Finance & Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

Now committee meeting. We are joined by Alderman Scott Spiker. Alderman Milele Cox is on virtually. Alderman Peter Bergelis, the vice chairperson, is here. And Alderman Charlene Moore is here. That provides us a quorum to handle our business today. We had a later start today due to the celebration of Juneteenth. For anyone listening, congratulations and happy Juneteenth Day. We'll be celebrating all day tomorrow. City Hall is closed for business but open for celebration because it's a great day. All right. With that, we'll start with item number one. two five two zero eight nine communication from the department of public works and the controller relating to an historical counting of payouts from the disposal of the materials recycling facility and the segregation of final insurance payout from a negotiated depreciation settlement. This is sponsored by Alderman Bergelis, and we're joined by Department of Public Works, Rick Myers. We'll first go to the sponsor, Alderman Bergelis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for picking this file up. I know negotiated depreciation settlement is how we all want to start our first. sip a coffee in the morning. But this is an important file that really helps the public, and after some discussions that I caught in the Public Works Committee, there was a lot going on with the electrical services building that alders weren't aware of, that the public may not be aware of, and it's a massive piece of city infrastructure. The project to replace it has been many years in the making already. We had some robust discussions and robust budget amendments in our last budget regarding that project that wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. But now I wanted to, with the last file we had in the previous cycle or the cycle before, there was a negotiated depreciation settlement that will segregate funds specifically from the materials recycling facility. payouts after that fire damaged a lot of equipment. DPW wants to reuse those funds for the electrical services building, but I think it's important to understand what the MRF has cost the city and what kind of revenue the city's received for it that will be earmarked for a specific purpose. So I appreciate the department being present to help run us through the numbers.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Alderman Bergelis. Good morning. We've got Rick Myers here. Good morning.

Good morning. Sanitation Services Manager Rick Myers. So that was a good background. Again, that fire that the city had for many decades, had our own publicly owned materials recovery facility where curbside recyclables were sorted, and its latest iteration was through an intergovernmental agreement with Waukesha County where that MRF had been operating with all new equipment since 2015. March of 2015 is when we... started operating the latest equipment that we had that was in place when the fire happened May 31st of 2023. So with that, the insurance for that law, and it was a complete loss on the equipment. The building was... was not a complete loss, but I can get into kind of the values of various components. But basically, we had the highest value was the personal property, which was the processing equipment itself. And so that was a piece that was jointly owned with Waukesha County and City of Milwaukee. So the proceeds related to that property were effectively split 50-50. There are different layers of the insurance claim that went towards the building loss, the personal property or the processing equipment loss. That was largely the capital dollars that would have been Available if we had rebuilt the Murph and that at the time of the our 2025 budget Request and ultimate approval that was the idea as we were still studying details of whether or not, you know, the business case was there to remain to rebuild remain in the space of public ownership of the assets private operation and so that the 2025 budget allocated the initial city portion of proceeds to Murph building repairs and and again just kind of backed up so the idea was we were either going to rebuild or potentially had started looking at alternative sites as there was interest um you know by mayor council there was discussion about you know would it maybe there maybe it's time for a different chapter in the valley those kind of discussions And so we were also investigating alternative locations. Ultimately, to kind of fast forward on that piece, the Waukesha County and City of Milwaukee that had jointly studied the economics of reinvesting, the business case for it was not nearly as strong as it was when we first entered that intergovernmental agreement. And aside from that, there's a great deal more risk in the business from when we first invested, largely fires. It's just a reality in solid waste facilities, recycling facilities. that since about 2018, there's a tremendously higher risk. And we saw that in our modeling economics. If we could get insurance again, it was going to be... it was going to be 10, I think we were going, we would have gone from paying 6.7 cents per $100 of value to over a dollar per $100. So anyway, just giving you a sense of like the risk and the economics. At the same time, we had more regional capacity at this time than we did When we invested so there's a little more competition We didn't think that the public investment would have yielded as much cost savings as it actually did the first time around I Apologize for interrupting, but I was looking in the file for kind of a breakdown of the historical payouts But I don't was there something that was submitted late in No, I think that we intend with Comptroller's Office to do that yet, but we don't have that attached to the file presently.

Do we have the numbers, or should we just hold the file until the next cycle?

Well, let me go. I'll go to the numbers now. All right. And then as you wish.

I just want to keep the finance focused because we're not public works. We're just here for the money. Yes.

Thank you. Right, right. Well, you know, tell them the story for those of you. Yes. Okay. So with the insurance claim, the total gross loss. was 21.4 million. That's between all these buckets. So I mentioned the building property, personal property, the equipment, and then there also we incurred extra expenses from managing the material um, the, in the manner we do have to without the Murph getting it farther places. Uh, and then there was a loss revenue cause we didn't have the same revenue generation we did with our old contract. So between the different, um, and then there's line item for data claim data expense that helped like city attorney had resources to help put all the, um, data together to work with the insurance. So between all of those, um, It was twenty one point four million less the deductible of five hundred thousand so the net payable From travelers insurance ended up being like twenty point nine million dollars now remember of that the Waukesha County had had five million nine hundred thirty three thousand three hundred sixty three so That left the city's portion of round numbers well 14 million nine hundred seventy one thousand seven hundred two so of that 14 Nearly 15 million Basically eleven point two million of it was capital We had the three point seven was the portion that went to the general fund to account for the added costs in the lost revenue so Eleven point two million in capital that that again theoretically was going to be used to replace the capacity of this facility Remember again of that the nine point three something that was um allocated for that purpose of the 2025 budget um so by my numbers at this time that that leaves like 1.8 million that we've received that has yet to be allocated and then Well, I'll stop there and just see if you have any questions.

So the $1.9 million, that's the final insurance settlement?

The final settlement release was a $2 million payout that was for held-back depreciation of the building.

Mm-hmm.

And it also included, so that was 1.652 million. It included 348,000 that was intended for what we would have been able to claim of costs once we remove the equipment. So the equipment in the building is a liability on our books right now because it will cost more than the salvage value. And so if the claim were still open, we would have finished the project to get it out, and then they would have reimbursed the actual cost. As part of the settlement, they took the mid-range of estimates of what it will cost. So we have 344,000, or 348,000 split between city and county to meet our mutual obligation or liability in getting rid of the equipment. And then so the balance of that, the last payment under the settlement was $1,652,000. Okay.

And we still own the building? Yes. All right. So we're not going to be parking enforcement vehicles there. The intent is to sell it?

Um, I think that that is, that's the consideration that that is the intent as I understand it. Um, I, I, the only reason I pause that we are still using the site for certain things that we need to, uh, well, we have active, um, fuel, um, pumps there. We, we have a working scale and we use the site for management of fall leaves where we drop it before it goes. Right.

Yeah. Um, and then do we have a, an estimate on value for the property? 9.3 is already earmarked for the electrical services building. 1.9 is unallocated plus another 1.6 that's coming in this year. Is the intent to segregate those funds for the new electrical services building?

So those funds would need to be appropriated for that purpose. They have not as of yet been appropriated. It sounds like the administration intends on making those appropriations in the 2027 proposed budget for that purpose.

Okay. And for that matter, with that, with the budget approval towards what the commissioner department is looking at towards developing that new electrical services building, then the intent from the department would be that we come to council for approval of a transfer of the balance that was intended to rebuild the MRF into that account.

I am just surprised there isn't a report, because we asked for a report, and there's no... I mean, I can jot numbers down on a sheet of paper, but I think it would be helpful to have... something documented, like the file says, historical accounting of payouts. We don't have that yet, so I don't think this file is ready to even refer to public works. So, Madam Chair, I'll ask to hold it for now. We'll get that report, and we can do a quick referral in the next cycle. Okay, you want hold to the call of the chair then? Please.

Hold to the call of chair is made by Alderman Bergelis. Any discussion of hold to the call of the chair? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. I'd like to make a quick announcement that item 3-260-120 will be heard at the later part Towards the end of the agenda if you're here for that item we have a request From Alderwoman Taylor that it be moved back in the agenda again item number three And hearing no objections, so ordered. I'm moving that. We're now on item two, 260173. Communication from the Department of City Development relating to the feasibility of creating an employee down payment assistance program. This was talked about, I recall, in the budget by Alderman Bergelis. So if you'd like to begin, and then we'll hear from Department of City Development, Larry Kilmer, and Ben Sanchez.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. This is a trailing resolution from our 2026 budget, where we adopted a resolution calling for exploration of the feasibility of employee down payment assistance. Many other communities look for other non salary ways to retain and attract The best talent for our city positions. This is one more Opportunity that Milwaukee Please mute yourself I'm thankful for the department being diligent putting this together. There are a lot of different ways to skin this cat and I appreciate the department diving in into those options and how they relate directly to Milwaukee and what our opportunities are and what our ability is, not just in funding, but what our employee residency rates are department by department this is important and of course this would only apply to general city employees police fire have other agreements that direct their pay but there's nothing to say that we couldn't include something similar to this in those agreements in the future but thank you very much and i'll and i'll let the department take it from there yes and could you please introduce yourself i'm sorry

Good morning. My name is Srila Srinivasan. I'm a fellow with the Innovation Office. Oh, okay. Oh, nice to see you again.

Yes, nice to see you again.

Thank you.

