Aug 06, 2015 City Council on 2015-08-06 8:30 AM

I wanted to welcome everybody to this Thursday morning, August 6, 2015. This is a City Council, City of Denton Council meeting work session to discuss the budget. We only have, well, we've got two agenda items, three actually closed session. So we'll go into our first work session agenda item, which is 1A, which is receive report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding the FY 2015-16 City Manager's proposed budget capital improvement program and five-year forecast. What I'd like to do is we've done this before, which has worked out effectively on sort of longer presentations. If we go ahead and let them get through the presentation and maybe make notation of our questions as they go, and then we'll answer the questions, ask the questions at the end of the presentation. Chuck's only got ten slides, so. That's correct, yes. All right. City Manager. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it, and I appreciate that comment. We do have a pretty long presentation today, and I want to just take a couple of minutes to kind of kick this off and introduce Chuck to both Council and the public who might be watching this. And to tell you, I thank you and appreciate the fact that you're here today. It's an early morning, and you've already had some long meetings this week, and we've got some more on the horizon in the next week or so. But the budget, again, Chuck is going to go through the budget presentation, but I just wanted to mention a couple of things about the development and the adoption of the budget because it's -- I've said before, and those of you who have been on the Council as we've gone through this process and started before have heard me say that I believe this budget itself is the most important and critical policy decision that the City Council makes all year long. It sets the stage for everything that we do. And this year has been a little bit unusual in the fact that, I mean, it's been an incredibly instructive year in the sense that we've had a good lesson in reminding us just how local government works. We've had an incredible amount of citizen engagement, which I think has been very positive and very good. I think it'd be hard for any of us to think back to a year when we haven't had more citizen engagement that reminds us of just how local government works and how important this policy decision is that you're about to make because it's reminded us how everything that we do affects other local government entities. It motivates the other governmental agencies to act sometimes that impact what we do. And sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not so good, but I just think it demonstrates what self-governance is all about. And so this -- in spite of everything we've gone through on some major issues and how hard those issues are, the adoption of this budget is going to take some time. It's going to take some work on your part. And I appreciate what you've done. It's actually -- the last year's been pretty enlightening to me because it's reminded me and encouraged me and I hope it has you of just how, with all the citizen involvement and the passion that we feel about things, how respectful that process has been in Denton. The council respecting citizens, them expressing their passion and the importance of issues and how this community has dealt with that. Again, the budget sets the stage for how we're going to spend the money that deals with the service delivery to the citizens. So again, I want to mention that the budget that you're about to see and that you've seen in your packets before today is reflective of what we've heard, what we've learned at the staff level that you wanted in the budget. But it is a baseline. It's required by law that we present a budget document to you. Today starts the formal process. But it's a baseline. We expect and believe it's appropriate. There's going to be a lot of change in this document before you finally adopt it before October 1st. So Chuck is going to address the numbers. But I want to specifically call to your attention and hope that you'll take a look in the next few days and today if you have a chance at some pages in that budget document that you've been provided. Page three is a page in the budget document itself that kind of outlines what our mission, our values, our goals are. It talks about the strategic plan being the basis for the budget document. It's the foundation for that budget document. The strategic plan is something that the council has adopted. It's a document that you've talked about many times. And so I want to call your attention to that page and hope that you'll take a look at it because it kind of sets the stage for why all the numbers come together. I'd also like to, again, Mayor, you've said to hold your questions, but we have a lot of staff here and if we can help clarify things as we go, we're willing and able to do that. My hope is that we can get through the presentation. We have lunch planned and my expectation is that we go to at least 1 or 1.30, but it depends on how the discussion goes. But we have a lot of staff here from every department that we can help elaborate on any of the issues and we want to do that as much today as possible. Clearly the decisions aren't going to be made today and they're going to take a lot of debate after we do the presentation among yourselves. But I, again, appreciate the fact that you're here, that you're willing to spend this much time during the week and hopefully this reflects the budget that's presented reflects, again, a baseline that we can start from. So with that, unless you have questions, I'm going to turn it over to Chuck. Any questions before we get started? Thank you. I appreciate it, Chuck. Fantastic. Thank you, George. Thank you. Is that the right one? No. There we go. Is that okay? Can you still see? I can see fine. Thank you very much. As George mentioned, the budget is really built on the strategic plan. I've listed the five key focus areas here. And one also mentioned within the strategic plan this year, we've proposed some key action steps for the fiscal year, which are kind of goals and objectives during the current fiscal year. And a lot of the programs that you'll see proposed in here relate to not only the strategic plan but to those key action steps. In terms of the priorities of the budget, what it's been based on, I kind of put number one after last week's discussion, the continued street maintenance expansion, expanding the emergency response in southwest Denton, the new medic unit, development staffing, you'll see with some changes during the current fiscal year, next fiscal year, building inspections, planning, engineering, and fire inspections, the main four members of the development team to maintain a competitive compensation plan. The LEAP programs are funded in this budget. General right away maintenance, we started the current year funding more next year and learning management software as part of the other LEAP program. Utility infrastructure, and going along with that in the electric utility, the TMPA debt, we had discussions of some of that at the last council meeting in terms of that refinancing of some of the TMPA debt. But managing that and keeping our rates competitive through 2018, and again all under direction of the strategic plan and the key action steps. In terms of the assumptions for the general fund, the actual growth for '15-'16 was 8.54%. When I get into details of the general fund, I'll get into this more, but we've built the budget based on the estimated growth of 6% in assessed valuation, and then that additional 2.54% has been set aside, labeled council priority, and I 'll go over some of the options of that. In terms of the future fiscal years, the five-year plan is based on an estimated growth of assessed valuation of 4%. The proposed tax rate for this year includes an increase of a little over 6/10 of a cent in '15-'16, which is the first year of implementation of the 2014 bond election program. We're estimating an additional 0.8 cents next year for kind of the full implementation of the 2014 bond election program. So based on that, based on this year's actual value and next year's estimate, we show about a little under 1.5 cents for the 2014 bond program. If you remember when we held that election, we had estimated a 3-cent tax increase. So we're looking at about half of that estimate for the implementation of that program over this same six-year period. The M&O portion of the tax rate, the other portion of the tax rate, really the portion that funds general fund services, is proposed to remain the same in '15-'16. You'll see in the five-year plan a 1-cent tax rate increase is proposed in '16-'17. Sales tax, as you've been getting the monthly numbers from Mr. Langley, you've seen we've had a real strong sales tax this year. So we're estimating for the upcoming year 3% above the revised estimate. I've got a sales tax slide a little bit later. I'll go over where those numbers are at. And 3% kind of inflationary growth in future years. And for franchise fees, all the growth in franchise fees and the bond sales savings are transferred to the street improvement fund in this budget. So this year's growth is a little over $900,000. In terms of the proposed property tax rate, the maintenance and operations rate stays the same as last year. The debt service goes up that little over 6/10 of a cent. So the proposed rate is .69638. The effective enroll back rate, these are rates that are required under state law for us to calculate. It's called the state law area is called truth in taxation. The effective rate is a calculation that's really supposed to bring in the same dollars as the prior year on same property. So if you exclude new property, it would bring in the same dollars as the prior year. And then the roll back rate is the rate at which if we exceed that rate, citizens can call an election and there's a vote whether or not you maintain your tax rate above the roll back rate or roll it back to that roll back rate. So the effective rate is a little over 65 cents. Roll back rate 