboarding AI with UNESCO in Paris, France is having a smaller company provides the ability of having individuals who work in conjunction with the city. And so on the first point or that question that you raised, we have the ability, we've had discussions with Civia where they've indicated and expressed a willingness to work internally in house based on our needs. At this point, I've had informal discussions with one or two departments who have expressed some interest. I don't know that we've I think it probably is a little more beneficial to see those who have a need as opposed to trying to dictate from the top down.

So the bottom up approach and then it just will be based on like the ability to enhance and create and refine an AI system. I think a bottom down approach is probably one that makes the most sense of a department that has a specific need that this could fill as opposed to trying to determine from the top who would be the so called best selectors of a need.

And I guess briefly for Ms. Srinivasan. Whether So through your experience with UNESCO or just your knowledge of the space more generally, if I'm in a department, I might not know what's a good use case that this could be helpful towards. So is there anything we can do to help the departments kind of are they just supposed to create a list of all the stuff their employees hate doing and could we automate that? Or is there something picking from a menu is easier than creating out a whole cloth to mix metaphors?

To that, I would like to refer to a conversation I've had with a few other countiescities that Citi has been working with on this particular piece of technology. And we did find that some of the counties which did eventually make AI agents out of the system went with the bottom up approach that Jim mentioned. So one of the methodologies that they used was definitely going by what the department needed. But to your question about how do we address that, a good way to go would be definitely to understand what needs efficiency improvement and what can be a low hanging fruit that we can probably tackle at the moment and then work our way up from that, if that makes sense.

Right. And I guess one thing so I'm not sure what the penetration of Civia is and other municipalities, whether counties or what have you, but when I went to the Salt Lake City NLC Conference, I couldn't literally throw I don't know what I would be throwing without hitting somebody with an AI company who was here's your chance to get in on the ground floor and they can't possibly all be in existence in a year from now. So I guess one thing I wonder with Civia is how broadly they're involved in other municipalities and whether there is I guess I should just start with that question. Are there like 30 other places that are involved, two other places that involve anything along our size? Are we the first municipality of our size that they've actually got into the market of?

Unfortunately, do we know any of

I don't have the numbers with me right now. I did speak with three other countycity partners that they're working with. Again, two of them were counties. So in terms of the numbers, I'm not sure if it's comparable. But I do think that we are one of the biggest cities that they are dealing with right now.

Alden, further expound on that. These gentlemen actually have a company that has a technology that our purchasing utilizes. So they are actually they've been involved in separate companies that are big players. One a couple of them locally, I know that there are certainly others, a couple of them locally. One of the ones that Shriela did speak to was Dane County, Madison, Wisconsin's Dane County.

City Of Oshkosh is another one here locally in Wisconsin that utilizes their services that I'm aware of as well too. I had outreach from Cobb County in which I think is Atlanta as well too in Georgia among others that they serve.

And I guess the last thing on this is, yes, as far as picking like low hanging fruit and things of that sort, yes, there is a discussion to be had here about how to do this in a way where people will see the benefit of it, see it as an asset as opposed to a threat. So that kind of discussion, happy to have offline, but just want to make sure that we're intentional about that because again from the conference talking to a bunch of other municipalities that have kind of dipped their toes in water, there's been varying experiences depending on how careful they were with that.

Alderman, our ability to actually to functionally do training is important. A tool is only as effective as people are comfortable with it and have the ability to functionally use it. I think of this as a way of like almost training people in the city, city employees to drive a car like going behind the wheel training. There are certainly going to be some individuals who have done this on their own, but we have the ability to make this functional in particular because our cost where we are currently allows us to put it on every single desktop. It doesn't mean everybody is going to utilize it, but our ability to generate efficiencies.

It also is going to entail, as you know, with this technology, this technology at times will throw you for a loop. And so you're going to have to know how to be able to do the checking and make certain that you're not trying to get off with having the AI do your work for you and just take that as a fait accompli. So even if I think this is a big enough company with individuals who have had a level of success long term. That being said, even if it doesn't, it's at a low enough cost point for us right now that we would have the ability to train a lot of employees and have functional use out of it even if they went away next year or the following year and we were forced to look at another competitor.

Yes. And thanks for my answer to the previous question by directing Ms. Srinivasan. So the vibe there was maybe a chatbot isn't so scary, but certainly generative AI has people spooked. So I guess I wonder whether there is thought being given to how to introduce it in a way that it can be seen as an asset and not a threat. If that sort of change discussion is baked in from the beginning or are we going to wait for resistance, fear and the rest to raise its head before we think about that?

