Finance & Personnel Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to our Finance and Personnel Committee. I'm Alderman Marina Dimitrijevic, the Chairman. I'm joined by my Vice Chairperson Alderman Peter Bergelis. Alderman Scott Spiker is excused at the moment but should be joining us shortly. Alderwoman Melele Cox is on virtually and Alderwoman Charlyn Morne is here that does provide us a quorum to conduct our business today on Wednesday, December 1025. We're also joined by Common Council President Jose Perez. We have our Comptroller, LRB staff, and our Budget Director, Mr. Nick Kovac. So warm welcome to everybody. It looks like it'll be our last meeting of the year, so we will make it an outstanding one.

And with that, I'll start with item number one, two hundred forty one thousand five hundred thirty six, a substitute ordinance relating to reporting requirements for certain positions. This is authored both by Alderman Perez and Alderman Cox. Council President Perez, you wish to speak on item one?

Sure.

Okay. Thank you. I don't have the exact date, but a while back, a substitute resolution was establishing accountability for reporting requirements for certain positions and that was then sponsored by Alderman Rainey, Cox, Taylor, Braustoff, Pratt, and Chambers. And although it was a resolution, the file also includes the memo for the kind of where the city was at, Doctor especially, and where we were at with the exec pay salary ordinance. And when it was passed just before '24, part of the memo that then the ER director Harper Donahue Harper put in was that we could what we could expect moving forward including a check-in document for accountability and so this is kind of been in the works for a very long time.

This is supposed to be connected with the exec pay plan back in '24. And now that we've got a year under our belts, all of them and I decided to codify this check-in with certain positions and cabinet members, especially leading up to the budget. We thought it was a helpful tool, and that's what brings us here today.

Okay. Voucher? Good morning, Alderman Cogs, please. Yes, we're on item one.

Good morning. I would like to thank, president Perez for his leadership, on this, and he's right. During the executive pay plan, it's it's actually him that said, well, we need some accountability, and we kept on what does that mean? How do how do we how do we make that real? And I thought about the time that I've spent here in some of the most accountable commissioners or directors.

And budget director you may remember the former, I think, D and S commissioner who used to, on his own, meet with each council member every year to, one, ask how we felt he was doing and his department was doing, but then also to factually demonstrate to us and show us

Mhmm.

The work that his department had done throughout the year within our within our districts. I think that that truly helped to, one, for him to hear both the good and the bad that we hear all the time from our constituents about the work, but also for us factually know the work and investment that is going in per per department into our district. So using that as one framework conversations with former DER director Harper and him looking at stuff they did in Madison and stuff they did in other places. And I give him a lot of credit as well for helping us shape what I think could be a really great process for members, for us to be able to articulate better to our constituents what's going on, and for departments to clearly know what we're satisfied with and what we think some work might need to be done with. And so we did do the resolution.

I give credit to all the sponsors then. I think it was led by a former alderman Rainey. But in talking to the president, the need for it to become an ordinance to ensure that it happens annually is something that is important to him, is important to me, and I think will be extremely valuable for the council and the city moving forward. So I'm glad that to be a cosponsor here today, and I would hope any kinks we hear about will be able to work out before council to ensure that this good piece of legislation passes. Okay. Thank

you, Alderman. I had listed here Department of Employee Relations Director Jackie Carter, but looks like Ms. King is here. Anything that Department of Employee Relations wants to offer on this? Otherwise, passage will be before us as moved by Alderman Cogs.

Jackie will be joining shortly so I have nothing to ask this.

Okay. Well we're going to move forward as we have quite a robust agenda here. Anything else from the sponsors then?

No, I just appreciate the committee support and look forward to the conversations that will come especially if we're going to codify this. I think the checklist that's in the file is a great place to start and ensure that council members have certain information, data, budgets and questions answered as we move into the budget next year.

Wonderful. Thank you too for your leadership on this.

Passage? Yes.

Who's voice is that? Oh, Alderman Chambers. Okay. Sometimes I can't see on there. Good morning, Alderman Mark Chambers. Chambers.

Good morning, madam chair and committee members. Please add me as a co sponsor. I think this is kind of a bit of why I put that footnote in the budget to do exactly what the president is doing with this as well. So please add me as a co sponsor. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Alderman Chambers. Madam Chair. Hearing no objection has been added as a sponsor. Alderman Moore, same?

Please add

me as

co chair as well.

Thank you.

All right. And Alderman Berglis as well? Yes. Okay. And I will add my name, too. So with that passage is before us. Any discussion of passage? Any objections to passage of item one? Hearing none, so ordered. We're now on item two, two hundred fifty one thousand and is sponsored by Common Council President Jose Perez. We'll also hear from our Comptroller Bill Christensen. Alderman Perez, please.

Alderman Perez: Thank you. I just prepared a short statement that I'd like to read and make part of the record. With several of you having an in-depth understanding and experience in county government, this proposal won't be foreign to some of you. The five year forecast used by the county is a blueprint and a best practice that I think we should adopt. As you consider this proposal a passage that should be highlighted from the executive summary from the county's 26 to 30 forecast states, which is in the file.

It's a very helpful document. The goal of this forecast is to determine the extent of actions necessary to close the gap between revenues and expenditures ensuring long term fiscal sustainability. The forecast assists policymakers in the county's financial decision making process to demonstrate a long range impact of courses of actions being considered by the county to gauge the effect of past decisions on future budgets. Furthermore, as highlighted by the memo in the file prepared by LRB based on conversations with the county's controller, two very important purposes jump out at me. The team at the controller's office will work to release the report every March with the intention of giving county officials a heads up on likely holes in upcoming budgets, which not only provide county officials with important context, but also shows how many of the fiscal holes the county faces are perennial and therefore cannot be sustainably addressed with a one time solution, like making withdrawals from reserve funds.

In the county's comptroller's office, it was communicated that the office does not compare the numbers derived from the forecast with actual numbers from subsequent years. The reason for this can be tied into how the comptroller's office views the purpose of the forecast, which is less about the accuracy of predicting the future and more about identifying areas of possible concern in advance. So committee members, this makes sense. The best practices we need to implement. The county's duly elected control has been providing the service to supervisors since 2014.

Our control, in my estimation, has exhibited both the independence and the know how to get this done. Comptroller Christensen is on board with the proposal, and I'm confident that over time, he and his team will build out a structurally sound forecasting tool that we can rely upon. Future budgets won't be any easier, and we need to prepare ourselves as best we can to make sound decisions on behalf of the city of Milwaukee residents.

Wonderful. Thank you so much and thank you for putting this forward. I know it'll be really helpful to this committee in particular and obviously the city as a whole just coming right out of the budget process. Comptroller Christensen, did you wish to speak on this?

Just very briefly. Thank you, President Perez, for the vote of confidence in our office to get this done. I think it is a good thing. It's a good thing for the city. It's a good thing for not just council members and the administration, but I think for the public at large to see kind of beyond just the next budget year and see how the decisions that are being made today and tomorrow could impact years down the road.

So yes, we're looking forward to getting started. And as far as the timing, I think having a finished report in August seems to be kind of that sweet spot where we have the final numbers from the annual comprehensive financial report, which is finished in July, and it's before the budget is released, the proposed budget is released. So it's I'd ideally like to give more time for the council to have

it

and be able to consider it and ask questions. But I think the August timeline seems to sort of strike that balance that makes sense.

Yes, definitely. Thank you so much. I'd like to add my name as a cosponsor, Alderman Bergelis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is imperative to ensure that we have a strong fiscal forecast so we're not caught with our pants down. Year after year when one year we've forgotten to order snow plows on time, another year we have fire truck wheels falling off, when they're on their way to call or call to service. This isn't just a fiscal impact in a fiscal forecast, but it's going to ensure that we have, and we're the city is able to maintain a community impact so that fire service isn't interrupted or snow services isn't interrupted because of bad forecasting or forget Mhmm. Or forgetfulness or of of of not ensuring that our priorities for basic city services are funded adequately in each budget.

So please add my name as a cosponsor as well.

Okay. Alderman Moore.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, please also add me as a cosponsor as well. You know, I just have to echo some of those same sentiments you know again being new to the council it sort of just you know. The sort of year to year thing didn't you know it didn't jive with me too well Right?

And so having something like this that we could, look at and forecast, and again, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it gives us an opportunity to see and look at what's ahead. So I'm really excited, about this process. And, again, I think our constituents need to know and understand what what the difficult decisions that may be coming up and, you know, again, us not just looking at year to year. So thank you, President Perez, for, you know, pulling this great legislation together for us.

Madam Chair? Okay.

Alderman Cox and President Perez. Alderman Cox.

Please add

me as a co sponsor.

Okay. You got it. Alderman Bettis?

Yeah. I just I want to thank everyone for not only signing on but it I'm really looking forward to the entire council just engaging themselves. This isn't we don't plan on this just being an exercise and it's going to sit in an inbox and an email. We're really going to dig through this as best we can, understand it. I've already talked to the comptroller about taking kind of the understanding of it and the presentation as it gets rolled out on the road with council members to really get an in-depth understanding. So I just want to thank everyone for signing on and look forward to those discussions with the entire council moving forward.

Thank you so much. Comptroller Christiansen, do you think that the final product that you'll be able to produce will look similar to what the county has done?

I think that's a very good model for what we would put together. I can't say that's going to exactly mirror it, but I think that's a very good template.

Yeah, it is a good one. It really is.

Okay.

Alderman Berglotas. I just want

to get a confirmation because the county doesn't really go into its fleet because its fleet isn't all that substantial, in terms of the rest of their budget. But will you also forecast fleet by department, to ensure that we're we have a we're on pace and on schedule?

So the scope that I'm at least looking at for year one is to limit the analysis to just the general fund. So to not necessarily look at capital, fleet replacement cycles, billing replacement cycles, things like that. That may be something that once we kind of get a process in place, get things up and running, that's something that we could look at. But I think for year one, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. So I think focusing on general fund is going to be the approach.

Thank you. And I completely understand that this is a big report. We'll be leaning on you a lot for it, the first year for general fund, and we'll probably lean further in after that. Thank you.

Okay. Any other comments on passage of two? Alderman Spiker?

Thanks, Madam Chair. Would like to be added as a cosponsor. Also would like to thank the sponsor for his work here. Definitely would like to know what the forecast looks like. I think this is really important.

Thank the comptroller for his promise to do the work. I guess one, I understand why we have to start small, or with just just the general fund. But getting capital kind of in our view might be important, if we had a discussion this year about, hey, if we don't borrow the money this year for the electrical services building, what we have to borrow next year. And so having that kind of scope would be helpful. And also if we ever, which I hope is never, I hope everybody understands how terrible it would be.