72 cents. So you can see we're significantly below that. And that's our certified taxable value about 8.4 billion and the 8.54% increase this year. And this chart just shows some of the appraised values historically. And you can see here's our 8.54%. You can see back in the days of the recession where we actually had a negative value. And then the last couple of years, we've seen strong growth . In terms of a breakdown of where this additional value is coming from, the 662 million. About 200 million is from new development, new construction . And 461 million from existing property appraisals increase in existing values. >> Here. >> Yes. >> On that previous slide, that overall value, that's just, we were able to assess that just from any tax we take in and then just calculate. >> Correct. >> So that would include personal property tax. Okay, thank you. >> This is residential, commercial, personal property. It's taxable value. >> Gotcha. >> And in terms of the average home value, we saw an increase from 166 to 179,000. That includes the 179,000 includes new construction as well as existing home values from the prior year. So the average homeowner taxes based on last year's tax rate and this year's proposed rate would increase from 1150 to 1248. This table, I want to show the street improvement fund and I know that this table's a little bit wider than normal. But one of the things I want to highlight here is if we go back to 1112, you can see what we were funding street maintenance at in terms of the operating revenues, about 6.1 million. And this was prior to the 2012 election, so there was no bond funding of projects. So this kind of just shows the growth in total funding in street maintenance. Not 100% of this is OCI related, about 60 to 65% of the operating and all of the bond funds. But you can see the total commitment and what we've increased to. And this is the projections going forward simply with growth in franchise fees and bond sales savings, adding somewhere between $800,000 and a million dollars a year as projected going forward. Sales tax collection, I mentioned that we're well above the budget for 2014-15, this estimate is a growth of about 8.1% in sales tax. And then we've estimated for 15, 16, 3%. Through the first eight months, we're up about 11% in sales tax from the prior year. We've estimated conservatively the last few months will be up about 4%, so that's where the estimate has come from. In terms of what's proposed in compensation and benefits, in terms of civil service, the pay adjustments have been built in to maintain the meet and confer agreement. And just as a reminder, that agreement calls for us to maintain those salaries at 5% above the survey city's average salaries. And the survey cities are set out in the meet and confer agreement, and then step increases for civil service for those that are eligible. For all other employees, we've built in a 3% average merit increase, as we have in the last couple of years, and the same package for equity adjustments for those below market average. And future fiscal years have a compensation package, it just averages a 3% growth. In terms of health insurance funding, which continues to be a bigger and bigger portion of compensation, we've estimated a 6% increase this year in city contributions. Historically, this is about the increase we've had. If you remember last year, we had a good year and we only had to increase that by 2%, but we've seen kind of continued growth in the city expenses related to that. In order to control cost, really to bring that city contribution down to 6%, we've proposed some changes in the health plan, increased co-pays for office visits and prescription drugs. Elimination of most out of network benefits, we'll still have out of network benefits in cases of emergency. If employees are out of the area. Office visit savings with tier run physicians, this is really a lowering of co-pays. If you go to what's described by the insurer as tier one physicians, they tend to have the best outcomes in terms of lower hospital visits and those type of things. So these are kind of the highest rated physicians in terms of outcomes. So we're trying to encourage people to go to those physicians to help keep costs down. And employee contributions on their side, we're recommending a 5% increase for the gold plan and no increase for the silver plan. We kind of have two levels of plans. Gold plan has higher benefits and the silver plan a little bit lower. We're trying to get a separation in terms of the cost of those two plans. Generally, individuals on the silver plan have lower healthcare costs. This chart kind of looks at the general fund and the proposed budget. You can see the proportion of revenues and the sources they come from, with the majority coming from ad valorem taxes and sales tax. The franchise fees is just the portion that's maintained by the general fund. We've gotten to the point now where the majority of our franchise fees go into the street improvement fund. And then some of the other items you see, the transfers is mainly indirect costs from all the other funds of the city. >> I want to break my own rule. Just a question of clarification. The return on investment, is that primarily from DME or our utilities or? >> Yeah, it's all from our internal utilities. >> Okay, is that both water, sewer, and electric, or is it just- >> Yeah, water, waste water, electric, and solid waste. >> Okay. >> All four of them. >> And then of the franchise fees, how much of that percentage wise is our internal utilities? Is it half, is it any idea? Or if you have a slide on it, I can wait till then. >> I don't have a slide on it, but the majority of it is our internal utilities because of having the electric internally. >> Okay. >> I mean, we have some from CoServe externally. We have some from Verizon and the telephone utilities and cable utilities. But the majority of it is our internal utilities. >> Okay, all right, thank you. >> And this shows the expenditures by category in the general fund. I've got a couple on this. This just really highlights the personnel services in terms of the majority of our cost in the general fund is personnel. And let me highlight on here too. The council priority funding that I talked about, that 2.5% is listed in here. And then you can see the other categories. And this shows the expenditures by function. It's just broken down by departments. So you can see between police and fire, we've got about 50% of the general fund budget. Parks and recreation is the next largest at about 11%. So you can see the breakdown there with the other departments. One of the other programs we have is our vacancy management salary savings program with budgeted salary savings in the general fund. That's slightly over a million dollars for the upcoming. And this is savings from normal turnover we get, but also management control over filling of vacant positions. Any vacant position has to be approved by the assistant city manager before it can be filled. So we evaluate those for holding them vacant and whether that it's necessary to fill that position with every vac ancy. But also that program adds additional flexibility to deal with any revenue shortfalls. When we had the recessionary period and revenues were down, it gave us the ability to hold positions vacant to control cost. Now I've got all the general fund supplemental packages listed here. I'll try to go through and give a brief description of each one. I know there may be some questions on these. I don't know if we want to hold this till the end, Mayor. >> Council's pleasure. I mean, if you really, I mean, certainly want to have your question answered, because if it's a long presentation, it's hard to remember what it is. So if it's something you really need to know, then just like I did, yeah. >> Just before you go through it, does this represent the recommended packages? >> These are the recommended packages. The recommended supplemental packages, I'll go through the general fund 15, 16. And we're recommending some funding in the current fiscal year, some capital funding. So I'll go through all of those. In building inspections, it's really listed those four listed or four additional positions. A building inspector, a health inspector, plans examiner, and administrative help all over in building inspections. Under the city council, there was a Quaker Town house reloc ation. It's about 50,000. I just point out that's going to be funded out of the hotel occupancy tax fund in the allocation to the county museum for this year so that they can relocate that house into the historic downtown area. >> Sorry, yes. >> Well, just a question. So I'm trying to remember from last year, are we going to then get into each kind of department's budget a little bit and have further discussion? Meaning, as we talk about puts and takes and is this really enough for this department? Or should we do more for this department? Are we going to, after Chuck finishes, are we then going to go through kind of department by department or? >> Well, normally the process is clearly any questions that you have, we can get into any amount of detail that you want. You may not want to do that. We don't have presentations by departments for this, but clearly our intent is to have the resources here to respond to any questions and get into as much detail as you want to get into on any department. >> Well, here's why I'm asking. Because we said this is a long presentation, it'd be better to hold our questions to the end. One of the questions might be, we're not spending nearly enough in this department. >> Right. >> And if this is the total budget, we need to talk about reducing this department and spending more in this department. That's not a question. That's a group discussion that- >> Sure. >> And then all of a sudden we're in a 20, 30 minute conversation and Chuck's standing up there. That's why I'm asking. For that kind of stuff, do we want to wait until Chuck's totally done and then have our- >> I think so. >> Those, okay. >> Yeah, I think so. Just because then we'll have all the information out and then we'll have a little bit