Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

I'll move to approve.

Sure.

So we could share. I see. Alright. Hello, people online. I hope you can hear us fine now. I apologize for not having the microphone on. We opened the meeting and approved the agenda for this evening.

We didn't vote.

Oh, we didn't vote because I needed to turn on my microphone. And now all in favor of approving the agenda as published, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, nay. We have an agenda. And the next item is public comment. I see we have participants who've joined us. Do we have anybody for public comment this evening?

No one signed up online. Okay.

Alright.

Approval of the minutes from the May and the June meetings. First, is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the May 19 meeting? Move to approve. Second. Alright. All in favor of approving the May meeting minutes, say aye. Aye. K. It's passed. How about the June 16 meeting? Move approval.

Second.

Alright. All in favor of approving the June meeting minutes, say aye. Aye. Right. And that is also approved. And that brings us to item six a, a briefing on the 2026 through 2031 preliminary capital facilities plan. And this presentation is gonna be led by finance analyst Owen Thompson.

Thank you, Clark. Hello, finance committee. So tonight, we're gonna talk about the preliminary capital facility plan. This is the cover of the document that will be published, August 4. It's a nice picture of the new Grass Lake Nature Trail. That's the product of one of these earlier capital facility plans. This is a real collaboration project that finance only plays a a small role in. Well, typically, this presentation is given by the CP and D staff. So Joyce Phillips has done that in the past. Casey Schoffler is taking over that work, but they're both unable to attend, and Jones also unable to attend.

So you're stuck with the fourth string tonight. But I've helped with this present creating this presentation in the past, and it's pretty finance heavy. So I hope I can do it justice. Yeah.

There we go.

Exactly. So these are kind of the steps that get us to the CFP plan. In the beginning, there is the comprehensive plan volume one, which is a twenty year plan that we do every ten years, and that's very much a CP and economic development activity. And there are also departmental master plans that are done on different time basis. And then we have the CFP, which is done annually and is a six year plan, and we refer to it as the comprehensive plan volume two.

And I think the most important part of this plan is the year one aspect that you adopt and approve for spending in the upcoming year, that's considered authorized funding. Whereas spending in the years two to six in the plan are kind of these commitments, but they're not authorizations of projects. Any questions there? So we're gonna have a lot of charts and data, and here's a big pie chart that shows in 2026, the parks department is gonna really have a big slice of the pie in terms of capital expenses, which we've seen the last couple meetings here. They've got some big projects coming up, but you can see there are other big projects in transportation and wastewater for next year planned.

So these are the funding sources that are going to fund those those projects I just showed you in 2026. We have we get money from a lot of different places. We have talked about bonds in this committee before. Those are those are shown there. The city has a lot of special revenue funds. I can get into those if you'd like, but I've just summarized them here. There's a lot of use of capital fund balance that's used most by the utility funds, the, wastewater and water, drinking water funds. They typically save money over years and years, save it in their capital fund, and then use it to pay for projects. We've got a big chunk of grants for next year and some other things in this pie chart.

Yeah. Can

you just talk about loans for a minute? Is that different than, like, bond issuance debt?

Or Yes. We'll get to the loan

We're gonna get to it.

Later. Yeah.

Thank you.

I've got some information on it. So the big one this year is parks. This is kind of the scheme I came up with for each department. We've got all their funding sources and their big projects, and then others is listed below. And I could talk about what the others are, but they're mostly just things that are smaller in nature.

For parks, for example, they've got a lot of Percival Landing repairs, and we have Rebecca Howard Park and Bigelow Park improvements coming up, which are in there. And for transportation, they also have a lot of projects. They've got some chip seal and overlay projects and a lot of pedestrian and sidewalk projects coming forward. They have several funding sources there. Those are kind of some of the special revenue funds that I mentioned in more detail.

Transportation benefit district has a sales tax portion now and a vehicle fee portion. There's also real estate excise tax that we get and parks and pathways is a utility tax that can pay for sidewalks or trail paths. So yeah.

Alright. Oh, yeah. Please. Is the transportation benefit district sales tax number here, is that accumulation that we've built up from prior years, or is that just one year's worth of money?

Yeah. That's funding from prior years that we've collected, and it'll be transferred from that fund, which we maintain into the transportation capital fund. Thank you. Oh, and I just want to note, I know sidewalks are a hot topic and there's another 500,000 in just miscellaneous sidewalk repairs within the other amount, and there's 400,000 in chip and crack seal, and a bike corridor, some traffic calming, and an enhanced crosswalk project in there too. So for general facilities, that's kind of just the city owned buildings.