But if we ever take to borrowing for operating expenses, that would be a way that then the cost of that would be invisible. Reason to understand we want to start off modestly, yes, to the extent we can get up and running to look at capital at least on a sketchbook basis, I think that would be very helpful information. So I don't know if there's something in principle other than current capacity that would limit you from so expanding it?

Well, if I may, the budget office does prepare a six year, I think, capital outlook. So and it's I think it's more spreadsheet based as opposed to narrative and spreadsheet based.

I don't remember a communication file about it here, but maybe I missed it.

It goes to the capital improvements committee. And I think that that capital improvements committee then transmits communication to this committee is my memory of how it used to go. Don't know if it happened this year or not. Yes.

I don't remember it.

But I think it's something that working that might be something that I could work with the budget office and just at least get a sense of I don't want to recreate the wheel on their six year capital plan. But like I said, I think a narrow focus in year one and then year two, maybe we can look a little broader.

Yes. And that's a discussion can have with the Chair about whether we might want to wheel those out together as it were so that we get the operating general from you or the general from you and then capital improvements committee talk at roughly the same time and then we get our synoptic picture. Okay. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Anything Senator?

Yes. I just want to make sure that when members have a chance to really read over the memorandum from LRP because in there, the third point on the last page is, you know, make it comprehensive but not too comprehensive and the analysis should incorporate the following categories on the budget summary table, general city purpose, employee retirement, city debt, and contingent fund. So at some point, we should get to that level.

Any other discussion on passage which has been moved by Alderman Spiker on item number two. Any other questions on passage? Any objections to passage? Thank you so much. You. Okay. Did you need us to break for a moment?

No ma'am. I just need

to test the panic alarm.

Okay. Tested it on the buildings. I don't know if I know that we did this table.

I don't know who has it.

Okay. It should

be under the table. It's a little

I don't know

if we wanna show where

it is in the I did. I do. I'm just

I'm acting like I didn't know that. There is Excuse me. It's too late. I apologize for the interruption, but no. I just wanted to make sure you

got what you needed. I appreciate

I have

to do all three buildings. Otherwise, I You got it. No problem.

It worked.

It's only gonna be a six hour hearing, so don't worry.

By that comforting, doesn't work. So but you're having a though. That's cool. Yes.

Thank you. It's really cool.

For the safety committee, best practice with us. We appreciate it. All right. Wonderful. Item number three, two hundred forty one thousand six hundred eighty eight. Resolution relating to expenditure of funds to be reimbursed by greater than anticipated revenue from Milwaukee Public Schools. This is sponsored by both Alderman Chambers and Alderman Peter Bergelis. I'm going to first go to the sponsors and then we do have our city attorney's office here that has given us some information and an opinion on this. So Alderman Chambers, are you available?

I am, madam chair.

Yes, please. Alderman Chambers.

I mean, this is gonna be short and sweet. You know, there was some funds that was already budgeted when the agreement for the school resource officers to, come in back into the NPS, and was trying to find, great uses for it. And I'm assuming the city attorney is gonna come with something else. So I'll just let the city attorney say what he needs to

Okay, Alderman. Well, I still appreciate introduction because I do want the public to know what our intention was. I think that's important and what's out there and what funds are available. But likewise, know that we have some restrictions on what we're able to do. So with that on Item three, I'll now go to the city attorney's office and we did proactively seek your input and your advice on it. So please go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Evan Goyke, city attorney joined by assistant city attorney Tom Miller. Just to I'll do the kind of level setting and then let ACA Miller get into the weeds of how municipal governments recognize revenues midyear or can or cannot spend them midyear. In the 2024, the city created and passed its budget for 2025, which included funds necessary to fund the positions in the Milwaukee Police Department. At that time when the budget was passed and went into effect, we did not have an agreement with the Milwaukee Public School System on payment for the school resource officers.

As you recall, establishing and deploying 25 Milwaukee police officers into Milwaukee Public Schools was a requirement under Act 12. There were ongoing negotiations between the school district and the city as to how those costs would be split and what those duties ultimately would be. A lawsuit was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty to compel the city and the school district to enter into that agreement. Ultimately, Milwaukee County Circuit Court did order for a fiftyfifty split of the costs. The Act 12 was silent on how those costs would be borne out between the district and the city.

So we then ratified, the city then ratified as did the school district an agreement in capturing the fifty-fifty split of the costs. That took place in, I think, the 2025. I know I was there, but I don't remember the exact day. But again, we had already entered into the 2025 budget year. Those 25 police officer positions were fully funded.

We did not know what that split would be several months earlier when we debated the budget. So we did not recognize or we weren't even able to forecast or recognize what those funds would be. And so when we received them from the public school district pursuant to our agreement, they don't just come to a pot where we can then disperse them as we so choose. I'll let ACA Miller kind of get into the weeds.

Okay. Sure. And could I just ask to keep it really specific to what the alders are trying to accomplish here and why unfortunately we're unable to do that?

Sure. And it's because it's unanticipated revenues. It goes to the when the payment is made, it goes to the general fund this year 2025 and it rolls to the tax stabilization fund. So it can only then be used under our tax stabilization fund ordinance which is to reduce the impact of the property tax levy during the budget. So that's as opposed to the payments in 2026. Those were actually factored into the 2026 budget. The comptroller was authorized to

in

estimate anticipated revenues from this payment in 2026. It went into the general fund budget and you factored it into your spending plan for the next year. So the money is not lost. It's in the tax stabilization fund to help you plan for your for your next budget.

And you can only take it out of if you chose to the tax stabilization fund during the budget process.

That's correct.

Okay. What is exactly considered the budget process?

So we have Milwaukee Code of Ordinances Chapter three zero four-twenty nine is our Tax Stabilization Fund Ordinance. The whole purpose of the tax stabilization fund is to help smooth out the impact on the taxpayers year to year and to allow the municipality to not just If I take a step back like for history purposes back in the 40s, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that municipalities could not accumulate unallocated surplus. They needed to that next year send it back to the taxpayers. That, you know, created some practical problems for local governments. So the legislature authorized municipalities in the budget law to create a tax stabilization fund to allow you to, you know, when you have surplus, allow that money to accumulate in the tax stabilization fund and smooth out the impact of the taxpayers.

So it's it allows for better budgeting, more accurate budgeting, and more flexible budgeting. But it's not a it's not a fund that's available for, know, if there's a deficit mid year, it's not available for just spending like the common council contingency fund. Right? Every year you have a common council contingency fund and you have come you have contingency And that's

a

And

from the amount to be raised by the tax levy during the adoption of the budget and the final action that the council can take in terms of withdrawing from the tax stabilization fund is a withdrawal on the date of the budget is adopted so this year would have been here November 7 meeting.

One second, Alderman. I think it was a little bit later because the budget finally concluded when we overrode the vetoes.

Right. But our yes, we have opinions that it's the date set by law for adoption of the budget, is the council adoption, following the veto process.

Okay. I guess my last thing, I just want to, well, it's fresh, sorry, Alderman, is I may be looking into this because, you know, we had a unique use stabilization fund for the 2026 budget in regards to the vehicle registration fee. So I guess like that won't be I'm just trying to think how that's going to work in 2026 when we when we have those new funds, you know, we kind of put funding in there to anticipate the revenue that was going to come in throughout the year, the two thirds of the year in 2026. So I'm just kind of wondering how that's those movements are going to be made. Is that like a one time payment to make that correct.

I guess I'm not being very clear, but it's just interesting because I guess that's why I asked the specific question of what is the budget process, because one could also perhaps infer that the budget process is kind of dynamic throughout the year, as well. So can we make fund transfers and we do budgetary items throughout the year? But if it's actually like stipulated to that date, then I guess it is what it is. And we looked at

this For withdrawals closely from the tax stabilization fund,

correct. Yeah.

Okay.

Alderwoman Cox. For clarity, and I'm sorry if you already said this, when did MPS make the payment?

They've made one payment so far. I believe that was the last I checked, which was a few weeks ago.

So the but the the the, I guess, overpayment is in 2025, though, right? It's this year.

The unanticipated revenue is for '25. Moving forward, the comptroller has recognized that anticipated revenue and has been factored into the budget.

Right now, we do have one payment for them that is the is the unrecognized revenue. We actually have received one.

Correct. Yeah. There's been one payment received. Yeah.

So, when we receive it, where did where did it go?

So it essentially goes to the general fund, and, it would become a part of the the tax stabilization fund at the end of the year, assuming there's not a revenue shortfall elsewhere.

Does the law prohibit movement prior to the end of the year in the transition from the general fund to the tax stabilization fund?

Yes. Because these are unanticipated revenues. So the heart of the budget law is that the city can only expend the dollars set out in the budget. And then there's some flexibility built into that. One of those would be the ability to have by statute a common council contingent fund. The ability to do intradepartmental transfers where a department has more than enough money for one purpose but less than it needs for another, it can get approval for an intradepartmental transfer.

Could these

revenues be used for that? Pardon?

Could these revenues be used for that?

No. I mean this was going to the general fund and not as a credit for services by the department. I mean, that was theoretically this could have been maybe this could have been set up as

a So why did it go to the general fund and not to the police department?

If if it was set up as an external reimbursable, it potentially could have. But that would essentially just there would be expenditures that would be charged to the reimbursable fund, would then be made whole by the revenue that comes in. So I guess indirectly that would have made salary dollars that were budgeted otherwise in the police department go unspent.

But those dollars, if handled that way, could only be spent on police salaries? Salary value or interdepartment For same purpose. No. No. That's essentially like a reimbursement for services. And that's one of the built in flexible options under the budget law. But when that reimbursement for services comes in, it can only be used by the department for the same purposes. So in that case, it would have to have been used for salaries, not just the police department.

Madam Chair?

Yes. Briefly and then I do need to get to the sponsors. I made a mistake in not going to that first so I think there's

a key distinction here between expenditure authority and revenues and they're connected because the entire budget needs to tie out every year by state law. But the real restriction here that where I think that people are frustrated by is like, well, we have more money. Can't we spend it? No. You can't spend it unless you authorize the expenditure. So when you when you make interdepartmental transfers, you're transferring expenditure authority within the department. You're not really transferring cash, if that makes sense. Then the point Controller Christianson made about well what do we do, you know, I'm paraphrasing your question, what happens to this extra money? And he was careful to say well we won't know if it's extra money till we know if all the other revenues came in as projected. So it could be that some other revenues come in low, some come in high.