better. >> Okay. >> And I did want to mention in your packet, in your backup , there's the supplemental request, what's funded and what's not. We've sorted that by department so you can kind of go through and see what's recommended for funding and what's still available for funding on the council priorities should they wish to in terms of department by department. >> I do have a question of clarification. On the summer youth program, what do you think, what does that represent? >> Yeah, and that one, I'll go through each of these. >> I'm sorry, go ahead, yes. >> I just started out with the building inspections. >> Yes. >> You had mentioned the Quaker Townhouse relocation in that that $50,000 would be included in the normal allocation to the county out of the hot funds. >> Yeah, it was an increased allocation this year that was recommended to the counties. But that was part of their request of their increased allocation of hot funds. >> And where is that in the process in the hot funds? >> It's recommended within the budget that the council has. The hotel occupancy tax fund is within the budget here and it breaks it down. >> So we approved the hot funds at the same time that we approved the budget? >> Yeah, the whole budget is really approved at the same time. The capital improvement fund and all of the funds in the budget are approved at the same time. I just, we tend to highlight the general fund more when we go over the discussions. >> But because this was a requested item. >> Yeah, in terms of the page that the hot fund is on in your budget, if you want to look it up. Is on page 89 and that funding is within the Denton County museums. For 14-15 we'd funded them about 114,000, the recommendation for this year is about 150,000. And within that they had budgeted funds for that relocation . Out of the city manager's office, open records request software is just to try to add some software to that process instead of a manual process as we continue to increase open records request to handle that more efficiently. The summer youth program, that is the hiring of the summer interns that occurred. I think it occurred this year, George used his contingency funds for that program that occurred this year. And this is really just a continuation of that program, but the formalized funding of it in the budget. >> Okay, I guess in a sense I thought we were going to try to find positions for them that we were going to fill anyway. Which wasn't, I mean we weren't, but we can talk about that as we get more into the discussion. So yeah, just to have a clarification of that, yeah. >> And then the mentoring program is a program within or between the city and the school district. I think that was initially discussed when the city council had a joint meeting with the school district board. So this is our portion of that program and then the school district would also have a portion of it. >> Well, and just to clarify too, the partnership discussion was three way, school district, city, and then United Way of Teton County is anticipating also throwing in $20,000. >> And my understanding is that will be a position in the school district. >> That's right. >> Okay. In community improvement, that right away maintenance, that 's remember this year we funded I believe an additional 125, 000. This is adding another 175,000 on top. This is one of the recommendations of one of the two LEAP teams for kind of right away maintenance and beautification around major city streets within the community. Economic development, that's an additional position and administrative support, administrative assistant position within economic development. Facilities, there's one additional position recommended, the license trade technician. And then also within facilities is a space study recommended. This is really to look at the needs of not only the three city halls, but kind of city wide in terms of the need for additional space as we grow. Kind of a long term look at a future city hall, future space for city employees. >> If I could just add to that, we have a much more full presentation on that whole issue scheduled for next week. So on your, as a work session item next week. This is kind of a placeholder amount and we'll get into detail at the work session next week. >> In terms of finance department, I think that the fireworks was funded at a higher level during the current year. So this is just a carry forward to fund that permanently at a higher level. And I've kind of highlighted the revenue fund vehicle repl acements. We've talked to the council before about trying to get away from issuing debt for all the vehicle replacements. This would be really a start of that where we would fund 250,000 of replacement of police vehicles out of cash instead of funding that by debt. I've highlighted that because in the five year forecast we 're projecting to increase that next year to a total of 500, 750 in the third year. So we get to the point in the third year where we're financing or paying for the police vehicle replacements out of cash versus issuing debt. Right now we're issuing certificates of obligation with a five year term to replace those vehicles on an annual basis . When I get back to the capital program, I'll show you where that item is in the capital budget and how we've reduced it a little bit with this cash funding. One comment on the fireworks, we can't do it this year, but I know we've looked at it. I really would like to figure out a way how we can maybe look at hot funds for that. I know we've done it. I know legal said that that might not be a use pursuant to statute. But I really, because we've got a lot of things that we do that, I mean, that is a huge event for the city and I think it brings, so >> Let's just, we can't do it this budget, but just while I 'm thinking about it, because I just want to get that. >> I was going to say the same thing, at least even part of it. >> Yeah. >> I don't know how they're able to spend those funds though. I was wondering what they spent that on. >> Yeah, yeah. We'll just put that in the works for next year. >> But for this year, we could treat it the same way we did last year. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. In terms of fire, the first item there is really six personnel to fund the medic unit at station seven. When I get into the details of what we recommended in the current fiscal year, 14-15, recommending funding the ambulance out of the current year, and this is the personnel going forward. Also in the fire department, recommending three fire inspector specialists. We really have two things that they handle. One is all commercial structures in the city are required under state law to be inspected annually. And this is really increasing our staff so we can meet that goal of inspecting all annually. And the second area is, and I'll get to it with some others , we're looking at in the development process. You mentioned engineering, planning, fire, where we're going to have four teams. What we've proposed is to have four development teams. So when a development comes in, it's assigned to one of those teams and they handle it all the way through the process. And so we're going to have personnel in all those departments so that we've got four people in all of those departments so that they're assigned to one of those teams. So right now we've got one person in fire that handles all of their development. This would be able to spread it amongst the four as well as spread out all the inspection duties and the other duties of the fire marshal's office. >> Before we move on Chuck, just so I understand, like on the top line, building inspections for 99,524. The salary would be the 62, and that's in our breakdown here. >> And what are ongoing costs of, it says 6,000? >> Really just cost in terms of supplies, training, those type of things. >> And then what are one time costs? >> In terms of the building inspection. >> Yeah. >> The vehicles, and there's some other items that they have to buy in terms of equipment. >> Okay. >> Desk, computer, if you think of what that individual's going to need. >> That makes sense. Okay, thank you. A lot of times they use like an iPad out in the field, those type of things. >> Okay. >> Make sure I finish the prior slide. In terms of human resources, recommending a compensation consultant. This is the general funds portion, all of the funds that have personnel would pay for this. The last time we did a kind of a city wide compensation analysis was about 2008. So this would be an update to that or a new one just to look across the organization. And to make sure we are externally competitive and also internal fairness is another evaluation of this across different jobs. The learning management software is in conjunction. This year we funded for the LEAP program performance management software. And a lot of that software comes with another component that really tracks all of the training. Not only that would be handled by human resources, but other departments. You know, FIRE has required training. So this is software to maintain all of that. Right now for human resources, we're doing it on a very old and self built access database. And really need to have some updated software to handle that function. And the third one is tuition reimbursement. We have a tuition reimbursement program for individuals who are taking college classes related to their job duties. Right now we limit that to only two classes per semester where they can get reimbursed. But we're finding a lot of individuals are now with online classes and other things having a little bit more flexible schedules. This will allow us to set just an annual limit on the amount that can be reimbursed. It's recommended 5,250 on an annual amount to be reimbursed . As well as to do some catch up as we've really been spending more in this line item than we've had budgeted. So kind of catching up to what we have plus adding a little bit of additional flexibility for that. In terms of ENCODE parking, this is just really an interface with a tax dot so that when a parking ticket is given, we can see who that vehicle is registered to. We're