Definitely, the narrative that we would be going with is AI is a tool that can be used to improve upon the efficiencies that we would want to improve upon instead of a replacement for any of the thoughtfulness or work that people actually do. In terms of how we manage to roll out the set piece of technology, we would definitely be starting with guidelines, FAQs, training videos and one on one sessions, which would be essential to talk to your point about ensuring safety and security of the people using it and information that is being put in the system.

Thank you both.

And Alderman, for that question, what Srila was answering I think was very apropos to something internal when we were talking about like a chatbot system. If we do wind up rolling out whether we go live with it or not, we do wind up rolling out this external pilot that we talk about in the front desk. Our look at potentially like branding this Brewster, making it friendly, having fun with a branded version of it. Other cities have done that with a competitor. And so that's that was on that particular slide that was the model that internally we in the innovation office created a sort of a way of playing off of Brewster being the answering point, the voice, the text response could have a fun branding of this.

Because the other thing that we don't want to do is if we get to a point and it will happen whether there are some people who resist it or not, Having voice automated systems for three eleven systems for call centers and other things are things that is happening. It's kind of like driverless vehicles. At some point this is coming. The one thing that we don't want to do is if we do get to a point where we utilize it is not trying to hide and make the voice sound like it's so human so that some people will come off. It's about being honest and transparent in that particular process. But doing so in a manner that frankly will work for residents as well too.

Okay. Alderman Spiker, I'm going move on now. So are you good for now? Yes. Okay. I know it was your last one. Just wanna make sure because we've got a few more minutes on this item. Alderwoman Moore.

Just briefly, the projects that were in the works, it states Camp Rise program review and then this MKEU force, I'm not sure what that is. Is there what is the rationale? Is it cost savings for these particular programs that are on there? But what was the reason for them?

Youth Force was our effort that I expounded on a little bit more to try to do a dual enrollment youth apprenticeship. So that was YouthForce. Camp Rise was just sometimes it's opportunity driven. This Camp Rise was an opportunity through Bloomberg Cities initiative. They themselves provide an audit of programs and I immediately reached out to the administration suggesting that we could hone in on the effectiveness of this partnership that we have with employee Milwaukee and MPS.

In particular, they actually will go through and do this free external audit for entities that have innovative programs like we want to say Camp Rise is. The upside is it allows us to hone our program to see how effective it is number one. Number two, we have the ability to have Bloomberg then hallmark that in their cities initiative. They select a few of these every year and essentially pump them out for emulation throughout municipalities that are partnered with Bloomberg in the world. It is in some ways our ability we're looking at this as an opportunity maybe to help assist us with fundraising to continue to grow and to continue and to expand the program.

And so those things were just driven by opportunity. Youth force was something that is an initiative that the administration that the mayor supports like the council of looking for opportunities around youth. The Home Down Payment Assistance Program was something that is a shared. It's I'm familiar with It literally is sometimes driven by initiatives of the council, sometimes by the mayor, it's sometimes driven by just opportunity that lends itself.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to just tie into that. I mean, for those that don't know, Camp Rise is that middle school, if I'm not mistaken, that middle school population.

Ten to fourteen year olds.

Thank you. Ten to fourteen. That employee Milwaukee manages. I'm a little confused and again we can have some conversations offline because I would think that you all would be more focused on either earn and learn or the mayor's, you know, the mayor's, his portion of earn and learn. I think it's called SYIP and I'm blanking on the acronym, but this is his Yeah.

Sort of employment program for interns to come into City They're typically like sophomores through high school age. That to me would be more of an immediate sort of these are young people that were, you know, really training or providing exposure and experiences to come into to city opportunities. So I'll I'll talk to you both Yes. Offline in regards to that because I'm just baffled at the, you know, why we're looking at Camp Rise for because it's a younger population versus looking at young people that could, you know, would be moving immediately into training opportunities.

The reason

that because I know that chair.

The reason for that real quickly was number one that Camp Rise actually is a program that the City of Milwaukee does that we could find no one else doing. And Bloomberg, the criteria for Bloomberg to do their program review was it had to be something that was innovative and being done elsewhere. Something that is new that no one else is doing. Earn and learn is an area that many other cities are doing. We are very proud of our own effort but Camp Rise actually is something that was initiated by Mayor Johnson a number of years ago as a feeder that is not funded at the federal level.

So it presents funding challenges but it is something that is innovative to the city of Milwaukee and it met the criteria that certain room would have met. So that's the rationale for that.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Let me just check with alderwoman Cogs. Anything on innovation here before we move forward?

Yeah. For the for the AI stuff, if you if you go forward with the pilot program, it's a thought that if the pilot programs goes well, we'll get into a full contract with this company? Or will there still be opportunity to do a request RFP or something later?

