City Council - public_hearing

It's funny how 30...

Tear it up before we get started.

I'm going to be smacking on film today. Right.

You know I am. Back up now. Thank you.

Okay. What you have in front of you, actually, I need to speak into this microphone, correct? Okay. I was chastised last time about not speaking in the microphone. So what you have in front of you is one of the majority of analysis that we will do every fiscal year to be able to project new revenues into the future. We will do monthly revenue reviews in this same type of vein, and we will produce a revenue report and a revenue email that we send to the mayor. I know that the mayor then forwards it on with any additional information to the council at times. So you might have seen something like this already. But just to be able to walk through it so that you know where we come from when we are trying to project revenues in the general fund and in Elevate. So the front page is really kind of your summary. These are all of our major revenues. It totals up to $176 million. If you look in your budget book, the total overall revenues for the general fund is $234 million. So we're looking at 75% of all general fund revenues with just this picture on the front page.

And that's purely from a time standpoint?

I'm sorry?

That's purely from a timing standpoint.

Oh, as in, well, now we will project all the other revenues too, but we do the deep dive, the monthly analysis, really only on these because it's, A lot of the other revenues are intergovernmental, so they're grant-based, or they are one-time payments like, for example, the bank excise fee, which is over a million dollars, so wouldn't meet our threshold for a major revenue source, but we get that one time a year from the state. There's no need to think about economic impacts hitting that type of revenue stream month to month. That's just kind of silly. So really, we do these revenues on a monthly basis. And then I'm about to show you how we project into the future for budget determination. So I did not print every single one of them, because it's a lot of paper. But if you want to flip to the next page, the next page is the projection for the sales tax budget alone. This is not the elevate portion, although you will see an elevate portion, like a little subset at the bottom. This is not the elevate portion, this is just the general portion. But you will see that we will look at monthly collections and what our revenue division does is every single sales tax payment that we receive, we will accrue it back to its exact month. So if we receive a sales tax payment late, which happens quite frequently, and it is for the month of December, our revenue division will go in and take that one check and split it out between the months that it actually applies to. So the month to month detail that you see on this page on the left hand side is actual activity happening in the economy reported to us via a sales tax return from sales tax collecting businesses in the community. You'll see the increase-decrease, which is on the very right-hand side of that table. And that just kind of tells us what our economy is really looking like on the ground. Obviously, you can apply situations that are happening in the community to these types of numbers. We know what happens in September, October, November around here. The football games and when they occur can have a big play. Who we play. can have a big impact on those. So if we have three games in September versus two games in September, that can skew your months year to year. So you have to take those kind of things into account. But this at least gives us a snapshot to start to work from. Now, of course, in a whole year, you would think that you would have a full football season. October, November in the beginning, September at the end. And then you can combine those into one full football season. But again, sometimes there's two games in September. Sometimes there's three. Sometimes we play Texas and LSU and Tennessee. Sometimes we just play Auburn. There's a lot of just different things that we factor into that. I just, I mean, that is, you know, shade to Auburn. Up a notch.

What do we think we're going to have for revenues? when we close out the fiscal year?

Sure, so you can see that we will project revenue. So if you take this table on the left-hand side of the page and you work your way down, you will see that we estimate the remaining months of 2026. Now within that little blue box, the 2026 estimated remaining months, there could be growth worked in there. Or there could not be. It depends on the individual sales tax or the individual tax depiction. If you have a question about that, I'm more than happy to dive into which ones have growth and which ones don't and why. Now, obviously, within the 2026 sales tax scenario, we had the Morgan Wallen concert, which is extremely unusual. We did a sales tax analysis. We did tax analysis on a lot of things related to the Morgan Wallen concert. Sales tax, lodging tax, liquor tax. And so knowing that we probably won't duplicate that in 2027, we removed that. And so then projected the 2026 without Morgan Wallen to be $48.577 million. And because we generally don't budget growth in the major sales tax-related categories, we are budgeting for a 2027 projection of that same 48,577.

So is it easier to include or exclude Morgan Wallen?

Is it easier to include what?

Include or exclude Morgan Wallen. The purposes of our talk, is it more relevant to include them or exclude them?

I think, I mean, if you're talking about FY27, it's more relevant to exclude them.

To exclude them. Okay, so exclude them last year, we were at 48.5? Yes, sir. They brought in another half million.

Yes, sir.

How did that 48.5 stack up against what we had projected?

Sure, so budgeted amount was 47.6. So if you look in this, this is historical data, and you have 2026 information, the budget at the top, and then the actual projected at the bottom. So we budgeted 47.6. We're actually gonna bring in 49, but that's with Morgan Wallen. So if you take Morgan Wallen out, we're going to get 48.5. And so with a budget of 47.6, even without Morgan Wallen, we would still exceed budget. His concert was just a nice cherry on the top.

And so Mr. Busby, just to add a little bit more context, one, we didn't want to include the Morgan Wallen concert because there's no guarantees there will be a similar type of event that can create similar type of revenue. Two, if you think back to the slide in my PowerPoint presentation that looked at the various areas within our economy, retail, there's nothing in that data from October to May that we've collected versus prior year that gives us any indication that we're going to see any strong sales tax growth coming in fiscal 2018.

And what the mayor just mentioned, the sales tax analysis, like the deep dive of sales tax analysis to know where the growth sectors are versus the declining sectors, I have that report for you also if we want to go through it. And it deep dives into what retail sectors are growing, what food sectors are growing, things like that.

Do we know in ballparks, Rough order of magnitude, we haven't netted that Morgan Wallen number out either, right? Obviously, we've got a cost of doing business there.

Do we know the net of cost of?

I mean, I'm just saying, if we say, okay, that kind of concert carry landed on top and it was how much extra?

Yeah, approximately 800.

But the same rough, crude measures. I mean, we talked about yesterday in admin policy the number of events. Obviously, those have a cost, too, right? Huge cost. Yes, sir. For a working purpose. Sure.

We do know. I do not have that right in front of me at the moment, but we do have that, and I can get that to you.

The event cost... believe is a little over six figures, but it's nothing compared to what an Alabama football game weekend cost you. Morgan Wallen Concert, by far, was a great economic investment for the city of Tuscaloosa.

Okay, so that general layout of the month-by-month growth analysis and considerations of economic factors is really applied the exact same way to all the different revenue streams. So that was sales tax, if you wanna flip Property tax is next in the list. Now obviously property tax is not impacted the same way that sales are impacted. Property tax is a lot more stable. It is usually always in growth mode. And you can see that we project that we will collect $24.5 million in fiscal 26. We budgeted $23 million, and that is a growth rate over the last year of 9.64%.

Do we have any sense of how much of that is pure change in assessments?

No, we have always asked for detailed information on our property tax and other taxes that are collected and administered by the county, and we don't get a lot of detail back on that.

There's been some new releases of that with the group that was working on the schools. They dug in and got a bunch of property tax data. But I mean, I think you're going to see close to a 7%. Depending on what the legislature does this year, it may go more. But I think you're going to see close to a 7% steady with that new bill or whatever law that's got a cap at 7%. They're all just like rent control. They're just locking through that increase.

So because we have seen the growth that we have over the last three years, we are projecting that there will be 4% growth from 2026 also into 2027. And you can kind of see that in the growth factor box that's about midway down in the page. So that 4% growth factor generates $982,000. And so the 982 on top of the 24.5 that we anticipate to collect in 2026 gives us a budget for 2027 of 25.5. Now below that you will see the tax rebates that we have. So whenever we talk about tax revenue, if there is a less out, we will generally talk about it also just to kind of get the full picture of what is usable for the city of Tuscaloosa. So total ad valorem tax rebates that we will pay out, we're projecting at $171,000. So, juxtapose that with the 25.5 million, and that's really kind of your usable property tax revenue amount.

What was the last sentence called? That's with what?

The abatements.

The abatements. And I know y'all have got it charted down. You show each of those falling off on schedule. Anything important we need to know about that?

On the abatement side?

Yeah, on the ‑‑ I know and take into account some of the incentives that we've looked at over the past two years or so. I know your team certainly has charted very precisely what's falling off our having to give back.

Yes, sir. So this upcoming year, we anticipate Hotel Indigo will fall off. Hotel Indigo will fall off and their abatement contract will be fully paid. Embassy Suites fell off last year. We did not have any rebates to Embassy Suites. The next one that we project falling off is, and I don't think that it's actually on, it is not on the property tax abatements, but it is the lodging tax abatement for the one that's down the hill at Greensboro.

Homewood Suites?

Homewood Suites, thank you so much, yes. That one's the next one that we anticipate falling off. Possibly this upcoming year, depending on their lodging tax receipts, but definitely in the next year. Okay.

Larger takeaway, does that make any difference to us, or have we already committed out

No, that definitely matters to us. It's something that when, so if Homewood Suites falls off in fiscal 28, that will be an extra $300,000 within lodging taxes that's kind of like usable now again for us. So yeah, it's definitely something that we take into account. And it is, it's not.

But not fully encroached upon by the new incentives.

Correct, correct. Now, do we use that when we think about expenditure growth possibilities? Sure, but it is not baked in for use. Okay, so.

You want a lodging tax?

Yep, so we'll go to the next one is lodging tax. So we kind of already halfway touched on this one. Same general look, Morgan Wallen obviously impacted this one also. We estimated that the Morgan Wallen impact was 255,000. And so this year, the last two years for lodging tax have been rough. 2024, rough year. 2025, same level of roughness. Our lodging tax revenue has always been a great growth factor for us. We've always had lodging tax, strong impacts in the entire revenue suite. We've used lodging tax growth as a defense for why we should be investing in lodging creating sectors. 2024, 2025 really hit us hard on that. We were not expecting the decrease in lodging taxes. And you can kind of see it in 2024 especially. We budgeted 10.7 million. 10.754, we only collected 10.72. So we lost about $35,000 off of budget in 2024. In 2025, it got a little bit worse, even though you can see that we pulled our budget projection down from 2024. So not only did we lose in 2024, we lost even more in 2025. Now, in 2026, we have seen a full rebound, and honestly, not anticipating it. We had a little bit of insight into September of last year, knowing that some things were stabilizing. Prices within the hotel industry were starting to stabilize again after being a little up and down from the craziness that had happened over the past couple of years. So we budgeted 10.5 million. This year we're projecting to bring in 11.3. I will say from a conservative standpoint, I will never recommend adding growth in a lodging tax line item because it is such a roller coaster. A roller coaster. You don't know what you're going to get. You can see it, actually, in the month-to-month viewpoints. So November skyrocketed. Again, that's our normal big-time activity. I do think that last year we had Oklahoma and LSU in November. So that was two huge games that probably helped a lot with that. But even in December, we still had some growth. year over year, but April, May, we had declines. April and May should still be pretty well producing for us. That is when we have majority graduations. We have move out. We have a lot of things are happening in April and May to turn the city around. And the fact that we still had losses in lodging tax within those months was a little bit concerning. So I'm not recommending any growth rate for lodging tax.

What coordination and collaboration do we do with Visit Tuscaloosa on this particular issue? Sure. They take that money we fund them with, and a lot of that has gone to purchase these programs, apps, and

The data collecting services, yeah.

It'll tell you, you know, on any given month, they know what the room rate is, whether it's up or down, how much, you know, we're at 58% occupancy. Then they're beginning to factor in this game day rental, the not hotels and motels, but all these homes down here, particularly in this district. more and more supply coming in and the prices are obscene.