projecting that we'll bring in as much revenue as this will cost. I think it's about 4,500 on an annual basis. There's two in the parks department, these are really additional programs at the water park and the natatorium will be expanding services. But we project that the revenues from these expansions will offset it. I know the natatorium program is kind of an expanded swim lesson program that's been requested by the school district . So that they can do more swimming lessons for some of the younger students. The parks maintenance is really just expanding the maintenance, a person and some maintenance dollars to handle the expanded maintenance. In terms of parkland, mowing, sidewalks, example is like the Hickory Street project. Where now we're maintaining all of that plantings and those kind of things as well as other mediums and right of ways. >> And the- >> Yeah, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, on the, are you there? I don't think you're there yet. Maybe you were going to explain the unfunded. I'll let you go, sorry. >> Well, that's really just saying the unfunded part is just really the title of it. In other words, we've got increased maintenance responsibilities from the parks department and this is really trying to cover the funding of those that are currently unfunded. In other words, we've expanded the acreage, the amount of trees, the amount of right away that they have to maintain but we haven't expanded their funding any. So this is really just to cover their additional cost to do that maintenance. >> This isn't to cover any incidents or that happened in the previous year or anything? >> No, this is really just personnel and dollars to be able to maintain it going forward. They also pay a little bit like the watering bill. They pay the watering bill for any irrigation that's been added. The Civic Center pool renovations, that renovation will happen I think as soon as the pool is closed this year. This is really, they're adding some additional features at the Civic Center pool. There's going to be a little bit of additional maintenance and chemical dollars and they need a few additional lifeguards just to meet the additional features. There's certain state requirements for lifeguards and we're adding some additional features out there, slides and such that require a couple additional lifeguards. So we're going to have additional costs next summer for that. The public communications, the website redesign. This is really the redesign and update of the website. It will also include some functionality so individuals can come on and make service requests online. But we'll include that as well as just an overall update to the city's website. In the planning department, special projects. These are really studies. The studies that have been recommended to be funded from this in the upcoming year is to help with the rewrite of the development code. And the second one is really a planning study on the I-35 corridor. As Textodd has come along and taken all that extra right away, you have portions of land that are remaining, portion of buildings. And part of this funding is to look at a study of that corridor and what to do with the parcels that remain and have been changed. In terms of the planning technicians, this is two positions . What this is really trying to do is to free up duties that the planners are doing now. Such as planner of the day, handling people coming in and out on a daily basis. And again, when I talked about those four teams, by adding these planning technicians, it frees up the planners to really lead those teams and be dedicated to that. Versus being kind of pulled away on a daily basis for all the traffic that comes in and phone calls and those types of things. In police, there's one sergeant patrol supervisor recommended. This will boaster kind of that downtown district and have a sergeant for that area. As well as a civilian records clerk to handle a couple areas. The county prosecution is requiring everything to be filed electronically now for cases. And this position will be able to handle that and some other duties. Kind of frees up an officer who's been doing those duties now. So we move it to a civilian and free up that officer to do more standard police duties out in the field. Transportation, this is just additional funding for the bike and pedestrian education and safety program. We added personnel in the current year, but this is really just to expand that community education program. And the other one I mentioned, pedestrian connectivity, there's been discussions of kind of gaps in the downtown area, especially in sidewalks. We had identified about a need for about 75,000 in the bond program. This year we sold about 250,000 for miscellaneous sidewalks . So we're going to dedicate 75,000 of that to kind of filling these gaps in the downtown area in terms of connectivity. I'll go over the supplemental packages funded a little bit more briefly in the current fiscal year. The first one I mentioned for the fire department is the medic unit for station seven. I mentioned these items are all pretty well kind of capital one time items. So we're recommending funding them out of the current fiscal year as our revenues have been stronger and our expenses are a little bit below estimate. One of the big items is because of fuel costs being lower, we've got some savings there. So recommending doing some one time items out of the current fiscal year. >> If you go back to the previous slide. Is, so when it shows net cost, is there another slide that 's going to reduce that? Because in the backup when I look at the end of the supplemental packages and it shows all of them and then the far right hand says city manager's recommendations. FY 2015-16 when I go down and look at other fund totals. I'm going to go through the other funds on page five of that, what I'm matching here. See the net cost city manager's recommendation total general fund supplemental request. >> Okay. >> On page five. >> Hold on, let me look, yeah. >> That's the three day. >> Okay, that's that. And then so this other is going to reduce that amount. >> Well, no, the other is in other funds. >> Okay, okay. >> And I'm going to go through supplemental packages in the other funds. >> All right, I just didn't see that. You bet, thank you. >> We try to confuse you with all those spreadsheets. >> That's one of the things we do in budget. We're pretty good at it. In terms of funded in the current fiscal year, the medic unit, for the fire department, these other items, some of them are just replacement personal protective equipment. But the fire chief also had a discussion and made some recommendations and talked to council about some items to help try to reduce response times by keeping the fire units kind of at the station. So some of these are to help do that in terms of the decont amination system and annual, or the ambulance narcotic storage vaults. Instead of the ambulances having to go to central fire station to replenish, they would have these vaults within each medic unit. So therefore, they wouldn't have to make as many trips to do that. The station alerting system is for the new station that's being rebuilt. And what this can do is alert stations all at once instead of alerting the first station and the second station and the third station, if it's a large event, they can alert them all at once and just start the response quicker. And there's one other item I'll go down to the bottom on traffic control that's kind of requested by the fire department. That's an upgrade to the Opticon system. Again, that is the system within the fire vehicles where they can control the lights in front of them and turn them green on major intersections as they're coming through. So we're also recommending some one time funds to do some upgrading of some additional intersections. Again, just try to help that response time with kind of some small changes to either keep them in service or to get them there a little bit quicker. The library, this is to replace the self check equipment. We did about half of this last year. This is the replacement of the rest of it this year for individuals that come to the library so they can kind of order books and come after hours and check them out with the self check equipment. It's like a little safe that they can go into and get their requests fulfilled kind of off hours. Municipal court, there's some small areas here just to make it a little bit more pleasant for individuals who come there, some more benches, blinds along that hallway and lighting. And some computer equipment so that it makes it a little bit more efficient when we're doing the initial check in. And the cameras or just security cameras are going to be at each station at the front windows. The cameras requested by the judge, the judge had kind of met with all the departments within City Hall East to get some camera equipment all around the outside of that building. That's kind of one area where we don't have security cameras along the police, customer services over there, municipal court. So this is really just for outside cameras to increase the security over at City Hall East. Police, the body armor is just replacement funding. In terms of traffic control, LED light replacements, this is really the fifth year of doing that to finish that kind of replacement cycle off. These are really the lights within signal lights. And then the emergency battery backup systems is just to add some additional intersections. What the emergency battery backup does is when the power goes out, instead of the lights immediately flashing red, it gives them power for about a half hour. So if the electricity comes back up, that light can still function. And you don't need to have police out there directing traffic. In terms of the other funds, these are the internal service funds for fleet, really just some improvements to their facility and building out there a little bit of land purchase to pick up a little bit of land adjacent to them. For potential future expansion, the fleet maintenance personnel is additional person, but those costs will be born, it really brings