Are certainly for older woman, thank you for the question. The latter certainly is not out of the question. It is something that internally I think that we'll have to look at as we roll out this program. We have looked at five different companies and selected this one based on the product that they currently offer, the breadth of experience that they currently have and the fact that there was an extremely competitive, not only no obligation, very low cost pilot trial cost but it has a very financially inducing ability to carry something forward. But we've not I don't want to cross the bridge until we get there and that's something certainly that David will have to take a look at and the administration certainly leaves itself open to some potential discussion here with the council and other city leaders before formal decisions get made.

Thank you. Part of the reason I I asked that question is because I understand why you may wanna go with that company for the pilot given all the facts that you disclosed, but I do think it's a it's an ever changing technology and ever growing. And one company that's on top today should be on the bottom tomorrow. Yep. Or it could be bought out or all kind of stuff. And and we've seen a history of us getting into contracts and stuff is proprietary and people buy out of business or they get bought out, I just don't want us to be stuck. I think it's just a growing industry that we'll have to stay on top of and make the best deal at the time for us, which may or may not be with Yeah. Whoever we do the pilot. Yes. That's all.

Thank you, Olmuth.

Yep. Additionally, I would ask the UFORCE piece with the internship thing. I would love to talk to you more offline going going

20,

get the

everybody here now on innovation. I guess my thing would be what I'm looking for in 2026, and I'll set up another meeting, I was happy to have that meeting last year, is you have a great list of items. And I'm looking for just a slightly different direction on some things. Some of them do seem cost driven to either reduce cost or to increase revenue kind of like the towing situation, which is clear. I'm not a big fan of it, but the body spoke and I can recognize that for now.

But I guess what I'm looking for in this office is policy. And you know, and I've said this before and I don't want to work with you because, you know, I have more ideas than we have funding for. It's open space to share that. But I'm looking at things where we have these lingering social challenges. And I've seen some pretty amazing things happen in response.

Know, living in a really trying time right now has some of the light in the darkness has been people stepping up and doing unique things, whether it be mutual aid like we saw in Metcalfe Park. I'd like that to be piloted, researched and invested in. I think anytime we can pilot something and then test it and then see if it applies and makes the change that we sought. I would offer our support for unrestricted cash transfers. When we lift up working pregnant mothers in Milwaukee, that improves quality of life.

I do like what you're talking about in the employee based down payment assistance. But just some of these somewhat micro endeavors that can be macro applied. And what I would suggest are like lingering policy challenges. And while they feel overwhelming, whether it be poverty or food insecurity or lack of quality housing, I would even offer one last one, which is every day we're seeing an increase in the city of Milwaukee of shootings, domestic violence, homicides. It was innovative what the mayor of Baltimore implemented by a hyper investment in youth and juveniles and saw an immediate reaction.

So like these are additionally some of the things that I'm looking for. What is an innovative way? We bring back the gun buyback program? It had some challenges, but what can we do in a small way to test it that might improve quality of life? So I understand that you're focused reduction and revenue increasing, but I would offer and I would love to set up another meeting that those two can also be achieved by addressing some of these larger issues.

And so that's also some of the passion that drives me. And if it was easy, as my mom said, it would already be done. But let's continue to work on it. And I know I've shared that with you before, but I just want put that out there as well.

And I'll be happy to reach out to you later this week here to set something up Yes. For you

More like policy. You know, like I'll use one last example. Well, I got my juices flowing here. We've talked a lot about composting. And that's like, to me, it's one of these I know it's like a weird transition there, but going from unrestricted cash transfer to that. But the point is, is that that actually checks all the boxes, right? It's environmentally, personally, I believe, the right thing to do to divert trash, but it would also save money and improve quality of life. So I'm looking for some of those. I do feel that naturally because you're so innovative, you're working on some of the somewhat lower hanging fruit and we've got to knock that out of the way to get to the full tree. But let's work together on that. Thank you.

Very

good. Yes, will reach out. Thank you, Eldon.

Okay.

And certainly that offer is open to others on the council as well too. So please feel free to reach out.

Thank you.

Madam Chair? Yes. I guess briefly on that kind of big question about what the Office of Innovation is for. So policy stuff driving innovation, how does that relate to the work that Zaki and Mr. Knapp do in the Mayor's office relating to policy?

And

then my question for the future, 2026, is the council is about to have a policy administration coordinator in the City Clerk's office. So what are the plans, if any, for the Department of Earth's Office of Innovation to make those sorts of connections as well?

Alderman, when that position gets filled, I would welcome the opportunity to bring that person into the fold. I've worked in intergovernmental relations where there is a counsel side and an administration side. Our effort and endeavor was to work in conjunction with each other and not work against each other or sometimes we are working on the same thing in different veins without the communication. One of the areas where I think I see challenges is with communication and municipal government at times. And so I'd be more than happy to we have staffing meetings Monday morning to include that person when that position gets filled where we're going over projects and we can work to balance each other as well too.