So Kelsey and I will talk pretty much monthly. If there is no major change in the community picture, we might not talk. But she probably texts me at least once a month to kind of go over what she's seeing on the ground. Because we collect lodging tax a month and a half in arrears, right? So she is seeing more... real-time activity within those data collecting services that she has viewpoints on, she is seeing more real-time data than I will. So she'll report back to me. And the mayor sent me an email last night saying that we had something from Kelsey saying that July growth within lodging tax should be between 6% and 10%. And so I'll keep an eye out for that. We won't collect July lodging tax until at least the middle of this month. So we definitely have a good rapport back and forth about, hey, I want to know if you see this, and if you don't, we need to talk. And there have been a couple of times when she has seen data that does not correlate to the revenues that we have come in. And she will go back and she'll deep dive on why. And so, yes, we do. We have a really good rapport on understanding the lodging tax and the short-term rental side.

With the number of hotel managers and directors they have on their board sitting at that conference table, there is nobody that has more real-time good feel for what is or isn't going on. Again, they've recently... purchased is the software or service that now begins to bundle up with that, the private home rental, which is becoming substantial. And I only key that statement because you said I will never, ever program any growth in the lodging tax. That's why I say that.

Yeah, I'll honestly, and that is from a conservative accountant standpoint. I will never recommend growth in lodging tax. Now, clearly, that is my recommendation and does not necessarily always have to be adhered to. But I am going to always approach it from the much more conservative side. And while I think that we could possibly be entering into a better day on lodging tax now, there's no telling that what happens with our football team could impact what's happening to us in November. And we won't know that.

You clearly missed the budget on saving and retiring. That's your drop in 25 and 26, right?

Yeah, if you... No comment.

I mean that critically. I'm just saying you can identify... No comment. Don't walk into that one.

Okay. I will reiterate, we did bring the budget down in 25. Okay, so our projection within lodging tax is that we will collect about 11.2 million this year. And so we are projecting to budget again, like take out the Morgan Wallen effect. And so we are requesting to budget $11 million within lodging tax for 2027. There are abatements to also take into account on this one. Like I mentioned, Indigo should fall off this year. We should pay that and then be done with it. I would think that Homewood Suites, if they don't fall off this year, they'll fall off next year. We'll still have AC Marriott, and obviously we know that the Jack Hotel is going to be coming online soon. Alamite is still active as well.

I assume when those fall off, you do increase for those.

Well, we don't budget for the decrease of them, if that makes sense.

But I mean like Indigo 167, when that falls off, you'll remove that from the DDoS?

Yes, correct. Yeah. So the next one, and I'm just going through which ones I have pulled. If we want to go into any others, I have them.

This is not all of them. No, what I want to move to pretty quick and then maybe go back and rebuild detail as we move. But I think what's most relevant to of interest to the people up here is gonna be the trend interpretation and projection as it impacts our decisions on the next section of expenses.

So let's do this then. Let's go to that front page, the very, very front page. This is kind of like the overview of that, right? So this really shows you every single one of the major revenue sources that we look at, and we do this type of analysis deep dive on. It'll show you the 2026 budget, what we are projecting to collect in 2026. And let me clarify one quick thing. When we create budget, we have data in through May, we have collection data in through May. Once we complete the budget and the mayor delivers it to the city council, About a week after that, we will get June data. So what you see in front of you is based off of June data, not May data, which is what we created the budget on. So there are going to be some differences between the 2026 projection that you see in front of you versus what we used to create budget. Now, of course, when we do the June analysis, we'll go back through and see if there was anything different between what we're now projecting and what we put in the budget book. And I'll tell you that there are a couple of lines that have increases and a couple of lines that have decreases. But ultimately, it evens out, and we're not recommending any change from the budget book because of June data.

Okay. Now, pause before my feeble brain loses. So we budgeted 169, okay?

In 2026.

Right. Yes. In the rearview mirror. Yes. Budgeted 169, brought in 175. Why?

So we collected 175, so that's, those are just, those are.

What did we not see?

Well, I guess all of the ones I have kind of mentioned, so like lodging tax went up significantly that we didn't foresee coming. That sales tax, while it had grown, I think 0.19% one year and 0.89% the next year, this year is growing at about 2.9%. So we didn't budget that kind of growth.

I would say we didn't, and I apologize for interrupting, we didn't see Morgan Wallen.

Okay, that was 250?

No, it was about 800.

Okay, but stay with me for a second. But trend-wise, so as we're now looking at projecting 27, what did we take away as a learning lesson on the budgeting side that's incorporated into this. Is it just this much growth instead of this much?

I can tell you that the philosophy is you look at the economic data that we showed you, it shows us down in nearly every single significant retail sector. And with sales tax being 42% of our budget, business licenses being 12%, so knowing 54% of our total general fund portfolio is tied to the economic vibrancy of what goes on in Tuscaloosa was to be as conservative as possible, not to take any flyers. Let's just baseline it with minimum revenue growth projections based off things that we think are constants. That was our modus operandi. Frankly, it's always been how we've approached it, but even more so this year. I'm really worried, Mr. Busby, because most of the time when you have higher inflation, you have a bump in your sales taxes.

It's not reflective of economic activity.

That's right.

In fact, if anything, it's forewarning of a problem.

We didn't have that. That gives me concern, and I think that's why you're seeing us be as conservative with this budget as you've been hitting on during the course of the past few minutes. I just believe we're in a situation that maybe it comes out in November. There becomes some certainty maybe how people think the next two years will ride. I think, though, at this point, we don't know. And to Ms. Standridge's credit, if Alabama is 8-0, November looks great. If Alabama is 4-4, November probably looks different. And so, you know, for us, it's just trying to be as conservative as possible. That's why you saw us take out the Morgan Wallen impact, because I don't think there's, you know, we don't have any certainty there may be that type of $800,000 bump that we saw in our general fund revenues.

So, Mr. Sanders, and I hope nobody's watching this, they don't laugh at me, but as we're recognizing, wow, we're going to end up with $6 million more than we thought, right? Is that being fed into our 2026 general fund expenditures via... ongoing revisions, or is that sitting in a piggy bank somewhere at the end of the road in September?

So, the latter. I'm not being funny.

I mean, how does that work?

Sure, sure, sure. I'll, blanket statement, it is the latter portion of what you're saying. It's not necessarily in a piggy bank, so to speak, but we have not done budget revisions that have eaten away or or increased revenue budgets just to be able to increase an expenditure budget. We have not done that throughout this year. So that's almost $7 million of revenue budget surplus within revenues should not be offset by budget increase in expenditures throughout the years.

Not necessarily. It might have been whittled away at a little bit, but essentially we're still gonna have that to deal with.

Correct. Yeah, so within the surplus calculation that we will see for capital proposal, that revenue increase between budget 26 and collections of 26 should be able to be used.

One more time, that last sentence. Essentially between.

Between, so we budgeted $7 million lower than we'll actually collect, right? And we haven't really increased expenditures. So that $7 million, we should be able to see that moving into the surplus for the general fund that then creates the capital proposal later.

So in February, When we kind of tallied up everything?

Probably not February, probably middle of March.

Middle of March, end of March, we'll have a good. That surplus oversimplified, that six is somewhere in there, right?

Yes, sir. Correct.

You see it in my capital budget presentation in April. Say that again? You see it in my capital budget presentation in April because the heart of the capital budget presentation is the surplus transfer that goes into the general fund RFA. And it's coming up April, not April. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And that's why we've been very, you know, we're talking about protecting vacant positions in the general fund budgets. Similar with surpluses, the reason why we don't go back and budget more is we do want to create a healthy surplus so that then we can use those dollars to fund capital projects in the April budget.

So, Carly, for 27, the projection is what? $1. This equivalent number. So we were at 169. We brought in 175. Now we're at 171. 176.7. 176. So essentially no to. Minimal growth. Little growth on that number. We reached back and we caught up with what we didn't catch coming. We haven't, Sid, and we think that'll happen.

No, sir. The only one that has growth that's of any significance is that property tax one that I went over with you. There are a couple of other small ones that have some growth in them. I think that the SSUT... So the simplified seller's use tax, that is one. Has growth? It has growth factored in, yes, sir. Because it has grown over 13% for the last few years. And so we factored in, did I not print that one? I think that we factored in like 10% growth.

So this is doing nothing other than acknowledging the growth of sales And whatever price affirming is going on is taking place in that sense?

Yes, correct.

So it would be coming out of the one set, not dollar for dollar, but it's at the expense. of the retail sales.

Of our local growth. Yes, and that's something that we've really tried to hammer home is that our local collected sales tax growth last year was .86%. The year before that was .19%. While SSUT is growing at 13, 14% every year. Knowing that our local economy and activity was growing exponentially. We could feel it on the street, but you would not see it in collections, but yet you were seeing it towards the state side of the SSUT collections. And so, you know, It's not a one-to-one. You cannot go dollar for dollar. But yes, I do believe that our sales tax growth is being hindered by the state's SSUT tax increase.

Okay. So thank you both for operating at a level up here. I'm going to stay there for just a second. Now walk me through what takes place here when you say, okay, so what for the budget recommendation? I'm talking about big takeaways, not, you know, X department needs another tractor or garbage truck. I'm talking about trend-wise.

Sure.

What do we take from it?

So what we take from this is that the $7 million that we grew in 2026, we are still expecting to maintain in 2027. And we're using that growth to fund the pay plan and a few equipment purchases. And that's really it.

Well, and as we talked about in the budget presentation on the 18th, That $7 million still is not enough to fund the things that you saw in the budget itself, behavioral intervention unit, investments in technology, and other vehicle purchases. So where do we make that up? Well, we made it up through a 5% across the board cuts. within our departments and overall FTE reduction within the general fund of 16. So the takeaway is that we are fiscally strong enough to continue to meet a growing city. At the same time, our revenues are anemic, and we have to generate the revenues to meet the needs of a growing city internally. That's the picture that that's what I take away from it with this budget. It's just where we are. Certainly, if you take the SSUT, and I never miss a good opportunity to get on my soapbox about SSUT, the growth, that 13 percent that Ms. Standridge mentioned, is certainly that line item's welcome news, but make no mistake about it, that line item is about $12 million short of the amount of sales taxes that were likely generated in this community that went elsewhere. And you think about where you're sitting today at that dais, an additional $12 million of sales taxes that were earned here in your city that you do not have the ability to invest back into. That is a challenge we face, but as you know through discussions on negotiations, we hope to have some sort of, you know, in the next 12 to 24 months, hopefully a resolution on that that will make things easier for the city council.

Okay, one more broad question before. So if I'm doing my household, and I'm going to have the same amount of income as I had last year, and if I've been to the grocery store recently, I mean, the pricing pressure, upward pricing, is palpable.

Mm-hmm.

What are we factoring in for the city? What was it? We just used the CPI step raises.

For 2.2%.

Huh?

CPI this last year for the COLA is 2.2%.

Okay, which I'm surprised. It's not what it feels like.

And that cuts off in January. We will take January's publication from the DOC, and we use that for our projections next fiscal year.

But how do we now take this factor and blend it into what we're looking at here?