The sum total of all that is then what ends up in the general fund, hopefully positive not negative. So the revenues kind of all tie out, They do their accounting separately. The heart of the budget law, as attorney Miller described, is really expenditure authority. Is that a fair summary? Yeah.

So let me ask this. We knew that act 12 required us to have an agreement, and I know it took us longer than anticipated to have the agreement, but we knew at the time that the budget was done that in the year, there would be an agreement. Had there been thought given to the fact that we were already budgeting for the the salaries and what we would do with the payment. Whatever the size of the pay because the issue was how what percentage? But we knew we were gonna get something. So was that thought about when we did the budget?

Well, generally speaking, you have a new revenue that you think you're going to get in a future year, the key moment is whether the controller will recognize that revenue. And then you can spend it. That or then you can create expenditure authority based on that revenue. In in this case, we have a timing issue where we kinda had an inkling we were gonna get some money. Obviously, we had to go to court and figure out the percentages, but we didn't know an exact number, it's hard to spend an some money if you don't know if you don't have an exact number.

I guess my question is less about the number and more about the process. You see how attorney Miller just said it could and the control said it could have been an external whatever whatever or if you did it this way or that way. So I'm I'm asking, did y'all think about that? So when you set out the process we are now having to follow, was that thought about? Because we knew it was coming because of X-twelve. We just didn't know the amount.

We didn't know the amount. I mean, we knew it would we we probably had a rough idea of the total cost of 25. I mean, we had we had roughed that out. I mean, I don't know they have numbers off the top of head, but we had roughed out the total cost. In this case, there's a bit of a dilemma too because it's existing personnel that we were going pay anyway. Right.

So it's

not as though we've stood up a new program. So, I mean, short answer to your question is no. We think about it in the abstract? Did we know it was coming? Yes. Did we make did we change anything in the police budget to reflect this activity? No. It was more of a police operational assignment issue than a budget issue because we're budgeting, you know, as many police as we can with the maximum classes every year. So that's a little different than other departments where maybe we are adjusting the total number of positions to reflect actual reality where police we have act 12 requirements. I mean the short answer to your question is no and also in the scale of a $300,000,000 police budget this isn't.

This doesn't really move the needle that much within the police budget. I understand to spend doesn't seem like a lot of money compared to the overall police budget, but it's a lot of money if you want to stand up a new program with this money. And I think if you want if we want to stand up a new program with this money, we have to do it, you know, in a future budget with the revenue in hand.

The the other thing I just wanna say in general, and I know we gotta get to the sponsors. I appreciate the legal opinion now, but there has been some for several months, has been several conversations and questions asked about these funds. And I think the information that we're hearing today, at least for me, is very different than the guidance that has been given before. And part of the reason I asked how we thought about, because we knew it was coming, because act 12, which way it was gonna be treated. I know you can't account for the amount because you didn't know the amount, but which way it was gonna be treated because the understanding of that has been totally messed up because I've heard a bazillion different interpretations about what's restricted, why it's restricted, where you can move it, where you can't move it, all of that.

And it's not what you say here today. So I just feel like maybe some of the confusion could have been prevented if I had been given beforehand about it's gonna happen sometimes during this year, and we're gonna do it as a this. So we know it's gonna be hands off because it goes into the tax type. You know what I mean? Like, we all just would have clearly knew that. Mhmm. Because this has been going on for months. Mhmm. I say that just for for future reference. I we cannot do what happened here, but who knows what the state will do?

Who knows what future agreements will have to get into or whatever? I just think if some thought had been given to this is the pathway it's gonna take so that it wouldn't take months of proposals and members wanna do this and talking to the clerk and talking to city attorney and getting totally different answers. So that's all. Thank you.

Okay. I'm gonna go to Alderman Berglis and then Alderman Chambers. Or how did you guys want you wanna go first I

mean, I I spoke already. I'll let Alderman Berglis go first. Okay.

We'll come right back to you. So Alderman Bergelis.

Thank you. And I'll echo my and I appreciate my our senior colleagues' insights. That frustration is shared among other members of the council. We've been discussing this for months, and the information we've been getting from various departments is conflicting and not what we've heard here today. I see this as a big missed opportunity to immediately impact our community. Now we have to wait for the Tax Stabilization Fund and for the 2027 budget, which is fine. We're patient. We can do that. But this could have been structured differently from the very beginning in the in the agreement with MPS

Mhmm.

So that the first year's unrecognized revenue could be immediately available for community impacts, and it wasn't.

Mhmm.

That's a failure on the entire city. My disappointment, I think, is shared by other members of the council, and I hope that we're able to move forward the next time we have unanticipated revenue or we know that we're going to have unanticipated revenue to plan better ahead of time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much. Alderman Chambers?

Thank you madam chair and I'm not I'm a sound like a parent and just say I echo the same sentence and the frustration is because it's just becoming extremely convenient that when you know the counsel tried to, adopt and and move forward with something, we're we're running into roadblocks at the at the ninth hour. Attorney Miller, I I have a question for you. In your statement, you mentioned that, you know, if we have, shortfalls within revenues, that this money could be used to close those gaps. Correct?

I think that that was the controller.

Alderman Chambers, that was me. This is Bill. Yes. So I mean, the way it works is general fund revenues essentially all get netted out. And if there is a surplus in general fund revenues at the end of the year, that becomes a part of the tax stabilization fund.

So let's just say, I'm using this for an example, let's say DPW is short $800,000 on their thing, would this fund be able to be used for that?

So if there was a revenue account within DPW that was short $800,000 and all other things being equal, then yes, this would theoretically offset though that that lost revenue.

But I think I think the question was I think what you were asking forgive me all the new chambers is like if if DPW spends 800,000 more than it was authorized, then the answer is no.

Correct. Yeah. And I think that gets to budget director Kovac's earlier point about the difference between expenditure authority and excess revenue.

Okay. But if they so, like, let's just say snow removal and stuff is a little bit, you know, high. I know we use we use the contingency funds to cover those losses from, like, ice and snow removal in the past. So these funds can be used for that neither, direct to callback?

Correct. Yeah. We can use the contingent fund, although it's pretty good and pretty well gone, because of damages and claims overruns this year. So first so then we would try to there I mean this actually will come up in a future file for contingent borrowing so that's a ripe discussion which is basically if the contingent fund's gone, if the wage supplement fund is gone, and if you can't cover it within a departmental transfer, then even if it is somewhat frustrating, know, even if but it's the state law. If one department's over and the other department's under, I can't we can't move that money around. So then we have to then we're forced to borrow to cover those overruns.

And then the borrowing cost can be subsequently, repaid in the future budgets as we have this over as we have this overage?

Or The borrowing cost yeah. Once you borrow, you're making a ten, fifteen year commitment on that note. So you just then you're that's an expenditure that future councils and future mayors are stuck with. But it it it's not just a restriction on the common council. It's a restriction on everybody in the city that you have to follow this state law and you have you know, you're you're you're limited in which how you can transfer expenditure authority within departments. The revenues can all let out, but not the expenditures.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Madam chair, quick follow-up.

Okay. Alderman Fergalis.

Thank you. And, AC Miller, you mentioned that, if this were a reimbursable, that it the the funds could only go back and be credited to police salaries. But the MPS agreement, the MOU isn't just for salaries, it's for salary equipment and overhead. Right?

It's for the cost, total cost of the SROs.

So it wouldn't just be salary. There would be fringe benefits, there's equipment, there's vehicles That's right. It's for the total

The agreement is total cost. We have there is a limit to that. So it is fringe, yes. But do we count the supervisors' time? No, that is a Bill, I'm going to hit the wrong word here. But there is a limit to which MPS is paying for these services.

One two hundredth of the police chief salary is not credited, I understand. Right. So if there's a if there's if if this were a debit back to police operational expenses, why couldn't there then be a follow-up interdepart intra no, interdepartmental transfer to something else in the police budget? There could.

Well, number one, isn't. I mean, We're talking about the 2025 payment and it isn't set up that way. I don't I mean we're kind of talking about two different things and that is one, if it was set up as a payment for reimbursement for services provided by the police department, That's an exception to the budget law that says that no department may spend more than the amounts allocated in the budget. The exception is one of these is that a department if it's reimbursed for services provided can spend that additional money on the same purpose. I don't I don't know that that gets you to the council approving or FNP approving an intra departmental transfer as a result of that reimbursement for services, but I'm just at the table considering it.

It's not how this was set up.

And if I may, there was a file that was passed earlier this year that directed my office to work with the budget office to phase out the use of external reimbursables by 2030. I don't think that's a direction that we would advise moving in is so I know we're kind of weighing a hypothetical in which we this had been set up as external reimbursable. But we would have advised against that knowing that by 2030, the expectation is that those external reimbursables are phased out.

Thank you. So had we had this file up maybe in October and it actually became a budget amendment to withdraw this from the 2026 budget or the 2026 TSF allocation, then that would have been okay. Is that what you're saying? So it had to be the tax stabilization fund withdrawal to use it for some of the purposes we may you know, obviously, we don't even all agree on that. That would have had to happen in the last two months during the budget process. That would have been okay?

So you through the button,

if I may.

Well, it's there's a timing issue, kid, because the the the the TSF that you was eligible for withdrawal Yes. In the '26 budget was from based on the year end '24 general fund. So I'm trying to figure out how to do This is now this is relative to whatever it ends up being more money in the '25 TSF eligible money end

of year which will

be then for the '27 budget. So it happens to be that this year we didn't max out the TSF. So yes, you could have taken more out of the TSF this year as I as we discussed. Although as but the councilor said even what we what we took was too much, but I digress. It happens to be this year that you so I suppose you could have said, well, we know more money's coming, therefore we're gonna have this covered, but it really wouldn't have been covered because that that would have been less money in the '24 act for TSF.

Therefore, you would have had less money in the '25 TSF. And I suppose you could have said, well, I know there's gonna be now less, but but I expect there to be more from this. But there's so many other variables that the '25 we fully expect the '25 at year end '25 TSF to be a lot less than the year end '24 TSF both from a cash perspective and an accounting perspective because of the issue with the transportation fund that we discussed. So I don't know if that makes sense but that money won't be eligible for anyone, mayor or council, until next year's budget because it's year end '25 money which becomes eligible for the '27 budget. There's a two year lag on actuals versus budgeting because budgeting is always a year ahead, actuals are always a year behind.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly frustrating as someone on this council who didn't even support the state imposed school re like, because we've gotten off track here. But the you know, when lawmakers from Madison impose and micro manage the city of Milwaukee, this is what happens. We have overages.