Okay, please. Good morning, everyone. My name is Benjamin Sanchez with the Department of City Development. I am the Housing Programs Manager, and this particular effort in regards to the feasibility study was made possible as a collaborative effort with our Innovation Office colleagues. We are grateful for Srila's work as we have implemented this particular study. So as we had indicated previously, the purpose is to kind of look at what was introduced in approximately December of 2025 and adopted in March of 2026. We will be presenting a study that's very detailed, and we will be welcoming any questions whatsoever at the end of the presentation or during the presentation. I will defer to my colleague Srila for the majority of the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ben, and thank you, members of the Council. I will start with a quick definition of what an employment down payment assistance would mean in this context. It is a workplace benefit provided by employers that provides funds or forgivable loans to help employees cover down payment and closing costs when purchasing a house. In fact, it is a strategic workforce and community development tool which has benefits spread across three different levels. Starting with employees, it is definitely a big benefit that reduces costs. The biggest barrier to homeownership, which is upfront purchase costs. It improves access to homeownership and it can also reduce commute time for employees. For the city, it strengthens recruitment and retention of city employees. lowers turnover-related costs and enhances the overall public proposition of public employment. For the community, it encourages employees' residency within the city boundaries, which means that the employees can now live with the communities that they serve. It contributes to neighborhood stability and a stronger local tax base, and it retains a greater share of household spending within Milwaukee's economy. To elucidate this further and the need for a down payment assistance program, we take a look at the residency gap. Since the residency requirement ended in 2013, the share of city employees living outside Milwaukee has grown significantly. As can be seen from the table on the left, almost 36% of full-time employees are non-residents at this point. Many, especially first-time homebuyers, face real housing cost barriers to home ownership. To look at this further, let's take a look at the Milwaukee housing context. Overall, the median home price in Milwaukee City area as of February 2026 is $229,000. What we see on the right is a table which gives you an idea about the median price of homes in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and nationally across five different tiers. The two tiers that we have taken more interest within the study is the starter tier, which encompasses five to 35% of the homes, and the mid-tier, which is 35 to 65% of the homes, and the median price range goes anywhere from $223,000 to $355,000. Within this range, the typical Milwaukee home buyer puts down 13.3% in down payment. Now, what does that mean? The table here provides a scenario which looks at the different tiers and what it might mean for 5% down to 15% down. For the starter tier, it can go from $11,000 at 5% down to... almost $34,000 at 15% down. And for the mid-tier, it starts from $17,000 at 5% down to almost $54,000 at 15% down, which is a significant range in itself and which provides a very clear context for why down payment assistance might be crucial for encouraging homeownership within the city. According to the research plan, we took a deep dive into the different programs for down payment assistance offered by cities across the US. The major buckets of offerings that we found were four. This is spread across two different slides. It starts from grants. We have forgivable loans, we have interest-free loans, and a newer kind of structure, which is called a shared equity model, with a majority of the programs across cities and counties actually offering the forgivable loan structure. The range here goes anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 in assistance, with the loan that is provided to the employee being forgiven at a percentage anywhere from 20% to upwards over 5 to 10 years of time period. The interest-free loans are, again, a loan format, but without the forgivable part of the previous format, which means that the loan that is provided by the city for the down payment assistance will now have to be repaid by the employee. The shared equity model is a newer model. It basically looks at a system in which the city has zero cost involved in the down payment assistance. In fact, the upfront cost is invested by a private investor, which is then channeled as a benefit to the employee. Two of the that we have mentioned here have actually tried to implement the model, and the private investor in that case goes by the name Landed. Within their model, the private co-investment can go up to 15% of the home price from the investor, while the employee matches up to 5% of the home price. And the appreciation is shared by the home buyer and the investor at sale of the house. across the cities and counties that we considered there were three requirements that we found consistent starting from maintaining employment with government entity throughout the period of the loan being a first-time home buyer with no ownership in a principal residence within that jurisdiction although in some cases certain jurisdictions have allowed for purchases to own properties in another jurisdiction And the last and final would be maintaining ownership and occupancy of the property as a primary residence throughout the period of the loan. We did also look at private sector entities which offer similar programs. In fact, we have Northwestern Mutual and BMO Bank here locally in Milwaukee offering up to $2,500 of assistance. Please note that this is devised from 2013, which we could find the data for, so significant increases could be expected for the current date and time. Before I present the options, considering all the research, we do present three different options in front of the committee for consideration. Before we present the options, there are two key assumptions that we've made throughout these three options. The first being that the benefit will be provided only to employees past their probationary period. However, that probationary period is defined by the department that they're working with. And the second would be they are required to be first-time homebuyers who plan to purchase a house within the city limits. This includes employees who have previously been renting within or outside the city limits, but this does not include those who own properties outside the city limit. Going into option one, this is a forgivable loan model. This is similar to the down payment assistance program that is offered by DCD to the general residents of Milwaukee. It starts with the city establishing a forgivable loan fund that is annually replenished. Eligible employees can then apply according to, if they fall within the requirements mentioned earlier. The loan is then issued and the employee purchases a home. If the employee stays employed and keeps the home, then the loan is forgiven at a 20% rate over five years. And if the condition is not met, then the repayment process is triggered. In this case, the program is fully city funded, and because we have previous experience in administering a similar program, it could be possibly ready for immediate launch. As mentioned, it's a proven model. Cities like Baltimore, Racine, et cetera, have already been using it for quite some years right now. And it actually works as a benefit for employees. and it applies both to down payment and closing costs. However, the challenges that are pointed out here means that the city might require an annual budget allocation towards this program. The benefits could be limited in the sense that, according to the budget that's provided, the number of employees who can apply for the program might be limited in that sense. And the fund is not recycled if most beneficiaries follow requirements during the forgiveness period. Option number two is a shared equity model. It is similar to the model that we found for the city of Ogden in Utah and education department in DC. Here, the city would identify a private partner via a competitive RFP process. Eligible employees would then apply to the city as well as the entity via the city's administration. They would be contributing 5% while the private partner would be investing up to 15% of the purchase price. And combinedly, that could come up to or more than 20% of the home price, which contributes to the down payment. Once the employee purchases the home within the city limits, the employee can then occupy the home, and when the home is being sold, the employee keeps the prorated percentage of the appreciation, while the partner who invested also recoups a part of the investment that they made along with a percentage of the appreciation. The advantages of this model is definitely that it is a zero cost model for the city. It is fully private partner funded and it is easily scalable. But please do note that the numbers mentioned here, 5% and 15%, are representative of the shared equity model that is used by Landed, the private investor, and can change for other partners. It also does come with certain challenges. Here it does not include closing costs, but it also is a model where we can expect the launch time to be significantly higher, especially because we have to go through an RFP process, and the administrative time required for identifying a partner could be significantly long. It is again dependent on finding a willing private partner. Employees will now be sharing their home appreciation as opposed to regaining the entire equity in their homes. The primary market operator landed has a narrow focus, and we did find from our evidence that for adoption of shared equity model, only rapidly appreciating housing markets have been choosing the model as of now, including cities and states like California. The third model that we present is a hybrid, a combination of the first and the second model, which includes closing costs as grants provided by the city and for down payment assistance, a shared equity model, which is similar to the last one. Here, similar to the last case, the city identifies a private partner via an RFP process, and the employee applies now not to just one entity but to two different entities. One would be the city where they would be applying for the closing costs, which is anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. fixed and capped and they would also apply to the private provider via the city where they would be contributing 5% of the purchase price and the private provider will be contributing 15% of the purchase price. And similar to the last model, they would have at least 20% of the home purchase price now as down payment. Once an employee purchases their home, similar to the last model, the employee can continue occupancy of the home. And when the house is sold, the employee would definitely, similar to the last model, recoup what they had invested plus a percentage of the appreciation. And similarly, the private partner will also recoup what they invested and a percentage of the appreciation. The exception being here that for the closing cost grant that was provided by the city, it can function as a full grant or a forgivable loan. If it's a forgivable loan, it's forgiven as a percentage per year. This is, again, minimal cost to the city, and it has layered benefits. The advantages of this model would definitely be that because it's a combined benefit, it's more comprehensive and it also affords the employee a larger sum of the down payment cost that is provided to them through different entities. But the challenges from the last option would carry on to the current option. And added on to it would be the aspect that now we have two benefit streams, which means that the administrative component, the time and the resources, would be, again, significantly higher. The table here presents a quick comparison of the options presented, and from this we can definitely see that option one, forgivable loan, does seem like a significantly better option compared to option two and option three because of various reasons. And building on this, the recommendation that the working group on this provides is that forgivable loan does strike the strongest balance across cost, employee benefit, and operational complexity. It definitely delivers a high and ambiguous benefit to employees, no equity sharing, no partner dependency. It also has Louis operational complexity. DCD already is implementing a similar program. The proposed path forward after much discussion was that a pilot forgivable loan fund could be implemented in the current year. where the outcomes of that pilot could then define a full appropriation request and subsequent budget cycles, depending on the amount of interest that we see from the employees and any factors that might change later. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Let me – can I go back to the sponsor, or did DCD have something to add?

I would like to add, please, that what we were proposing in terms of the budgetary cycle would be for 2027, not the current cycle.

Oh, right, for sure.

Okay.

I know I have a couple of quick questions, but let me go back to the sponsor and then we'll answer some questions.

There's always an opportunity if something else comes in short. We could make a fund transfer and start the program sooner than the 2027 budget, but I'll let that dog lie for now. So this is only for new homeowners only. That's correct. And we're using the definition of five years, a five-year look back for homeownership or any ownership interest in any other property?

I can answer that question. So we're proposing a program that's similar to the Milwaukee Home Down Payment Assistance. It is a five-year owner occupancy requirement. Over 20% each year. I'm sorry.

In order to be qualified as a first-time homebuyer, let's generally look at a three-year look back.

Correct. So typically what we are proposing here is just predominantly the forgivable loan portion. We have not developed any of the program requirements yet. But we can definitely take into consideration and make sure that those considerations for the program are very similar to what they have been in the past. So we're not proposing anything regarding program development yet.

Got it. But if you own an investment property inside the city of Milwaukee, which you conceivably could own or occupy,

even if you don't you're not you would be eligible it's i think what's happening here is that we're looking at pilot program so we're proposing a pilot program that is limited in nature right now also ended and we could always expand in the future if there are further funds are right now looking at the pilot program it would make sense to try to serve the individuals that truly don't have ownership interests is there a are you looking at an am i cap That's the difference between the Milwaukee home down payment assistance program We probably didn't touch on it in the presentation, but it is within the briefing here. So the police chief who just got a huge raise Correct if he did not own his residence.

He could qualify for this. I

No, because we actually did indicate that we're not addressing the Fire and Police Commission because that's part of the labor negotiation portion only for general employees. But I will address your question in regards to the question of income caps. No, there are no income caps on this particular program. And the reason there are no income caps on this particular program is because a general city employee on average is at about 100% area median income. And that's not counting the full household, we're just counting the individual's income. So there is a potential that if the family has additional streams of revenue or income, that income, area median income can exceed that further. So most program applicants to the Milwaukee Home Down Payment Assistance, not the Employer Down Payment Assistance, do have a cap of 80% area median income. And as we know, those 80% area median incomes, if we're looking at a household of one, that's about $60,000 approximately for that individual.