Sure. Well, I think you see it, number one, in terms of fuel costs and maintenance costs and things of that nature. Those are built into the department itself. I think it gets back to what you saw in the budget recommendation, a 5% across the board cut with city departments, a reduction within general fund of 16 FTEs. Some of those FTEs are going to be used, though, to make one-time purchases. I think you're seeing what any household would have to do, but unlike a household, our responsibilities as a growing city, we don't have the luxury to say we can't address these issues. For example, behavioral intervention or public safety or infrastructure. Those are tasks that we have to address at the city of of Tuscaloosa, and this budget reflects us taking on those challenges. The good news is this, Mr. Busby. We have done, thanks to the leadership of this city council and our accounting and finance team, we do a good job of projecting our budgets out over a 10-year period. So the ability to take on these challenges while continuing things such as the statement center and other projects, we have the built-in capacity to do. Now, I do say that if we do not solve especially the SSUT equation by 2030, 31, 32, we start entering into a new dynamic. We can weather these storms because we are built to weather them. But at some point when you turn the decade, if we don't solve that equation, there becomes real challenges. Because think about that $12 million number. We were talking about lodging tax earlier. If you doubled our lodging tax right today, if you doubled the tax, it wouldn't make up the delta of what we're losing with SSUT. That is how much that impacts the city of Tuscaloosa. That's why solving that is mission one. That's why we're working with the Alabama legislature in doing it. If it's not for the city of Tuscaloosa, who keeps the economy going in Tuscaloosa County? Who?

I'm sorry.

If it's not for the city of Tuscaloosa, who's driving the economy of Tuscaloosa and Tuscaloosa County and West Alabama? So we have to solve that issue. If not, then not only Tuscaloosa is impacted, it's going to be Tuscaloosa County and West Alabama. So for me, when I think about this budget, This budget defines the reality of we have to meet the needs of a growing city. At the same time, we will do it responsibly. And we're going to continue to work with the Alabama legislature to solve the biggest dark cloud on our horizon, which is SSUT. That's, to me, where this budget sits. The challenge we have, though, and again, I'll step down from my soapbox, is we're a growing city. If we were not a growing city and our revenues went down, you could say, well, we're going to take down expenditures dramatically to match the fact that now we have less responsibilities. But every day we have more responsibilities. And so we had that challenge of more responsibilities, stagnant revenue growth. That is the challenge, and I'm really proud of accounting and finance and their team in helping us design a budget that meets that dynamic.

So I'm keeping one eye on the clock because we have, I asked specifically to put revenues up front because I wanted it to color the lenses that we see everything else that counts. and we're going to get to that. I want to first give a chance for any of these type of questions to any of the other either committee members or noncommittee members, and then what I'd like to do is move towards about a 10-minute break when we wrap up revenues here and come back and we'll start off with the savings center operation.

Let me, if I could add one more thing, Mr. Buzz, because I want to make sure that You understand. I know the social media is difficult, but at least we get a chance in here to talk through it, is that the city has the fiscal capacity to do the things we've committed to do. That's not our issue. And we have the capacity to continue to do what we want to do in terms of delivering the services over the next five years. But my concern is if we do not begin to solve SSUT, what do the 30s look like? Because if you do not solve SSUT, there will be no new initiatives coming out of Elevate. You'll be able to accomplish everything you want to do today out of Elevate. Airport, saving center, that's baked in, planned, ready, rock and roll. But what do the 30s look like? Are there going to be any other new initiatives that will be able to take place? Are you going to be able then to continue to invest in your public safety sectors and things like that? Because as we see public safety and the demands on that, look at the cost within fire and police. You're talking about cost increases? Fire trucks, police vehicles, technology suites, the cost of recruiting and retaining a police officer versus the rest of the competition that's out there. So for me, this budget, is one that helps us continue to make that mark, knowing that the 30s is where our eyes really need to be in solving that simplified seller's use tax question. Or if that's not going to get solved, then we have to look at either, A, cuts across the board. And this is in the 30s, by the way, so for those at home. Or looking at new revenue sources. But I think we should solve SSUT because people pay enough taxes. I mean, people are paying enough taxes. They should just be able to have their taxes that they pay to be invested in the communities they live in. And I will take a step down from my soapbox.

Mayor, I just want to say that last comment, that's the best way to explain our struggles with SSUT. We pay a lot of taxes, and we deserve to have those taxes reinvested back into our community.

I just want to say that. Thank you. I've practiced it enough. I'm getting good at it. That was the best.

I'm happy for you to reiterate that whenever you want to.

That was the best.

Okay, before we take a 10-minute break. Okay, let's take a 10-minute break. Come back. Crank up on Sabin Center operations. And we have a meeting. We got... So welcome to our guest. I'm telling the mayor just where we started at. This... It's a little bit unusual. We've put this substantial time aside for savings center operations when it's really not a part of much of what we're dealing with right now. But it's big and it's moving towards the windshield and I think the clearer view we get of it as we near it, the better we'll all be. So really excited to hear what we think we're Coming up.

Thank you, Mr. Busby and the City Council, for giving us an opportunity to talk about Sabin Center today. Yesterday, as I was thinking about the presentation, and I know over the last few weeks, we knew that this was going to be a very important meeting. I went back to take a look at Elevate Tuscaloosa. On January 29, 2019, I presented the Elevate Tuscaloosa proposal in this chamber to the Tuscaloosa City Council. So this is the documents that the City Council received that day. And what I did is I pulled an excerpt from the page talking about experience venue. So this is what was presented to the City Council and was adopted by the City Council on March 5th, later that year. And so I don't have my glasses on me, so I won't attempt to try to read the small print that is there, but as part of the Elevate Tuscaloosa recommendation, thank you, Vicki, that's why you're unbelievable, we recommended and the City Council adopted an investment of $60 million into an experienced venue. Now, certainly when we started this process, the main line of thinking was a conference center, because that's something that's been talked about and discussed, frankly, for probably decades in Tuscaloosa. And we certainly explored that possibility, and you may have questions later on what the findings ultimately were and what conclusions it led us to implement. But when we presented this to the city council, the summary that we provided was a digital economy is reshaping how cities across the nation remain vibrant. That first line struck me. We had no idea in 2019 when we were putting our recommendation together for the city council that this idea of Sabin Center would happen. But sometimes in life, you have to have great preparation, but you also have to have a little bit of luck. You know, Arnold Palmer, I think, said, the harder I work, the luckier I get. I'd like to think that the harder we worked at the city, the luckier we got. And we got lucky for a few reasons. One is that Brendan Moore saw an opportunity for the city of Tuscaloosa in 2019, the summer of 2019, for us to purchase the Tuscaloosa new site. That was a fortuitous opportunity for us because the alternative would have been student apartments on that hill. So we were able to purchase that property. Then later on in 2019, we got a little luckier, is that Coach and Ms. Saban wanted to do something significant for Tuscaloosa. And so we met in September of 2019 at River, and we started talking about what could we do? And certainly there was an educational focus that came about it. Then we had this little thing called COVID that took place. But even during COVID, the ideas began to spring forward. And by the time we came out of COVID 2021, the Sabin Center had been born. And so for me, the Sabin Center, whenever my career is done at the city, I believe it will rank up there as one of the proudest things that I've been a part of. You hear me talk often that victory knows a thousand fathers. Well, this is a thousand fathers crusade. It begins with what Coach and Ms. Terry have done. But you think about the investment of the city, the investment of the state, the investment of hundreds of donors that have made this truly possible. And what we're doing, by the way, is more than just an experience venue. I have no doubt, and I know Ms. Buck will share with you, that the data is going to demonstrate, and I think reality ultimately will validate, that we're gonna have hundreds of thousands of people a year come downtown, spend money, stay in hotels, and be part of the Sabin Center experience. It's gonna have an unbelievable, resounding economic impact in our central city and throughout Tuscaloosa. But don't get lost that this is more than just an economic venture. This is an educational venture. You'll hear us talk about from AI to the arts. What it's going to do for our young people and exposing them into what the new world is going to look like, a technology driven world, is going to be life changing. And the other thing besides the economy and education is the workforce development side of this. So the city of Tuscaloosa, we were talking earlier, not for the city who in Tuscaloosa, This is one of those projects, if not for the city, who? Because the Sabin Center is going to not only strengthen our economy, it's going to improve our children's education, and it's also going to prepare a workforce that we need for tomorrow. So to end my remarks where I started, when we proposed this at this podium on January 29, 2019, We said it would be a $60 million project with an implementation in 2025. I'm gonna give myself some political grace and just say implementation meant groundbreaking, okay? I'm gonna have a little revisionist history there. We broke ground in 25. And the cost of this project, the capital cost of this project for the city's been around $66 million. I think we came really, really close back in 2019. A lot of it was the amazing work of the team members I work with every day. And the other part is that, you know, grace has been good to us. And so we're really excited today, and I wanted to personally introduce this because we're excited to share with you what we believe is the financial plan to accomplish everything we envisioned on January 29th. 2019. You will find it responsible, and you will find it accountable, and you will find it as one that's going to help shape our community for years to come. We want to begin, though, with showing a quick video, an update on construction, and then at that, once the video is done, Ms. Buck will come up and introduce our guests and new team members, and then it'll be time for us to get into the specifics and mechanics of the budget.

Thank you.

Look, this is a championship effort. You're someone who had something to do with creating a project that's going to create a tremendous amount of hope, you know, for the future for a lot of young people. It changes not only their life, but maybe their legacy and their family's life in the future. And you all are all responsible for that. But I made the statement after we won our first national championship in 2009. This is not the end. This is the beginning. And this is the beginning of what's going to create so many opportunities for so many people in the future. and each one of you are making a significant contribution to that, and I can't thank you enough for that.

You know, we have a shortage of STEM teachers in our state, and it's not just about the museum part, the hands-on learning part. It's not just about the children's theater part. It's going to be about professional development for our teachers who will come here and extend their professional development as a teacher, take that education back to the classroom. I'm most excited about that as an old teacher myself.

So good morning. That is our latest video and it actually shows what has happened over a course of a year which is wild to think about that it has been a year since our groundbreaking. I want to take a minute and introduce a few people. Of course, you guys know that we wouldn't be here without our key partners. So today we have Liz Obradovich, which is here. She represents CHOM as the president of CHOM and Ignite, I guess the new Ignite. We also have April Warner here. She is the board treasurer for Ignite. And we have Brian Rose. Brian is our education director for the state of Alabama STEM Hub. We also have Jamie Burke, who is our new director of development.

So if you guys will kind of wave hello.