We can't hire the people. We took people off the streets to go into schools. We have money we can't even use. Like I was hoping to be able to use some of this extra funding and the one time funding for actually for violence prevention. I mean, it was just, you know, we just saw another young person shot last night, a 10 year old.

So it is frustrating because actually that was a that's a significant amount of money. In fact, it was, you know, more than the money we put in to open up a number of libraries on Sundays. Like, that's a lot of money. So it's very valuable. And I thought it could have done a lot of good on something that I thought was imposed on us. So I'm just sharing that. Maybe share. With it. But other woman cogs.

And I do and I know y'all explained it, but it's still just hard to grasp. I get what happens when it goes to the TSF, but because it hasn't dropped yet and it's currently held in a general fund Mhmm. It's weird to me that nothing could be done Mhmm. Before it drops

Right.

To the TSF. Exactly.

That's what I asked. I kind used the word intercept. Like, is there a way before that automatically happens that this council could take action? And it seems like you've opined no. Okay.

We've had to

change the agreement for the first year's Yeah. Camp to go somewhere

And by the way, was this council's effort and leadership, everyone here, who actually put extra funding in the tax stabilization fund. If you recall, we did that on the council floor that day. So we contributed there and made sure that we were doing well to fiscal health. Anything else then from the common counts or excuse me, the the committee? Alderman Spiker, do have anything to offer on this item? Yep. Okay. So just real quick, I do want to note just to kind of center ourselves the motion given the city attorney's opinion, yeah, would be placed on file by Alderman Bergelis. So I just wanted to kind of center us. Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, madam chair. I guess this highlights some stuff for next year. MPS doesn't have a great history of paying us for SROs. So I know the comptroller did recognize, revenue for next year where, we've fringed it up as opposed to just looking at salaries. And I heard the comptroller say that we got a check a couple of weeks ago. What is the total anticipated to be owed for 2025 from MPS Ballpark?

Ballpark, I think we could expect something in the neighborhood of $800,000 $850,000

Okay. And we're paying the other $800,000 to $850,000 out of our pockets. And then how much was the check for?

So this it was actually received back in spring of last of this year. So Okay. It was short of $300,000

Okay.

Laura Angen, madam chair.

Oh, you have some Okay.

Yes. Laura, did you have something to offer on that check being received?

Sure. Just to to, clarify, we initially billed them for spring services in July and received our first check-in October. And that check actually was for $284,000 We subsequently sent them an additional invoice for a total of $200,000 which we haven't yet received. We've certainly been in communication with MPS, and there is an absolute intent to pay that. It's just a tiny issue on their behalf.

And when do you plan on putting in another invoice for the Because we're only at half.

Right. Once the fall semester is done, we'll start calculating, hours and related program costs for that next billing. My guess is that bill will go out to them sometime in January.

Right. And do you have and I don't know if the city attorney will weigh in on now that a judge has kind of ordered it, they have a little more incentive to pay than they had in the past. But there was a terrible history of us getting paid for our SROs. So maybe the city attorney, can you say anything more about why it's wise for us to anticipate receiving this money?

Yes. Two things. One, keep in mind that there will be some fluctuation in the amount billed because of the school year. And so it is a fifty-fifty split of all costs of what the SROs are doing. And so it is on balance a little bit more than 50% for the city because in those summer months when school is out of session, those officers are going to be redeployed and not in empty school buildings.

Right. It's 50% of the time they're Of

the time they're working.

Right.

Yeah, we are codefendants in a lawsuit. The court has ordered that we split the costs fiftyfifty. A breach of that agreement, either plaintiff or potentially us as codefendants could go back. I can speak confidently that none of the parties want to go back in front of the judge and relitigate the issue. And so I think it's an additional incentive or hammer or measure of accountability hanging over the district. We also have had massive

change

in their leadership and their board. And so I don't anticipate the same problems that we had, I think, back in 2018 maybe when a version of an SRO program was launched between the city and the district.

Okay.

That helps. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Place on file has been moved by Alderman Bergelis. Alderman Chambers anything else before we conclude here?

No, that's it. Thank you madam

chair. Okay.

All right. Place on file is before us. Any other discussion of placing item three on file? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you so much. Item four, two hundred fifty one thousand one eighty five substitute resolution relating to the transfer of funds for repairs to the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts parking structure. The sponsor of this Alderman Baumann has asked to hold to the call of the chair. There was a robust discussion at zoning and development yesterday and it looks like the legislative and executive branch are still trying to work out something to move this forward and that is not ready at the moment. So again, Alderman Baumann, the sponsor, has written the committee clerk and myself requesting hold of the chair.

That's moved by Alderman Moore. Any discussion on that hold of the call of the chair? Any objections? Hearing none. So ordered. Item 5250892. Communication from the Department of Administration, Budget and Management Division, and the Office of the Comptroller relating to the development of a formal fund balance policy. This is sponsored by Alderman Cox. Alderman Cox, you have the floor.

Thank you. Members may recall this is from the footnote that was done in, I think, last year's budget, and we had some conversations during this year's budget hearings. But we also passed a footnote that kinda edited this one that just asked for the comptroller's response to this. So at this time, I would just ask for this file to be placed on file.

On file? Okay. Oh. Great. Did you wanna add anything? It's being placed on file.

Yes. I'm actually.

This isn't that one. This is the old one from last year.

Okay. Well, I'm I'm ready if there is a desire now, but if not, I can save it for

I do early next year. Okay.

Okay. Great. Well, then we'll place on file alder I'll ugh. Okay. Item number five is placed on file by alder Woman Cox.

Madam Chair, I'd like to be added as a cosponsor

on that. Thanks. Spiker?

Yes. Let me hold it to the call of

the chair.

Mhmm. It'll be a separate one.

Oh, separate one.

Yep. Sure. I'm gonna place it on file. Mhmm. Sorry. That's okay. Any other questions about placing it on file? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Item 6250894, communication from the Department of Administration, Budget and Management Division, and the Office of the Comptroller relating to the quarterly reporting of vacant positions. This is authored by Alderman Cox. You have the floor.

Thank you. Members may recall this was from a footnote as well from last year. So this was just I don't think we did any of the quarterly stuff.

We submitted them. We submit we actually, yesterday, submitted q three. We submitted q one and q two

Okay.

Already. And q four will come sometime after q four is finished.

Could we go through q three?

I think it's in the file. Yeah. I I have it here too, but we sent it to Chris yesterday. I believe he put it in the file.

Alright. You said you've submitted one through three. You haven't presented, though. Right?

No. I mean, what we we submitted we submitted them and had I asked Christie to forward to sponsors and committee members.

Okay.

I don't know what happened. We never hadn't I didn't get any questions on it from the prior two reports.

Generally speaking, with my footnotes, my I do a communication file with it. So it's not just the reporting. It's the public reporting

Okay. Of it.

We so we can if that's more the intent for '26, we can make sure to work with the chair and Chris to have a communication file whenever the report is ready.

Quarterly as you go home? Yeah. Okay.

And we also do at some point in '26, we're going to transition to a new financial management human resources software, which hopefully will make this easier because this is right now each analyst goes through, tracks it every year, which they do anyway, but tracks it, reports it. So there's some labor involved. We think it will be simpler, but probably we won't know until halfway through '26 somewhat. Hopefully, can get it to you quicker, but right now we have to do some some work on well, we have to wait for everything to come in, and then we have to do some more compiling the spreadsheet.

So probably I'll just ask you a couple of questions because I know we got a long agenda, and you probably weren't prepared to do a full blown presentation. But in general, from first to third quarter, what has the percentage of vacancies citywide being? Has it increased, decreased, what?

Oh, do I have the q two report? Actually, I think I'm seeing a slight increase. We had a as of quarter and and these were were doing, you know, year to date averages. Was 8.3%. Well, we set we split up levy and non levy.

So levy supported was 8.3% and non levy supported was 17.3%. There's particularly non levy supported. So that's the big ones there are sewer, water and transportation. And then in Q3, the overall average of vacancies went from 8.3% to 9% for levy supported and from 17.3% down to 15.9% for non levy supported. So in round numbers, an 8% or 9% actual vacancy percentage in levy supported and a 16% or 17% in the non levy supported, which compared to is is a reduction from prior years.

Certainly, re classes made a dent in that. And we could I'm not I don't have that I I know in my head from what those numbers were that they were higher. We certainly could work with DER to present, you know, a multi year trend analysis on that if if that's what you're looking for.

We're not ready to do that today, though.

Okay.

And what were the departments that had the most vacancies again?

Police and public works infrastructure are the two highest. It's just over 20. Oh, and that's in levy and then a non levy. Well, the preferred comp is just three people, though, so I don't wanna count that into the percentage. I mean, there's one vacancy, so it's 30 looks like high end percentage. But sewer maintenance is nearly 30%.

Okay.

For yeah. It it went down a bit, but it's still nearly 29% in q three as the year to date average.

And I'll work with you some more on the next time the file comes up for what exactly That's we all the questions

Madam I have for the Chair?

Alderman Swaker.

Thanks. And I can't tell. It might be in the file. So this is item six. Oh, yeah. The memo. So the memo was pretty interesting and I know you're not prepared to comment in great detail, but, could you go over super briefly what the personnel cost adjustment is supposed to be? What data point does it reflect? It's supposed to reflect expected

vacancies over the year. I think other like MPS refers to it as their vacancy adjustment.

Right. So in a certain adjustment, it's basically your anticipated vacancy rate. Exactly right, yes. Okay. So looking at the chart, the anticipated vacancy rate falls short and in many cases well short of the actual vacancy rate.

And so for those who've wondered if there's some squish in the budget, it would seem like there is here on the snapshot. It might be helpful or I think it would be helpful to have a longer term view, not just a snapshot of how close our PCA sits to our actual vacancy rates both in the aggregate and within departments so that we can see if there is a pattern there. Is it always the case that DEC is sitting at 10 points above its vacancy rate, above its anticipated vacancy rate? And police and, infrastructure, are they always floating so high above? And if so, why isn't the PCA adjusted to reflect what's not just an accidental snapshot but an actual trend?

Yeah. I'll say one thing about the multi year snapshot. I think it won't be as comprehensive as we'd like because in the

current

FMIS, HMRS, PeopleSoft system, getting historical data isn't easy or even possible in some cases. So I actually do really appreciate that this file is forcing us to put these markers down. So we will for future years have a marker down. This is what it was in quarter one, quarter two, quarter three. I think that's helpful.