We just have two projects, in the whole six year period, and they're roof solar projects for the maintenance center and the Olympia Center. And I had these numbers entered. They're from last week. I just noticed that the state grant increased this week. I didn't increase it in time, but we got 750,000 in state grants for this number. And they've kind of reallocated how that's going to be spent. 800,000 is gonna be the maintenance center, and 200,000 will be the, Olympia Center. So there'll be more detail on all these things within the preliminary CFP document that gets published in a couple weeks. Yeah.

I'm

surprised to hear, and I it's very possible that I'm behind, that we would do a solar project on a building that's well beyond its useful life. Is how does that is that is the math of that project worth it? I mean, it's probably Gram money. So

Yeah. Councilman Cooper, I had the same question. I'm gonna be completely honest with you. So I think that's something that we can look into and come back. Yep.

Yeah. And then if if it is and I think that might be what you start just to sort of explain this, like, there should be utility portions in that project as well. Right? Yeah. Then because the maintenance center is Right. Well, I'm I mean, we're and Olympia Center probably would be considered close to the end of its useful life, honestly, but it it comes out higher on the condition and you kinda assessment than the maintenance center, which has been for a decade Oh, yeah. Build a new one, build a new one, build a new one, and we've started funding that project. And so I just wanna make sure that we're not putting something where we won't get the investment back out of it.

Yeah. That's a good point. The so the project costs are a million dollars now, and the state grant is 750,000. And so the 250 difference is coming from the facility's fund balance, but maybe other utilities could contribute if it's on a shared building. So, yeah.

Next, we have drinking water. Some of these projects now get kind of technical in the public works. So, you know, some of these terms are not familiar to me, but the the utilities typically use a transfer from their operating fund every year as well as that reserve in their capital fund that they've saved up over time. They also utilize general facility charges, which are kind of like impact fees utilities where new houses get connected to the system. But a lot of pipes to be replaced and valves to buy and other things.

The next one is wastewater, and the wastewater is the one that has been awarded the loan, and it's from the Department of Ecology for their big project here for the old Port 1 Lift Station. So I wanted to get some info on this loan because it was new to me. But, this was a 2024 loan that was awarded to the city, and I think it's thirty years and is at a 1.6% interest rate, so a real bargain of an interest rate from ecology. And we got it in 2024 but the loan effective date is 06/30/2026. So I think we're in the pre planning phases and actual capital expenses will kick in here in 2026.

Owen or somebody else in the room. I'm just curious about both the Glenmore and the Van Epps, if there's any context around those. In the in the past, we've sometimes used community development block grant to help make those happen. Do we know what the situations were for Glenmore Village or Van Epps? Did they come to land use or or no? We'll just we'll we'll find that. Noticed. Yeah. Just curious about that. There's a there's a good story behind our reaching in to, to help rescue failed a system, to keep a community intact. So

So next, we have storm and surface water. They've a slightly smaller budget, but they've got several projects. They've got a couple state grants that they've won for their work. They've got a peak flow reduction project that ecology is supporting, and they've got a green stormwater retrofit that's a small dollar amount in the others that Ecology is supporting, and an Ellis Creek fish passage that Ecology is helping with. So that's included in others as well.

Now the next two, I'm showing the entire six year span for this is waste resources, and next will be fire. Both of these departments have fairly small expenses in 2026, but they've got bigger plans for the upcoming few years. The the utilities and transportation and parks have kind of stacked most of their projects in the beginning, because projects tend to take more than a few years, or a couple years at least. But these two departments are planning on some big things, so I wanted to highlight those. So for waste resources, they've got the Carpenter Road facility planned for 2028.

This is something that's been underway for several years, kind of slowly moving. In 2017 there was a feasibility study to see if waste resources could move from the current utility center to their own site. In 2019, counsel approved the preliminary design for the site, which included a lot of remediation work on the site because it was a firing range that I think the police department used and needed a lot of work. That included a cost estimate from 2019 that is probably not that useful anymore, but the remediation work has been complete, and ecology earlier this year gave us a thumbs up. No more action needed on the site, so that's good.

So I think waste resources is needing some direction from you all on this project, generally. So they've included it here. And they're showing revenue bonds. So the bond issuance to pay for this project would be paid for by waste resources ratepayers over time. I don't know if we have a great estimate of what all that would cost, what you know, how much that would do to rates, but it's quite significant.