And for the view in public, most city employees do better than that. Correct. Okay. How many city employees would be eligible to benefit from this? Have you run the numbers?

If we were to propose a predominant pilot program at $200,000, probably about close to 20 employees. 20? Correct. Well, hold on. Not how many employees would be eligible to participate. We don't have that data. So like almost everybody who's not a homeowner. anyone that's not a homeowner but we don't have the data in terms of who is not a homeowner because department of employee relations does not have that information so i mean we can capture that information but the but the likely pilot number would we would start with 20. correct okay all right thank you very much okay thank you we had a number of questions first and foremost um

This is, at least in recent time, this is one of the deepest research and presentations I've seen of a legislative aldermanic idea. And I wanted to just note it. Like, it feels really good, and thank you. No matter how I feel about it, the fact that it was thorough and really deep and included multiple departments, as somebody who produces lots of good and maybe not so good ideas, I really admire that, and I wanted to thank you. So just well done on that. Let's keep it going and get more of that. But off of that, then I had a few questions. I guess one thing I'm struggling with here a little bit, but I want to be open-minded, is what are we trying to solve here? So taking a few steps back and that lies in with D.R. And it sounds like from the answers you gave, I thought I saw Jackie Carter on. But like, do we have a problem as a city, that city of Milwaukee employee employees don't. Own their home but want to like I don't know that answer yet and until I know that I can't really move forward because it seems to me what we have is a problem that City of Milwaukee employees are not choosing to invest in the city of Milwaukee and that is devastating to me And I'm not sure this is the answer it could be by incentivizing it But if I was going to incentivize it it seems to me that I'd want to tweak this and perhaps you can add this to your research and And I think that's the way the Baltimore model worked perhaps is wouldn't we want properties that like are maybe not on the tax rolls or ones that could have increased property value, meaning like a foreclosed or like ones that we could use help with. Because I'm just trying to figure this out and I'm struggling with it a little bit as to perhaps we need to look deeper at the issue and maybe that's a DER survey to employees asking what is the barrier to investing in the city. And I would be really interested in that data before we move forward. And it may be an uncomfortable conversation, but we need to have it in order to produce the tools to make that change. And then lastly, I'm really glad that you somewhat dismissed the idea of the private equity. I'm not a fan of those. I don't want to do any more business with those types of corporations. I'm just very bothered with Airbnb, with Lime Scooters. I'm venting right now, but I have to because some of these corporations have not been good for the city of Milwaukee. So I like the idea that the option one that's being put forward. I'm not saying everyone is equal, but lately I've been just dissatisfied. So those are a couple of thoughts I have. Feel free to answer them, and then I'm going to move on to other people if you have anything to share.

Sure. So I would say in regards to the concern that you share in understanding the deeper problem, that is definitely something that needs to be explored. It is something that I would encourage that we explore further. With DER, right? With DER, correct. We unfortunately do not have access to that data. The shared equity model, I would like to express that although there is a private entity, there is a potential avenue, and I'm not promoting the shared equity model in any way, shape, or form, but I would encourage that if we have a rapidly increasing market in the future, not right now, Right now, with our average homes being at about 229,000 approximately, we're still okay, but if we started to see properties at a starting point at $700,000, we need to start looking at that model a little bit deeper, right? It doesn't mean that we need to use private entities. Maybe we need to look at it from a different perspective. Maybe we look at philanthropic organizations that are probably creating some type of investment at a local level where we can create program pools that can then be invested within our communities. to keep the dollars in the community as well. So it doesn't mean that we need to look at a private entity, but I don't think that we're at the point where we have a problem with rapidly growing housing market in Milwaukee yet. So I would like to kind of at least keep that idea out there for the future, should something actually happen. Okay. No, that's great. That's good discussion.

I'm going to move on to Alderman Moore, who's been waiting here.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. First, I have to thank Alderman Bergalis for bringing this issue to the table. I think it's so valuable for us to think about how we better support our employees. I know some personally that are looking. at home ownership and home ownership opportunities but because the cost of renting has gotten so astronomical it's like you know once i pay all my bills i you know i have 100 bucks left from my check and you know most of it is going towards um renting And so figuring out ways that we can best support the folks that are working here, I am definitely all for it. I would definitely love to be added as a co-sponsor, please, to the file and have to echo the sentiments of Madam Chair as well. Wonderful job on the data that was used to provide us some information to really make some good decisions. And I think there's some more information definitely available. That we that we need to that we need to have Quick question and surely you can answer this or whomever when we say on one of the slides are a few of them it says If the home sold up to 30 years triggers or settlement, can you just explain to me what that means? When you and when it says triggers a settlement, right?

so 30 years is the period that has been defined right now that can change. It depends on when the home gets sold. The settlement in this case would mean that the appreciation that the home gains through that period and the principal value of the home, once it is sold, is then distributed between the private investor. And also the homeowner.

Got it.

According to the percentages that has been decided in the earlier documentation and contract.

Thank you. That makes sense. Typically also it tends to be tied with a mortgage. So a mortgage typically tends to have a 30-year term. So that's why there is some type of tie and correlation. So I would like to add also to that shared equity model example. One of the reasons as to why we did explore that option is because if there's a larger investment on the front end, it means that on a mortgage basis payment, there is a lower mortgage payment because there's no private mortgage insurance carried for the employee. as an example, so they have a lower mortgage payment, a smaller investment because it's 5% or less, right? Eventually, there would be a shared equity, which is the downfall of that program, definitely. But there are reasons as to why we explored it, because it means a lower mortgage payment in the long run for the first 11 years, approximately. If someone typically does put less than 20% down payment, there is private mortgage insurance that is carried on a mortgage payment.

Well, I think it's important that PMI or private mortgage insurance covers lender in case of default, right? And eliminating that exposure reduction isn't necessarily something that is a goal to save $50 or $75 a month in your payment. eliminating PMI just says that the lender doesn't, has reached the threshold where they're not concerned about losing on their investment. The city at that point, frankly, has taken on that risk without any kind of leverage or protection from private mortgage insurance. So I'm cautious to say use the phrasing that PMI is purely an expense, but that covers liability that, frankly, with a larger down payment, the city would be absorbing, right? Correct. So we would have a risk to lose that investment altogether should the market change, should something happen to the property. So I think there are certainly more conversations to be had, but the goal is homeownership. The goal is helping employees. How we get there, frankly... We have many roads, many paths.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And I think the last question that I have is, so there is a question in the city survey. There's currently a survey that's out right now that does have this question that's a part of it. Do we know when that information can be synthesized so that we have a sense of how much interest we may have in this?

I do believe that the survey might be running for a week or a week and a half more. Afterwards, we can definitely contact DER and get that information. Okay.

Perfect. Awesome. I think that's all that I have for now, Madam Chair. Thank you so much.

I'm going to keep coming this way. Alderman Spiker, did you have questions?

A couple. So, again, thanks to Alder Bergel, as Alder Moore said, for bringing this forward, and thanks for the exemplary research. It was really, really informative. Did I hear correctly that if we do a pilot program along these lines, this would exclude police and fire because that's a bargaining issue? issue that we'd need to get into?

Well, definitely would require a labor negotiator. We cannot really speak on behalf of the labor negotiators, so we definitely would

at this moment in time based on the study that we did we're just looking at general employees yep and i know there it was detailed earlier in the presentation the benefits of doing this for our employees and for the city's health as a whole residency would be a big part of that and we have a tale of two classes there um the general city employees 25 live outside the city Police and fire is where it's like 64%, I think, according to Kathy's report this morning of sworn police live outside the city and 59% of fire. So if we are looking at attacking residency, that's where the big issue is. Okay. I guess I had one question. The research was very thorough. I guess this would be another bit of research. Do we have any indication for these other cities that use a species of these three options, whether folks are sticking around after their five-year forgiveness period expires? Because somebody might say, hey, i get a benefit from the city in that you know as long as i stick around for five years my down payment is forgiven then i have equity in a house and then i go somewhere else and buy a bigger house outside the city

So I would say that it's on a case-by-case basis depending on the city. For instance, the city of Racine, which is close to us, has indicated a decreasing interest in the program itself over the years, although it is relatively new compared to, let's say, D.C. or other jurisdictions mentioned recently. Again, I do not have any evidence backing for this, but from the general information that I received, it is sort of pointing to the fact that other factors that point to an interest in staying within the city limits do contribute to more interest in the program and also larger significant interest in sticking to the requirements defined by the program.

But we don't have any data, I imagine, that shows whether people are using it as a fulcrum to get into a house. They're using it just for a starter home. And then once they've got their five years, I mean, you see it in Milwaukee all the time. People buy a starter home. Concerns over schools or safety or whatever leads them to once the kids get to a certain age. move out um i just wonder and again not saying this isn't worth exploring but it'd be useful to to know whether other cities have experienced people using this kind of down payment assistance to get into a home build equity and then move on that would be definitely a useful part of a study that should capture information i don't believe that we have that data at this moment in time though yeah Okay. And if you run the pilot, then I guess that would be something to watch for. Um, and then the last question I had was, uh, so would this be. Per employee, if you had two employees, city employees, is it just one down payment assistance per household or would it be per employee? So two could.

That would definitely be a programmatic development question that we would need to address. Right now we're not really developing the program, but we definitely can consider that with our conversations with the Department of Employee Relations. Should this move forward in any way, shape, or form, this is considered an additional benefit. So what that means is that we would need to explore if this also contributes to households' income, basically based on the program development and how it is structured. So if there is a forgiveness of 20% increments per year, does that 20% increment get applied towards employees' income? So those are the things that we need to evaluate from a programmatic perspective, not from the study perspective, but we would be willing to evaluate that.

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.

Interesting. Okay. Final questions and comments. Alderman Coggs, anything to add here? Yeah.

Okay. And maybe this is more programmatic, but I guess I'm just wondering what factors would impact forgivability?

Mm-hmm.

Sure. So I can talk from experience, not from a program with the city of Milwaukee, but from experience from other programs, right? So when we're talking about a historical avenue, Select Milwaukee in the past was a nonprofit agency that did administer an employer down payment assistance program, and they administered programs similar to this proposal here from GIC, for Northwestern Mutual, for Harley-Davidson. So those are some examples in terms of the employees that they actually were able to impact. When developing the program, overall, there definitely is, kind of addressing Alderman Spiker's concern here, there is an impact in terms of retaining employees within the particular area, but when developing the program, we basically see that... The percentage, can I have you repeat your question again just to make sure I get it correctly?