Prior years might not be as comprehensive as what you're seeing here, but we can give you general numbers. That's more of a technical Yeah. I just wanted to add that in as a supplementary But to the substance of your question, we had extensive discussions of this before Act 12, and I think with the Quarter one memo, supplemented it with the original memo I had written on what happens to vacancy money because in that committee members here probably remember that way. And so in some case, I'll say this as a general rule of thumb, you're not supposed to have double digit vacancy percentages. I think it's that's what they teach you in in graduate school. You know, that that you don't want you shouldn't be planning to have that high level of vacancy rates. Right. So that that

shouldn't be divorced from reality if you are constantly having it and budgeting as if reality is your ideal. So if

if if your vacancy rate is double digits consistently, you probably need to do one of two things. You need to figure out why you can't retain people. And then I I or you need to adjust your expectations for how many people you can reasonably hire, which means

expecting lower tell the policy making body, oversight body, what's true in terms of, like, oh, vacancies are way higher. So you guys might wanna do something here. It shouldn't all be on administration. This body

No.

Well, I think

should as well have a kick at the cat.

Yeah. I mean, that was that was a constant theme of the discussion when this body for three years adjusted salaries citywide on a on a rolling basis. That was a constant point of discussion. I think it was a collaborative effort. We all acknowledge we had a huge problem and we were pretty honest about it. I thought I don't I don't think Well,

I think I what I heard you saying, this is why some scales are falling from my eyes here, is that that you all don't know in any systematic historical fashion what the trends have been in the vacancy rates because your own software not your own. The software at the city doesn't allow you to track it. So you just have anecdotes and people's memories and stuff. You have your budget out.

But we have a year end total number. Just don't have historical, like, point in time vacancy percentages. We know the total amount expended. We the total amount spent on salaries versus on overtime. Within departments? Yeah. That's part of the act

for you. Has that ever been reported?

It's reported in the I mean, it's it's part of the data reported in the ACFR and it's it's in every budget that you see 20 you see the prior year's actuals in every budget book on every line item.

You see the vacancy rate in every budget?

Well, no. I mean,

you what

that's what I'm so the vac that's the the vacancy rate is a percentage is what we we can we can summarize it with the full year of it was. Right. But if you're asking for a point time, what was the vacancy rate on 03/01/2023? Not. That's what I can't give you. But I can give you the total expenditure and then infer what the vacancy rate was from that.

Yeah. It and it's more important that you catch the vibe, I guess, which is there's some suspicion amongst council member that there's a bit squish put in the budget. I see a chart like this and I go, oh, squish. Infrastructure is sitting at 20% vacancy. It's budgeted through the PCA for anticipated vacancy at 7%.

Percent squish. Squish. Same for police. I understand that that's a little trickier because the money we use there, we're getting sales tax money that can't be allocated elsewhere. But to the extent that we want dissipate that, hopefully, misapprehension that there is intentional squish built in the budget, it would behoove us, I would think, to report these numbers and now we'll have a system for doing it to see is there a trend where we won't let the ideal get ahead of the real and if we are constantly having a vacancy rate that's in excess of what we think we're going to get then we should adjust what we think we're going to get. I mean, all that seems

super controversial. Know the perception out there about the squish. All I can say is I think we've been awfully transparent. I'm always willing to do more. I you can even look back, I think, to the twenty three or 'four budget introduction where I explicitly talked in the introduction about I didn't use the phrase ideal versus real, but I think I talked about the difference between funded and actual.

And so the other you you can take two approaches or a bit of each if you've got a consistently high vacancy rate. One is figure out what your problem is with retention and recruitment usually by adjusting salaries, but there's other things you could maybe do too. And the other is to just stop funding so many positions and accept that you can't produce that service level. And so we did a bit of that in DPW mentioned it in the budget introduction. So I mean there's a lot of nuance, it's complicated, it varies, but I do strongly reject the claim that we have been intentionally putting squish in here and not telling the council about it.

That's not what's going on. It's complicated. We've always answered questions about it. We've provided as much information as we have to the council about it and we're happy to continue to provide more information as the council requested. But it I mean I respect terms like squish because I like to speak in real language here too but it's the perception out there that they're that it's not deliberate squish.

You know what mean? Want these positions to get hired and when they don't we have a problem with service delivery and I think what I outlined in the memo, the other reason I would really push back hard on we haven't been transparent about this is we had a really long discussion about this over several cycles with this committee in advance and right after act 12 got passed about what happens to the vacancy money and I produced an extensive detailed memo that explained all the different ways the money either gets spent or lapses to the general fund and I pointed to the fact that the general fund at the time we had a high vacancy rate was going down not up as an example that there wasn't, you know, a ton of money there although eventually we did start to see some general funds go up for a variety of factors, one of them being that we did have high vacancy rates over multi years. So it's a complicated answer. I'm happy to participate in the discussion to make it more clear, but I do reject the idea that anybody's got scales deliberately put on their eyes.

I want to strongly push back on that.

All right.

Noted. Moving forward, it would be extremely helpful, and I guess this file will demand it, to know these numbers so that if the council wants to make a different policy decision than the mayor does, that we have that available to us. And we can't make you put the PCA higher. Well, actually, we can.

You've done it. You did it

last year.

Yeah. And we did do it this year, and we saw what happened. Okay. Thanks.

Alrighty. Madam Chair?

Okay. Alder Woman Cox, then we gotta conclude this item.

Put Yeah. She did a couple amendments to it slightly this year,

I think. Okay. So Uh-huh. And my intention was for us to to get as much information as early as possible as we can to make whatever decisions we need to make because I do think in the past, it was separate requests that had to come. And to me, this should this information should just be a regular course of exchange. So that was my intention with this. And I hope that the information futuristically that's gained from it will help us all to kind of be better stewards of how we address the issues of vacancy. And with that, I will move to hold to the call of the chair.

Okay.

Item six has been held to the call of the chair by the sponsor. Any more discussion on holding item six to the call of the chair? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Item seven two five zero eight nine eight. Communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to the annual reporting of exit survey results to the common council. Ms. Jackie Carter and the Department of Employee Relations has asked for this to be held to the call of the chair. I'm hoping they inform the author. Great.

And that's moved by Alderman Cox. Any discussion? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We're now on number 825-0895. Communication from the Department of Administration Information Technology Management Division relating to additional ways that the city can use e texts. This is sponsored by Alderman Mielele Cox. Alderman, you have

the floor.

Again, members may recall this was a footnote turning to a resolution asking IT and B to think about ways that e text could be used. I know we all may have our own thoughts, but I just figured that we're uniquely positioned to think about some things that we might not think about. And as we look at technology and it it being ever changing, ways to ensure that residents have access to information as easily as possible is something that I I know I'm very focused on, and I know many of us are in the Etech system. It's just one way to do that. So that's why and that was the emphasis behind the footnote.

And so this communication file is just for the department report out about categories that we may not already be doing e texting that the city may want to consider.

Okay. Did you want to hear from Mr. David Henke, Alderman? Yeah. Okay. Great. Good morning. We have our ITMD Director, Mr. David Henke. Please, good morning.

Good morning. And thank you, Alderman Cogs, for this file. We did do a survey earlier in this year to departments. It was kind of a push promotion survey about the use of eNotify and other tools that are out there to understand with two two purposes, both to promote their use and understand how departments are using them. So there was a memo generated to the sponsors of this file back in August. If desired, certainly can share that with the attach this to the file if you'd like. So it's it's there and available with the results of that are. So Please do. Okay. I will do that.

So I I can just go over some of the some of the contents of that if that's appropriate. So so the survey was done to inform departments and receive feedback on tools. ENotify is one such tool that we have for email notifications, text notifications. That's a home built solution that ITMD manages and maintains for a number of categories. There's also a number of third party tools out there.

EngageMKE is a is a more recent one that's been used for a number of projects and a community engagement hub that we have available for departments to use. That's been widely used for, construction projects and some other, specific targeted initiatives, for community engagement. So some of the other tools that are out there are Code Red. That's focused on, like, public safety and communications for associated with with events or or situations that are are public safety focused. That's used by office emergency management and department emergency communications.

We have some tools for OneCallNow that is used largely internally but could be used externally for voice, SMS, and email based mass communications. ReadyOp is a tool coordination platform for internal and external agency communications used by police and health department. This Salesforce that the city clerk and and the alders have for constituents communications, and then, of course, eNotify as well. So eNotify is used by we reached out to department heads, public information officers, and those with the existing accounts within eNotify and received 23 responses from city staff from 15 different departments, a majority of which were using eNotify, about a third of which using code red, 20% using OneCallNow, and then others that and these don't add up to 100% because some use multiple communications channels. Some use some third party tools like Constant Contact or Mailchimp to do things as well.

So we asked about the satisfaction of the tools available. Timeliness mostly were rated as very or somewhat useful. Ease of use, again, very or somewhat useful. Business model fits because a lot of these solutions, what we find is there's a number of different solutions. And they each kind of focus on different ways that departments or agencies will engage with different focused user groups.

So in terms of business model fit, it was kind of mixed or neutral on how well the solutions fit to the specific needs. One feature that we looked at was geographic customization, going to targeted geographic areas. Again, very different responses. Some said that was not useful. Some said it was very useful. And then engagement tracking as well to get the feedback the other direction. You know, we can send out communications, but how well is that working? Can we get data and analytics? And, again, some were neutral to very useful on on the needs for those tools. So we'll we'll use that to help what we develop and what we promote for available tools to use to use.

Some of the findings were a lack of training or awareness, limited user subscription or reach, Again, difficulty tracking that engagement depends on the application and then editing and content management limitations of some tools. So some of the suggestions were to offer IT and D led training and add an enhanced engagement tracking features. So so we've identified four steps to that that ITMD wants to follow-up on.

One of

those is training that we're looking at implementing some workshops or tutorials on how to use use eNotify or other tools, further awareness campaign to increase the promotion of those available tools. And then some things we've we've worked on already, tool evaluation, making sure that we have the right fit for the right departments, and that's an active and continued effort as well as engagement capabilities, making sure that we prioritize platforms to allow robust engagement analytics to traffic effectiveness, which was seen. So so that that was the results of our our survey and the memo. Again, happy to add that to the file, And it will be a continuing effort.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Mr. Henke, Director Henke? Any other questions on item eight? Alderman Cox then moved ahead as placed on file.

Yeah. I'm I'm gonna do place on file because I'll probably create, just so you know, mister Henke, a new file based on, you know, what you came back with to have you report back to us about those four steps and what the progress has been per department. I think it's really important that we're informed about the communication tools that are available to the public so that we can share them with our constituency. But I think that begins to grow upon what this one was. So I would say, let's place this one on file. We do expect a different communication file to follow-up on those four points that you made.