Yeah. The next one is the fire department. They have several fire engines and trucks and equipment and things that are coming due to be replaced over the next six years, and they have some goals to remodel two fire stations and build a new station if the urban growth area is annexed. And their only way to do this is through debt issuance, bond issuance. And there's two different ways we've done this as a city in the past.

For fire stations, we went out historically and for the fire training center to get a voter approved levy, where that increases our property taxes above our baseline if voters approve it. And that can cover new buildings and land and things like that, if 60% of the voters approve it. But the voter initiative can't fund equipment replacement or new trucks or things like that. And so to pay for fire engines in the past, we had to do councilmanic debt issuances and just cover the cost with existing revenue sources and taxes. So that's kind of the split between that top line and the the next three.

I haven't broken that out in the funding sources, but yeah. And I imagine there's a timing issue where we don't really wanna issue new debt every year over six years. And so there I think there's more discussion there with the finance committee and finance department on how to make that make sense.

So and just to make sure I'm reading the table correctly, this is imagining issuing bonds that, are, additive or cumulative across that bottom row. So it'd be 35, forty, fifty, fifty five, 67. So approximately $70,000,000 in bonds issued over the

next six years? No. Just just 35,000,000. Each each year is kind of just matching the expenses of that year to a bond issuance. And so the oh, that would yeah. No. I don't think so. It is cumulative. No. You're right. Yeah. You could add all the

So this is a $70,000,000 plan for the next five or six years for the fire department?

Yes. K.

Have remodeling a fire station been in the capital's facilities plan before this year?

For 2025? I I'd have to look at

For next year?

Yeah.

I mean, it's not in this year's, I don't think.

Not in the so I will have to check. Yeah. Okay.

It seems a little bit sudden for me to plan a capital project that costs $10,000,000. Just saying. But but if it's some sort of fire and lot you know, life safety issue and where people sleep, then we have to deal with it. So I'd I'd like a further briefing on especially that first remodel. I think it's longer to plan for 2029. Yeah. And I thought that we created I have some recollection that we've already started to save for these fire engines. We're just doing that through year end fund balance? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not aware of any saving plan for new engines.

Okay.

If I may, I think we've aspired to.

We have an idea, but we haven't been Reached the end of the last No. Cut you. Yeah. And and We know the cycle. We just have the

Didn't find a million or two

to talk away. That makes sense.

Yeah. Mhmm.

I mean, the I mean, when we talk about a legislative strategy for funding EMS

Mhmm.

I mean, I got a $70,000,000 hole and zero ways to fill it. Right.

May may I either either let Jim amplify a little bit or or just just say that the idea is that we've had multiple opportunities provided by the state legislature to create additional public safety funding that's been dedicated primarily to law enforcement, and there hasn't been a similar mechanism created for fire safety. And so that I think that's that's what you were referring to is that would be nice to have a special measure that diverts a portion of state sales tax or whatever other tool to help us with this.

If I may, I was just going to add. I don't there's probably more discussion that's needed with this. Is it nonvoted? Is it voted? Because our nonvoted debt capacity after we have the two issuances that are happening for the Hands On Children's Museum and Parks is at 73,000,000. So this would obviously not we would need more discussion before we just went on this route, but there's the voted debt that could happen as well. So and I don't know what the discussions have been with fire, but that's something certainly that we can explore more as this moves along.

Yeah. And I I appreciate that because I think I think it's important for finance to sit with this whole picture as one agenda item really, like, some recommendations from you and your team about what about how you think we might approach it. But I'm worried about even dropping in the first fire truck into the author authorized environment knowing that what's coming. So, like, what like, what and without the chief here to know, like, what year and knowing that we've got, I think, two on order Mhmm. You know, when are they coming, or is that those that's that too.

Like, I feel like we need a full briefing just to be able to support the first year of funding in that package. And it's sort of a brief a capital facilities briefing and an equipment briefing Yeah. Put together because that's a lot. Please continue on, Roland. Thank you.

Okay. So this is kind of the the summary, pie chart here of the total six year expenses for each department. So you can see there's a lot of transportation projects that go out all six years. They have the they have the most on the out. But, otherwise, parks is kind of front loaded with their two big projects. Yeah. Would you like me to return to any slides or have any questions?