What factors impact forgivability?

So the factors that impact forgivability when developing the program really depends on how we kind of tie with the Department of Employee Relations and the benefits area. Typically with those other programs historically, it would be an employee that is not on probation, that has passed a probationary period. employee that potentially and this is again when we could develop the program we would evaluate if it also impacts an employee that may be on any corrective action not being eligible for the program we would also evaluate an employee that departs from the department or the city so we would have to kind of figure out how that would work if someone goes let's say for example from Department of City Development to the police department how does that get evaluated? How do we determine that, right? What structure would we implement to assess if that particular benefit would be due at the time of the change? And then sometimes when an employee actually separates from an employer at that point, if it's before the five-year period of time and the proportion hasn't been forgiven, we request what we call a payoff that operates currently with the milwaukee home down payment assistance where someone sells the property and it's before the five-year period of time there is a payoff for remaining benefits that remain unused does that provide a little bit of a structure i don't have all the details because we really haven't moved into the programmatic development yeah a little bit um you talked about the disciplinary stuff what if they had disciplinary action after they were already in the program

Nothing.

We would have to establish some type of structure that would work for the Department of Employee Relations, for the department. I think it would be a larger conversation across different departments.

I heard Alderman Spock's question about the starter home and whether that, the impact that has. For the cities that already, that you studied, that already did the forgivable, was there measurable increase in employees' staying within the city?

I can take that. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, it is, again, dependent on a city-by-city basis. In certain cities, we can definitely see an increased uptake in the benefits of the program itself, which loosely translates to increasing number of employees actually sticking to residents within the city. But, for example, in cities like Racine, where we see a decreasing interest in the program, that might not be the case entirely. And it could be dependent on a number of factors which are outside what is considered within the programmatic areas as well.

I guess what I'm just trying to get to is earlier the chairwoman asked about what are we trying to solve for. In my mind, We're solving for getting some of these employees to stay here instead of go out. And so I guess I'm looking towards those other cities to see if that really happened. Like, I believe if we offer it, people will take it. But, for example, how many, what's the percentage of employees that currently live outside of the city that are not firing police? 36 percentage, almost. Say we do this full on, not just a pilot, we do it full on. I'm looking to see that that 36% decreases. Do you see what I'm saying?

I would like to see that as well, a free developer program like that.

So I'm wondering, from those other cities, Does it feel like that has happened? Who did forgivable? When it was utilized, those numbers shifted. You know what I'm saying?

It does, although I do not have data down in the study right now, it does seem like in definitely a significant amount of cities that are mentioned in here, we do see an increase in residency. But at the same time, there are also other cities where that has not been the case as well.

Do we, is there, and you may not know this now, but as you continue to do the research, for those that we don't see it, is there very obvious reasons why?

For the city of Racine, I keep coming back to Racine because that is a city which noted that there could be a closure of the program in itself because of decreased interest. The answer that I received was other economic reasons, which could be a lot of other factors, but I do not have a split of what that really means.

I think the problem is a larger problem, definitely, and I think it requires multiple approaches for a solution. So employment jobs are going to be very important to attract employees, not from the same way we're creating this for employees. I understand that we're looking at it from an employee's perspective, right? But employment also is very critical. The economy of the area as well. Schools are going to be very important. So there's a multi-factor reason that it's very complex to study if a program is operating appropriately for an employer within an area. So I think that would require a much deeper dive in terms of information and study.

And just for clarity, are we intending this to be first-time homeowners or like only home, like owner-occupied?

Owner-occupied, first-time homebuyers as a pilot program.

The reason that I ask is I could own a house right now and sell it and rent for a couple of years and then want to be in the program. Mm-hmm. I'm not a first-time homebuyer. I've owned a home before.

If you did own a home in the past and you sold the home and it has been three years since you sold that home, we would consider you a first-time homebuyer.

Okay.

Thank you. Okay. I do want to come to some concluding questions here because we are going to place it on file, which is the proper motion. So Alderman Moore?

Just really, really quick, just in reference to my colleague's questions, the 36% that live outside of the city, that's general city employees?

I do believe that's the case.

Correct. Okay. And so looking at that percentage, at this point, we don't know of that percentage yet. who are home owners currently, correct? That's correct. Got it. Okay, so just looking at the Alderwoman's point in regards to, well, if we take a percentage, once we find out, right, the percentage that are home owners, we would have to obviously subtract that, look at those individuals, because I'm thinking if you own a home outside the city, it's probably high probability that you're not coming back to this, not purchasing a property here in the city. So that number to me is sort of need to be dissected just a little bit, just so that we have a general sense of, Who has home ownership and then those that don't, you know, would this, you know, would that apply to those coming back to the city? So just over time, I don't, you know, necessarily, you know, look at this 36%. It could change if based on the number of home, you know, homeownership, correct? okay that that was the main thing that i wanted to sort of you know look at because we we don't know we don't know the homework home ownership numbers of those living outside um outside the city thank you thank you so much thank you

Okay. Any concluding questions or thoughts that haven't been discussed here before we place this on file?

So quick question, just formality. If we place it on file, we can bring it back up at a later time or?

It's a communication file, so it's just communicating to us. But if anyone wants to take action, that would be on legislators or if you're going to put in the budget or those are the next options. This is just a communication file, so we can't really take any other action. Gotcha. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm sure mm-hmm. Yes, just because for years now the report we get from The LRB is that general city 25% lives outside the city and then you said 36% Was your information from DER?

So just wondering about the discrepancy there According to the information that was received from DER which is which is showcasing the table that was mentioned on the slide it does show that 36 percentage of full-time employees are non-residents right and then it's worse for part-time or not we do have a break up that says full-time other and temporary we would we might have to define if other and temporary would mean part-time yeah it's just that would

Yeah, well if DER is on the line don't have to give it to me now, but if you could just square that circle for me and just make sure I'm not giving the wrong information because for years it's that makes me then question what the police and fire stats are. So seeing that report elsewhere as well. So if DER could just, is DER around?

Is anyone on the board from Department of Employee Relations? It does seem like, yeah, we'll get this question answered and then we'll have to work more closely because we actually produced like three or four questions that should be for Department of Employee Relations going forward.

And it's fine. We don't have to work it out here. LRB can just follow up with them and make sure. Oh, where is that?

It's here. Hi, committee members. Kristen Hennessey, Urban Staffing Services Manager in DER.

I am taking all of this down now, and we'll get back to the response and the preferences and the survey issue that you raised.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other final comments or questions before we place this on file? Alderman Vergelis moves to place it on file. Any questions on placing on file? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Great. Thank you. Discussion here. Thank you. As a reminder, three is temporarily held to the end of the meeting for the request of the sponsor. which takes us to item four, 260212, communication from the Department of Administration, budget and management analysis division regarding vacancy requests, fund transfers, and equipment requests. We're joined by our budget director, Mr. Nick Kovach. Good morning. Good morning. And we will go through as usual. We'll begin with property tax levy supported positions. Comptroller, accounting program assistant two, capital finance manager. Department of Emergency Communications, Emergency Communications Supervisor. I have a question here. Is there anyone here from the Department of Emergency Communications?

Yeah, Madam Chair, this is Tony Bueno of DBC.

Hi, Mr. Bueno. Good morning. I was just wondering, is this taking you now to a pretty full staffing level?

This is actually part of a bigger effort for our reorganization. We're going to be coming back with some position reductions, but this is necessary to facilitate some movement of managers and supervisors as part of the reorganization. As far as overall staffing, we're at a 23% vacancy. We have a current hiring effect. Interviews are going on next door. anticipate hiring 12 to 15 new employees, which will close that gap significantly.

Okay. Well, please continue to communicate with us. And if there's anything we can do, like via newsletters or outreach, because I continue to get complaints about very long wait times on non-emergency. And when I make those to the Milwaukee Police Department, they direct me directly to you. And so I wanted to bring that up. And I just have to do my duty as representing my constituents to make sure that we have a plan to reduce that wait time for non-emergency.

Absolutely. We have some ideas. I will reach out to your office and schedule something so I can bring you up just beyond some of the things you're working on.

Right, and a big part of that is hiring people. So we want to be part of the solution, too, but we've got to work on that. So thank you very much. Anything else on this?

Madam Chair, on that, public safety, here's a quarterly report on response time. So I'm sure Director Bueno could... Actually, Fire and Police Commission will give those reports and there's often commentary about the, not just the 911, but the non-emergency administrative calls, which have shown improvement over time and done well on improving, especially on outliers, the calls that take a super long time to respond to. Those have gone down dramatically over time too. But Director Todd would be the contact there.

Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for that. I appreciate that. I'll keep a close eye on that. I've been doing some outreach in the community in a survey, and this has been a top complaint, so I wanted to bring it up, too. But I really appreciate that.

Okay. Anything else on emergency communications?

Okay.

Department of Employee Relations Benefits and Wellness Supervisor. Fire Department, Assistant Fire Chief, Deputy Chief Fire, Battalion Chief Fire, Fire Captain, two positions. Fire and Police Commission Recruiter. Health Department, Clinic Office Coordinator, Program Assistant, one, Public Health Nurse, three, Health Administrative Specialist, three, Health Project Supervisor, DADS, D-A-D-S. Library, Library Technical Services Specialist Leader, Custodial Worker 2, Library Security Guard. Department of Neighborhood Services, Building Codes Enforcement Manager, Special, yes, Alderman Cox.

Is someone from DNS available?

Yes, I did see somebody from the commissioner's office. Department of Neighborhood Services, we have a question. Yes, we're here. Okay.

Good morning, committee.

This is Heather Mill. Okay, all the women. For this vacancy, somebody's gone? Yes, that was a resignation. Resignation. Did that person rescind their resignation? No. We can definitely have that conversation offline. Yes. Okay. If that's a conversation we would have offline, I would ask Madam Chair that we hold that. Okay.