in additional revenue to that fund. As they're maintaining equipment, they charge the department for that maintenance just like an external shop would do. Materials management, one additional buyer position in purchasing. This is really to make sure we can keep up with the demand of the capital program from the 2014 bond election and the utilities to make sure we can get everything out quickly. In terms of technology services, DME capital cost is some computer capital upgrades and replacements over at DME that will be paid by DME through the internal service fund. Some other programs, one login is an upgraded program so that instead of using multiple passwords, we can use one login and get on to the software that we need to just for some efficiencies around the city and some replacements for police. The health fund, this would increase the current retiree health subsidy right now for retirees. They retire with 30 years, I think, or greater of service, 20 years or greater of service. They pay the full cost of the health insurance less a subsidy of $100. And that has increased ever since it was set up. So this would increase it from $100 to $200 just in terms of that subsidy for retirees. Out of the risk fund, the employee dependent care assistance, this really came out of the innovation program where employees that deal with child care or even with elder care, a lot of times miss days of work just because they don't have options to take care of their children or elder parent when situations arise and this is really just a program where the city would put in funds, just a slight amount of funds and give those individuals a lot of options. One of the big ones is kind of emergency child care. You get a call from the school and your child's running a 99 fever. Your only option is to go home and miss a day of work. But this would add another option for those individuals to be able to put them in some kind of emergency care. Have someone come into their house and take care of that and be able to stay at work. They would still pay a cost. There's just a small cost to the city to have this service. In terms of engineering, I'd mention we want to have those teams of four. This is a fourth senior engineer for development review so that they'll have a full four for those development teams. Some office machines and a project management system really to oversee capital projects in the engineering. On materials management, there's a one time cost of $29,000 . Is that a similar thing like just updating software or something to track? >> It would be computers, equipment, all that. We also have to do some office improvements over there to house that person. >> Okay. >> So some of the cost on that one is related to that. The other is just computer desk, those kind of things. But that's why it's a little bit higher. >> Thanks. In terms of the other supplemental packages, these are really for the special revenue funds and the recreation fund. And again, this is additional recreation programming, 150, 000. The recreation fund charges for the services they provide. So this will be offset by charges that they provide. And the street improvement fund, I mentioned we're increasing the amount that goes over the street improvement fund from franchise fees. This is what they're proposing in terms of increased service to use those funds for. One is to purchase an asphalt recycling machine and a street maintenance crew that can go and kind of do the recycling and do their own lay down of that asphalt. One of the challenges they've had is really one, getting asphalt. A lot of times they spend a lot of time waiting for it. And for these smaller type jobs, having outside companies that have the time and the willingness to do that at a competitive cost. So I think by doing it with internal staff, we can get more done at a lower price. And then base failure maintenance is just additional funding in that line item for base failure maintenance. >> Question on that street maintenance crew as far as the sort of thought is, can we do it more cost effectively and more timely because of our increased funding for street maintenance and is there also going, is there now or will there be a mechanism in place to measure the success of those. When we say we can do it more cost, and we can answer that at the end, but I just want to put that question out there before I forget it. Because if we're saying we're going to budget for this amount for those reasons, I want to make sure we have a way of means testing that that actually is occurring. So if somebody could just be thinking through that as we go , then that'll be something that. Council Member Hawkins or Joey. >> Well, in a comment on the asphalt recycler too on the H ickory Street project, one of the things that we ran into was we wanted them to do certain jobs on certain days of the week. Because we were like, please don't tear up the road on the weekend or on a Friday because we're doing business. So then that piece of equipment would leave to another project and it took a while to get it back. So us having this recycler in our own inventory might help speed along some of these projects. >> I think Mr. Gabbard is here, so I don't know if you want to answer that question now or do you want to wait until later? >> We can wait, yeah, because I don't want to bog it down. >> Okay. >> You got about two more slides? >> No, no. >> Just kidding. >> No pressure. >> I'm just kidding. >> Don't go as quick as you'd like me to, Ray. >> I'm just teasing you. No, just trying to lighten the air a little bit. It's getting awfully hot in here. It's stuffy. >> In terms of the proposed and projected five year budget, and I know I've got this on a few different slides. Let me try to explain this and go over it a little bit. In terms of those programs, the supplemental packages I've talked about in the general fund now, with the proposed tax rate, we show revenues a little over 109 million. And the expenditures, including Georgia's recommended supplementals that have gone over, is the 108.5 million, basically. And this additional money, I've kind of put it down here below the line, because when I get to the recommendations, would either adjust expenditures or revenues for this council priority funding. The 2.54% growth above the 6%, we had 8.54% growth in assessed valuation. We built the budget on the 6% growth, and that additional revenue is, potential revenue is 959,000. So we've kind of set that aside for council priority funding. And I'll go through three different alternatives of ways to fund that. And just going forward, we've carried forward the expenditures and new expenses. You can see here, it's proposed one cent O&M tax increase. But this funding is available, the council funding, throughout here. Now, in other words, whatever decision is made this year will carry forward. So I'll try to go into details of that. In terms of the fund balance, our target is a minimum goal of 20%. And you can see we're just about there, we're a little bit below it when we go to year five. I will say it's always very difficult to project out that far in the future. Historically, we've maintained balanced budgets and haven't drawn our fund balance down to that level. But this is just projections based on the assumption of new expenses. And revenues. So in terms of this is really options for the 959,000. And I'll try to explain this in slides, but I know there may be some questions on this. Really, I've broken it down into three options, but the city council may choose a combination of these options. Option A is to use the funds for recurring expenses, such as last year we transferred over an additional amount to street maintenance above just the growth and franchise fees. So that would be a recurring expense. Or other recurring supplemental packages. There was a vast number of supplemental packages in the general fund requested that weren't funded. So that would be one option for the use of the council priority funds. Option B would be able to use those, and I'll go through each of these scenarios in detail. Option B would use the funds for one time expenditures in 15, 16. What that would do is those funds would be available again in the next fiscal year. In other words, it would roll forward. So if you look at the 959,000, that was used for one time this year and rolled forward to next year would really eliminate the need for that one cent tax increase next year. The one cent tax increase next year brings in about 850,000 . So that could eliminate it if it was used for a one time expense this year. And then the third option is to use the funds to lower the tax rate from the proposed rate of 69638, so in other words, if you lower the tax rate, you really use that money to reduce the revenue item to the general fund. So it offsets that. >> Question. And this is, just sort of make a note of it, because I don 't want to bog you down. But in essence, we use the forecast, the five year forecast is based upon 4%. >> Correct. >> Which was last year's forecast was based upon 4%. The budget was developed based upon a 6% assumption. I mean, that's what you said, I believe in the beginning. >> Yeah, I think once we got the preliminary values in and we were estimating it higher, in June we decided to build this year's budget on a 6% worth estimate. >> Okay, and I'll go into my observations about that. But when we look at a five year forecast, I just want you to go into a little bit more at the end of the presentation as we get into the actual substantive discussion. Because that one cent increase in 16, 17 has been, I think, forecasted for a couple years, I believe. I don't know how many, when did it first start? Four or five years. Okay, so I guess the question is, why do we forecast for a tax increase that far out when we're not quite sure exactly. So that's going to be the primary thrust of it. Because you said we could use the quote unquote overage money above the 6%, not the 4%, but the 6%, to cover these one time costs. And that would quote unquote eliminate the need for the one cent tax rate increase. But that one cent tax rate increase has been forecasted for four or