I'm interested and and curious about the the sidewalk issue both. So I I understand we've been making a plan to spend some money that we dedicated to sidewalks and that at this point, we're just sort of chunking off a half 1,000,000 a year in in repair of of bad sidewalk plates. And and I'm trying to separate out in my head the the bigger projects you described. Some are part of road projects. So do we have a separate is there a place where we sort of have an accounting of how that that money that council has to dedicate to essentially sidewalks and neighborhoods and sidewalk repair?

I I just I had a constituent reaching out recently saying, I think you've only committed that half million, and you're accumulating 3,000,000 a year. Where is that is that how does that how does that square with what you have Yeah. Here?

So are you talking only about the transportation benefit district sales tax? Is that what the

The new money. Well, that's

still the the the new money. Yeah. And then there is I mean, that continues to be a piece of the parks and pathways or, you know, the where the majority of it's going to parks, but there's this 700,000 represented in these charts. It would just it'd be nice maybe at a a subsequent meeting if we could get an update on and I I know there's moving parts as as always, but I I think it would help me if I could tell the story of which sidewalk efforts are are part of other funding, which ones are connected to that transportation benefit district councilmanic additional revenue that we asked for. And and and and just because there's there's there's your budgeting pieces, and then there's the briefings we've had from Transportation Public Works about their challenge in securing another engineer to expedite the projects, I believe, a request to use more of that initial year's money on Phones Road, which was kind of a stretch from where we hope you know, anyhow, like Yeah.

It it's, I know it's a it's a story with many departments involved, but but I I I think, untangling, like, how the Elliott Avenue project will be funded and, is is it related to the additional resources we committed to sidewalks? That would just be helpful.

That's one of the questions I was gonna ask too. So I actually think it would be based on the conversation we've been having with the public around transportation and the transportation master plan and the ability to use things other than cars and the concurrency planning. Like, I almost feel like you need to have a second slide for transportation or a or a thought bubble that calls it out by mode. Right? So show the let's show the community how much of this is going to cars, walking, bicycle without without the project names.

Because I think then you would see then then we could say you've only got 2.5 in mode in in the modes that are non cars, and we said put 3.4 in in non car modes. Right? Like, does that make sense? I'm just ballparking. But but I think I really think that would help to show it by mode.

And it will help as we go along, and people are asking for, well, how much have we been investing in in pedestrian infrastructure or bicycle infrastructure? And I I'll just take a, like I flash back to Joe Ford hiding fighting for a $100,000 in the CFP for bicycle infrastructure, and now we have dedicated funding. And so Yeah. Let's start showing how, you know, how many miles were so that we can get to the point where we're able to say the miles and the maintenance and everything just like we can for sidewalks or we can for roofs. Yeah. So that's that's one. Was is that your did I have another question on a different topic. So I wanted to You're good. Okay. You're good.

Yeah. I can definitely bring that next meeting.

Okay.

I can show how we've used the different funding sources that you've created. These ones that explicitly are sidewalk are easy to

Right.

Pull up. Phones Road is maybe a little bit tricky, but I can show what dedicated funding has gone to Phones Road, things like that. So yeah.

Okay. So the other I had a question. Is sea level rise a capital facilities project yet? Oh. And what does that look like? I feel like we have a unfunded plan at the moment. And but I but everybody's talking about it, and I keep hearing, like, well, how does this thing connect to sea level rise, or how does the dam connect to sea level rise? And so, like, sometimes just the first step to making something real is putting it in the CFP.

Yeah. That's been a so there are small amounts in a couple departments dedicated to sea level rise in the CFP. There's a discussion in finance where it's like, is those are those expenses really capital if it's kind of preliminary, and we're just studying it, and it can't really be capitalized as an accounting project yet. But we do wanna kind of show it in the CFP because, eventually, it could be a big capital project, and the community wants to see it. So we might, just include it differently in the document. It won't it won't be paid out of the capital funds necessarily, but I think it's worth showing in the CFP. Yeah.

But and when we get to the infrastructure improvements, it will be. Right? And then and if we aren't spending any money on sea level rise capital in the next six years, we have a problem. But we could we can say that for the last twenty five years too.

Right? And maybe we can be real. Create a footnote or something that shows that we're in the design phase or study phase to at least draw attention that Or maybe there's

a play where it's a multi departmental. Like, to me, this is not a this is one project that you can't really assign to any one department. I mean Right. Maybe it's all public works, but but I just think it's important enough that it it should show up in the document as a a project and not be little pieces.