Thank you.

Okay. Any discussion of that move to place on file on item eight? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Item nine, two five zero nine hundred forty, communication relating to the use of artificial intelligence by city departments. This is authored by Alderman Scott Spiker. And we may have someone joining us from the administration as well. I'll go to the author, Alderman Scott Spiker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for hearing this item. So people will remember that I sent out a letter before the budget 2026 got rolling to all department heads and division heads saying, hey, there's this juggernaut I keep hearing about in the private sector, moving into the public sector related to generative artificial intelligence. It's coming. What are we doing to get ready? Are we using it already? Are we using it in safe ways? Do we have plans to use it in the future? And the answers were kind of all over the map. Some people were clearly cognizant of it, had been thinking in a forward thinking way about it.

Some were just like what generative intelligent, artificial intelligence. I went to a conference in Salt Lake City, National League of Cities, which was really informative because I went to every generative AI session which there were many, many of them and talked to a ton of people about it. And it's fascinating to see what other cities are doing. People are dipping their toes in the water. There is trepidation, say, about what it means, what are potential dangers of it.

But I think as I've said before, this is a disruptive force and we either, learn how to use it or we're the ones that get disrupted. So, this file is meant to say, okay. So budget's over. What's the plan moving forward? And, it's not so much that I expect us to have a plan all laid out nice and pretty, but, I do think we need to think both on the administration side and the council side who's gonna be driving this bus and what bus are we driving.

So this file is meant to bring in Director Bull from Division of Innovation and David Henke from ITMD. And I understand though that all departments will be involved in this. And the question I want to set for us is how are we going to proceed? So happy to hear from Jimboll, what they're doing with GovAI and the voice software that they're going to use at the call center as a starter. But in the big perspective, what I want to think through is does the City Information Management Committee which I chair and has all the IT experts in there serve more than just a perfunctory role where we approve Brad Houston's records retention request or is this a space that we would logically step into?

And any work groups that are out there on that, they should be talking to that committee and sharing what they do so that we're all doing this intentionally and we're all rowing in the same direction. So anyway, that was the impetus behind the file. Happy to hear from Jim Boll and Mr. Hanke if they're available. Thank you.

Okay. I'm not seeing Jim Boll. I am seeing Director Hanke. Did you wish to speak to this Director Hanke?

Sure. Appreciate that opportunity. So there's a couple of different initiatives from the innovation office, as mentioned, and IT and D going on. I'm sure there's others around the city as well. In terms of a general AI assistant, can share that we've been engaged in a trial with a solution called GovAI, which is specifically focused for government users.

That was done in the 2025. The intention of ITMD is to have a contract and deploy that for a citywide use next year. This trial was set up to understand how it works, what the uses are, and how other departments or first adopters might use that. So some of the benefits. There are a number of tools out there.

The focus that I was looking at is both cost and functionality to try to keep people from using generally available tools where there's no security, there's no tracking or accountability, that an enterprise tool really is needed to do this. And so when you look at some of the big players for general use from OpenAI, ChatGPT, or from they have a solution for government or Microsoft has their Copilot tools. These are hundreds of thousands of dollars in a per user basis. The solution we're looking at and this is all new technology is approximately 50,000 a year with unlimited users. And so we want to dip our toe into that.

It's all really experimental. So this contract is a year by year thing. I'm sure we're going to find things that we want to change. We may move directions in future years. So this is this is a very dynamic environment, and I'm happy to continue those communications through CIMC and through this committee.

So in early next year, GAVAI will be working with the city to develop a rollout plan, get users six month trial will cover or I'm sorry. More of this six month rollout will cover training, a phased rollout, continuous feedback and improvements, and finding specific use cases for each department. It's in active development right now. We need to finalize a contract with Cub AI, but that's kind of our general AI solution that we're looking at for the city. I'm happy to again, dynamic environment, and it's a shot towards what we think will be useful and has been adopted by other cities.

But I'm happy to take any other questions or provide any specific feedback that may be desired.

Madam Chair.

Okay. Alderman Spyker?

Yep. And just so members know, is in the file the memo that I had from the LRB back, I think it's the October 7 memo, mister Lee's forwarding although I don't think I got it in my box yet, a memo from the LRB regarding everything that was set at budget. So I didn't remember everything I said. I didn't remember everything I heard, but the LRB was kind enough to go through the transcripts and and find out what the different departments said that summarized in a handy dandy document from them. I guess for Mr.

Hanke and and Mr. Bull can chime in when he arrives, the decision to use GovAI, that's going to be available to all employees at the city?

That is correct. Yes.

And I don't remember, I know the contract amount is so small that there was no requirement to go before this committee, say, or before, CIMC. We just had a report at CIMC last week. Is the intention to involve the council in any way on this?

Well, certainly the council, yes, is welcome to use these tools. Hopefully, I have to go back and see if it was part the trial effort. But we want to engage all departments and certainly want to engage the counsel in this process. Again, it's experimental. So appreciate all the feedback that's possible.

It's great to have hearing to discuss this today. I'd be happy to provide some communication files maybe on whatever that, you know, cadence might be as we do the training and we do the implementation to see how it's going and get some of that feedback in a formal process. Welcome informal communications at any time about how that things may be going or comments as well.

And I guess for the LRB, I'd like to open a communication file on both GovAI implementation and on what is the one you're using over in the call center, David?

That's a product called Front Desk, but we're not using it yet. Again, we're kind of in the contract negotiation phases for that as a that is entering a trial phase, not a production phase.

Right. And I guess this is a policy decision that the administration is making and have been Jim Boll has consulted me so I don't want to pretend like nobody's told us anything. But yes, the counsel might say, don't do anything. I would encourage them not to, but they might and they don't haven't quite been given the opportunity to do that. But two, we're picking out products and starting us down paths and I get it that it's a pilot, it's super cheap, you're going in on the Ground Floor.

I can't tell you how many Ground floor people I met at the conference who had the greatest thing since sliced bread and 95% of them are going to be gone in three years. So again, I realize the contract amount is small, but we're talking about something potentially transformative to how the city does its government potentially. And so that seems like if there's anything that you want a touch point with your policymakers, it would be on that and it would be early and often. And I get that we would put it through the strainer of the city information management committee where you have the true IT experts and one council member on there to try to glean what those experts are saying. But I just want to stress both for the Director of Innovation and for ITMD and DOA more generally that we are going to need frequent touch points on this to make sure that we can play our oversight function.

Otherwise, we'll be useless on potentially one of the most transformative technologies to take city looking back in ten years. So does that seem like a reasonable expectation?

Is that for me? Yes, I certainly can support that.

Okay. And then I would like to know, so your department, we ran into issues, the cybersecurity cybersecurity stuff. Stuff. You would say, hey, go do this. It's important so we don't get messed up at the city by hackers and such.

But you couldn't make people do it. So we had a file before us that we approved that basically added some teeth bringing in departments heads to be accountable to this committee for what they've implemented amongst their employees in the department, making sure that they do this training. What sort of teeth Mr. Henke would you need for you to be or I guess Mr. Bulls, I don't know if it's better DOA Bull or DOA Henke. What sort of resources would you need so that you could be, if not driving the bus, at least reporting to us on where it's getting driven in the departments?

I think a mechanism for that is the AI policy and AI guidelines that were adopted at the end of last

But one of the things I might want to know is whether those policies are being followed. So just say well we got these nice policies sitting out in outer space that nobody knows about and nobody follows, that's not going to give me any comfort but the cold kind. So again I pose the question what sort of tools would you need to either drive the bus on figuring out what way forward we're going in the departments with AI or is it total fiefdomism that we're expecting or at least serve as a reporting repository of information about what the departments are doing. What more do you need? And if we need to have an offline meeting about it, that's totally fine.

But I just want the administration to understand they have a willing partner at the council who is eager to have this conversation and make sure that it just doesn't get forgotten because there's no letter coming from Spiker on a daily basis.

Absolutely. I'd be happy to meet with you privately, happy to do this through CIMC or this committee. I believe as we adopt these tools and it's such a changing environment that AI policy and guidelines need to be updated to reflect some of the implementation and changes that we're doing. Enforcement mechanisms will be able to include some of our existing tools from, you know, through Microsoft, through firewalls, or other tools that can, you know, block other non authorized devices. And I think that way will help enforce that.

It can be just monitoring on those systems to help see what departments are or aren't using towards that goal of restricting access to the tools that have been authorized. So I have been hesitant to do that without having an enterprise tool available. But as that gets rolled out, those are that's, I think, the enforcement mechanism that we tend I would intend to use as some of the technology tools we have available to view and restrict traffic to certain locations or certain tool sets.

And my last question, Madam Chair, I guess, is for Director Mahan since Director Boll isn't here. Director Mahan. I am here. Oh, you are here. Okay. Were you going to show us just the tip of the spear for GovAI about what it is? Not a long presentation, but I thought you had one slide of a bigger presentation that you could at least show us what it is before it's literally before every Citi employee.

Okay. I was not notified of

that presentation. In alderman's presentation.

You know,

as I mentioned to

you, madam chair?

Yes. Okay. Wait. So just so I get this straight. You is that something he's gonna show us, like, on the computer here or what?

He could just orally say what it is and show I understood he had one side of a much larger presentation where he could if he wanted to put up the picture of the chair, would allow it so we'd have something we're looking at. Otherwise, I'm fine with him verbally telling us what it is. But I think most people have no clue.

Excuse me one second. Have twenty minutes per, because there's a lot of these types of items and I put them all on the agenda. So we have four minutes left on this. So please present what you what you would like. If it includes a slide, that's fine. But then we only have a couple minutes.

I will just say that what David provided regarding or at least in his discussion point of WEI, I think presented a very thorough indication of that. I I indicated to, Alderman Spiker, I had a conversation with him yesterday, that, my presentation was delayed because of your long agenda until next month. I I will have in my presentation discussion point and slides on both GovAI as well as the front desk product, and I can further elaborate on those then

Okay.

That's fine. If that's

something desired. The one thing that I do want to mention, Madam Chair, and I've not had an opportunity to follow-up with with David on this, but it is it is based on the discussion I have with alderman Spicer yesterday is I I I think it would potentially behoove us, and I don't know if the best mechanism would be to go back through the the the CIMC. But it would behoove us as a city to look at establishing an AI product inventory because there's even things that I have learned after the fact with departments important important And that's point. I own. Back project manager is and that way we can also And very importantly ensure that there is a greater adherence based on having all these designated things of adherence to to any type of governance rules and safety mechanisms as well too.