I know that they can serve as certainly a direct communication. Certainly our offices is not exclusive to the administration, but I would be very happy to work with them and treat them as sort of the extended family working in the same direction. And the answer to your question on what is innovation, the answer is yes. In some ways it's many it can be many things from innovation, innovative efficiencies to finding ways to reduce waste to finding ways to enhance. It just there's I think there's no one individual thing.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that robust conversation on innovation and your presentation and congratulations on a great body of work as we move forward. Thank you so much. Very nice meeting you. And with that, we'll have Alderman Spiker move to place that on file. Also, you for being patient as I do try to find the proper mix of scheduling. So appreciate that very much. Any discussion of placing on file? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We're on item six.

I do need to fix something on item six. It lists as a sponsor, the chair, but it was Alderman Scott Spiker and that's been noted and will be now made part of the record. On item 251,340, a substitute ordinance relating to fees charged for services provided by the assessor's office. We have our city assessor, Ms. Nicole Larson. And then could you remind me again who Deputy Commissioner Ryan Ranker. Yes. Okay.

I was

drawing a blank today. Sorry about that. Although I know I've contacted you often. Okay. Thank you, and good morning. We're still in

the morning, right?

Yes, please. Let me I'm sorry. Let me first first assessor Larson, go to the sponsor and then I'll go to you because I had to adjust the record. So Alderman Scott Spakker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be really quick since Commissioner of Assessments and I have always had a strong working relationship. We talked about this, had a couple of conversations, but obviously they're doing the yield person's work there. So happy to turn it over to them and explain the motivation for the change and what the tweaks are. Thanks.

Okay. All right. Good morning.

Good morning. As you mentioned, Nicole Larson, Commissioner of Assessments. Thank you so much for having us here today. The changes within this text file can be summed up into three main areas. We are requesting that the council revise the minimum amount for new construction as well as alteration and inspection, appraisal inspection fees that are codified in Milwaukee Code Ordinances 80 one-six.

The changes are to be commensurate with the or correlate, I should say, with the residential fees that we currently charge. So there's a current minimum that we adopted in 2024, I believe it was, to make a new minimum of $1,000 There had not been a minimum before then, and we adopted that minimum. We've found from feedback from the general public as well as the Department of Neighborhood Services, which collects the fee on our behalf, that that minimum is burdensome and significant for a number of projects that are smaller. So we're requesting that the new construction appraisal fee be reduced from $1,000 down to $450 and the alteration and addition appraisal fee be reduced down to $250 So that's the first main change. The second main change is to create a new fee appraisal inspection fee structure for surface parking lots.

These are not the big ramps we're talking about. These are surface parking lots. So when a business or an organization puts a new parking lot in or if they do a restriping, repaving, that type of thing. And so we're requesting that no minimums apply to that and that a maximum of $500 be imposed. Again, we want commercial places and buildings to keep their parking lots nice and reducing those fees, I think, will encourage them to do that.

And the third main change is to revise the fee for the filing of a tax exempt property report and clarify by the ordinance that that fee can be collected by that property tax bill. So that is also a fee that was enacted in 2023, and it reflects the work that our office puts into sending these reports out to property owners and receiving them, having the communications, all the work that we have to do. The current fee structure is $50 for the first parcel and $15 for each additional parcel. It's causing problems when you have an organization that has multiple different LLCs. It's one single organization, but they hold the different properties in different LLCs.

There's real inconsistency in whether they're paying the flat $50 for each property or the $50 plus the $15 So we're just asking that it not be applied to the owner, but it go with the tax key, and that it'll be a flat $50 fee per tax key. Allowing us to add it to the tax bill makes more sense because then we don't have to send out those invoices. There's clarity. It just goes on the tax bill and there's it allows us to save money with postage and communications with individuals and just be real clear and simplify, streamline the process. So those are the three big changes. I'm happy to take any questions that you may have. Okay.

So this would not apply to nonprofits, right? Or would?

It does apply to nonprofits, yes. So the tax exempt report fee, it's a biennial report. It's a state requirement. It's required by state law. It's really for state budgeting purposes so they can get an idea of what tax exempt properties are out there in various And so the fee was enacted because we have to assessor's office by our ordinance processes those forms. We distribute those forms and we receive those forms and then we report that information to the state of Wisconsin.

Okay. So we only apply to nonprofits? Correct. Okay. I said it wrong. I felt like I said it right, but it came out wrong. Are we aware of any disproportionate impact then? Because not all tax exempt have similar budgets. Some could have a very tiny budget, some could be children's hospital, you know, I mean, or university. Like, have you looked at that at all?