So they're here, of course, in support of Sabin Center. What you have in front of you is a little bit of an overview of kind of where we are today and where we have kind of been over this past year. When you look at the second page, you can see this is an overview. Sabins Center is, again, a first of its kind learning discovery campus, which wouldn't be possible without the Sabins. But it is a public-private partnership. So it is with the Sabins, the city, the state of Alabama, and of course all of our generous partners. On this sheet you can see the hours of operation that we are looking to operate under once we open. And then again, just so that you know, it is a STEM campus with the three key tenants. So we have the Tuscaloosa Children's Theater, we have IGNITE, which is formally our CHOM in Tuscaloosa, and we have the State of Alabama STEM Hub, which is that workforce pathways, the professional development, and the STEM curriculum. If you turn the page and see, of course, our partners, you see, of course, Coach and Ms. Terry. And then we have the logos of all of the different industries and educational partners that have contributed to this project. These industries that have contributed not only have given fiscally, but they have given their time, they have given their resources, they've given their research towards all of our exhibits. and the curriculum that our teachers are building. If you turn the page again, you will see our capital stack. So this really, what this is meant to show you guys is that our investment, our city's investment, is nearly a one-to-one match with our community investment. That's pretty incredible for the use of our dollars. So you can see here that the state of Alabama, again, has given 25 million towards that capital. We have been able to raise almost $35 million from our gracious donors and we have been able to secure 1.5 in grants, 1.5 million in grants. So that total external investment is $61,324,000. So again, it's an incredible match to what the city has put into this amazing project. If you turn the page again and take a look at our operational stack, you can see that that support continues. So the state of Alabama has contributed 2.5 million annually towards the project. Our tenant operational contributions are 585,000 per year. And our community donors that we think that we will be able to raise over the next

few years we're targeting about a 1.3 million contribution of course yes first of all thank you yes you're welcome that's my level of and it's extremely clear and concise and i expect as we get into this one it will be as well Let me make sure I understand what we're looking at. Sure. So this is a projected annualized Is that what this is?

Yes, so if you're looking at the operational stack.

This is not year one, this is what we think it's going to look like year by year going forward?

This is, that's right, correct, yes.

Okay, Ms. Standridge has bounced up out of her chair. Look at her. So we've touched something important here.

Well, I mean, just because we're moving into the operational expenses, I promised Audrey that I would be here beside her because we've done this not just in tandem but with you know every single one of our like operating partners too for it so i i don't i want to be able to answer any questions from like okay i tell you what i'm going to let it keep rolling okay but know that a this is good okay this is my level of thinking here

And we're going to get into this on the operations.

Yes, sir. And one thing I wanted to point out on the operational stack is that this is from like a city perspective. The yellow number that is tenant operational contributions, that is from a city contributed perspective. That does not take into account all of their own operational costs that they will be putting in for the operation of their own areas of the Sabin Center. That is just a city, they're gonna give that back to us to help us meet our operational costs. So the total picture of the operational cost of the Sabin Center as a campus is actually gonna be more than this. Because their side, they're just holding on their own books.

They have their own performance. They have their own budgets. They have their own staff, their own boards.

Okay, we're, this is, again, from a military background, organizational relationships and command relationships and financial relationships, that's what I'm not, I don't feel like I fully grasp. So I don't want to disrupt your rhythm here. Sure. Just know that those relationships Get me smart on that.

Okay.

As you go.

You want me to keep going?

I want you to, yeah, you had it laid out, present it as you laid it out, and we'll circle back and we'll ask what we need to ask.

Okay. So again, so looking at that operational stack, yes, that is our picture of what we think we're looking at for the city. Your question about understanding kind of the organization, again, the city, the Sabin Center is that campus. We are the umbrella organization, and those three, we are the umbrella. We the city? We the city, yes.

City of Tuskegee.

and the Sabin Center is the umbrella organization, and then you have the three tenants that fall underneath that. And each one of those tenants have their own boards, they have their own budgets, they have their own staffing, but as a tenant, they give a tenant operational contribution back to the city to help us cover the operations of running this building. And that includes everything, and you'll hear from everyone in a little bit, but that includes our security, our IT, our accounting, our marketing, our fundraising, collective fundraising together. So that tenant operational contribution is what is helping fund that for the city.

Okay, good. We're going to get into that. Sabin Center Foundation was one of the entities that was key during the formation stages of this, right? Correct. And that was a separate foundation of which some city officials were board members, but it was not a city thing. Is that continuing on?

It will continue on, yes.

We will still rely on- And so is that in addition to the three tenants?

Yes, in a way, it's really, yes, it is. We have a board that is the Sabin Center Foundation Board, but that board does not have, right now, it does have the staff of Jamie Burke, but we will be moving Jamie's position under the city. So it will not actually have staff, but it will still govern our fundraising and it will help us in our revenues that we get from the state and helping to cover the STEM hub portion of the project.

The foundation, the creation of the foundation itself gave us the vehicle and a better vehicle to drive in terms of fundraising and garnering community support. It's easier to fundraise as the Sabin Center Foundation than it is as the city of Tuscaloosa.

Good, okay. And another little small caveat within this is Nick's kids will also have some offices on, yeah, a little bit of a footprint on site as well, which is also a really wonderful thing for the project as a whole. Okay, so now if you will, let's turn to our pro forma. And so what you're seeing before you in this next page, I'll just kind of go through line by line. If you guys have questions or you want me to expand on anything, let me know. But what you're seeing at the top is our income. So in year 27, what we have coming up, we don't have income coming into the project. So right here, our occupancy, we're not in the building, the building is not complete. Now we will be moving into the building in March of 28 or 27, we will be moving in. So we'll be in the building for half of this fiscal year. So what you're seeing here is that at the city fund transfers you'll see the river district fund transfer and the general fund which is helping support what we're building right now to go into the building as far as our operations go. In 28 you see that that is a year where we are in the building but we're actually not open but half of the year. So those incomes are projected at half of what we believe we will actually do on a full year. So what you're seeing there is that tenant occupancy at a reduced level. Our rentals and our concessions, we're very conservative. We've done the worst case scenarios. We think we will do much higher than this once we're open, but we've taken a very conservative approach when looking at all of this. um our fundraising we also believe will be at half of that because we will continue to capital fundraise before and then once we get open we'll have that half year so we believe that you know it's best to put in half of what our projections are for fundraising same with grants and sponsorships and then again you see that city fund transfer from the river district and the general fund In 2029, you will actually see that full complete year of our first year of being open. And again, this was done in a very conservative fashion. We have worked with our world-renowned consultants to build this. We've also worked with our department heads and team to try to build this and put this together. So yes, it is a startup. Yes, it is a lot of unknowns that we have not, you know, We're not open, we haven't started, but we have a lot of really wonderful educated guesses and we brought the smartest people to the room to help us put this together. So as you go on down, you'll get into the expenditures. And what you'll see first is, of course, the personnel. So what is it to run this building? So within that personnel cost, you're going to see that that is the Sabin Center staff, that umbrella staff, which is my team.

Audrey, let me, before we go there, okay? And I don't want to go way down the rabbit hole, but in looking at... The 27, 28, why is there a, so if I look at your operational staff, 3.34 is what the city's paying on an annual basis, right? In this pro forma, what's the extra half million separate in the general fund?

From the general fund? So that has been our current budget for the Sabin Center that has been paying for the Sabin Center operations to this point. So that is what is being held in the general fund that has been covering our operations up to this point.

Our being city employees.

Yes, yes.

That's been the department, even though they're not a department.

The tiny little two-people department is where that sits.

So looking at the pro forma and looking at it versus the operational stack, where's the state money on the operational pro forma?

So the state money is that 2.5?

Yeah, but on the spreadsheet.

So you will see part of that coming back to the city under the tenant occupancy. But that money is meant for, again, we have three separate... And that state of Alabama STEM hub is running their own entity. They have their own staff. So they have a team of 12 that are operating out of those dollars, if that makes sense.

As I understand it, When you and I talked about it, it was clarified to me that originally I was functioning under, okay, the state is putting $25 million up front, $2.5 million a year for 10 years. That's another $25 million. But when we talk, and it gets dialed in a bit, it's like, well, the state's contributing up to $2.5 million to cover the cost of operating the state stem line, which frankly makes sense. but how does that shake you out in here?

So, okay, the 2.5 million from the state goes directly from the state coffers into the Sabin Center Foundation.

To the Sabin Center Foundation.

Into the Sabin Center Foundation. The Sabin Center Foundation then administers that 2.5 million to reimburse the Tuscaloosa City Schools for the teacher salaries. It will then also pay, so after the teacher salaries, it will then pay for any supplies and equipment to refurbish and reinvest in the STEM Hub laboratories. Those laboratories are gonna need supplies over and over and over again, so it'll pay for that. It will also pay for a portion of that tenant occupancy reimbursement revenue to the city. So the state STEM Hub 2.5 million will include in the SC Foundation books, it'll include the teacher salaries, It'll include the support of the STEM hub labs within the Sabin Center campus, and then it will pay the city back its portion of the tenant occupancy, which is about half a million dollars.

Okay, I'm not being obtuse, but so is the state giving the Sabin Center Foundation two and a half million dollars every year? Or is the state saying, okay, Sabin Center Foundation, give us your receipts for what was expended on our STEM hub, and we'll send you a check.

So they're sending us $2.5 million. Us or the Sabin Center? Sorry, I say us just because I am a board member for the Sabin Center Foundation. But it's sending the Sabin Center Foundation $2.5 million, and then we report back how we spend it. We have to report back to the Department of Education every single year about how we're spending it.

But we can't spend it?

Yes.

Okay. Can I ask a question? Yes, sir. Has that been guaranteed or are we just anticipating it?

The appropriation from the state of Alabama, like every appropriation from the state of Alabama, is a year-to-year endeavor. So there certainly could be conceivably a situation where the state wouldn't fund the $2.5 million. That would be unfortunate because they've invested $25 million to create a state STEM hub, and then for them to take away the operations that would impact thousands of teachers, tens of thousands of students annually, but certainly that could be a decision that they would make. That's not going to impact our bottom line. That just means that the Sabin Center wouldn't have the state STEM hub.

And Mr. Henry's here, so... I mean, Mr. Crowe is here. I was like, don't put me on the hook for that.

Mr. Crowe, I'm sorry. I can't envision. But I'm sure he heard her. I can't envision a situation where the state of Alabama builds a state STEM hub and then a year or two years after it opens decides not to fund their own state STEM hub anymore and it would close. The Sabin Center would go on. What we do every day with Ignite and TCT would go on. we would just lose that tenant. But the real disservice and impact would be to the city school system and others in the education community. But it would not impact our operation of how we move forward.

Okay. Shifting back to you.

Real quick on the revenue side. I assume there's a charge ticket price. Yes. Does that go to one of the tenants?

That goes to Ignite, yes.

Do they get all the ticket sales?

Yes. So Ignite will be administering all the ticket sales. And they're just paying us a rent? Well, they pay us that tenant occupancy piece of it.

Is that based on revenue or is that flat fee?

It's based on some of our expenses for the building itself. It is based on certain maintenance costs that we're anticipating. It's based on certain operational costs that we're anticipating, both building and labor pieces for building maintenance. It is not in any way based on revenue. It's based on what we actually plan to expend and then apportioned out per tenant.

And the tenants are Ignite, Theater, Savings Center Foundation.

STEM Hub, from the Savings Center Foundation as they're administering that money, yes.

And then there's some administrative upstairs piece.

And that's what the city will cover.

Is that our general fund portion?

Yes, sir. Correct.

Okay. So just between France, 3.3-ish specific to the Sabin Center, and then another half to cover employees of the city who are devoted and work out.

In 2020? Yes, sir. Correct.

Just under four? Yes.

Okay.

You want me to keep going?

Yeah, do it. Okay. You are at personnel. And again, I'm trying not to interrupt, but I'll forget.

No, it's good. And we'll go through it. We'll keep going through it.

Honestly, this is what we want. We have done this between ourselves for years. Very long. At least two years. So please, I would rather talk about it.