Again, I haven't had an opportunity to talk to David about that, but I think that that's something potentially moving forward that my office would be very happy to reach out to the ITMD and continue to work with all Spiker and the CIMC to look at potentially putting forward to better register and monitor what we are doing collectively here at the city.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes that is true. In the beginning of the year we'll have your full presentation which now I understand will include this. So we have we're gonna move that to the January cycle. So thank you for being patient with us. Okay. Anything else on item nine, which is the communication relating to the use of artificial intelligence by city departments? Any other questions? Did you want to place on file or hold to the call of the chair, Alderman Spike?

Madam Chair, if we could hold to the call of the chair so we can revisit at a later date, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay. No Alderman Spiker moves to hold to the call of the chair item nine. Any discussions? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. We're now on Item 10,251,216, resolution directing various departments to provide administrative support to the Department of Community Wellness and Safety and the Department of Equity and Inclusion. Alderman Scott Spiker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So members will remember we took action in the budget that, would give us authority to confirm the heads of the former OCWS and the former OEI. I won't regale us with the tales of what led us to that desire, but by moving them into their own departments, we have the ability now to either confirm or not a would be head of one of those agencies. One of the fears expressed when this was discussed at budget by the administration is, hey, what about all the back office help these folks will need to get up and going? To which I said, well, you're the Department of Administration.

You're the Department of Helpfulness to everything in the city, I thought. So couldn't you be helpful here to these erstwhile children and provide that support? Or to the extent you can't, couldn't DER do so? And so I didn't want to restrict myself just to those two, basically all of the departments. If you and I have asked our city clerk and deputy city clerk what does it take to run a department of your size and what sort of resources did you need and that was an illuminating discussion.

So I just wanted to get a commentary from DOA and DER about their commitment to making sure these departments can stand up on their own and have the necessary back office support they need. And if somebody needs to run payroll, it doesn't have to be somebody's whole job just as in our department, some of the HR functions are split among some members that isn't somebody's whole job. And with OCWS, we have bevy a of deputies that might have that strength once they're trained. So with that, I'd be happy to hear from the departments. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Well, it looks like with us we have Department of Administration. Is that acting director then? Or is that what you'd like?

I'll just state DOA. Just Steve.

That's right. So representing Department of Administration. I get that too sometimes. Well, they say they can call me

a thing

as long as you keep calling me.

That's right.

But I just want to be respectful of that. So with the Department of administration, Mr. Steve Mahan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all members. Since the budget was enacted, DOA has taken the lead of hosting a number of meetings with all of the departments that affect the enterprise of both and the Office of Community Wellness and Safety. And I'll just go down the line a little bit so you can know how detailed this is in becoming independent. So the Department of Employee Relations was definitely involved due to the reclass situations.

We talk about staffing adjustments needed to stand independent. They were one of the first that we approached on structure. We also greatly appreciate the city controller for their input on how to develop payroll functions and addressing department classification codes that allow for you to make expenditures. Under DOA, they were utilizing DOA's codes to be able to charge and finance, so there was a need to restructure as an independent. So thank you very much for that.

Also, the accrual payments that are upcoming from '25 into '26, there's a lot of work with that considering that the name change also affects contracts. So the city attorney has been approached and is working with us on contracts and legal needs for that separation. We should make a note that this is not a January 1 switch. Pay period '26 ends December 20. So there's this crossover that makes this very it makes it a difficult, but, we are working with it in the short time frame between these holidays to make this happen.

The purchasing division has been very, very active in, contracts and amendments to these contracts because due to the name change, that will be required. And additionally, the Community Development Grants Administration is working on contracts and amendments and how to, work with the federal issues that do stem from this. A lot of our grants have what are called AORs, which is the authorized representatives, And that is something that has to be changed at a federal level. So we're working that also with the city attorney and the grants administration. We've also approached the city clerk for the intent and language in the files to make sure that we were covering them correctly.

And just to that note, there's three we have to address because the actions are complete and enacted, the three big issues. So 01/01/2026 is a false start date. It is actually due to the final pay period of '26. December 20 is what we're working off of because the first pay period is 2021. I'm sorry.

Is is December 21 start. So we don't we really are short on time even to start January 1 and still deal with the accruals of the previous entities that we're now creating as departments. So not having a runway to address that is is compounding at this point in time. So we are that that's why so many departments are involved right now. And as Alderman Spiker stated, there's there's gonna be a need for the creation of temporary temporary MOUs with other departments to help them stabilize moving forward because none of them were independent.

This creates a, you know, a carryover situation of funds because we have to do amendments to change from that name, even federally, what they were called to the new new approved name. So one of the biggest things that is needed from the council to clean to basically as cleanup is the lack of an ordinance that clearly states what was enacted in the budget. And so those actions, the aforementioned departments need to happen to clean up on not only locally but and statewide, but also federally to be able to rightfully call them who they are and clean up their those those accounts. And so that's where we really are. There's a lot of folks all hands on, and we're moving in accordance to what was the the vote.

And so will it happen? Yes. It's just the timing. Nothing is timing is never good for anything if you have to make major changes like this. But the lack of an ordinance truly is the bigger piece here to just do cleanup on what was enacted in the budget.

Thank you so much, Mr. Meehan. Alderman Scott Spiker?

Yeah, Madam Chair. So the ordinance has been drafted and the file has been filled. We'll have to work on the process of getting it introduced and then, available for approval because what I'm hearing from you is because the, I forget what you called it, but the, December 21 date, it would be helpful to have that in place when you're talking with your federal partners. But mister Mahan's always been easy to work with, so I'm sure we can meet offline and discuss timeline and how we can accommodate this in a way that makes his job a little bit easier.

And I would ask all of the speaker if we could you said it's been drafted.

Mhmm.

If we could make sure that the language does fit the need and if there's anything else that we could make contact with budget office and also the city attorney.

Yep. And I think that file just got filled yesterday or the day before. So, I'll be happy to share that with you.

Thanks. Thank you. Madam

chair. Okay. Yes, Alder Woman Moore. Thank you.

I just Mr. Mahan, I just had a quick question in reference to the timeline. Internally, have you all discussed an estimate that, you know what, it's going to take us until the end of the first quarter or it's going to take us X number of months or weeks to move to finalization of this process.

Thank you. I'll do one more. You know running an organization in your previous life, this is going to be a hodgepodge for a while. We're talking about entities that did not have someone who processed their own time cards, you know, much less handling their own HR. So there's going to be some on loan services from other staff, potential contracted staff, and a comeback to this.

I would, you know, suggest that we not only have this file stay open, but also knowing that there's going to be an ask of the council because we're past budget, but there's actually positions that need to be filled for them to be independent. And we'll be bringing that back. We'll be bringing everything the need the need statement will be coming back to you all. So I can't really answer when it when it just dropped dead. It's cut off that they're all good because it probably won't happen until you do some final things in the twenty seventh budget to make that happen unless there's just some influx of other sources that make it easier to do that in between that time.

It's a it's it's a lot. Yeah. But it's it'll we'll get there.

Thank you so much. Mhmm. Thank you, madam chair.

Madam chair. Okay.

Great. Yes. We are on item 10, alderwoman Cox.

I don't know who answers this, but where will they physically be located?

Well, there's two we're only talking two here. So, the office of Equity and Inclusion is currently located in, the 6th Floor in DOA. There's already a space crunch of what's going on. So that's to be determined how that would because we typically do not like an overlap of departments because it becomes an issue with even copiers, for instance instance. How do you charge these these costs if you're really doing cost to come?

So that is to be determined because of how quickly it happened. But the so we'll come back with that one. We haven't gotten there yet at all. But the Office of Community Wellness and Safety is off-site. They have adequate space right now where they are.

They are going to be looking at how their vision is looked at moving forward. We currently don't have any of those staff in any of our other buildings except for their current building. So they're gonna be located. They'll be generally located. But the real question is the Office of Equity and Inclusion and how that where they will be located because it really should be standalone out side of DOA, and we'll have to figure that out.

That's not something that we're gonna move quick with. That'll probably be the longest term of occupancy of where they are situated because it's just they're located not only on, 601, but they're at 603. They're spread on the entire 6th Floor because of space issues. K. And that worked under the enterprise of DOA, but it won't individually. Okay.

And I know we have an interim person, but remind me, are we currently on a doing a search for a new person?

I believe that might have been moving forward until the separation, but right now, we have a good we have an interim that is holding the shot solid, and I do do not know that there is file or anything that has moved forward to fill, that position as of yet.

Is it currently being marketed for people to apply for it?

No, it's not.

Thank

you. Madam Chair.

Alderman Scott Spiker.

Yes. So a couple of different things. First, Ms. Reed has been a delight to work with. If she's named permanent, I'll rejoice. Mr. Purcell also now look forward to having some in-depth discussions with him now that I know that this is actually happening. Let's couple of things here. One is I'm sure you guys can still all go to the same Christmas party. There won't be any disaster there.

Similar there's these things called copier codes that I was familiar with when I worked at Xerox which if you're in a law office, you want to bill to a client, it's not like, oh my gosh, we have all these lawyers working for different clients. How are we possibly going to build this to the right you get a copier code and you answer it and then it's done. So the point is there's I understand nobody's super happy that this happened but there was a reason for it which I think everybody remembers which is somebody who is the head of DEI suddenly left for reasons that seems kinda like pushy, and we had no say in anything. And there was a whole process with OCWS where there were three candidates, none of them are hired, then somebody was hired skirting the public process entirely and we again were caught with our hands, in the air, sand. Not our problem.

We can't do anything about it. Now we have that ability. So whatever costs there are in terms of Christmas cards and copier codes, I think they're more than made up for. And I understand it's a lift that falls upon you, Mr. Mahan, and your partners, but it's something that gives us something that we were sorely in need of.

So I'm happy to discuss logistics. I know a name change is a bigger deal than it looks but these are, I mean, before we cry for the Argentina we have to realize that there was a motivation for this and these are the birthing pains, but they don't have to stop the offices from working as they have in the past. That's my opinion. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Alderman Bergalis? Thank

you. So all of the administrative accessories, copier costs, etcetera, for the job functions that these new departments are going to now independently manage were paid for under the DOA umbrella. So are you ready to reduce your operational expenses for the cost that you're no longer need to going to need to incur? Or would it just make just make sense to have an MOU with these departments that the administrative functions that they previously enjoyed under the umbrella are still going to be we're And think

that's what

we're I

think that's staffing is gonna be the issue. There's there's just I I don't I really don't understand the Argentinian paraphrase, but maybe it's just over my head. But that but I but I do understand is that we're not gonna we're not gonna downplay that this is bigger than we're gonna do it because we have a great we have good systems. But we're gonna have to come back to the body to say, this is and then we'll have that that what you're bringing up. When you see the cost, we can have that a candid conversation of, hey.