No, we haven't. And no, none of the nonprofits that are obligated to pay this have made any complaints to us. Most simply they do pay the fee. When they don't, then we have to then send them a letter and say, hey, the ordinance requires you to pay this fee, so please pay it. So having it go on the tax bill will just, again, make that a lot easier process.

Okay. So this would affect like small churches?

Churches are exempt by state statute. And so our ordinance reflects that exemption in state statute.

It's like a double exemption. Okay. Just trying to understand how this plays out. I mean I don't see an immediate issue, but I'm fearful that I'm missing something. Go ahead, Alderman Moore.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Just along those lines, Nicole, so if there's a nonprofit that leases a space, do they still pay this fee or does the, you know, the owner of the property pay the fee because it's, again, associated to the tax key?

If the

I'm just trying to

understand.

If the

property is property tax exempt, if it's if

the determination

has been made that the property exempt from paying property taxes, we will send that invoice to wherever we send the And tax so the owner or the tenant may have told us where they want to sell where they want us to send that tax bill or they want where they want the treasurer to send that tax bill. Sure. That's where it will go.

That makes sense.

So it could vary Yes. Depending on

the That makes sense. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. All member Mr.

Galas? Thank you, Madam Chair. On Item two for parking lots, do you have a record of how much the city how much revenue that parking lot alteration fee has generated has been generated? So my question is more geared to a ridiculous example of the brewers re striping and renovating their parking lots. Did they pay $25,000 or they well, they might be they're property tax exempt, but are they also exempt from that fee?

They shouldn't be exempt from the fee. Okay. No.

So when they renovated the lots and restriped them, they paid, let's call it, dollars 25,000. And how will they get to pay us $2.50?

Seemingly, that would apply, yes. And as far as the overall question of parking lots, I'm not sure because D and S doesn't separate that out. There's not a separate parking lot application at the current time.

Okay. So but we don't know how much revenue was generated from the parking lot alteration fee?

That's correct. We're also not doing $25,000 worth of work to the assessor's office isn't doing $25,000 worth of inspection work. And so it's really commensurate. It's really to reimburse us for the work that we're actually doing. So we wouldn't be going out and doing $25,000 worth of work to inspect stripes.

Parking lots also have a direct impact on road usage, but parking lot owners don't pay to help maintain local roads other than property taxes and fees like this. So I would I'm a little concerned about cutting the cost of maintaining or cutting the cost of owning surface parking lots solely because there's so much profit derived from owning a property property like that. Service parking lots are profitable and they remain and they're not developed into higher and better uses because it's so cheap to own them and there's so much profit to be derived from them. And frankly, it results in a burden on residents who do pay taxes and road fees who live in the community. So I'm concerned about the cut from a maximum of $2.50 from a total of from a max I'm concerned about the maximum being reduced from $25,000 to $250 without without more discussion.

So, madam chair, I will ask to hold item two here for, more discussion.

Item six?

Sorry. Section two Oh, of

I just told part

of it. Okay. Yeah.

It's a little tough because it's a substitute for ordinance, and Chris is telling us you would have to amend it, which So I guess that could be via an amendment. Maybe wouldn't it be better to just hold the item and fix this in the meantime?

So Madam Chair, guess I have some questions on that.

Okay. Well, let's process figured out first. Kathy?

Good morning. Kathy Brangos, Legislative Reference Bureau. In order to amend the ordinance, we would have to draft a proposed substitute that would have to be accepted by the committee.

Yeah. So that's a little tough to do today. Then I'll move to hold. Alderman Spiker?

Yes, Madam Chair, questions relevant to the motion. Are we allowed to gouge people by charging more than we actually are doing in terms of our work? Is this a fee recovery restriction? Or are we allowed to say, surface parking lot folks, you're going to pay $10,000 because we don't like surface parking lots. Not saying that's the motivation, but are we restricted in any way to just recoup our costs? Or is that just, hey, we'd like to be nice here?

Is that a question for

me? Yes.

So what we have seen over the past year is appeals are going to the Administrative Review Board of Appeals, the ARBA Board. And we are being asked to justify our work, to justify these fees. And on the parking lots, we simply can't. We can't say we're doing 25,000 worth of work regardless of the size of

the So parking does that imply that we are then restricted by state law to only recouping our costs?

I believe we are. I mean, that's the justification for the appraisal inspection fee is to recoup the cost that we're putting into to do this work. Now when it's a large structure like a parking structure, we're going out there, we're measuring, we're listing, we're calculating. We're not doing that when we're just looking at to make sure the stripes are on a parking difficult or complex work for us.

So even if we held it to reexamine it, are you not optimistic that we would find a rational ground for us to say, look, we can justify this higher fee because there's more work than it looks like, buddy? Well, first that part of the question.