So, okay, so again, under that personnel, so the Sabin Center team, that is my team, that is within that personnel. We have accounting and finance, which is a part of that. We have some STRATCOM, a part of that as well. And we have municipal security and IT as some of those personnels that you're going to see. And they're going to all come up and talk to you, each one, and tell you about what they are recommending from their team that the Sabin Center will need.

Why are we doing that as opposed to how we do water and sewer in terms of, Carlyn, why are we not just billing them? Your portion of our overhead cost is blank based on blank.

Sure, because the Sabin Center is basically looked at as a general fund activity or as a governmental activity. It is not its own proprietary fund. It will be consolidated within our governmental expenditures and activity. So we're not going to charge them an indirect cost. If we wanted to create them as a fully separate proprietary style unit, we probably would charge them, since we do have an exact staff allocation, we probably would charge them that. But because they are going to be reconsolidated into all of the governmental activities, we're basically assigning general fund staff to them.

But it also allows the departments to have that expertise and that backing behind the staff that they put at Sabin Center. So it's a really wonderful partnership, if that makes sense.

And if you want to see the detail, so there is a staffing model detail that's on the next page after the pro forma, and that kind of gives you a better breakdown of the actual position. And each of the department heads are going to come up.

Just give us a good flyby. A million bucks year one, two million bucks year two, right?

Say that one more time.

Values. Values. Personnel salaries?

Yes.

We're at a million bucks first year, two million bucks second year?

Yes, sir. Correct. And then 2.3 in full staff operational mode.

Okay. And so what are we getting for that?

So what we get for that is on that next page. And each of the department heads are going to come up after I get through this and go through what their recommendations are.

What their recommendations are for their personnel. At the Sabin Center. And their staffing at the Sabin Center. Correct. Yes.

Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say the personnel recommendations that you will see and review in a second, that has been about a, well, it's really been probably a year and a half process. But in the last 90 days, we've worked extremely hard to get to this point of having a recommendation to you based off what we believe the Sabin Center will be when the doors open sometime in 2028. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Mr. Henry, I didn't mean to speak over you.

Decent tracking and we have this problem in a couple of different areas, but I just We're saying this is general fund we got general fund obligations We got elevate we got river district. We got saving center foundation ignite state Welcome to our world. I know, but the more we, I mean, this is the most we've seen, the best we've seen, and I'm very thankful. I know we're going to get into it. At some point, I'd just love to see it be the saving center, and then we have different funding that wants to come in where it's coming in, but What I don't want to do is every year we've got to have a two-hour hearing to understand what the Sabin Center really is and means, financially. And I don't want to get lost either today. I think we all 100% believe in the mission, and we're all excited about it. But figuring out the financials is complex. I just, the more we can simplify this, And I understand the money comes from a lot of different areas, but we can solve that in an income line item. But to track what is, I mean, just from the revenues of Elevate that runs through the River District Fund, then back up, then reimburse. The more we can get to a consolidated P&L, the easier this will make. the next 20 years.

We 100% agree.

And I think this is what led into the whole, do we fold elevate in conversation? It's just, and I'm not saying we're going there, but it's what muddies so much of this to try to make it traffic.

The savings center, and I don't think you have any arguments from us. I think as we get the doors open and we begin to put this into operation, we will be able to better simplify the progress, the process. The biggest challenge we've had, and Audrey and I have discussed this, we have so many partners. This has been so successful. We keep layering on partners, which is a very positive thing. But every new partner creates its own set of parameters. But now we're, in fact, we came to a point a year and a half ago where we had to say no more. We just had to box ourselves in and say, here's where we're going to be. We will get there. The formula we're laying out today will help guide us for the next three to four years. But I can tell you, Ms. Buck, myself, I'm sure Ms. Standridge, we want to be where you want to be as well on this.

I just want to be able to go. All right. Savings Center brings in X, spends Y, city supplements.

And the amount of money that Dr. Burke has pledged to raise, I didn't mean to put her.

Yeah.

No, but in all seriousness, I do think there's some exciting opportunities in the future. And we want to be where you want to be, Mr. Henry.

Y'all good? For now?

We'll get there.

We'll get there.

I think we want to take you through personnel if you're ready.

Or do you want me to go through the operations?

About the operational cost. Okay, so you said that the tenants will pay a tenant fee, and that's based off of the expenses from the savings center, and it'll be split equally, right? Is that what you said?

By proportion, yes.

Okay.

Yes.

So I have and we did not print it. I didn't know what exactly what detail value we were going to get down into but the way that we calculated that tenant occupancy rate is based on certain expenditures that the city is planning to make for the building itself and then charging it back in proportion like Audrey's saying to the people that are also

So do we already have like a projected set cost that we're charging?

We've worked with, so our consultants that we have had on the project from, oh my gosh, almost day one, have been working with our tenants to build their pro formas as well. So not only have we been working on this, our tenants have been working on theirs. And as a part of that, they have been providing understanding and we have been understanding what is the right rate for each one of those tenants to apply towards our operational costs as a whole.

So, for example, some of the expenses that we are looking to pay for, the city will pay for, and then allocate out are going to be things like electrical and plumbing maintenance, the elevator, keep up of the elevator, a piece of the utilities, so like the power for HVAC and things like that, the insurance for the building, the total overall property insurance for the building, some of the janitorial supplies. And when it comes to labor, we're gonna charge them a piece for grounds labor, for the HVAC facility maintenance techs for the janitorial costs. Because all the janitors are going to be on city payroll, so we're going to ask the tenants to reimburse us a piece of the janitorial costs. Security is another one that we're factoring into that. And so we total all those costs together, and then we're applying them out to the different tenants. you know, based on really like what piece they kind of hold on the campus, and then really what their pro formas can hold as well.

You touched on a couple things, looking at the pro forma. Utilities, insurance, all that.

Yes.

All the stuff that seems to make it over into insurance over here, utilities and facilities and all that, is that going to be housed in this budget?

It is. Yes. Yes.

Because, I mean, I guess I don't, I mean, your power utilities out there are going to be.

Crazy.

Half a million bucks.

Yes. And that number is in that outside services line. The utilities are in that line.

insurance in there it is yes so under outside services we have the electrical plumbing maintenance we have the energy utilities we have the insurance policies we have the professional services within that we have our software acquisitions which is like the pos system the crm the ticketing and then we also have some of our creative updates that we will need for Our lovely globe out front, so that actually has a cost towards it. So that is all encompassed in that outside service line item. And you'll see in that FY27, we're at 480, but of course, as we get towards opening and using the building, that number goes up.

Mm-hm.

Would y'all like to hear from our department heads on our staffing?

We would.

Okay, all right. So if we're moving on from the pro forma, we can go to the next page.

Is there anything else on the pro forma? We can come back. Okay.

And honestly, we expected many questions. Yeah. So I mean, take it, digest it, if there's ever anything else.

Okay, so moving into the staffing. So again, this is to run and operate this building. So at the beginning, at the top of this, this is my umbrella group. So you've got my position, the executive director. We have the director of development, which will be, again, moving into a city position. We have our director of facility operations, which is Lindsey. I think most of you have met Lindsey. We have our business service manager, which will help Lindsey with rentals and contracts and really be that office manager. And then we have coming in FY28, our first special events coordinator, which will assist that facility operations piece. And then we'll have a second one that we'll add if needed in FY30. And then we have a development intern that we want to help with Jamie's operations as the director of development. And we have some special events crew. We've got a number in there for special events as a part-time crew to help when we're renting out the space. the many spaces of the building. So that is our section, if you have any questions. If not, I'm gonna turn it over to Carly to talk about her. Yes.

Looking at this versus proposed budget. So you got 700, well I guess you got 491 in salary.

Salaries, yes.

Let's see, we've got 572 in the budget, but when you get into the other stuff we're going to talk about, you're getting into 956, but we've got 572. How does this tie back to the general fund budget?

Sorry. That's probably from a, let's see, So, within the Sabin Center Department, she's going to have, so that 572 is going to be, that include, okay, so one of the, one of the issues is that in the Sabin Center Department on pay, or the Sabin Center Division of A&E, that's on page 64 of the budget, right, has a salary line item of 572.

That's going to be the Savings Center admin piece plus the strategic communications piece.

Because we put the communications manager as a new FTE in this division, we will need to move that to strategic communications. That was just kind of like a quick FTE add-in, and that was our error of putting it in here and not putting it in STRATCOMS. It needs to go to STRATCOMS. So if you take... Where is that on this slide?

The STRATCOM piece? Oh, communications management. Okay. Are we going to move that into the Stratcoms department?

Yes. Yes. So all of these, as you'll see, so we have this section at the top, which is the admin section. And then below that, those are in each of their departments. So the accountant that Carly will talk about is in her department, but we'll focus on Sabin Center. The comms manager will be in Sarah's department, but we'll focus on Sabin Center, but have the access to her department when needed. Our municipal security is done the same way and our IT. And you'll hear from each of our directors, our executive directors, on how and why they've recommended these.

And that is a- Not debating the merit of whether they're needed or not, but we get to the blurring of the budget when now it's PD's got 150 and STRATCOM's got 100 and putting it back together becomes-

Well, sure.

Trouble some in the future.

Well, I think you'll hear from the team, you know, that this actually is kind of the way we built it from the beginning. And I think it's really the way you've always wanted to build your Elevate project.

That's what the pro forma is really for, is it pulls all of the different departments into one.

So it's one model you could say that this mirrors is empathy. I mean, the amphitheater has a very small corpus of staff, but it's supported by IT, PD, Fire and Rescue, STRATCOMs, et cetera. So at the City of Tuscaloosa, the Ed Love Water Treatment Plant, yes, it has a corpus of water and sewer employees, but it's supported by IT, STRATCOMs, et cetera. So that's how we operate as an entity. Because we've had the debate, okay, do we make all these a savings center department, savings center employees? You can't do that with TPD. They have their own certifications. We think it's better to keep it within the departments itself because ultimately, Audrey Buck, as much as I respect her, she doesn't have a CPA. Or as much as I respect Audrey, she doesn't have the, she hasn't grown up in the IT world. They need to be supervised by the experts within their departments that are working with Audrey. So that's why we feel this is the best management arrangement.

It gives us that expertise from the departments to help in all of this, and the backing of that.

I don't get the operational side. The financial side, though, it gets, I mean, no offense, the amphitheater is even harder for me to understand financially. And so trying to get, or at least keep and maintain a consolidated budget, but I mean, it's... We're a complicated organization.

I mean, we're 356 million operating, 1.5 billion in assets. We're not a QuickBooks organization. And this is a very complex project that has many multiple parts involved. And we just believe this is the best way to approach it. I don't see how we could move these personnel underneath and out of their departments. The other thing we like about it, Mr. Henry, is we know, like any of us, if Jason has two IT people who have COVID, it's easier for us from within IT to slide people over from outside and move them in. then if they were just under the Sabin Center, that would be more difficult on a day-to-day operation for all of us. We think operationally as well, it creates better efficiencies for us.

I think you're going to really hear that, especially from Carly and Sarah about what Mayor is talking about, how essential that is, that we would end up needing so much more for Sabin Center if we were acting alone versus having the backing of each of the departments.

I just hope we can find a way to keep it consolidated, at least P&L, if it's not to where we can understand it. Like the amphitheater, we've got to get a report that feeds into this report. To get it consolidated takes some effort.