Hold the building codes enforcement manager? Mm-hmm. Okay. Are there any objections to that hold? Hearing none, so ordered. You got that? Okay. Okay. Special Enforcement Inspector for two positions. Neighborhood Improvement Project Inspector, four, and Residential Code Enforcement Inspector, four. Any other questions on Department of Neighborhood Services? Police Department, Court Liaison Officer, Police Officer, 44 positions, Police Aid, 20 positions, Forensic Processor Supervisor. Department of Public Works Infrastructure Division. civil engineer three, bridge operator. Department of Public Works operation division, sanitation supervisor, special equipment operator two, yard attendant, sanitation inspector two. Any other questions on property tax levy supported positions? We'll now move on to non-property tax levy supported positions. Health Department, Community Health Nutritionist 2, WIC Client Services Assistant 3, Department of Public Works Sewer Maintenance, Civil Engineer 3, Department of Public Works Water Works, Water Distribution Investigator, Program Assistant 3, CAD and GIS Technician 3, Program Assistant 3. Any questions or comments on both property tax levy and non-property tax levy supported positions on item four? We did have that one item held. In hearing no other questions, Alderman Coggs moves approval of item four, discussion of approval. Objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We're now on item five. 260-213 communication from the Department of Administration relating to approval of changes to certain single or sole source contracts or contract amendments. We're joined from purchasing Rhonda Kelsey.

Good morning, Chairwoman, committee members, Rhonda Kelsey, City Purchasing Director. There is one contract in today's file. This contract is for the Vision Zero program of the Department of Administration. This is the advertising contract. with Lamar Transit on Milwaukee County buses to promote safe driving. So we are seeking your approval to add an additional $30,000 to the current contract amount of roughly $50,000 for current contract amount of $80,000 and we are seeking to extend the contract for one additional year approximately through early July of next year. So this extension will allow Vision Zero obviously to continue to promote safe driving on buses and shelters throughout the city of Milwaukee or the county.

That's it. All right, any questions on item five? Questions on item five? All the women more moves approval of item five. Any discussion of approval? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We'll now turn to item six, 260214. Communication from the Department of Administration informing the Finance and Personnel Committee of waivers granted for certain single or sole source contracts and contract amendments. Ms. Kelsey.

Okay, so we have one contract in this file as well. So this is a waiver. This contract has come before this body in the past as well. So this is the Social Pinpoint software subscription. It's a community engagement planning tool that is used by DCD, DPW, urban planning purposes. It's a multilingual software tool that allows those departments to engage with the community and it and obtain feedback from the community. So the original contract was established back during the COVID era, if you will, and it was primarily used by DCD at the time. Based on feedback by city departments such as DPW, ITMD, et cetera, it has proven to be successful and can be used by other city departments. And again, it is a public engagement tool. point clear. So what we're seeking to do or what we have done through this particular contract amendment is we've added an additional five years to the contract. So it'll run through 2031. That covers a cost of approximately $120,000 over that period, which would yield a total contract amount of roughly $175,000 over that total contract period. So this tool is used by a number of communities across the country. It's proven to be successful. There were conversations about issuing an RFP, but there was no value really in doing that. because the transition to a new software platform would more than likely be more costly, et cetera. And so a decision was made to stick with the Social Pinpoint software platform based on input, again, by several city departments.

Okay.

That's it.

That's it for today. Any questions on that item? Questions or comments on that one item for item six? Seeing and hearing none, Alderman Scott Spiker moves to place on file item six. Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you, Ms. Kelsey. Thank you. We are now on to item seven, 251280, communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to classification studies scheduled for fire and police commission action.

Good morning. Good morning. Andrea Knickerbocker, Department of Employee Relations. We have quite a number for you this morning, and I will summarize from the communication letter, and then if you have questions, I can answer. In the Department of Emergency Communication... Adding an incentive footnote for the supervisors as the department wishes to designate a shift lead. Also, repurposing some emergency communication officer fives that are vacant. into a new records analyst, which would be handling all records in the department, including open records responses, and an operations analyst that would take on the scheduling and payroll, which is the responsibility of the supervisors right now, so that would streamline. And also changing the pay range designation for an emergency communication project manager. There's no change in pay. And then we have the citywide human resource business operations market study. And the information that you have here for the Fire and Police Commission is the same information that you'll see In the next file for City Service Commission, the positions that are specific to the... Ms. Knickerbocker, can you hold?

Because we're kind of blending, and that's fine because they do blend, and I want to read eight into the file because we can take them both together. Mr. Lee is suggesting, so excuse me. Item 8-260-215, communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to classification studies. scheduled for City Service Commission action. That way we can talk about both 7 and 8 and take them together. So please, and I will have questions on the business app.

Sounds fine. And just to finish that, those that are highlighted are those specific to police, fire, and DEC. I'm not going to read through all of this for you because it is so long. I will say on a happy note, this is the last large market study that we expect to complete this goes back to 22 and And so the staff has been working with this, and we've finally gotten to the end of this research and recommendations. The costs that are shown in the back of the report for both the Fire and Police Commission reports and the City Service Commission reports do show the costs, and that includes the matrix placements in order to create equity between employees in those titles. And that said, I'll move on to the City Service Commission reports. Sure, I will. There are so many. Okay. For the City Service Commission meeting, We did recommend the reallocation of a housing program manager to be in line with other positions that have that same level of responsibility in the Department of City Developments. In the Department of Administration, Community Development Grants Administration, this is a retitle, no change in pay. In the Department of Administration, IT, IT, reclassification of a vacant position due to expanded and higher-level duties. Also in the health department, the creation of an information systems project coordinator, as well as repurposing a public health nurse 3 to a nurse practitioner. And then the same information is before you on the recommendations for the H.R.

business ops report okay are you you've concluded i'm done okay but i'm sure you have questions yes well this is um about 46 pages um that i'm looking at and it's on page 38 that details that the cost for the full year is 1.4 million dollars that is correct so A couple questions here. Number one, I do have to place on the record that the timing that we received this was quite late. So if I'm accurate, and sometimes I can make mistakes, I double checked with both Kathy and Chris. We did not receive this, which is a very, and I know it's a lot of work and it's a large report, until late Tuesday. That's pretty tough for us. And I know we had the committee one day later, but with this major of an item, we would need a little bit more time because that was substantially after the agenda had come out when it was finally filled. So I just want to politely suggest that that was not sufficient time for this review. In fact, that's why I was only able to review it even like yesterday. So $1.471 million. First of all, why was this, if it seems like it's somewhat of an upper management from what I'm noticing in the business ops, it's like in each department, why was that not part of the initial kind of executive pay plan?

Well, the executive play plan would look specifically at department heads and deputy department heads. Okay.

You consider this kind of like a number of positions lower than that? Because to me it looks like other management, but I'm just not sure.

Oh, I'm following. The positions in the report that went in 24 are those positions that are appointed by the mayor or by other elected department heads.

Okay. I think there was some number twos in there too, but... I don't think there's any overlap. Okay. Oh, no. No overlap at all. So just to say that back to you, that was my perception, but again, I'm reviewing it. It's that that would not be completely accurate because what you're saying is this type of a position was... not considered an executive level. Absolutely not. Okay, that was another question. Second question is, how are we going to pay for this? So that's for the budget director. Is it budgeted for in 2026, the $1.4 million?

Yes, it's in the wage supplement fund.

What is the current amount in the wage supplement fund?

Well, I mean, the wage supplement fund covers general city wages, increases, and then also police and fire increases.

Which I thought were, in my own words, outrageous for 2026. So I guess I just didn't feel like we had sufficient funds for that.

Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to go into the details of the accounting of how much is for which without going into closed session, even though we've finished that negotiation. Yeah. For the sake of future negotiations, I wouldn't want to go into it. But this, we were, as was typical. Yeah. Yeah, we've gone through. This process, many times, I mean, Andrea said this is the last one, so we'll probably want to have to do this again for a long time, is the expectation. But we've always, this gets, well, for the 27 budget, it will likely be put into the departmental budgets. It's not yet in the request, but for the proposed, it will be, assuming it's approved. And then, but you asked about the 26 budget, so we did put- part of the calculations for the wage supplement fund which we adjusted you know through council action for the general city wages and the residency but part of the underlying 2026 wage supplement fund was an expectation that this and the lab report that was approved last cycle or two cycles might have been two cycles if i can't remember there were still two left hanging we knew they were there we communicated with der on the likely impact the the the amounts you're seeing there are within the ranges der had predicted So this is factored into the wage supplement fund. Now, having said that, we will only use the wage supplement fund if departments can't absorb the increase. As with all wage adjustments, if departments can absorb the increase, we do that first. But we do have a number in the wage supplement fund to supplement.

But when do we find out if they can absorb the increase? I realize it's a fluid dynamic with vacancies and that kind of balance. This is a large amount of money. This is a very large amount of money. And I was under the impression, I don't have it memorized up to date, but it feels like we've been spending and have big plans for the wage and supplement fund. I mean, we've settled major contracts that were even more expensive than I had wanted them to be. quite frankly, and I just didn't think we had room in 2026. And I'm nervous about that because I think we're facing a pending deficit for 2027. So maybe, is this the wisest thing to do right now? I don't want to be cutting services in 2027.

In terms of putting this report forward, our intent since 22 was to try and look at every single position in the salary ordinance and make sure that it was at a market competitive place. The others that have preceded this, the labor and trades, The IT have gone before, and this one just happens to be last. And we've been kind of working on this one for the last year, and folks know it's coming for consideration. And my recommendation, of course, is to move forward so that this does not continue to hang out there as something that is uncompleted.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there's been, I think, really good communication between DER and council members and employees and department heads and budget office on this because this is the end of the major readjustment that was made in the wake of having everyone's wages frozen for 10 years. We did a major reclassification. This is a large number by itself, but it's frankly a small percentage of the overall amount in the last three to four years that has occurred. And it is something that's anticipated that is built in to the 26th wage supplement fund and the 27 wage supplement fund as requested. And you mentioned the 27 deficit. It's a gap, but I can talk more about that. If we wanted to schedule a communication file on that before this committee, I also was planning on reaching out to committee members to give you one-on-one updates if you want. Definitely. Earlier than we have in prior years about the 27 gap and the factors in that. So I'll say that now. That sounds great. My plan was to reach out. It's June to ask if you want to meet in June, you want to meet in July. I normally do send a big picture letter in late July, early August. Probably still planning on a letter like that, but I think conversations before that letter goes out to council. could be beneficial because frankly in the past when i sent that letter out and said send me your feedback i've gotten some but probably would get more if i asked in july so or in june actually still june so we're going to try to reach out earlier to let you know about all the different factors but as far as work concerned this was a factor that we had already budgeted for and it's already been anticipated that the city had committed to this reclassification where I mean frankly fiscally relieved it's it's over now or about to be over but it is it was always anticipated to do everyone and if you don't finish you're gonna have a major equity issue I can understand that and when we started this journey we were always worried about like who would be at the end and because fiscal conditions are only getting more challenging

What is the average? I'm looking here. Again, it's quite a list. I'm just pulling the top one, business operations manager. I'm looking at city attorney. And the range would go from, looks like it's 1JX93 to 108. Item number, I don't even know what page I'm on here. But it's like I'm just pulling a random third position here on this long list.