Respectfully, don't think that we're going to we're not going to identify that there is any additional work that

we are doing And if there as we

hold

is no additional work, we can't go above what we know our cost to be. We are not allowed to do that. That would be an ideal case for somebody going before ARBA to say this isn't fair to my client. You aren't investing this much in your work that you're trying to recoup with the fee.

Yes. The purpose of this fee is for appraisal inspection.

Yes. Well, given that, then Madam Chair, I'd urge us to reject the motion to hold because this is a fee recovery. We can't regard it as a cash cow. That would put us in legal jeopardy and clog ERBA, which I've served on for multiple years, no longer do anymore with frivolous cases. So thank you.

Okay. The hold is before us. I kind of sense the hold is a way to get across the finish line but get some questions answered, but I can understand that. Alderman Bergelis?

So this just reduces the minimum. It doesn't reduce the maximum we're able to charge, correct? I'm just I'm just reading the the text of the ordinance.

For this resurfacing and restriping or the the new parking lots, it imposes a maximum of $500. There's no minimum, and there's a maximum of $500.

Oh, and Part four. Part

two and four.

Yes.

It's in Part two because it's for new parking lots, and that's under new construction under 81.61. And then 81.62 is for resurfacing or restriping. And so it's in there in the two different sections of

So if we have a 100 square foot parking surface parking lot for a motorcycle, then we will charge $25 Yes. I will keep my hold. Thank you.

Hold is before us. Any other discussion on the hold? Any other discussion on the hold? I guess I just have a question before I cast my vote because we do have to keep moving here. Would a couple week hold be difficult? Like, could we get some questions answered?

For the entire ordinance, it would be problematic because we need to start receiving those property tax exemption reports. So we would still be under the old structure, the $35 or the $50 plus the $15

Did you request this in December? I'm just my memory doesn't serve me. If you just requested it, means we've always got to allow for a little bit

of a legislative discussion. I don't I'm sorry.

I don't remember Madam when the request came Chair? Yes. Alderman Spiker?

I guess to the Commissioner of Assessments, pray tell, would you do for three weeks in trying to gather more information? What would even be your charge? What would we be asking you to research here?

Okay. I don't

know. Would like to know what we're collecting now and what we're charging and what the impacts of this would be.

Is the Department of Neighborhood Services on? I know I spoke with Mr. Masmadian. I'm not sure if he's virtual and he can answer that question. I think they separate out by parking lots currently.

So one other option while he's hold on one second, Mike. I guess Mike is stepping virtually here. So one other option if we don't get the information that all members are seeking is we could move forward with no recommendation and hope that in less than one week that information will be available. That's one somewhat of a courtesy we try sometimes, just throwing that out into the universe. But Mr. Masmeenian, could you speak to the did you hear the question?

Could you repeat, Oliver McGillis, please?

Much revenue do generate from parking lot assessment inspection fees? And what's the impact of the modification in the ordinance?

Sure. I I can I can try and gather that information for our team, but it would take me some time just to try identify that fee code and then what we collect for it annually?

Okay. I did make a motion to hold so that we can get more information. Thank you.

Madam Chair.

The hold is before us. Alderman Spiker on the hold.

On the motion, if we get that information, again, there is nothing we can do with it because the point is we can't charge more than we are expending in terms of employee time for the fee recovery. So it could be a dollar, it could be a billion dollars. We still can't charge more than the fee. So holding serves no purpose. If there is a desire to get that information, we can make an information request of DNS and they can supply it to us. But unless it's going to inform our decision making about what we'll do in three weeks. Who cares? Thanks.

I think one other option, I'm just trying to have options here as a facilitator, is I guess if it was held and the information was received, the committee, I believe, on the council floor could withdraw from committee with a majority vote, if my memory serves me right. So that's always an option too. It's kind of the reverse of what I was just saying, like, a no recommendation. Chris, do you know if that's right? So, like, say it was held. I think that's right. Yeah. A majority can pull from committee. We don't do it often. But so there's a couple of options.

I would like to avoid any special meetings because we've been having a lot of those lately and they're hard to manage. So the will of the body now, the hold of item six is before us. Seeing no further discussion on the hold, Mr. Clerk, call the roll on the hold, please.

On the motion to hold to the call of the chair, Honorable Moores? No. Honorable Spiker? No. Honorable Cox?

No.

Honorable Bergelis? Aye. Madam Chair?

Aye.

Fails two to three.

Okay. Two to three. The hold has failed. Passage is now before us as offered by Alderman Spiker, the sponsor. Discussion on passage? Objections to passage?

I'll object.