Sure, it does take effort, but we have a really good process already set in place about consolidating the amphitheater and creating that report. which is why there is a request for the Savings Center accountant to be in with us because we will need that additional assistance in ensuring that charges are made and then put in their appropriate place for us to be able to consolidate. I guess I kind of echo what the mayor said is that we have... five CPAs within our office. So we have five CPAs within our office. We have another four accountants, senior accountants, accounting managers. So yes, I totally agree that it takes a lot. And it's what our staff has really built to be able to do. And when we are audited by external CPA firms, This is going to sound extremely braggadocious, but our CPA firms have always said that our books are some of the cleanest that they've seen and that some of the data that we give them in support of our numbers is the easiest that they've been able to test and to deep dive on and that our answers are probably some of the most comprehensive. That comes from hiring previous auditors. I'm not saying that... But I'm just... I don't disagree with you that it's complicated, but I will fight you on the fact that we can't maintain it easily and appropriately.

I'm not challenging anything you just said. I just want to, at the end of the day, know what the savings center costs, know what the amphitheater fully loaded, and be able to answer that question, because that's the question I get. Sure. And I'm not a CPA, but I'm reasonably competent with financials, and I cannot tell you what the amphitheater fully loaded costs, and I just want to make sure that we can answer that for the savings center. Because that's, I think, a lot of the frustration we've had is understanding what that number is. It's not that we're upset. about what the number is. The question is just, we don't know what the number is.

It's a good problem to have, and that's a good brag, but Mr. Henry, it's okay to brag. We like that kind of bragging. Mr. Henry, I think we all have that fuzziness when it comes to understanding the details. You just said it out loud, but we were all thinking it.

And we'll walk you through it as many times as possible, for sure. I mean, anything that you guys need from us or any questions. But I do think hearing from the rest of the departments about their recommendations will also help with that.

Let's get them up.

Okay, let's start. And I think, Carly, you're up. Can I ask one question?

Yes. This is very minor in operation, but down here with your grounds facilities and all this, Is one of these people going to be tasked with cutting the grass, or is Tim going to have his lawn mower?

Well, number one, Tim might want to come up and actually answer that himself, because he is the one that's going to be answering for this. But you will see on this, that section is kind of grayed out. We're still working on exactly the structure for the grounds and facility maintenance piece of it. But I do want, Tim, would you please like to come up and answer that? That is actually yours to answer.

I didn't mean to.

I'm going to get you in the car.

So I'm not planning to cut the grass myself, but if necessary, I suppose we could do that.

We love the willingness.

Like Carly mentioned, this section is very grayed out, and I do want to highlight that FY27 has no impact here, or this has no impact on FY27. What we are trying to build and develop here is exactly how that building and maintenance and grounds maintenance structure is going to look. And this is a stab at the staff level that we are expecting to need at the savings center. And kind of going to the questions that you have about, Mr. Henry, about how this gets structured and where these positions rest within departments. If you look, there's two facilities maintenance technicians listed here. We don't expect to be able to find two individuals that can handle every single mechanical, electrical, plumbing, building maintenance type of issue. Those two people, while they would be wonderful to have, we don't expect to find them. We're going to rely on other people that exist within departments now or outside vendors to do that level of maintenance in conjunction with the staffing that we're going to need to bring on.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. Question on that real quick. Sure. My understanding is Tim's been moved to help implement all of this and oversee all that. Where do we pick him up in this?

So because that was done after budget creation, that was not actually transferred. He's still going to be in CFG's, what you see in here, he is still in CFG's department. as would all these other charges be. Those all would still be in the facilities maintenance and CFG section, but because he was moved over after the budget was created, he wasn't slotted in to discussion of the Sabin Center specifically.

We did not want to put an additional FTE of a facilities director, so I asked, directed Tim to... to take a lead right now with the Sabin Center and make this a priority function of his. And I'm glad he's really, and he did volunteer to do this for us. So it really helps us to assign him to do this and not pick up an FTE as well.

Thank you.

And I do actually think he really wanted to do it. At least that's what he told me anyway. And I do want to go back to the amphitheater, because if there's some information, Mr. Henry, you're not getting, I want to make sure we provide that to you. We certainly, with the amphitheater, have competitors. And so opening up, there are certain things we do not want our competitors to see as we compete. But if there's some piece of information that you're not getting, I apologize, and I will get that to you tomorrow. And that goes for any of you with the amphitheater and its operations. We will set you up a full briefing so that Ms. Standridge and Kay and our entire team can give you the overview. And if that has not happened, I take full responsibility for that.

Like this is pulling essentially multiple pieces from multiple parts of the budget into a consolidated P&L. If we can get something with that. I mean, you've got the operating fund. You know where I'm going.

Yes, I know.

I can get a one page on the amphitheater.

I know where you're going with it.

I think it gets back to the issue, too. And it's not only with the amphitheater, Sabin Center, but also ESD. You know, at some point does the city, and it may want to, make those their own enterprise fund. Because as Ms. Standridge says, these things are incorporated under the governmental accounting standard, just have a different way of auditing and accounting. And that's a meritorious discussion to be had. I certainly would not want today to begin that with the Savings Center. But I think down the road, and for the amphitheater as well, I think those are really the discussions that should be had.

So really the only position that accounting and finance is assigning to the Sabin Center is one accountant position. Our accountants are graded at a grade 22. This was actually an FTE that was assigned in the 2026 budget. So this person is already hired and on staff. You can actually see him behind me. This is Blake Wallace. Blake, you want to stand up? So Blake will be the one that is sitting in A&F but really being the main liaison with the operational side of the Sabin Center, being able to help them understand their budgets, understand their transactions, making sure that everything is booked appropriately. He will also be working with the director of development on a lot of the tracking for all of the donor revenues and receipts and then payments back and forth. He has been fully briefed on the extremely complicated flow chart of where all the financing is coming from. He is working in conjunction with an accounting manager and the director of accounting and financial reporting. He is under that division within our department. And then, of course, as the mayor mentioned, that every department that is impacting on the Sabin Center knows that this is a huge priority. So it also gets the focus of both Savannah and I as we go through it all. So Blake is not going to be on an island by himself, but we will all be the ones pitching in to make sure that the financial structure of it is set up appropriately with the appropriate amount of oversight and the correct accounting procedures and internal controls put in place. I'll turn it over to Sarah. Sarah, you want to come up and save me from myself?

I'm going to make a comment on the time management here. I want to secure this at 1130. So for bladder planning, about 1045, we'll take a short break. The things that we have to get in are between now and then. If our guests, our tenant guests, have comments that they want, I want to give them at least a few minutes to say hello. So that's what we're doing timeline. Come on up, Sarah.

We should be able to do that.

Yeah.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So what I have recommended for the Sabin Center as part of the strategic communications budget is a communications manager position that is graded at a 26 and requires at least three years of experience to be able to qualify for that job. We thought that it was important that we pick up someone for the Sabin Center who has experience doing this job and is not coming in sort of fresh off of a degree, but has actual experience doing this job. As several of my colleagues have touched on, Part of the reason why we think it's so important to have these positions be within our existing teams, it's possible to find someone who can do a little bit of graphic design, a little bit of public relations, they're familiar with the camera, they can take a couple pictures, but embedded in my team, we have subject matter experts in each of those areas. And so one communications manager to oversee all of the communications and marketing needs that the Sabin Center has, working with my team so that when the need is photography, we have a photographer for that. When the need is an ad campaign, we have a communication specialist dedicated to marketing for that. So that is kind of the reason that we decided to propose that direction.

Okay. So there's the Sabin Center. Yes, sir. Big box, got a bunch of stuff in it. Can people come to it? Yes. Yes. Inside the box, there's three different operating entities. Are they creating their own marketing material and strategic communications, or is that being done at the big box level?

So the answer is kind of yes to both of those things. So when we created the Sabin Center brand, we had brand kits created for the Children's Theater and Ignite as well. So they have a sub-brand that matches their needs but it sits nicely under the Sabin Center brand so that you know you are talking about Sabin Center campus when you see anything branded from any of those tenants. So the role that our department has served in the past and will continue to serve with the addition of this communications manager in a bigger capacity, obviously, because the Sabin Center is becoming a reality, is just an oversight over that. So, obviously, Ignite will have a person that is responsible for communicating on behalf of Ignite, but this communications manager position will be able to provide guidance and insight into how does this fit as part of the strategy and the brand of the Sabin Center as a whole.

Okay. Still not entirely sure. I understand it, but it may still be evolving as we all get to know each other's .

What all's in the plan? You've got $275,000 in marketing. Yes, sir. For 27?

Yes, sir.

So the beginning of that's 18 months before opening, I guess, roughly. Yes. What's in that budget line item?

So the most important, what we feel is the most important thing for the first year of the Sabin Center to be as effective as it possibly can be is to ensure that in the 18 months leading up to the Sabin Center doors opening, people all across the state know what the Sabin Center is, know when it's going to be open, are excited, are knowledgeable about what services they can access at the Sabin Center so that when those doors open, we're hitting make or break, right? So when those doors open, we wanna be fully ready to be fully operational. So that money that's allocated to marketing in the 18 months leading up to that is really that statewide advertising and messaging, trying to get the word out about what the Sabin Center is.

And what role is the state STEM hub taking Is that a state, is that one of the responsibilities we talked about, you know, at the end of the year, we're handing the state a tab and go, here's what we charged you for the services that the STEM Hub, that we provided to it.

Yes.

Is marketing and creating that statewide brand, is that

Yes. So, again, that goes back to that tenant occupancy. So, all of the staffing that is added in all of this is being allocated back to the different tenants. And that's that tenant occupancy that they are giving back to the city. So, as a part of that.

So, that's in the occupancy tab?

Yes, yes, that we talked about in the beginning on the pro forma. So again, we will market as a campus. We will market, we will fundraise as a campus so that it is a unified effort. And that the branding is very clear that, again, like Sarah said, you will know it is a Sabin Center organization. Our website will all be consolidated. Again, our billboards, our marketing will all be consolidated under Sarah's team. and her team's guidance.

And yes, I think part of the answer to your question too, Mr. Busby, is part of the responsibility of the marketing and communications for the Sabin Center as a whole includes making sure that all of our teachers across the state know what's available to them at this STEM hub. Because we don't want there to be any teachers or any school districts that don't know what's available to them at the STEM hub, because that's part of the huge benefit of the Sabin Center.

And, Audrey, you touched on fundraising. I'm assuming that the fundraising peculiarities of an IGNITE or a TCT are going to have their own specific nuances that we're not fundraising directly.

For them, yes, we are. Actually, we are fundraising as a campus.

So are we being compensated for that city salary?

Yes, we are. So that is, again, that's all part of that tenant occupancy payback.

And it's absolutely in our best interest. If you look at the River District budget or the pro forma that was handed out, We're counting on $1.3 million a year in fundraising on that operational side. Right.

And that's already pre-allocated to our tenants. Yes.

And so the more we feel like a consolidated fundraising campaign gave us the best opportunity to fundraise. And that number is based off other similar entities within the Tuscaloosa markets. We certainly will aim to do better, but we felt doing that as a unified group. It's cleaner.

The donors appreciate it. They can earmark what they would like things to go to if that's important to them, but it is a much cleaner and better organized way of handling this.

And you can actually see that on the operational pro forma.