five years when, I'm always hearing that you can't really forecast out four or five years other than just sort of a forecast. So I just want to have more discussion on why we forecast out that far for a tax rate increase when if we're able to keep our expenses and revenues in line. That's really the thrust of my question is what's the purpose of forecasting a tax rate increase that far out other than especially just to raise revenue that we don't even know if we're going to need it or not. Because then it locks it in, or supposedly locks it in, or it gives us, that's what we're basing all our decisions on are these forecasts. To try to make decisions now based upon these forecasts. >> I guess my only comment, when we're making those five year forecasts and projections, we are projecting what our sources of revenue are and the tax increases one of them. We're also forecasting without knowing specifically what we 're going to be spending it for on an amount of money for expenditures for new programs, for growth and the expense. So those five year forecasts, they do get pretty foggy sometimes the further out you go. But we're trying to estimate total resources from all sources and total expenditures that we anticipate could come up. I have a little bit of concern that we underestimate what our new program costs are going to be in those out years. Just based on what we wind up approving. So if we're going to put those expenditures in there without knowing exactly what they're going to be, we're also trying to accommodate what are the potential sources of revenue to pay for that. Tax increases one of them, hoping that values grow and we don't have to implement it. >> Yeah, we'll talk about that later. Thank you. I appreciate that. So I'm going to try to summarize each of these options with the same kind of general fund forecast and show the use of those priority funds. We'll see how this goes. The first one is the option A and this is really toward recurring expenses. This could be additional funding for street maintenance or any of the recurring supplemental packages. That are in front of you or other ones that the council would like to fund. So really what I've done here is just taken this 959,000. I've highlighted red and moved it up into expenditures in the current year. So you can see those expenditures and since it's recurring, it rolls forward. So when you compare like year 16, 17 expenditures, it would be that 959,000 higher than what I showed on the first sheet. So that would be one. I've given some examples, increased street maintenance or other supplemental packages that are recurring down here. So that would be one. In other words, council just decides how to spend those funds on recurring packages. Again, I mentioned a combination of these options can be used also. Option B is to use those funds for one time expenditures. So I've highlighted here the 959,000 went up into the expenditure, but this was a one time expenditure. I've given some examples down here such as parking lot reconstruction, community market improvements, bus stop shelters, those are all items that are kind of one time expenditures. They're going to happen at one time but not recur like personnel expenditures would recur. So I've increased it here, but you can see over here it didn't roll forward. If I go back here, you can see with the recurring in year two, it's 112 million. Here it's just 111 because these expenditures didn't recur. What I've also done is eliminated that one cent tax increase, taken that revenue away. Because this is used for one time, that money kind of rolls forward into revenues and we have it available and don't need that one cent tax increase. And you can see here over the five year period, we come to about the same place. We're about 18.8 or 19%. So it comes to about the same place. >> Mayor. >> Yes, I'm sorry. >> Some of these one time costs will expense them, but they need the personnel in order to operate them. Am I understanding that correctly? So- >> Well, I was looking at one time expenses that really didn't require additional personnel. Like the parking lot reconstruction, there's been some discussions of that parking lot kind of catty cornered from the police station over there. >> Well, those ones listed definitely don't need personnel. >> Yeah, so I've tried to list those one that didn't have, if there's personnel associated, some of the packages here have one time and recurring. >> Right. >> But there's a few that are just one time in nature. >> Is that an option or is that- >> Yeah, I mean that option would be kind of a combination of some of it recurring and some of it one time. >> Okay. And then the last one is to tax rate reduction, to reduce the tax rate. Mayor, I think you'd wanted me to bring back a half cent and a one cent option when we had our discussion. So this is close to that, not exact. So here what I've done is instead of increasing expenditures either for one time or recurring, we've reduced revenue by lowering the tax rate, we would reduce the revenue coming into the general fund. And what I've done down here is just to give you the proposed tax rate I said is about six tenths of a cent higher. So I've lowered the tax rate to what it was last year and that would take about 558,000 to lower it. And to do this scenario where we lower it down completely, we use the full 959,000. That brings us down to a tax rate of 0.685, a little bit below last year's tax rate. >> But that includes the increase in the debt service tax rate. >> Yes, yeah. The debt service tax rate, because we've issued the debt under law, once we set that, that's the tax rate. So what would happen with the debt service tax rate will go up this year, but the O and M would go down. And so the O and M tax rate funds the general fund, so therefore all of the changes in revenue would be on the general fund side. The debt service we would still maintain to pay off the debt. >> Okay, thanks. >> And I've tried to give a tax rate projection for all three of these. Let me explain what's in here. Here's this year's proposed tax rate. Next year, that would include the eight tenths of a cent for the second year implementation of the 2014 bond program. So eight tenths of a cent on the debt service side and that one cent proposed O and M increase. The second option, one time, maintains the tax rate the same, but you can see next year would be a penny lower because we took away the need for that one cent O and M tax rate increase. And then the third option, rate reduction, we would lower it to this 0.685. Next year would increase, we would have the eight tenths of a cent for the bond program. And then the one cent O and M proposed tax increase. I thought if we, okay, go back to your forecast. >> This one? >> Well, I thought in option C, so you're still calculating the one cent even if you, let's see, if we use it to reduce tax rate now, you're still saying we're going to basically grab it back the next year, in essence, on this particular slide. >> Based on this forecast in the 4%. >> All right, thank you. >> I'm about ready to get away from the general fund, but. >> This is, and this is all property tax related, right? So all properties here, because you mentioned average impact on a homeowner. >> Yeah. >> All have alarm taxes. >> All have alarm taxes. I just give the homeowner as an example, and we give that example for the utility funds too. But it would really be across all commercial, residential, all property types are taxed at the same rate. >> I'm sorry. >> So if assessed values are up 8.5 and sales tax is up 8.1 . And I don't see anything slowing down next year or the year after, barring some catastrophic economic event. I'm confused as to why we're justifying increasing taxes when the revenues. So I just want to say it's not an automatic trigger. Let's increase taxes. Let's take a look at how we're spending the money instead of just an automatic let's raise taxes. So I'm looking at huge increases in revenue in. And I just want to go on the board saying that's where I am right now, because I'm just not in favor of property tax increase. And I don't see revenues rolling back, so just want to go on the record with that. >> Thank you. >> Oh, Hawkins? >> And just to make sure I understand, a one cent tax increase for the average citizen, you said in the beginning, is it roughly $100 a year? Did I get that right? >> No, down here, a one cent tax rate change is for residential. >> So that must have written something down. >> It's about $18 per year. >> Well, but that's not taking into account what you're referring to as the increase in assessed value. >> Okay. >> Like if the tax rate stayed the same, it was an extra $ 100 a year because of the increased in assessed tax rate value. Whereas here, he's saying if the assessed value stayed the same, but the tax rate just goes up, it equates $18 per year in taxes for the average homeowner, is that correct? >> That's correct. Thank you. >> I'm about ready to leave the general fund and go to the other areas. And I'm sure we'll come back and have some more discussions . >> Yeah. >> In terms of the downtown tours, and we've got the West Park tours, the projected revenues for '15, '16 is about 272,000 in the downtown tours. This year was about 250,000, so we've seen a little bit of increase there. And the West Park tours really development hasn't occurred. It's still bare land, so you can see the increases only equ ates to about $4 for that this year. >> Do you have a slide that, yeah, that'll change. Do you have a slide that shows of that increment in TURS 1, what is the new construction increment? And what is the just base value increment? And if not, if we could maybe get that. >> Yeah, I don't have a slide, but the new construction increment was about 5 million in the tours. We've got that number. We had to use that in the calculation of the effective and the rollback tax rate. >> Okay, yeah. >> So I'll let budget staff. >> I'd like to see how much of it is actually new construction and how much of this increase is based upon just assessed values finally coming in line with what they are in the downtown