Are you in the fiscal note?

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Yeah, and I guess I'm just trying to grasp. So I get that it's $1.4 million, but, like, percentage, because 90, I mean, these are high-wage earners, 93,000 to 108, you know, that's significant. I mean, that's almost $15,000. Yeah. So what is the percentage? roughly for this mix are we seeing generally these business op managers are getting a 10 increase

It's possible that employees would get up to 10% as a result of the matrix placement because that would be calculated on what the new minimum is for the title. So, yes, they're not going to get more than 10% above that title minimum. The other thing that I would say, and this is in the beginning of the report, but with this report, just to tell you how we go about researching and recommending, when looking at the external market, we looked at surveys that we have, other jurisdictions. Bureau of Labor Statistics, our recommendations for the highest level positions that are in this report would be at 50% of the market or less. And so, yes, that's quite a change. And any of the lower, more entry-level professionals moving up, those we look a little higher to be at about 75%. So the positions historically and our recommendation here is to recruit at a reasonable rate, but as you move up, it's not as much of a bump. The other thing that greatly impacted this group of individuals was the lift of the mayor's cap. Well, actually, not the lift of the mayor's cap. Because when we looked at some of these positions previously, they were very much held down and there was compression between the titles. So this report also treats these titles in the same manner.

Mm-hmm.

as other reports that have come before you that did not have that mayoral cap.

Okay. So, like I'm just looking at, for example, housing programs manager was at 117 and now 129. Oh, I think that one's actually a reclass. I'm sorry. It's one of the separate report. Okay. They're kind of mixed together. So reclasses are so, so much different than a market study. Very much. And I mean, mixing them in here is a little difficult. So like, what is that person doing differently for like a $20,000 raise?

So in the, in the case of the housing program coordinator, we found that when we had done the market study for those positions a number of years ago, One of the titles got left out. And so that is prospectively, not retroactively, putting that title into the same pay range as their peers in the department at the same level of responsibility. So that one's more of a reallocation. Okay. as opposed to changes in duties and responsibilities. And my mistake, it was closer to $11,000.

Wait, one second. So is reclass mixed in here, or is it that last page?

The independent reports that are separate reports before the Fire and Police Commission and CSC, Maybe the creation of new titles, for example, in DEC, the new analysts. Or in the case of city service, there were some individual reclassifications. And in the report itself, the reclassifications that dealt with the... human resource business operations positions are listed in separate write-ups at the end, so you can see. And just to give you an example, there was, I believe, a human resource assistant title that was in the health department, and the department changed up the duties and responsibilities, and therefore that got recreated as a human resources representative. So in that case, we're really looking at what changed about this job description. In the other cases, we are assuming that the position responsibilities have not changed. And just if you went out in the market, what would other people in this type of position in southeastern Wisconsin, what would be that pay range?

Okay.

Yeah, Chris is kind of helping me see the, it's just 46 pages and a lot in just that one day. That's why I had so many questions. There's also kind of like a disproportionate amount of DER that I noticed, but it could be from what you're talking about, the human resources. That's what we got. Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I want to open it up to other questions a little bit more.

Yes. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I just had a technical question. If just because of the amount of information and just the lack of time that we had just to get an opportunity to review, is it possible if we can hold it? And if so, would that impact, you know, would that decision impact any decisions that, you know, would this particular classification study impact?

I think the only issues... Because this is a communication. Is it just a communication file? I think the only issues we'd be looking at would be what's coming with Workday and when we have to get things implemented before... At some point, there's just a shutdown of making any changes in the system. Sure. So I think that's what we're looking at. What pay range we have until... I can't tell you right this second. I should know. No, no, no. You're good. Is that...

Quick, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, it's a communication file here, but it's scheduled for later action in the agenda. So this is a different flavor of communication file. Gotcha. And yeah, I think the workday, I mean, obviously for budget certainty, it'd be easier for us to get the numbers in. as they're expected to get them in the departments rather than have it in the wage supplement fund for 27. But I think the workday implications are more extreme here. That project's under a lot of pressure. Oh, absolutely. And so there's... And then there's blackout periods coming, and there's a go-live date that we have to meet in order to not.

I know we pushed it back, Nick.

What's the date now for launch for Workday? Well, officially January 1, but pay period 1 is actually December 20. So December 20 would be the go-live date for payroll. But then in order to prepare for that, there's blackout dates that begin in January. late September, early October. And then there's a lot of payroll processing and testing. So the people making these changes are going to be extraordinarily busy. Well, they are extraordinarily busy. So I think the sooner we can finalize it, the better. Also, I should have given you an answer on that. The total wage supplement fund is $27.6 million in 26. And the wage supplement fund is there as a supplement to wage accounts. Obviously, if departments can absorb it because of higher than expected vacancies, then they absorb it. The wage supplement fund there is to supplement. It can only be used to supplement salaries in various departments. And if it's not used, we then have to make a decision whether to carry it over or let it lapse into the tax stabilization fund. And so you had asked, Madam Chair, about when we know. Generally, that's when we're closing out the books. So we kind of knew that about 25. Was that two months ago when we closed out the books or a month ago? So we'll know... In 10 months, if the 27.6 was sufficient, we expect it to be sufficient, and it covers all the different factors, general city wages, negotiated wages with police and fire, and these reclassification market studies. Got it.

Okay. The next finance committee is July 8th, just for information. So a hold has been proposed. Sure. And we're on that now. Alderman Bergelis.

Before we get to the motion, you mentioned something. You said the go live is now January? Yes. I thought we just extended it from June to September at a cost of $1.4 million. Right. Our go-live for work day.

My understanding is that it's period one of 27. I can't speak directly to the files that have come before this committee, but that's our understanding.

The budget director should be able to. Yeah, I'm not sure what the status is of various communications. But, yeah, we have missed deadlines for September, so we're coming up on January. And there will be future communications on that, I believe, schedule. I think there's been communication on scheduling those updates.

I thought when everyone came to the table a couple months ago and said 1.4, this is it, we're going to get it,

For September, I think we were very careful to not use language like that. There was there was always the chance that there would be the need to extend the project for the communication plan has been to. have a communication file at the July 9th Finance and Personnel Committee meeting to talk about the status of the project and the need to extend further to January and then to request funding for that extension at the July 29th Finance and Personnel Committee meeting.

I thought we had the Groundhog Day analogy in that committee meeting when the last $1.4 million was requested. It's unfortunate to hear that in side commentary answering a different question. When were you planning on communicating with council?

That was the communication strategy that I just outlined. It was to communicate to each of you individually in advance of the communication file, which was going to be on July 9th, and then to formally ask for funding at a subsequent meeting, I think on July 29th.

Okay. Thank you. July 8th, though, Bill. July 8th. Oh, 8th. Sorry. A lot of people stress out around here.

All right.

Yes, Alderman Spiker.

And I know we're not noticed to discuss that, but, yeah, the January 1st, I imagine the workload for going live there, given all the changes, I just can't imagine how much work that would be to go live on January 1st. But we'll discuss that, I guess, next month. Well, there's one more just for you. With respect to this item, so I thought I heard you, Ms. Knickerbocker, and Director Kovac say that there is no overlap with the executive pay plan for these positions in the market study. So anything that was touched by the executive pay plan is not part of this market study? That's correct. Okay. And then if this is the last big one, I wonder if it would be too onerous to ask the LRB to work with DER and the Budget Office to get the total cost of these market studies. We've had 1.5 for this one, but every one has come with a fiscal note from DER. I don't know if the Budget Office signs off on that or not, but it would be good to know the total. harassed the budget director for years about how much this would cost at the conclusion of this it would be good to know because we've been biting off a piece at a time and this committee you know it was never given a number that said if you start down this path this will be the total So now we're to the point of it would be almost silly not to finish at this point with the last big one, but yeah, it would be good to have the number of what this decision cost would be. It's done now, but when the cap was removed, that was a big decision that had ramifications. And I understand why we did what we did, but it would be good to know what the total price tag was for these increases, including roll-up on an annual basis of these market studies and implementing their recommendations. Is that something LRB could work with you all on?

I bet you. Yep. Okay. Great. Thanks. We do have a hold that's been made. And since that's on the table, it would be a good time to move forward.

Director Kovac, do you have a ballpark of where we're at? I know I've asked you that question a thousand times.

Yeah, and we could discuss it more offline, some of the factors behind that. I mean, you could just total up all the fiscal notes.

That'll be the easy way to do it. But, I mean, we're talking like $20 million, $30 million.

Oh, citywide for all these? Yeah, at least. Yeah. I mean, it's a decision that we made that we're now concluding, and it is what it is. I think the line we used throughout this when asked about it is we can't afford to do it, can't afford not to do it. Now, having said that, we're going to have to afford to do it. We have to work around this. I will say that... in our in our regular meetings with departments when we're looking at expenditures in salary line and at vacancy rate and also at their operational metrics we're seeing really good news operate on operational metrics due to vacancy rates now that does have fiscal consequences so you know factoring in the full cost of this is There's a number of different variables, so I think it'd be hard to get just one solid number for this reason. When you don't pay market rate, which we weren't before these studies, you actually get the appearance of additional savings on the surface, right? Because nobody will take the job and everybody quits. So then you have all this. Savings in the salary lines because you have higher than budgeted vacancy rates Unless it's a core service that has to be done like there are a lot Especially in DPW where you end up paying overtime or paying contractors I say especially in DPW in the sense that they're one of the bigger budgets where this affects and they were one of Several of their divisions were running really high vacancy rates, especially in building and trades Which is which kind of when that's all when a lot of this got started. That was a lot of the advocacy so There is some interplay there of, in theory, there's savings now because you're paying less overtime. You're doing less private contracting. I don't think in this calculation you'd want us to account for that. I just wanted to say out loud there is that factor. But what I would say is it has worked. The vacancy rates in all departments, DPW, libraries, these HR business ops positions, they generally, there is a citywide trend that we're getting back to budgeted vacancy rates. And so it's a combination of you're paying higher wages and people are keeping the job. So you have to fund that. And so you actually are getting more reliable. You're getting the service you budgeted for. In the budgets before we were doing this, we were budgeting for a service that wasn't always being delivered because if you can't hire the people, you can't deliver the service. So we now have much more predictability in terms of what has been budgeted, but then you have to adjust around your fiscal reality. But you couldn't have gotten there unless you had made these wage adjustments.

yeah there's a much larger discussion here but i mean if if it turns out we have 20 30 million in additional salaries and benefits that we're paying out that's going to be you know cuts that we have to make to city services um it's the other alternative wasn't great either um well the other alternative was to make accidental cuts Yeah, well.