You will see the full breadth of the $1.3 million of anticipated fundraising and donations in fiscal 29. But then at the very bottom of the page, you will see the tenant grant facts. That is when we fundraise at the campus. Knowing that a piece of that is going to have to go back to the tenants for their fundraising.

So we raise 1.3. Then we're going to give 416 to Ignite and TCT under some formula that exists.

And we also know that we will most likely be in some type of a capital campaign, probably ongoing, because there will be needs that TCT may have in five years that we need to maybe redo the stage, or we need new curtains, or maybe the exhibits, there's a whole gallery that needs to be refreshed. So there will be that continuous fundraising that will also go to the capital side. So having Jamie lead that effort for the whole campus is really the most effective way to do that.

Y'all have any more questions for me?

I do not. Who's next?

Director Blankley.

As far as the saving center for the police department, it's pretty easy. It's going to fall under municipal security, just like city hall, municipal court, and the amphitheater. They're going to be operating six days a week, very long hours with TCT going into the nighttime hours. For staffing for that, we're going to need a total of seven, a mixture. We would like to have five security guards and two officers. That is going to heavily depend on TPD staffing. In 2028, so it'll be a mixture of those depending on what the staffing levels are at the police department, whether we will have those officers or we will have security guards.

Okay, I think that's an important point.

And Mr. Busby, part of our calculus is simply we will have tens of thousands of children within this facility in addition to tens and thousands of adults. And there's just a higher responsibility with so many young children that are going to be in this facility that we felt like security had to be at the highest level.

I get that. And I just want to, the big picture, are we, seven, you said is our staffing for that center?

Yes, sir, center.

And is that, is that cops or security guards?

And that's going to be at the level of where the PD is. The ideal staff would be five security guards and two officers. But again, it depends on TPD staff and if we can do that or not. We will be operating. There's two entry points. So you're going to have security desk with metal detectors at both locations. So those two desks will have to be staff all the time.

Okay. So there's an ideal mix. Yes, sir. And then we're going to fine-tune that as we go, as manning becomes manifest. Yes, sir.

We will keep reevaluating that.

And who do they report to?

It'll be municipal security, so Lieutenant Akeridge.

They're going to report to? Yes, sir, municipal security here.

Yes, sir, so everybody will be together.

Okay. Any questions on that?

My concern is the same concern you have with staffing levels on the officer side.

Yeah.

Not debating. I mean, we need the security.

Right. And that's why with these numbers listed, I didn't want to say, okay, we're going to have seven police officers because I don't think that's feasible. So as we get closer, those numbers will kind of shift. But the ideal would be five security guards and then two officers. That way we'd have an officer there at all times. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to call for a five-minute break. Stretch your legs.

You said 15. No, I didn't.

Oh, okay. If I did, I lied. I heard it.

Think about five. Stretch your legs.

If you need to hit the restroom, go ahead. okay then let's let's we're going to grab that we've got about 30 minutes so okay i tell you want to kick it you up first i'm both you made the mistake of standing up there you are up yes sir um

So as I mentioned yesterday in admin, the amount of technology in this building from having a theater, the audio-visual classroom components, you have all of the exhibits. I believe 42 of the 50 exhibits are technology-based. And then also management of things like the POS system, the ticketing system that the entire building will use, the access control and security and things like that. There are many things to keep up with and maintain. So in addition, for all of the tenants that Ms. Buck mentioned, we will provide the networking and internet for each of these agencies, even though some of them will also have their own IT staff for their desktops. So we're not doing desktop support for them, but we're providing the base infrastructure for the building. So our... My recommendation for staffing is an IT director to coordinate with the tenants in all of their technology needs in addition to taking care of all the items that I just mentioned. We also added an exhibit manager, which will be over all of the technology for the exhibit specifically.

Where do we get an exhibit manager?

Sir?

Is that something we do enough of that we know anything about? Or is there... You know how to flick these buttons? You know how to flick these buttons?

The goal is to find someone that is somewhere either in the IT, audiovisual, or theatrical space that has enough... knowledge of their specific area and then can learn the additional area.

Okay, so go ahead with fleshing out your recommendation for the full staff.

Yes, sir. So just for your The exhibits that are technology-based have everything from microphones, speakers, projectors, computers, touch screens, buttons, that sort of area. So we have experience in many of those areas individually, just not currently in the holistic way that this will be. There is a network analyst that basically think of that as the hardware side of the building, access control, cameras, taking care of all the tenants, networking needs, and then a systems analyst to take care of the museum management system, POS, ticketing, as well as the avatar system that will follow students through all of the various exhibits. That has a tremendous backend software component, including some AI integration, some other things like that. So that person will manage that. Those are the four positions that will be hired in this fiscal year, the manager first, the director first, excuse me, and then the exhibit manager in December and the other analyst positions in January. That is to allow them to be present for the installation and configuration of all of these items as they are coming into the building prior to its substantial completion.

Who picks up the tab for the exhibits? I mean, we already picked, I mean, we, the larger we, it was like a $10 million tab for, it's a high ticket item, right?

It's part of our capital. So our capital that we have raised.

So going forward in year... three, four, you know, as exhibits start becoming stale or where is that coming from?

So, again, as a part of Ignite's pro forma, they do put money back towards their exhibit repairs and supplies that are needed. But we will, as I mentioned earlier, we will most likely be in some type of a capital campaign, you know, as long as this thing is open, because we will have to refresh and fundraise for some of that.

Okay.

So these four positions are in your budget for 27? Yes, sir. I assume it'll take you throughout 27 to hire, probably.

that it's a more of a goal to be hired by the end of 27 than the operation our our our goal would be to hire the director by by the end of the year uh and the the exhibit technology manager as well uh we would like the director to have a hand in the hiring of that so we're trying to stagger that in such a way the system and network more in the january time frame is the goal and much like Mr. Sullivan mentioned for CFG, This does not completely represent the effort related to this. The rest of the department from the security and onboarding and other infrastructure-related things will be involved and also, as the mayor mentioned, be able to backfill. You look at this and you say, oh, that's just one person, but that person is really being backed up by a whole team that will be available if that person is out as well as the other parts of my staff for that but there should be some element of savings because you probably won't have them yes sir and they're they're budgeted as such i believe they're they're staggered somewhat yes yes there's a there's a full year in december and then the other ones are in january february the analysts have a lower We've been talking about this for a couple years, so you'll forgive me.

You actually have it in here.

It doesn't specifically say. It says four years. But that's not a whole year. I think it's January.

I think it is January.

Yes, ma'am.

You have the benefit of it being so complicated, it's hard for us to... But no, I mean, I... Hats off to you. I couldn't imagine managing some system that follows children around a museum.

It's a lot, but I'm confident.

I just hope it all gets installed correctly and you have something easy to work with.

Yes, sir. Me as well.

I'm looking forward to racing a dinosaur.

I'm looking forward to watching that. Can't wait, Mr. Buzzard.

All right. A huge, huge amount on your plate here.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tim?

Yes, sir. And to, you know, elaborate on what I talked about earlier, obviously we are still in the process of fine-tuning what our exact approach is going to be for a building maintenance standpoint. What you see in front of you is one model that we're looking at. That may shift over the coming months as we start to fine-tune what that approach actually looks like, but we do feel like this is going to be representative of cost. And as mentioned earlier, there is no impact for fiscal year 27. We expect to have whatever our approach is be able to move forward with that at the beginning of next fiscal year. And so these positions that you see, however those actually come about to be and what those are, whether they are full-time employees or portions of that, or we utilize some outside services to handle some of these items that the building will most certainly need, we hope to have a better presentation for you

this hearing next year but still this is this is the cost that we expect to have for that going forward okay and how this is all housed there not it it doesn't increase his and eric's budget and it's just allocated over

This will increase his and Eric's budget, but they are assigned. Yeah, they'll be assigned to the Sabin Center, but they will sit in CFG. And like Tim mentioned, still kind of determining what the exact layout of staffing is going to be. Okay. I will say possibly could change depending on what we feel is needed, if there are any outside contracts instead of hiring. And whenever that determination is made, this could possibly change.

And kind of going back to the example I had earlier.

We get that we're still adjusting things. We do. But this big, more holistic approach picture that we're getting today that y'all have been working on. This is allowing us to breathe a little more easily. I get things are going to be adjusted.

And so from what you see up here on this piece of paper, the Sabin Center admin portion is what will sit in the Sabin Center general fund budget. What is the accounting and finance portion will sit in our budget. What is the municipal security will sit in PD's budget. What's in the IT portion will sit in IT's budget. And then the facility piece will sit in the CFG budget. So yeah, so those are all going to be broken down into their respective areas.

Any other questions or comments on CFG? Richard, you had a question on

something it's not cfg one yeah i don't know if it's cfg maybe a little bit but looking at this fy 27 that my question was the outside services and maintenance contracts that may or may not be cfg related

I did, and that was what I was talking about earlier. Sorry, let me get my sheet with my notes on it. So included in our outside services is that electrical and plumbing maintenance Our energy and utilities, which is that large cost that you were referring to earlier. Our insurance policies, which are within that for the building. Professional services, that is our legal and our JMF contracts that we have. that has the software, and then it has, again, that creative updates for the globe. So that's in the outside services right now. What will happen, as Tim was talking about, is that we have this, in that gray area, that is one model that we think we could utilize. If we don't utilize that model, we'll take those same dollars and potentially break that up with maintenance contracts or different types of contracts. So that will be within that piece of our budget. You're not seeing it broken out in this right now. It possibly will get moved into this, but right now it's falling under that personnel side. because that's the model we've built out for this presentation. Again, the reason it's in gray is because over this next year, Tim is going to explore what is our best option for maintenance? What is our best option for custodial? What is our best option for the grounds? Is that a contract with an outside service or is that hiring within? So that piece falls there, if that makes sense.

Yeah, if you could, I mean, 700 and some odd thousand between the two, and we're not open yet. I'd be interested to see what that breakdown on those two would be like.

Yeah, definitely.

Have we, in either this piece or the fundraising, have we engaged any additional lobbying expertise?

For the state?

For anybody. Is there any other lobbyists on the payroll related to this?

We do not necessarily have a lobbyist on the payroll.

We've actually had a lobbyist in Montgomery reach out to all for pro bono services, Hal Bloom. Hal is a very respected lobbyist. He's actually one of his key clients with the Alabama League of Municipalities. And so we're taking Hal up on his offer to donate those services for us to help us, especially with the annual state appropriation that we touched on earlier. Steve Raby, also our lobbyist.

Steve's on retainer normally. Yes, sir.

We've had Richard.

Is Richard still back and forth between Montgomery?

Yes, he's in Montgomery today, and he better be, because this is going to be part of his job.

And then Hal Bloom is pro bono.

Hal Bloom is pro bono. I'm sure Hal is a huge University of Alabama supporter, fan. His children went here. He sees this as an opportunity in his career to give back, and we will take him up on his offer.

And we have, of course, Norman Crowe, who is a wonderful advocate for us.

You wasted that one. He's gone.

Did he slip out? Somebody tell him I said that, okay?

But you are right. He very much sees himself as carrying a lot of the water down that way.

And we're so grateful.

Okay. Anything else on CFP here, Rich?

So that covers our facility side of the house. Carly, do you wanna talk through? She's gonna talk through the River District Funds and how that lays out.