We note one objection. Any other objections to passage? Hearing none, so ordered. Item six has been approved to go forward. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. We're now on item 7,251,560, communication from the Department of Neighborhood Services relating to automobile reimbursement allowance reports. And we're joined by Department of Neighborhood Services. Hi there. You can unmute yourself and just looks like

Might be a different person.

Okay. Yes. Just say your name because it's little different than we were given. Unmute yourself, please, from the neighborhood services.

Oh, sorry. The online camera. So I'm Melissa O'Neil with Department of Neighborhood Services. Okay.

We just had a different name, and I want to get it for record. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions on this file? You can see the file here. There's a number of reimbursements needed for automobile allowance. Any discussion? Questions? Otherwise, Alderman Cox will move approval of seven. Any objections to approval? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Item number 800000251569, communication from the office of the comptroller relating to the 2026 audit work plan. Ms. Molina, good morning. Yes, we're still morning. Come on up and all right.

Good morning. Morning. Adriana Molina, internal audit manager here at the city.

Thank

you. All right. I will be presenting the 2026 audit work plan. All right. Real briefly, I'll just go over the our executive summary for this last year, any audits that remain in progress, our 2026 audits for this year and any contingency audits that we could take from if we need to switch priorities around.

All right. Executive summary, we did achieve our goal of completing 10 work products in 2025. Our goal for 2026 is to complete 13 work products. We will continue to operate our fraud hotline as well as conduct our we are in the middle of conducting our annual finding follow-up for the year ending twelvethirty onetwenty twenty five. And we will also create an annual audit work plan for 2027.

This will result in three annual reports that we create annually. As we've mentioned before, the audit work plan is created through our risk based process and incorporates any leadership feedback, surveys or aldermanic feedback that we get. Twenty twenty five year review, I won't go through all of these audits. These are in the report that was submitted as well as the presentation. These were all the audits that we completed this past year.

It includes both our internally conducted audits as well as our consultant led audits where we contract out. These are audits in progress or carryover from this last 2025. It includes our D and S financial audits, our municipal court cash control review, our fleet MPD fleet procurement to disposal audit and MFDIT controls audit, both of those are consultant led. And we are as I mentioned before, we are in the middle of doing our audit finding follow-up review as well as our fraud, waste and abuse hotline annual report that we do annually. For 2026, these are the audits that we plan on performing.

It includes both consultant led as well as the ones that my department will be conducting. I have listed here the departments that we will be reaching out to. Again, this is our plan, not to say that this could change throughout the year if there's another priority that arises or if the department has some sort of scheduling conflict. Contingency audit, so this is a list that we take from if we have to substitute an audit or move our schedules around. This is subject to change.

All of these audits, both the plan and the contingency audit list come from the risk assessment that I performed in the last three months last year. Last one, support needed. We always appreciate the feedback that this committee provides throughout the year, not just through the risk assessment process. We also appreciate continued support in attracting, retaining auditors. We have one current open position that we are interviewing for right now. And once we fill it, we'll be fully staffed again. And then, again, just a continued communication of the audit process with the different departments in the city. Any questions?

Anyone have questions on item eight here? Madam Chair? Alder Wanmore? Just a

really quick question in reference to like the audits in progress. For like fraud, waste and abuse, are there certain audits that will always be on the docket every year?

Yes. Yep. So fraud, waste and abuse, this is where we report out all of the cases that we had in that particular year. And so every year we'll always have a report on that.

Got it. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions? Alderman Spicer?

Yes. Super briefly for the 2026 plan, the audit of DPW work orders, tickets, resolution process, just briefly a sketch of what you're going to be looking at there?

Yes. So this audit is a continuation of the UCC audit that we performed last year where we looked at the beginning of the process as tickets come into the unified call center. We'll be looking at the closure of those. We will be focusing on the forestry tickets, potholes and leaf No. Street lights and street lights. We have to focus on a few. Otherwise, it will be a forever ending audit. Those were our three highest. When we review the when we did the audit previously, those were like the bigger ticket items, I guess, the items that had the most frequency at the UCC.

And when you say so that's of interest to me. So when you say you're going to audit the closures, so the frequent problem we get is UCC puts forward something into the DPW system. It gets marked as closed when it gets assigned as opposed to when it's actually completed. Will that be something that audit looks into or will that

be something? Like the process of closing Yes. Correct. Yes. So and through conversations with both infrastructure as well as some of the other departments at DPW, They do use different systems. So it will take a little bit of time understanding what systems they use and how they close them, but that will be part of the scope.

And will it within the scope be included how these closures and what the closure means is reported out to constituencies?

Correct.

Okay.

Yes. Thank you.