This is above and beyond. Or we did this for you know, like you said, there are some shared costs that would have happened anyway that we're going to do. But there are staff members that will need to now have an adjustment to their job scripts to be able to do some of this work. Certainly.

There's no larger lift. We're not getting a separate copier. We're not adding a payroll person to do the same job that

they're We're

going come before you on needs assessment What before we

I'm looking for is that if there is going to be a stark separation in your predecessor, what we heard in budget was absolutely not. If they're a separate department, they can do their own thing. That's not the spirit of collaboration that the council is expecting from the administration. So if there is going to be this for that, then I'll be looking for an equal reduction in the budget to make sure that it balances out appropriately. If there are operational efficiencies, I think the council would have an expectation that those be continued. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Anything else that we need to discuss on item 10? We've come to a conclusion here of time that we had for this. Anything else that we want to discuss on item 10? Do want Alderman Cox.

I do want to say say this. We're where we're at, but I think the most important thing is the work Mhmm. Of those two offices. We're at a time in this country where the thought of equity

Mhmm.

And how to treat people fairly is not at a premium. And we're at also at a time where that 10 year old who got shot in the face last night was in my district

Mhmm.

A few blocks from my home. So the work of OCWS, the work of the office of equity is critical, probably now more than ever. So whatever we have to do for them to be able to do their work appropriately and right, the the sooner we can make that happen, the better. Whatever we need to do more of or assist you, Steve, and your department to help assist them, let us know. Yeah. Because what I don't want is the political back and forth to interfere with Yeah. The necessary work that needs to be done and them feeling supported in that work.

And thank you, Aldo Meccais. I think what you'll see is a true need statement. The work what what's been voted on and done is done. I think we're gonna try to make it, and we can come back and forth on what the feelings are if there's something in there that maybe should be more shared or not. But it's going to be a true need statement to move with this action that's put in place. That's that's where we are. And so look forward to coming back.

Madam Chair.

Okay. Alderman Spiker and On then we'll conclude

that suggestion about the importance of the work, it was one of the motivation, not the primary one. That was the confirmation power and so an ability to have a say in who the department head or division head would be. But surely it was not lost on me and I think I articulated it at the time. Like the DEI bit is really important to us here at the city. The OCWS bit as an alternative to the police department was really important.

So to the extent we want to signify their importance by making them their own beings, that is I think of a piece of recognizing that importance. That's why I had, although it didn't go anywhere, a similar feeling about eco given its centrality to city functions. So I think we're on the same page and I think I would definitely underscore that there cannot politics cannot get in the way of making sure this good work is done. So thank you.

Madam Chair. Okay. Elder Womore.

Just really briefly, just because I'm trying to understand, Mr. Mahan, is it unprecedented that because we're pulling out these sort of two divisions, is it not sort of customary that, for example, payroll could stay in the administration and a portion of that person's time be allocated to the department or, things such as copies and, you know, that sort of thing? Is it sort of uncustomary or is it just, you know what, it's a different department? Everything has to be separate.

It's it's more time frame because there's security clearances also with a lot of that. And that's what we're working on right now. You you have people who have never done that type of work that now are being put into a system. And that system is fragile in that you don't let somebody just get in. There's security clearances. So what what we're doing is trying to find the right people to do the job. I think this this file came before to to say what's going on. And it's not this you know, we're moving forward. It's not to say what can't be done. It's just being very honest and and transparent on how much it takes to do it.

Sure. And it's so that it's understood that this is not a light switch. And so that's Of course. Timing. Time is it. We probably will be having conversations on, oh, damn, that we also need to do this in April. Mhmm. Because it's just the timing of quickly doing something. You always leave something unplugged. You know what I mean? So all we're saying. So you're right. There's the potential of MOUs and things of that sort. That's why we have all hands on deck. There's nobody missing. Even our separate electives are jumping in.

Yeah. Yeah. And I just concur with my colleague's sentiments on, you know, the work is what it is that we're trying to definitely focus on.

And take that the burdens of being independent off of people who are normally were just doing the work. Sure. So you can't push H. H. R. Is a is a beast unto its own. The back office stuff which kills a lot of agencies is because people are doing too many slash jobs. And so to get that work out, that's what we're trying to eliminate. And so like I said, we'll be coming back on a need statement. But for right now, it's looking like it's moving forward with the time frame that we have.

Appreciate that. Thank you, madam chair.

Any further discussion on Item 10? Alderman Spyker?

Just super briefly, these departments are tiny if you exclude the Equal Rights Commission as members of the department because they can function by themselves. These departments are tiny in comparison to some others that have legs and have a life. So I appreciate the I can't give you a title, I guess. I appreciate Mr. Mahan for being willing to lend his expertise in that. And that ordinance will be in your inbox today. If there's anybody else you want us to send it to in addition to you, just let us know.

Thank you, Alden.

Any other discussion on ten? Did you I had a motion here for adoption. Is that what you'd prefer? Yep. Okay. Adoption's been moved by Alderman Scott Spiker. Any discussion of adoption? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Thank you. Item eleven, two hundred fifty thousand nine hundred forty six. Communication from the Department of Employee Relations relating to classification studies or other studies scheduled for Fire and Police Commission action, Alderwoman Moore.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I am going to move this file be a hold on this file until our next meeting in January.

Okay. Alderman Moore, the author of the file has moved hold to the call of the chair on item 11 as she's awaiting additional information. Any discussion on hold to the call of the chair? Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Okay. Next up is item twelve, two five zero six zero three. Communication from the Office of the Comptroller relating to the audit of the Community Development Grants Administration CDGA award process. From the Comptroller's office, we have Adriana Molina and from CDGA we have Mario Higgins. I also want to thank you because this item has been held one or two times due to the budget.

So I appreciate your patience and welcome today. Have a seat please. And as soon as it's up, then we'll be ready to go.

Good

morning. Adriana Molina, audit manager here at the city. This work will go over the audit of our CDGA award process. Okay. I'll just skip the agenda.

Try to make it as brief and concise as possible. Our audit included review of entities that received CDGA funds from 01/01/2024 through 11/30/2024. Our objectives were to review and evaluate the award process, and determine, the timeliness of initial disbursements in accordance with relevant policies. Procedures included walkthroughs, review of documentation, review of documents provided by the CDGA office. We put together just a high level funding decision process for the area so you can see how awards are given to sub recipients from the CDGA.

And this is essentially the scope that our audit entailed. Also including a timeline, this was developed during our, OVP, our Office of Violence Prevention audit. And so we were able to review the process again of how timely payments were made for initial disbursement to subrecipients. In our conclusion, we noted that controls in place were adequately designed and operating effectively for CDGA. We just noted one low risk finding.

And the low risk finding is related to cost reports. Out of the 22 that we reviewed, 16 of them, of the subrecipients were not submitted timely. It's low risk because the honors is really on the subrecipients to submit their cost reports timely and they can get reimbursed in a timely basis. And our recommendation was that CDGA implement either a tracking system or a way to remind subrecipients to submit their cost reports on a timely basis. And that concludes the presentation. Any questions?

Thank you for that. So 16 out of how many?

60 out of 22.

So Oh,

so it was just a random sample that you

It was a random sample.

Yes, correct.

And how many recipients are there total?

I will let you know here in a second. The total population was 181.

If there's a 80%, 75% noncompliance, would that trigger an expanded search and to look at larger a larger sample?

It would. But in this instance, we did not go further just because we in conversations with CDGA, we knew that this was a, I don't want to say an issue, but just something that was ongoing with the subrecipients where they may not have the back office to be able to submit those cost reports timely. So we did it. And reviewing those contracts because we were reviewing contracts all the way to the cost report was very, very timely. We didn't wanna if we knew the result was going to be the same, we didn't want to keep going with the same thing because this was the same issue that we had in our previous

It's a

recurring theme.

Recurring theme, yes.

So thank you very much for that report. Let's go to department. Before questions from the committee, let's have the department's reply.

Sure. Thank you, Alderman. First, I'm Mario Higgins of the Community Development Grants Administration director. Thank you to the comptroller and his staff, miss Molina. Appreciate your work always, obviously, and we're in a similar line of work when it has to come to doing audits and monitoring and stuff.

So I really appreciate the the work you guys did. On this particular issue, yes, the the finding that they had was the agencies were not submitting cost reports what they found in their sample. I wouldn't suggest that 80% overall cost reports are not coming in. Obviously, this sample did prove that. However, the one thing that we wanted to do was a suggestion by them is to was the tracking mechanism.

Now we do track cost reports, but we hadn't been tracking them to monitor for or to use it as a tool to say, hey, you're chronically late. So we did implement that. As well, we extended the deadline from the tenth of month to the fifteenth of month, and that allows the agency more time to get it in in time. I don't know during their evaluation if it was two or three days late or what it was, know, that it was late it was late after the tenth and it was late, I'm assuming. So we did extend the deadline as well.

Right. How many how many recipients were noncompliant and didn't get their award?

Noncompliant and didn't get award? I don't know.

Or how many how many how many recipients never complied with this provision?

Were just late. They still we we did tests like that. They received the award and they all did receive an award. They were it was just late getting the information to CDGA, which then triggered the timeline. CDGA submitting the information to the Comptroller's Office and then them getting the award. All of them did receive the award. There were none that did not get it.

This year?

This year

Not for the scope of our what happened previously. Correct. And so we require monthly reporting. So that's as far as cost reports and outcomes. And so that's what triggering it.

Okay. So and then, ultimately, is there a staff person assigned to each subrecipient? Yes. And then is that city employee tasked with monitoring compliance? Correct. And how are things looking this year?

Are looking well. For some sense? Yeah. Things are looking well. The increased attention for it is going to, for sure, for 2026, make sure that people are are reporting on time. I mean, you can see it in our cost reports after we implemented the new system and just being more, aggressive but more paying more attention to it and making sure and

sending out their responsibilities.

Correct. Sending those tasks out.

Doing what they're supposed to be doing. Correct. All right. Let me pass it around to the committee. Any questions or comments?

Madam Chair or Mr. Chair, sorry.

Older woman Spiker.

The, the so it says on the slide there that, all 16 vendors were paid within thirty days by the city under finding the yellow thing. It says though of this there were out of the 22, 16 didn't submit within the ten days. The remaining six were exempt from testing, so that means they weren't even evaluated for whether