area. >> Okay, yeah, the new value in the tours was about 4.8 million. >> So most of it is just the increased assessed values. I mean, that doesn't equate to hardly anything. Okay. >> A small portion of it. >> Yes, okay, thank you. >> I'm going to go over the utility funds and all of the utility funds have gone through the public utility board and recommended these funds and also recommended, I think we gave you some draft rate ordinances. Some red line rate ordinances, so I'll go through these. The water utility fund, one of the challenges is a continued decline in the average water sales per capita. So as we get more efficient in water use, we still have to recover our cost in the water fund even if we're using less. Most of those costs are fixed. The focus is on infrastructure replacement, needed expansion of the system, and utility relocations for state highway projects. They have continued cost, ongoing cost to deal with zebra mussels. Five year CIP is about 121 million with about 44 million of that revenue funded. The rest in debt. There's proposed average rate increase across the whole system, about 5%, there's variations by customer classes. They had a rate study done this year and they recommended some changes for different rate classes for equity purposes . So I'll show a chart at the end of the utility funds on the overall impact on a resident of all the utility fund changes. Four new FTEs recommended, one in production and three in customer service. The customer service only one is a full time, the rest are all part time. We're trying to hire people to handle the peak kind of fall summer season due to our college population. So we've got two FTEs which are really six part time folks to be able to handle that. >> Chuck on that. You're talking about people who either they're in customer service department when you walk in or those answering the phone. But they handle DME, Service Connects, so this is water utility fund. >> That function is budgeted in the water utility fund, but they handle collections. That's just where it's budgeted by the city. They handle collections for all the utilities revenues, electric, water, waste water, and solid waste. They're simply budgeted in that fund. >> No, just as a comment, as I've talked to some of the may ors out in California who are dealing with the water crisis, of course they've got some major policies to cut water consumption. But of course, and they've been able to do that, I mean they had to, mandatory. But cutting water consumption doesn't necessarily mean you 're going to cut your water bill because you still have, which I thought was. So here we're seeing continued decline in average water sales per capita. But we're also seeing an rate increase of 5%, even though our usage, we're being more conservative in our water usage. >> When you look at water utilities, usually somewhere between 70 and 80% of your cost is fixed in terms of you have to build all the capital infrastructure to deliver the water. So the portion that's not fixed, if you have a little bit lower water use, the cost of treating the water, a lot of that is chemicals and such is lower, electricity is lower. But you still have to pay the cost of your water plant, maintain your water plant, and debt service is usually a high portion. So there's kind of a two-edged sword toward water conservation. I'm sure what they're having to do in California, if your water consumption cuts in half, your costs may only go down 10%. You've really got to raise rates to offset that. So it's really a two-edged sword. Over the long term, potentially you could reduce capital needs a little bit, but not a great deal. And this is just their five-year forecast in terms of what 's proposed this year in their budget. Revenues of about 63.7 and it's, I'm sorry, let me put my glasses on so I can read this correctly. Revenues of about 46.7 and expenditures about 46.7, so kind of a balanced budget. And you can see the proposed rate increase of 5% and then a little bit lower going forward. I should say that the rate study that was done recommended even a higher rate increase this year, but we've come back with the lower one. I think it was over 7% is what the rate analyst had recommended in the water utility. >> Are those rates that are proposed each year? >> Like 5% this year, 5% the next, so over five years it'll go up almost 20%. >> Correct, those are each year. >> Okay. >> Mayor. >> Yes, I'm sorry. >> Chuck, what is the population increase estimate? I mean, in other words, they're counting on all the additional new customers that are coming online as a part of this calculation, right? >> Correct. >> There are really two factors. They're counting on that growth. I mean, in terms of population, it's growing about one and a half to 2% in terms of people. Now, in terms of businesses, there may be some larger users that come in that help offset that. But they're also looking at continued decline in per capita water use. >> Yeah. >> And that's what we've seen in looking at continued decline in that. So these numbers were a little bit lower before we started seeing the decline in the per capita water use. And I'll go to the wastewater and you can see their increases are proposed at just about 2% per year, which is just really an inflationary increase. >> So it was the idea, the increased demand, the revenues because of the increased demand really gets offset by the increased infrastructure cost to serve them. Is that the idea? >> Yes. >> So you don't really see a bump in quote profitability on it because you're having to spend the money to serve them. >> Spend the money as well as overall you're having a little bit decline in water consumption. So you've kind of got spread about the same cost amongst the customer base. And if you're seeing a decline in water usage, even if you have more customers, you're spreading it amongst a little bit lower base. >> Okay, thanks. In terms of the wastewater utility fund, their focus is on infrastructure, a lot of it replacement, some expansion and maintaining our requirements on the sanitary sewer overflow program. Meeting the regulatory requirements for capacity expansion and rehabilitation. There's a new TCEQ phosphorus limit. They've lowered the amount of phosphorus that can be in the wastewater that is put back into the environment after it's treated. So there's kind of a one time cost for that in terms of additional mainly chemical expenses. Their five year CIP is about 61 million with about 19.4 revenue funded. They've recommended two and a half new FTEs, one in rec lamation and one and a half in collections. And their proposed kind of average rate increase is 2%. There's also a change, they've proposed a change in what's the commercial consumption rate. What this has done is for commercial customers, instead of being charged wastewater on their full water usage, they were taking their water usage times 90%. And they're recommending to change that in this upcoming year to 95%. And then probably in future years build up toward 100, we 're one of the few utilities that charges less. One of the thoughts there was for commercial that also had outside watering. But most of the commercial users that have any kind of significant outside watering usually have a separate meter that's a water only meter, so they're not charged any sewer charges for that separate meter. >> If our water consumption is declining because the waste water is determined, is calculated on the water usage, does that mean that our wastewater output is declining as well? And I guess we're asking for a 5% rate increase in water and only a 2% in wastewater. I guess it's just because of the way those different divisions operate and what they're responsible for. I mean, because one's really charged based upon the other one's usage. I mean, is that- >> Yeah, and for the wastewater for residential customers, it's based on the winter months averaging. So wastewater doesn't fluctuate kind of up and down as much , because it's based on the winter months averaging, so that lower consumption doesn't impact them as much as on the water side. If you think about more efficient outdoor watering, for most of us, there's a large jump in the summer months in terms of water consumption. On the wastewater side, they base it on the winter months averaging, so there's less impact to them. They're still impacted by that lower per capita, but much less impact than on the water side. >> All right, thank you. And in terms of wastewater, their five year projection, see revenues this year at 32.4 and operating expenditures at 32.3 for slight net income, you can see they try to keep that level, and they're projecting just about 2% increases. Those increases a few years ago were projected much higher when we were able to work with the EPA in terms of our sewer overflow program and have a much lower capital budget because of our maintenance program that helped lower those costs. The other thing on the water side is a lot of relocations because of the state highway projects. I drive on, you've got Teasley, you've got 377, and the state is wanting the city to relocate all of those lines to meet their expansion. And that's kind of a big bump over the next couple of years , especially hitting the water fund even more than the wastewater fund. So water lines tend to run along right aways where wastewater follows more of the flow. >> I just think it's important to highlight that there's significant regulatory changes that are impacting water and wastewater. So this isn't really much of this is a result of changes that we don't have any choice whether we make. It's not like we're out deciding we want to lay a bunch of new pipe in the ground. I mean this phosphorus thing and some of the other stuff that we've had to deal with, there's no revenue, there's no surplus sitting around to pay for those things. So when the EPA says you have to make this change, you just gotta make it. And I think it's important for the citizens to understand that, that some of these decisions aren't ours. >> In terms of solid waste and recycling, they've got several major projects going on. One of the interesting