So the last page really in your packet is the River District Fund and River District Fund, as we've talked about before, is really the main funding arm for the Sabin Center ongoing operations. Within River District, you will see a couple of things related to Sabin Center. Within them, there's going to be the annual fundraising give-back projected at $750,000 a year.

Where are you now, Colleen?

I'm sorry, just on this page. I'll just start at the top.

Third one. Yeah, just start at the top.

So the annual fundraising give-back, which was on the operational pro forma at the bottom... and obviously is dependent on fundraising activities and outcomes. But so that is in there. And then if you come on down into the expenditure side, there is a Sabin Center piece under upgrade repairs and maintenance. That is going to be a lot of the building, the taking care of the building piece of the expenses that is going to be embedded within the different categories of.

That's the 2.5 million, 2.05 million?

No, sir, that's, so in 27 is 228,500. Hold on.

So the 750,000.

Yes.

I got where it is on the operational pro forma, but, so we're going to raise a million three. Right. We're going to give 416 to the partners. for giving 750 back to the River District Fund?

That's the way it's structured currently.

To repay for?

The Savings Center operations that it's going to send over.

Because if you look down under the expenditure table, it's going back to fund the expenditure table side of the maintenance side in the operational subsidy.

So we've got it in the saving center, we're gonna send it to the River District Fund, and the River District Fund's gonna send it back to the saving center?

Well, if you'll see it within the way that the time flows, the first year that we're starting to pay out is 2027. The first year that we're putting the 750,000 into River District is 2028, to kind of pay for what we sent out the last time, to kind of reimburse and help pay for and keep the River District Fund solid so that it can continue into the future. We are reinvesting that in there.

And to your point, it actually accomplishes what I think you want. This being a general fund operation, we could just bury those dollars into a general fund cost-reimbursed line item, and that'd be it. But what we want to do for the council, for the sake of transparency, is to identify it within the River District Fund. That way, you're able to track it so fiscal year 29, which you would be then looking back at fiscal 28, if that line item only says $683,000, you'd be able to say, well, Mayor, why did y'all fall short, what's that, $67,000? So it's giving the council, giving me, frankly, because I want to see it as mayor, and then giving the council the ability to track PRO FORMA, OUR FUNDING MODEL FOR THE SAVING CENTER SO IT DOESN'T GET LOST IN THAT GENERAL FUND, OVERALL GENERAL FUND WITH THE HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF REVENUE LINE ITEMS. AND MS. DANGERS, CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, BUT THAT'S OUR CAPITAL.

SAVING CENTER GOT MONEY FROM THE RIVER DISTRICT FUND. SO WE'RE GOING TO SEND IN THE FUTURE, WE'RE GOING TO SEND 750 BACK TO THE RIVER DISTRICT FUND. to repay that expense, but yet we still get 3 million from the River District. We're sending 750 one way and then getting 3 million back the other way.

So as far as the fundraising, remember that fundraising happens and is received by the foundation, not by the city. So that 1.3 million... not necessarily going to be received in the general fund sent to the river district fund to be sent back in expenditures that 750 will sit or the 1.3 million will be received by the foundation and reinvested into the river district fund to make sure that it is whole enough to continue operations into the future now The River District Fund is also going to be sending to the General Fund the expenditure side of things, yes. But the General Fund shouldn't be sending anything back.

I think it's also important, again, to note, when we created Elevate, 15% of Elevate proceeds go into the Elevate Operation and Maintenance Fund. That was created so that any Elevate project would not impact general fund operations. Savings Center falls under that. So if you look within the revenue table that you see above, you will see that there's a line item that comes from that 15% set aside of operation and maintenance. So that is part of the overall framework to help us cover the 3.8, 3.9 million costs that would be in fiscal 28. So in addition to that, our fundraising that's going to be out there. That 750 that you see above that, that's also helping to cover the cost of the savings center. We're not moving money from general fund into river district fund. This is by no means any sort of sleight of hand. This is the Elevate Operation and Maintenance Fund being supported by our fundraising efforts, covering the cost of the savings center itself.

And I got the names of the funds backwards. I'm just looking at what I like of a.

Right, so this is.

So we got the foundation sending 750 to the river district fund.

Yes.

Is where that's coming from. And then the river district funds sending the $3 million or so over.

Right.

So we got money coming in. That's what you're going over. We got money coming in from the foundation. We got money coming in from Elevate to the River District Fund. Then we go from River District Fund back in, say back into the saving center.

To the general fund to pay for saving center staffing.

Because we don't have a saving center fund.

We have discussed creating a Sabin Center operational fund the same way that we do for the amphitheater operations that will then be consolidated within the general fund at the end of the year. But just to be able to keep it all separate, we discussed doing that. However, we don't own the Sabin Center Foundation. So that won't be incorporated into our books except for in the component unit fund. fiduciary fund type that it currently is now. But so the Sabin Center Foundation is not part of the general fund, if that makes sense.

And will its budget slash operations be basically boiled down? I mean, we're limiting the expenses in the foundation now. If fundraising is coming over to

Sure. So the Sabins originally fronted some investment into the foundation to help with startup costs and pre-opening fundraising, capital campaign type of expenditures. The city has also directed some agency funding amount that you see actually in the Sabin Center operational subsidy line item in 25 and 26, that 442. Those were sent over also to help with the foundation early expenses and startup expenses.

That's an agency funding?

It was an agency funding contract, yes, sir.

I'm trying to get the map. figure out where we're going and how it gets there.

What else on River District Fund?

I'm sorry?

What else on River District Fund?

What else is in River District Fund? The proposal that we are making to update City Code to move the half of a percent from the Tourism Capital Fund into the River District Fund. You will see that in the, it's kind of like a little, a taupe colored line. So basically you can see from 2026, the lodging tax revenue coming into this fund was 1.7 million and we are increasing the projection to 2.3. That is the regular 2% set aside of lodging tax plus that half of a percent extra goes into the future.

I'm sorry, I can't find it.

It's the fifth line down, the lodging tax revenue. It was 2%, and it's going to go to 2.5%.

Right?

Yes, correct.

And the impetus behind that was to really initially for the first few years, it's going to be a revenue source to cover about 60% to 65% of the payback to the general fund if the council authorizes us to move forward with the River District Parking. Because we do see that as a tourism capital investment anyway. So moving it into this fund would allow us to help cover the anticipated cost of $400,000 a year and pay back to the general fund for the parking of the river district, well, for the covering the cost of the river district park. And you'll see that highlighted down, one, two, three, it's three, four rows from the bottom.

How do we break that out in the future?

Because we will have to pay for it up front. We will pay for it up front through the general fund. We'll pay for it up front through cash on hand. I know that's probably not the right technical term, but from resources on hand. You can send me a memo on that later. You're good, you're good.

I think we've made it so intricate already, so yeah.

And then the river district fund, will repay the general fund over the course of seven years. Now, the council can, you can move that number around. We use seven years because we felt that would closely align the percentage of tourism funds that we're asking to be inserted into the river district fund. That can be something that can be adjusted, debated and adjusted accordingly.

So this Sabin Center to amphitheater payback. Yes.

Yes.

That's the 1.4?

Yes. That was discussed for the roof enhancement project. And I think that the consensus was to take it out of the amphitheater line. So if you look a little bit further down, the amphitheater line under upgrade, repairs, and maintenance used to be a lot higher. It used to be like $2 million in one year. So we took that out. We used it, we put 600,000, sorry, we put 800,000 in FY26 and the 600,000 in FY27 under the Sabin Center capital lines. And then we are going to be paying the amphitheater back by creating that 280,000, that's an estimate of what we would receive in renting out the roof space. And then you'll see in the, following year after, we would give that 280 back to the amphitheater.

So where do we pick that up on our pro forma? The rent and the expense?

It's not anywhere on the pro forma because it's just a... Capital cost? Yeah, it's an in and an out on just the River District capital. It's not any way operational.

I think I know what you're asking. If we bring in rent and then we take those rents out of the... Sabin Center, however that, and pay it back to the River District Fund.

I mean, it's a... I think I understand where you're going. Because the River District Fund is, or the amphitheater within the River District Fund is floating the initial cost of the terrace. We did not want to use those revenues that will come in as a result of Lindsey, who's going to be renting that out a lot. We did not want to put those revenues in that pro-forma because they've got to be initially used to pay back the amphitheater.

So the rental line here does not take into account the new asset that we just kind of built out the last couple of years. The rental dollars here were not originally formulated with the rental of the roof area.

We think the rental is going to be $380,000 in 29, and we're going to...

Yes, okay, I'm seeing where you're coming with that. Yes, that's the idea and projection. Again, that's an estimate on what we would make that really just kind of came from our... Arts and entertainment.

was the one who provided us that estimate using the river market as a foundational basis for it. It is a best guess. Certainly, I hope that number is higher, but there is a possibility that number could be lower.

I'm going to have to reserve some time.

I may move all over this, and we can ask questions in normal finance.

First of all, thank you. Like I said, I can feel my chest ease up a little bit as the picture begins to clear. Thank you for the work you all put into this. I do want to at least give our guests a chance to say hello, and if there's anything... They've suffered through this exhilarating stuff for, what, two and a half hours now. Liz, y'all want to say hello, introduce yourself, and anything?

I'm Liz Obradovich. I just want to thank you, because without this, we started out, what, MOU down in Queen City Park, and we would have been moving the existing museum as is. It's gone now. And not only do we appreciate how we've been gifted, we have gifted back to another city down the road in Demopolis and donated as much of our exhibits that we had to them to start up another children's museum in Demopolis. So thank you.

Well, this is a big, daunting task y'all have gotten in front of you, and we're certainly grateful. Roger, anything you want to say on behalf of the... Sure.

I'm Brian Rosen, Education Director for Savings Center. And I'd like to echo what everybody said here. Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide this for the state and this for Tuscaloosa City Schools, Tuscaloosa County Schools especially, and the districts all around us. It's really going to be a game-changing element in the education space.

And our staff is...

For you, Mr. Busby, it's like SEAL Team 6. It's small but very beautiful. And that includes six teachers. I want you to understand that the Sabin Center is going to be a fully instructional experience. It's not really just a field trip. Students will come in there and be taught by teachers on site. Professional development space that we envision impact that's going to have at the state level. Really a game changer, a huge force in the education sector across the state. So thank you very much for your time and attention on this. We are really excited to get this project going. We already have a lot of our efforts underway. We're already in some classrooms in the city and the county, Hale County, I Dream Big. We're already kind of vetting this stuff and practicing it right now. Looking forward to continuing this relationship and working. Thank you for having us today.

Sure thing. Ladies? You think?

I can just introduce myself. I'm Jamie Burke.

I'm the new director of the job. Jamie, welcome aboard.

Thank you so much. This is my second week on the job, so I've spent that time learning all that Savings Center has to offer, and I'm really looking forward to getting out and meeting with donors and building back those resources for the center and its tenants as well.

So thank you all for having me today.

Sure. Lindsay?

I'm April Warner. April. That's right.

I'm the treasurer of Ignite.

I also work at JMF on the board. So if you guys have any financial questions or anything.

No, we wouldn't have any of those.

Now you speak up. Now that it's over.

The mayor's vowed to name his first heart attack Sabin Center. It is a daunting task. It's going to be exciting. Members of the committee or non-members, anything y'all want to say as we sign off? Who's that? Chevy Chase? Okay, thank you all very much. It's a big task in front of us, and I appreciate you.