Yeah. And the multi departmental, we could create a stand alone page for it or something like that to build the plan expenses. Cool.

Because I want us want the public to start seeing how much we need. Uh-huh. Right? And that's where they're gonna go to look first.

I'm not sure there's any big projects with a number in the CFP document at this time, and so it's mostly the cost of the studies and things. But

It's my sense there's really big projects.

Okay.

And we don't have any engineering design.

Yeah.

But what can we ballpark? It's more than $100,000,000 or whatever. Right? Okay.

That's a scary number.

It's it's I bet it's five times that.

Yeah. Yeah. The wastewater slide, council member Gilman asked a question on the the septic conversion sewer extensions, and it just brought up for me and the answer may be it's a land use question. But I had a constituent recently ask about so it looks like we occasionally fund projects that are for communities or neighborhoods to do that. Is there ever any funding dedicated for individuals or smaller groups, like a couple of homeowners want to come together and do it? Is that do we ever do that?

That I don't know. Do you?

I mean, typically, the age old saying growth pays for growth. It typically is private property owners that pay for their service needs, utility needs. That is shifting with, obviously, the policy that went to council recently in the capital facilities plan itself, where we added a goal that says the city shall start to promote infrastructure improvements to foster positive redevelopment. So that being said, there's always exceptions to the rule. And yes, for purposes of fostering affordable housing and utilizing CDBG dollars, we do have infrastructure funds that support redevelopment.

So that's a long winded answer of saying yes.

And I think we have a small septic to sewer conversion program, and I know Ben Lott may as well. So Lott does. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll have to get more information on that. I I yeah. I also have to get more information for you on that one.

Yeah. And and that was this they're not the only person, but it's like they're not in an HOA. They're not in part of a larger neighborhood. They just have a little bit of an older home that's on septic that needed some repair, and they thought maybe it's the time to convert. In the end, spoiler alert, they could not find any support for it and said it was cheaper to fix their septic tank. So they stayed on septic, but they really wanted to make that move. And that was why that question came up for me.

But in my role with the county health department, I've got a Friday policy meeting that's to talk about accelerating septic to sewer conversions as a water quality promoting activity and and to try to pull together resources that the three cities and the county and lot each put put towards those efforts. But I know it's very modest, the the commitment we've made. And my experience of the neighborhoods we've intervened in has been, like, to save an extremely affordable mobile home community that was otherwise going to no longer they weren't gonna allow the health department wasn't gonna allow people to live there with the failed septic system. And so we invested to save a number of units of very affordable housing. So I I I don't know that we yet have the resources dedicated to it to help individual homeowners to subsidize that.

But but all all kinds of things are possible. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. Please, Jim.

So I I realized I don't know if council member Green knows this, and I apologize if you do if it's too simple, but the city owns all the step systems inside the city of Olympia. So if if there's a step system, even if it's on private land, the city at some point became the owners of those. And so they're a little bit different than changing someone's septic system just in a nuanced way. It's our actually our property.

So,

Owen, I'm I'm hearing that that we have sort of follow-up interest around the Olympia Fire Department's capital plan, and that that's probably really for the the whole committee that would be great to bring the chief or some of his staff in and and better understand, because I think it's a little bit of a surprise to us that we're ready to start spending the first millions next year, and we we haven't haven't quite oriented ourselves to that that $70,000,000 proposal. And then the solar on city buildings, that understanding a little bit more about how we how we expect the the lifetime of those in investments against the lifetime of the roofs of those two buildings right now. And then the sidewalks having a little bit more storytelling for to help us explain how we are investing in multimodal infrastructure. So

That's a good summary. I think we can get that to you. Do you do you want any more information on the Carpenter Road facility? It's kind of I I don't have any details on it myself. But

I think it would be good for us to see a little bit more of just be reminded what the because we had, I think, like, a 10% planning estimate. So we had a dollar figure that was maybe probably, I think and I'm certain that it's pre COVID, so we need to kinda have a conversation about what that possibly would look like with today's numbers. And then I know we've also been saving for the first phase of that project in the rates already. So, like, how much have we accumulated in the rates that are ready to go to that project? I I don't think I saw that there.

Yeah. We we've got a few million in fund balance shown in 2027 that we're gonna be using.

So that's That must be what we're saving. Saving. Okay. Got it. Which is not anywhere near the and I wanna say it was, like, 30,000,000 or 20,000,000, and then it's gonna go up by a lot when you redial in the numbers.