These acknowledge you can be strategic. The council and the mayor can be strategic and tactical about which services they prioritize.

Yeah. Whereas if you just, if you, yeah. No, that was the discussion we had back then. But, yeah, we never cut any positions except through attrition.

Well, no, we cut lots of positions every budget. We just, you're saying we never done layoffs.

Yeah, which, you know, very rarely, but I mean, we haven't in this process looked at, you know, the budget is a little light on KPIs and whether key performance indicators and whether we're providing these services in the most efficient manner possible. And this is this much bigger discussion for budget. But I take your point. So thank you.

manager ok all the room and more i'm just really quick along those on points uh... uh... alderman mentioned uh... benefits so for the wage and supplement fund is benefits died you know the cost of benefits tied into that or that's an entirely separate no it's a little night on some of these costs in your car roll-up costs which includes some of those uh... fritz benefits of this is strictly the wage supplement fund and actually was a couple million carryover in there so it actually is

I had said before it was 27.6. That was budgeted 26 level. There was some carryover from 25, so it's around 30 million. Okay. That's available for all of this. But the benefits are paid out. The health care is paid out through the health care special purpose account, workers' comp that way. Pension is paid out through Section B of the budget. When you look in each departmental budget, you'll see a fringe adjustment. That's for transparency to give you the full cost of the service, but then that gets in the actual budget. It's backed out of Section A through a fringe benefit offset. So for the most part, benefits are not included, are not paid out of the salary line. There's salaries and then there's benefits. There are a few exceptions there, depending on how you define benefit, but the big ones are funded through special purpose accounts or through the Section B of the pension budget. Thank you.

I'll just add that with this type of an increase of... Again, higher wage employees, it will have quite an impact on the pension system. I mean, substantial, but it will be not substantial, but it will be not like nothing. So it is an impact, and we should think about that every time we make these types of decisions. Probably one of the largest ones, again, was fire and police. Well, we've had a really robust discussion here, and hold is before us. Mr. Lee, can you explain how we're going to handle this? Because it's kind of unique.

Tell me sure if the committee chooses to it would be Recommended that they move to hold the HR business ops report from both of these files and then at the end of the meeting the salary and position orange files then the proper motion would be to Hold or to delete all of those HR ops study provisions

So I think the order is hold the HR, biz op, we'll see if there's any objection there. The rest gets placed on file, right? The remaining part of these reports? Okay. So let's do that in this order. Yes.

I have one remaining thought is please let us know any questions. If you want to meet, if you want to give us a...

number of questions we are happy to provide you well we did have a lot of questions here and I think this will give us the time to get all those answered because you know I feel like trying to think how to say is with only having it for like a day this committee conversation you know it's fine but could have been a little bit different had we had maybe a little bit more time but i think we're moving in that direction i also want to note that i really appreciate the extension from the budget director We'll take you up on the communication file, and I'll take you up. I'm someone who always responds with feedback, usually a long list of things I want to spend money on. That's pretty customary. But I really appreciate that extra early time, especially before the legislative break. So thank you for that. And I'll note that was something that I requested, especially this year, directly to the mayor. So if he was part of that, I appreciate being heard. Yeah, no, your meeting with him was communicated to me. Okay, there you go. I mean, I think we were probably going to...

Your request is noted, and we want to meet.

I appreciate it. That's why I was being polite, but lots of great minds can think the same thing at the same time. But thank you for doing that. So with that, the hold of the HR biz ops file is before us. Are there any objections on that hold? Hearing none, so ordered. And then seven and eight. would be to place on file any objections to placing that on file, hearing none so ordered. And then we'll clean that up towards the end of the meeting and we'll see you on July 8th for that and members will discuss those items with you before then. So we're now on number nine, 260216, communication from the Department of Employee Relations amending the salary and positions ordinances relating to clerical or administrative corrections. Just a few updates, that's all. Okay. Any questions on that then? The move by Alderman Bergellis is to place on file item nine and hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you. Thank you. Item 10, 260281, communication from the Common Council City Clerk's Office amending the positions ordinance relating to adding auxiliary executive administrative assistant positions. Okay. Hello, stranger. Please introduce yourself for the people listening.

Certainly. Good morning. Dana Fellaini, Deputy City Clerk. We're bringing this communication forward to really ask for some flexibility. These are auxiliary, unfunded positions, part-time positions that will be used to allow District offices if they want to to provide customized fill in Coverage for their offices. We do have our part-time fill-ins Unfortunately, sometimes they are double booked Where they're providing shared coverage This would allow us then if a council member would like to bring their own person in typically in the past this has been an LSA somebody that already has knowledge of the district office and to bring in and provide coverage for their office that day. This will allow us to do that. We're not funding it. We don't expect to request funds in the future for this. We'll fund it mostly by reducing staffing levels for those, the regular part-time fill-ins, and then in vacancies.

Thank you for bringing this forward. This is so greatly needed. I can tell you in the last few months, my office has seen just an unprecedented amount of constituent contact. That's the most polite way I can say it. But it has been in every way possible, whether it be phone calls or emails. So we really appreciate this going forward and we'll utilize it. Thank you.

And I just want to say we've had a lot of success with the part-time program. We've had a few people promote to full-time positions, which is what has made some of that shared double coverage necessary, unfortunately. We're hoping to ease that and provide good coverage every day.

Alderman Spiker moves the place on file. Alderman Spiker?

Yeah, so the funding for this will be with vacancies, and then will it be restricted? So if an aldermanic office wants to take advantage of this, will they be reducing something else within their office, or will it be reduced council-wide? This would be reduced council-wide. So what would be reduced?

We would maybe schedule some of those regular fill-ins for fewer shifts. A lot of times, as I said, that this coverage is coming from the LSAs, which would have been a lot of times scheduled anyways to provide some of that coverage. Sorry, the LSAs? The legislative services aides. Which? Those are the part-time sort of interns almost that people bring in for special projects. Oh. they get paid at one rate this would allow us a lot of time when when council members are bringing in this sort of more personalized film coverage they're using their lsas this would allow us to pay them at the executive services administrative assistant rate as opposed to the lsa rate which is a little bit of a change but it does bring a little bit more equity into paying them for the work that they're actually doing so then if the lsas are getting paid a higher rate and it's the funding for that is coming out of vacancies and then reduced In some cases reduced, yes.

Reduced shifts for the fill-ins we have now? I thought the problem we have now is that those fill-ins are stretched over multiple offices. So wouldn't this compound that problem if they have fewer shifts?

It would be on those days when they weren't being shared. I mean, sometimes council members, it's not always going to be just when it's shared coverage. Sometimes they just want the person that comes in that has knowledge of their district already, their district procedures, has already worked with them as an LSA, and they just want that person to come in for coverage. Sometimes it's the issue of being shared. So sometimes there will be that reduction, and when there isn't that, then it would really be coming out of vacancies on the other side.

So since I don't use a lot of LSAs, I work really hard with my aide, and when she's out, I want to make sure we have coverage. Would that be more difficult to get unshared coverage than under this model?

I think it'll be easier for you to get unshared coverage because if there was shared coverage, sometimes that other council member will bring it. We'll cover it with the LSA. Okay. Then you wouldn't have to have shared coverage. You'd have unique coverage. Okay. And then, of course, we provide the regular fill-ins. It would be up to the council members to bring in for these aux positions to find that person if that's who they're looking to bring in.

Yeah, I just don't want to have the unintended consequence. We have really solid fill-ins, and we've, you know, paid them a more reasonable rate more recently. And I don't, if we're cutting, if for some reason we're cutting the amount of hours they can get, then I don't want to lose anything.

And usually, I don't believe it'll be saying, no, you shouldn't come in this week. It'll be more in the way of, does anyone not want to come in this week? Does anyone want to take a Friday afternoon off? We try to be flexible and offer that as an option rather than unilaterally cutting their hours. And we've had some success with that, too.

And have we had communications with the fill-ins about this to see what their attitudes are about it, whether this would make them more likely to leave, because it's taken a while to build up the base we have, so I would hate to risk losing some good people.

Sure. We have three current fill-ins right now. One of them is pretty new still. I haven't surveyed them on this particular topic, but I think it is fair to say that they do not particularly like to share coverage. They much prefer being able to devote themselves to one district at a time.

Yeah. I prefer that as well. Okay. Thanks.

Certainly a unique ecosystem.

But I'm glad that you asked those questions because I was a little confused myself as well. One question, though, is there enough budget for every office to have an LSA? It's not like a first come, first serve.

No, the LSAs for that, when you're providing, when you're using the LSAs as overlapping coverage in terms of special projects or an intern who comes in and is supervised, usually we ask that you balance that against your newsletter budgets. then when it comes to providing coverage, that's something that we treat more as a central administrative expense. So if you use an LSA that's taking from your newsletter? Yep, that's something we've always asked council members to do based on the number of hours that you expect your LSA to work, providing help for those social projects to balance that against maybe a reduced scope of newsletter, fewer pages, things like that. That's something that offices work with Bill on.

Would that continue then, that practice, or would this change so that it doesn't come out of the newsletter budget?

We would expect this, that when you're using the LSAs for that overlapping special projects coverage, that you would still continue to balance that against newsletter budgets. But when you're using them as the AUX fill-in, that that would be something that we would cover in terms of central coverage.