Any other questions on Item eight? Otherwise, Alderman Berglis moves to place eight on file. Any discussion? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank

Thank you so much. We're on item nine, two hundred fifty one thousand four and ninety five substitute resolution related to increasing the reimbursable expenditure authority for the Department of Public Works in the Reimbursable Services Advance Fund and we're joined from the budget department Mason Levy. There we are. Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chairman of this committee. Mason Levy, Budget Management Division. As you summarize, this file is requesting an increase of DPW's reimbursable expenditure authority. DPW's authority in 2025 is $19,400,000 and we are estimating that DPW will require an additional $5,000,000 in authority to close out 2025. DPW at this time can no longer charge a reimbursable services advance fund without comp troller override because they've met their limit of 19.4.

That $1,500,000 increase in authority, three areas, 1,300,000.0 for facilities and maintenance, mechanical repairs for facilities, dollars 1,500,000.0 in reimbursable fleet repairs for police and enterprise funds, parking, sewer, water and another $1,300,000 in reimbursable energy bills for departments. So we feel that $5,000,000 is needed up to $5,000,000 to allow DPW to charge the reimbursable fund and then be reimbursed through departmental IRIs to close out 2025.

Okay. Yes, Elder Member Gallo.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for being here. Is this in response to flood activation? Or was there something else significant to that prompted the wide change in

what was I don't think it had anything to do with flooding. The big one here is we did increase the amount of repairs for police in 2025, and those costs are significantly higher

by about 1.3 Police repairs police vehicle repairs?

Yeah. Than we expected.

So that, yeah, the police is reimbursing DPW for those repairs now full cost before we had committed to a lumber and stuck to it. We do before DPW would basically eat the cost. Now they're doing full invoices to MPD. And so we don't necessarily know in advance how much those invoices are going add up to and they come in at high.

Got it. Thank you.

Is that right?

Yes, that's correct. Madam Chair?

Yes, Oliver Spicer?

Yes. On that point, we've been doing so that change happened a couple of years ago, right?

Well, for the '25 budget or '24?

We started in 2024 a little bit doing it and then we increased it for 2025 and we're they're going to be charging even more in 2026. Okay. The originally, this was, I think, back in 2014. The budget put more money in fleets repair funds so they could do these repairs. And what happened is we would DeepW would end up eating a higher cost. And so we thought it was fair that NPD pay their full share

of Right. The

I remember. Yes. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions on Item nine? Item nine. Alder Owen Moore moves adoption of 09/1995. Any discussion of adoption? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We now are on item ten, two hundred fifty one thousand two hundred seventy eight, communication from the Department of Administration, Budget and Management Analysis Division regarding vacancy requests, fund transfers and equipment request. We will now turn to our agenda here on Schedule A and per usual I'll start with property tax levy supported positions. Department of Administration Community Block Grant Administration Business Services Specialist.

City Attorney, Legal Office Assistant Lead. Board of Zoning Appeals, BOSA Administrative Assistant one.

Madam Chair, on that one.

Okay. Yes, all right.

I just wanted to know if we lost somebody there. It's a small, very effective

team.

This isn't the filling of a new position. It's just somebody left.

I don't know. Suppose all aboard.

Anyone here from zoning appeals? Okay. We do normally need people present for their items, at least somebody. I know that's a small office, but if there's questions, this would be the time. So we'll I can just

send an email. That's fine.

Come back to that.

Alderman Spiker said this meeting could have been an email.

Okay. One last call for Boza. Otherwise, we'll sounds like there be a direct communication there.

I do have a note that it was a termination during probation.

Okay. Got you. Okay. Thank you.

City Clerk, Legislative Research Supervisor. Department of City Development, Associate Planner, Senior Planner. Controller, Accounting Program Assistant two. Department of Communications, Emergency Communication System Administrator. Fire Department, Fire Captain, Carpenter four, Emergency Vehicle Mechanic three.

Library Librarian III, two positions Library Technical Services Specialist Lead Department of Neighborhood Services Office Assistant II, Plan Examiner Specialist Office Assistant three, Building Construction Inspector, Supervisor, Environmental Risk Officer, Administrative Services Supervisor. Police Department, Crime Analyst one, Video systems specialist, IT project coordinator. I have a question. Video systems specialist, is that a new position?

Hello. April Wandu, human resources supervisor with the Milwaukee Police Department. It is not a new position. We actually had someone in the position who had resigned.

Okay. And what would be the description of this job position? I'm sorry. Description? Yes. The job description. What are the what duties are they performing? Is this a civilian?

Oh, I'm sorry. One moment.

Yes.

No. Right here. Right here. Video.

So disposition, they're going to be responsible for, like, the installation, repair, fabrication and maintenance of all video communications and special equipment that's utilized by the department. And they also assist with video production preparation and special training

Bless you.