That's and and Owen pointed out that our study session on this in that early presentation was pre COVID. It was, like, 2019 when we so six years have gone by. And

So maybe just having Gary or Ron as the interim come in and just give us a briefing on where they are on the project today. Because I actually think they might have graded that property too. Like, we sold as that happened, we sold all the sand and gravel to the mine to the quarry behind us. Okay. So that's part of the briefing.

Yeah. Sounds good.

What else would you like to tell us about the capital facilities plan?

That's all I have for you. There the document will come out on August 4, and the departments have big write ups in there on how they envision all their projects, and they have lots of things in there. So that'll provide a lot of detail, and then we can touch back on all these items and go from there.

Great. And and with assistant city manager Stacy Ray here, we can we can work on, which departments should present to who on council. Some of the the these are just the the items that stuck out to us as we get the preliminary briefing to finance. But if some of them are better addressed with a council work session or in land use, You know? We don't have a lot of pride of ownership, but we wanna make sure these items are considered as as we're finalizing the capital facilities plan. Yeah. Thank you. Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Michael, do you have reports this evening?

Oh, thank you. Just as I'm kind of getting my feet under me now, this is my second finance committee meeting, but one of the items that was brought to my attention is, I believe it was the full council, but in particular, also the finance committee wanting us to take a look at some language around the investment policy. And so I'm digging into this. And in my research, the city of Olympia updated the investment policy in April 2024. Our, investment advisers, wanted some extension, if you will, of the or or, I guess, advisement is maybe a better way to put it, that they would like us to extend that weighted average from two years that's currently in the policy to two and a half years.

It gives them just a little bit better advantage for us as a city in our investments. But when that came around, if I'm summarizing this correctly, the finance committee would like us to consider adding some language to the city's investment policy regarding environmental, social, and governance or sometimes referred to as in the investment world, anyway, sometimes referred to as ESG, and that's related to the city's, corporate bond investments. I've had a couple of meetings with our investment advisers. They've provided us, me in particular, with some sample language. And so I guess one of my questions is just to seek some guidance from you, if you'd like us to put that on a future finance committee meeting to start some discussion around if this is the direction if we're heading in the right direction then to take that to full council.

So that's where I'm at with kind of taking this kind of a big topic to really learn about, but make sure that what we're gathering is the direction you want us to head in. And so if it's having our investment advisers here also Right now, just as, I looked up kind of where we are with the corporate investments, we the city currently only has two. It's roughly $2,000,000 in corporates. Our investment advisers feel, you know, very safe in saying we can completely pull away from corporates, but I think we still want that kind of introductory language, if you will, in our policy, if I'm understanding what the direction was, not just from the finance committee, but from all of council. So if you can maybe share a few thoughts since we have a little bit of time right now, and that'll help guide me on maybe what our next steps should be if it's a presentation, that kind of expands us a bit in committee or how you'd like us to proceed or me to proceed in particular.

Thank you.

I initiated the the request, the proposal, but and I'd be glad to check with my two colleagues here to see some because I I I do have an interest in us adopting a a brief statement of the ethical investing or ESG sort of criteria. But do you do you think that's a a reasonable use of time and energy to bring it back?

Yeah. I think bringing back to this committee, I I feel I remember us talking about it here. I I don't think I was part of a larger council conversation. There may have been some in the past, but I think getting a briefing on it here, and considering an update that would go to counsel makes sense to me.

Yeah. I agree. And, gosh, it's only been, like, a year or two since we've allowed corporate paper. Right?

That's correct. Or a little longer than that.

Two or two or more. So Yeah. And I think that the corporate purchases that were made seemed obvious to sitting council members that they if we had written that language before, we might not have made at least one of those purchases. Right? And while we're sitting here watching the world and companies prove who they are and who their values are, there's quite a few purchases we could have made that would made would have made us a whole bunch of money with companies that have been on the right side of the of the social justice conversation, for example, just in the last six months. Like, you know? So and and I don't wanna get into naming companies because that's not what we're supposed to do here. This is about the the meta. Mhmm. And and so I think it's a great idea for finance to to dial it in.

I think the challenge that we'll have is knowing what the loopholes are in those in those words, the first time we write them. Right? And, like, what other what what are we missing or what else needs to be there to get definitive about, you know, that every dollar we spend meets our value. Right?