And how are you going to tell whether it will be used for aux or special needs?

The offices would have to tell us when they're bringing somebody in for aux coverage versus when they're using them as an LSA. It's a different title and a different pay rate. So we would know and we would be able to track that going forward.

And your legislative assistant, what would trigger it is they'd file for PTO. Yes.

So AUX coverage would be my legislative assistant needs time off or whatever. It's not there, and the AUX coverage will then be triggered.

Normally that would be covered with one of our regular part-time fill-ins. Correct. But if you choose to make use of one of these AUX positions to bring somebody in, that's when it would. It makes sense. And we can track that very easily.

Okay, that clears things up. I would ask for like further communication to council members because we're not really getting in here. We might need to do a little bit. I see this as a step in the right direction, but just needs a little bit of maybe like kind of onboarding. So good. We'll communicate that so everyone's aware of what their options are. Perfect. Yeah, because we also see a lot of like unpaid interns too. So there's just, that's why I'm calling it an ecosystem because there's a lot of people doing a lot of things. So, okay, great. Well, Alderman Spiker is moving to place this on file. It's item 10. Any other questions or objections?

I just, we did, our budget analyst communicated with Dana on this, and you guys asked a lot of the same questions we ask actually even more. But even though this is not budgeted or these positions are new and not in the budget, they presented offsets. They think it will be budget neutral for 26.

That's the plan.

Oh, great. And any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We're on 11. We're going to come back to you, Alderman Taylor. These will be fairly quick items and then your last, but we're very close to last. So number 11, 260198, substitute resolution relative to acceptance and funding of 2026-27. Public Health Emergency Preparedness Grant from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. We're joined by the Health Department, Mr. Aaron Shipinski, and this came from the Public Safety and Health Committee. We rarely get into this because we're happy to accept money, and we believe that Public Safety and Health had the deliberation. So with that, Alderman Spiker moves adoption of 11. Questions or comments on 11? Objections to adoption? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you, Health Department. Item... Now we go here? Okay. So before 12 and 13? Okay. Alrighty. So we'll go back to number three. And that is item 260120, Substitute Resolution Relating to Reimbursement Allowances for Members of the Granville-Havenwoods Advisory Council. sponsored by Alderwoman Taylor. We did hear this previously. I'd prefer not to re-litigate it just for sake of time. We had some questions, got many of them answered. So let's just go to Alderwoman Taylor to give us any new updated information.

Yeah, I don't think I have any more information than what we had talked about before. But just that, you know, not trying to create a new precedence, but just to show appreciation to these business owners that are taking time away from their business. to serve in a voluntary position on the Granville Havenswood Advisory Council. And so this is just a stipend to say we appreciate you taking that time to be in service to your community.

Yeah, I definitely understand and respect your advocacy. I think we just had questions about like the larger system, holistically, the cost. I know I had some questions and I got them answered. Any other questions on item three? Questions on item three?

Madam Chair? Yes, Alderman Cox? And forgive me if this was discussed previously. How much would it actually be? $1,680 in the fiscal note.

But let's get that as official. As a whole. Yeah.

Yeah, it was $20 per meeting. I thought it was like a reimbursement.

No, I mean, we did share the information last time. This is funded out of a special purpose account also. The board's in commission reimbursement. And it's, you know, prior year actuals are right up on current year budgeted. So to do this mid-year would likely push it over. Now, I'm not, it's a very small number. But it would likely then be forced into the contingent fund because it is funded out of an SBA.

Mm-hmm. So is it $20 per meeting per member?

Does anyone have that answer? Alderman Coggs is asking, is it $20 per meeting per member? Let's see. LRB, did you want to? That was a question we had last time, actually, so I'm hoping we have that answer. Because I guess there was like a menu of options within that ordinance for funding and reimbursements, and the committee wanted some clarity.

Gunnar Rasch from the Legislative Reference Bureau. Yes, it would be $20 per meeting per member.

Okay. Did you hear that, Alderman Coggs?

Yeah. And if I'm hearing you correctly, budget director, it's the timing of the year that's the only thing that's your concern?

Well, I'm just saying it's funded out of an SBA that's budgeted at... the levels from prior reimbursements and I think it was within a whatever the actuals were was 15,000 and change and it's budgeted to 16,000 so if it really although I now that I'm thinking it through it does the fiscal note was did that was that for full year or for if it's that 1600 fiscal note was that a full year cost that was a full year cost so if it's half of that because it's our more less than half because it's already June there's a chance this can be absorbed um Or I shouldn't say absorbed. I mean be within budget levels.

Okay, thank you. Thank you all Roman. I do support this and I think I said this last time for 2027 and beyond. I think we do need to explore this. I think there are so many people giving so much time to the city in so many ways. And as we seek to diversify in every way possible, gender, race, age, geography, we should support people for their time. Time is actually really value, and there's a cost to time. And when we don't compensate people for time, I think there's many, especially nonprofit examples, result in the exact opposite of a reflection of our community because we know not everybody has extra time. Let's just be honest. So I like what you're doing here, and quite frankly, I like it so much that I think we need to look at it in the future for more of these. If we're trying to seek people to help us out, and we need the people's help. We really do, and these are very important commissions. Even in my own district, I can't believe the amount of time that people are volunteering. And there's just not enough people to do that. So it's okay to compensate people for their contributions, I think. I think it's going beyond being a regular resident and citizen. You're doing some extra service, and it's so important.

So thank you for putting this forward. Alderman Moore? Yeah, I just wanted to confirm really quick, and I think this was... might have been i'm thinking it might have been shared at the last meeting and at the end of the year i think right um it's not like it's something that they get monthly but as far as getting the dollars monthly but i think they do one like a reimbursement one yeah one thing at the end of the year to compensate them for the year does that sound correct

I think there were options. And so the option that I chose was to do one sum at the end of the year, but I guess I'll...

It appears that some are paid out quarterly. Okay. Some are paid out for the full year.

For the full year. And that individual, I'm assuming, may request, hey, I want quarterly or I just want one at the end of the year. Not necessarily as a, well, with the commission, we're going to have everybody do it quarterly or everybody do it yearly. Okay.

I'm not sure if we can.

I believe per the salary ordinance for the standard reimbursement, which is what this would be, that it is a once-a-year payment. So Section D of Part 3 for Boards and Commissions Compensation and Reimbursement states it will be made once per year. Once per year.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Madam Chair? Yes, Alderwoman Cox?

Yes. Yeah, for the Arts Board, I know that we do it once a year, and many members, including myself, just donated back to the committee. But I did want to say this because I know the public is watching. The Granville committee was started years ago, and although it's grown into its own It was based upon the Brownsville Advisory Committee, which has been in existence more than eight years. As I sit here today in support of what Otter Woman Taylor is trying to do, I guess I just want to let y'all know and let the public know and maybe some of the members at the Brownsville one who will question why they're not getting money as well to know this. Because of this effort by Otter Woman Taylor, it has now made me think about I'm doing it for the Bronzeville Advisory. For the budget director, though, I would put in to become active next year so that it won't affect the balance for this year.

But it's coming. All right, thank you. We're getting positive nods here rather than stress Alderman. Madam Chair. Would you like to offer adoption? I just want to kind of move forward on this. Alderman Coggs? I'm sorry, I was going to say it at the same time.

I just wanted to ask budget director is if we are looking to. You know, do this more regularly is that some conversations that we would have to have with you all right now just so that we can plan for 2027.

I think so. Yeah, I mean, if we wanted to make this, we'd want to do some evaluation of what's in the current budget at $16,000, how much more we want to add to that. Okay. And then we could work with you on putting that in the proposed budget, or obviously you could amend the budget to reflect that. But we'd be happy to work with you on whichever. whichever one step or two step you prefer but yeah ultimately if we're going to increase the reimbursement we shouldn't we should adjust the SBA to reflect that got it thank you so much thank you man I had either it was gonna or someone in LRB did it like a holistic review of a lot of this was that you or no someone boy we got some data provided by the comptroller's office

We don't have to reinvent the wheel. My point is I was kind of wondering what this world looks like, and so I think we have the beginning peek at that, and we'll continue. I know it's in the LRB kind of universe.

And I would just say that that $1,600 estimate was the maximum possible with perfect attendance and with every member applying for the reimbursement.

Okay. Anything else before we go on adoption?

Madam Chair.

Alderman Speicher.

Yeah, I saw, I think you sent an email at 8.20 this morning that kind of laid out what the other boards. I guess I just would be curious of how many, so you saw Alder Cog said, well, if this is good for Granville, maybe it's good for Bronzeville. So I'm just wondering, I saw the list that you provided, Mr. Rush, to And you weren't asked to do this, but it would be good to know how many groups like this are. I mean, to Alder Coggs' point about looking at this for 27, I think that's the right way to do it. So we make an intentional decision about, okay, how much do we want to compensate and who would we want to compensate? Because there are several groups there certainly deserving of it. The question is what the financial costs are and, you know, Obviously a lot of people are doing it for more than money and 20 bucks is you know something? It's a gesture, but it's not gonna make a person Act it's just kind of rewarding them for their public service I guess but I guess I would like us to to look at how many other groups are along these lines just to see How big the universe could get

Okay, thank you so much. I think that's in motion, but let's clarify it for sure before going forward. Adoption's been moved by Alderwoman Coggs on item three. Any discussion of adoption? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you, Alderman Taylor. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Have a great day. Item number 12, 260217, an ordinance to further amend the 2026 rates of pay of offices and positions in the city service. So first of all, We'll take those, should we take them together? Is that better too? Or do this separately? Okay, so just hear me out here because we got to just make sure we handle this correctly. For item 12, we need a motion by Alderman Spiker to amend to remove all provisions related to the HR business operations report. That reflects our actions taken in earlier files. Any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Therefore, item 12, passage is before us as moved by Alderman Spiker as amended. Any objections to passage as amended? Hearing none, so ordered. Do I do the same thing on 13? Okay, so item 13, 260218, an ordinance to further amend the 2026 offices and positions in the city service. Once again, Alderman Spiker, thanks for all your great work. Motion to amend the remove, amend to remove all provisions related to the HR business operations report. Any objections? This reflects our action of earlier files. Hearing none, so ordered. And then following up with that, Alderman Spiker moves passage as amended of item three and hearing no objections so ordered thank you so very much and this meeting is adjourned