So my interest the the statement that I proposed is language that's been adopted by a number of local governments. And I I believe there's some power in having some common language for urging additional local governments and state governments to to sign on. So that that to me is my investment in the the the language that I proposed, but I I also I think it's completely reasonable to consider what advice our fund manager might have about either strengthening the language or language that's that would create an obstacle for them doing their work. I

yeah. And I agree. I think that's a bit of what we shared in the conversation that it that it really probably won't be an obstacle, and I think having, you all hear from them and understand that is important that it still keeps, you you know, know, the pillars of our investment, you know, liquidity, safety, and return still at the forefront while being able to honor that kind of introductory statement. And we're not going into unchartered waters. Other cities and counties have this, but, certainly, I understand, you know, partly, I think, as the capital city of our state to kind of show that.

So I'll work on that, and that's some good direction. But that's been you know, when you're the new finance director and kind of wrapping your arms around something as important and guiding as just the, you know, structure of the investment policy and kind of getting your arms around that, it's helped me to kind of dig in and then also to look at this. And they certainly had started some conversation about this and knew about it, so that helps a lot. And I appreciate your advisement there.

That's great. And any other issues that you wanted to bring to us this evening?

Just to give you, the knowledge that you probably already know that I joined, a a great finance team. You know, there's a lot of hard work going on right now with the budget that's largely, you know, work from the departments, but finance as well. A lot of things are going to be happening. I think that our, upcoming finance committee agendas will be pretty full with the budget consideration and other items that we have ongoing. But, I I just wanna reassure you things you already know that this is a great city that has lots of good financial policies, practices, and procedures in place, and it's a a real pleasure to join them and just learn our ways of doing things and, kind of get up to speed, and it's going along well.

I think it was a good, time for me to start just at the point we are in the budget and can be able to join what's happening. August picks it up. You know, a lot's happening behind the scenes. I don't wanna make it seem like it's just starting now. The budget team's doing a lot.

Other departments are submitting their budget requests, so a lot of things are happening. And it you know, I sat in fairly lengthy meetings today just as an example with, finance team that's doing the revenue projections and just it's just so reassuring, and I just can't give enough praise to the team on the extraordinary work they do with budget forecasting. It's not just, you know, well, where do we think this will land? It's data and years of data that we're basing these projections projections on. So it's just great to be a part of that. So thank you.

Thank you for the report. Assistant city manager, Stacy, do you have?

I have nothing to report.

Susan, anything we need to know tonight?

Goodness. I could I could go on, but nothing relevant.

Okay. And

colleagues, any reports this evening?

I just have one afterthought from the CFP. I'll just put it on the table. I don't really need an answer. But you mentioned that fire was planning for the possibility of the of a Southeast annexation. Yeah. And I wonder what other capital needs there are. Surely, there are. And, you know, that sixth year keeps punting if we don't do it the first year. But if if the council is gonna move forward with that negotiation with the county for the annexation to access the million dollars, we need to get on it because there's a sunset to that. And and if we are, then I started thinking, like, a callout kinda like sea level rise for a Southeast annexation.

Like, all the different departments capital needs for that part of town because probably nothing's up to what our standard would be. Right? Whether it's a road or a pump station. I

was just gonna add that, yeah, from a CPED perspective, I realized that that was a budget item that that was allocated allocated in the past, before my time. I do know that that is part of our budget, discussions now, in terms of an annexation study and bringing that forward again, understanding the timeline. And part of that study would estimate, the infrastructure costs associated with that and revenue. So

So we've had we've had two rounds of the study. And but the the question of whether, so we've acknowledged that that there will be some costs from the general fund utilities, the rest of the city if if we were to bring folks up to standards in the annexed area. And so it's almost worth having its own section of the capital facilities plan. Because one question we didn't get to was what would we promise in terms of infrastructure on what timeline? And that The garbage you know is ten years.

Or Right. So, I mean, there were examples of street lighting. Some areas that don't have curbs. You know, it was and and that that was not reflected in the the consultant studies that we we had the we've had two two rounds there that ballpark those numbers as very broad numbers, but it's I think it's on us as a city to create what would the implementation plan look like and and what would the timeline look like. And and the capital facilities plan seems like the likely home for that.

Boy, you got any more? No? That that's it? No. We're all Nothing tonight? Alright. Thank you all for coming in this evening. And at 04:50, we're going to adjoin adjoin. We've already joined, and now we will adjourn the finance subcommittee of the Olympia City Council for July 21. Go.