ones I want to point out is the landfill mining where they're basically going back into the old landfill. They're mining out all of the recycling material before we started the recycling programs in here. And mining that out, and one, they get revenue from the recycling. And then by mining all that out, they really reclaim additional space for the landfill. So instead of having to build a new cell, you can reclaim some of this. So I think that's one of the programs that they've been kind of leading in that's kind of innovative and fascinating. They've shown me a picture of a newspaper, I think from the 70s or 80s, that they'd gone down and you could see it and you could still read it. I mean, it was maintained that you'd think all of that, in my mind, would deteriorate in the head. So that's one of the things that they're doing. Their five year CIP is about 54.5 million with about 11 revenue funded. They're recommending four and a half new FTEs, three for heavy equipment operators. I think one or two of those are related to that landfill mining project. Recycling account representative and a KDB intern half a position. Their proposed rate increase is a little bit different for different types. But for a standard cart, about 2.2, 1.9 for a large cart, 4% for commercial dumpster and about 1.5% for commercial roll off. >> I'll talk real quick and again, this can be answered. Because you talked about the landfill mining and I thought I saw where we're looking at something on a study with Ar lene or something. But anyway, have we had a work session on the cost of that, how it's gonna improve the landfill? In other words, done sort of a financial analysis on that project. I don't remember that, but if we haven't, that would be good to do. >> Yeah, I think they've done that with PUB as I remember is where I've seen that projections, but not with council. >> Okay, yeah, cuz I'd like to see that. All right, thank you. >> In terms of their budget for 15, 16, about 31.2 in revenues, 31.2 in operating expenditures. And this is their projections of cart prices going forward and kind of an average for commercial. And you can see that there's kind of level out as you go forward down to lower levels. The electric utility fund, the biggest issue still through 2018 is dealing with the TMPA debt payments. And their major capital program to replace aging infrastructure. A lot of their, just a reminder, a lot of their transmission system replacement brings increased revenue into DME. Basically, because all of the state systems contribute toward the statewide transmission system. So a lot of the capital program that we build actually brings revenue in to offset those costs. Their five year CIP is about $403 million. This will be the second year of their energy management operations. We mentioned the first year because of savings in energy management operations. We used about $10 million to apply toward the TMPA debt to do it by cash versus debt funding on a portion of that. They're proposing a base rate increase for 15, 16. But that's offset by their energy charge adjustment, their ECA rate where they're going to lower that in the upcoming year. So it's kind of a net neutral across the system. It impacts different customers a little bit different. I'll give a chart, but the average residential customer, the net of their increase would be just 0.4%. And they're proposing 14 new FTEs with six for their capital program. Those individuals are mainly charged out against their bond program. Five for their energy management group and three for operations. And I've got the capital budget for the electric utility fund. If we want to have discussions of their operating budget, I think you receive that within your packet and we've got a closed session item on here. If we want to go into closed session and discuss more of their- >> Would the personnel discussing the 14 FTEs, would that be a closed session item? >> I think we've posted, I'm going to read your posting. >> Oh. >> My agenda though. >> Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Yeah, I don't mean personnel. I'm just talking about the needs and what- >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Yes, yes. Okay, so we can do that in closed session. Okay, all right. Thank you. And this is the capital budget for the electric utility. You can see this year's 15, 16, about 105 million. When I was talking about up here, their transmission system recovering their cost. You can see the transmission portion is about half of that capital cost for this upcoming year. And in total, it's pretty near to about half of that. So we recover those costs from the statewide system. So just to point that out. >> And to talk about, basically anything regarding DME would be in closed session regarding the budget. Okay, all right. >> And in terms of the monthly rate impact for the average residential customer, we've got electric, water, I mentioned it's a little bit different rate classes. So you can see based on this consumption, it's about 6.5% waste water and solid waste. You can see the total impact is about $5 a month and about 2.1% kind of on an average customer. >> Yes, Councilmember. >> Can we jump back to the last slide? Have a quick question, because you passed on it quickly and I'd like just a little bit more explanation. And you talked about reimbursement from the statewide system. So if you could expand on that just a little bit. >> I'm going to let somebody who's a little bit more expertise in that lead that discussion if that's okay. >> Give Chuck a break here for a little bit. So SDME builds transmission infrastructure. That cost is then filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas in a transmission cost of service rate case. Public Utility Commission of Texas then sets the rates for DME to recover that cost from all the other utilities in the state that use the transmission system. So we pay other utilities for use of their transmission system to connect to the grid. They also pay us a return on our investment in transmission infrastructure. And we, through that recovery, recover our cost of the transmission system. >> So just to confirm, with our 300 plus million expansion here in Denton, which includes transmission lines and substations, a portion of that is going to be reimbursed back to us from the greater Texas electric grid, also known as ERGOT, correct? >> Correct. >> But we also pay as well. >> Yes. >> I mean, if we didn't have any transmission systems, we're still going to pay what we're saying people are paying to us. So there's sort of a net effect there. >> Yes, sir. >> In a sense. >> Okay. >> And so by us building, since we're building at a little bit more faster rate than other utilities are building, we gain. If we weren't doing that, we'd be paying more and more for transmission as other systems build more transmission in Texas. Especially the, what was known as the CRES project, competitive renewable energy zone project that was done recently to bring in more wind power into load centers. That added about $6 billion for transmission infrastructure that the other utilities built in Texas to get wind power into the land. >> Okay. >> We've seen an increase from that, but our construction has netted against that, so we didn't see as much of a net effect on that. >> I could see the city attorney's hand on her paper, wondering if we're going to talk about numbers and she was going to shake her paper. >> We're fine. >> Yeah, I'm good. >> Transmission cost of service file into public records. >> Okay. So, and is the reimbursement public record as well? The amount of reimbursement? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So that's the Public Utility Commission filed rate case and they put out a matrix every year and revise it as other people file rate cases and increase their amount that we pay them. >> Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. >> Okay. I've just got a couple slides left. We want to go over the capital program. This is really debt issuance as well as you saw a lot of it was revenue funded. The total capital program is budgeted at about 144 million. The utility certificates of obligation are about 93.5. Revenue funding for the utilities about 21 million. The general government debt to be issued about 24.45 million. And general government revenue funded about 4.78 million. And I'll go over the proposed debt for the general government for street reconstruction from the 2012 and 2014 . Another 6 million. You remember the 2014 bond committee recommended 6 million funding through the six year program. That level. Street expansion projects about 2 million. 2 million for parks. 600,000 for drainage and 400,000 selling for the public art . Part of that is for the I-35 project. And that was out of the 2012. We've also got proposed certificates of obligation matching funds for the Bonnie Bray Mayhill project. That's really where we received the 121 tolling revenue RTR funding. When we do the construction, we've got to sell for our matching piece of that. They're anticipating that construction to begin in the upcoming fiscal year. So we'll be selling for that. The vehicle replacements, I mentioned that we're going to cash fund about 250,000 of that. So we've lowered that down. I should mention with all this debt, we sell based on the life of the asset. So for the longer term assets, it's 20 years. For vehicle replacement, the majority of that is five year debt. And facility maintenance, that's mainly for like roofs, HVA systems for buildings. That's sold for 10 years. And the other small portion of COs is for the North Texas Boulevard project, the I-35 project. Where we're making those improvements to the walkway and that in conjunction with North Texas. >> On the utility revenue funded, what does that mean? >> That's really cash funding. Instead of issuing debt, they're using 21 million in cash to fund projects. Where they try to cash fund a portion of their replacements in that. >> All right, thank you. >> And this is just a summary of the total projected full time equivalence in the city. We'd be up to about 1,564 full time equivalence. And these are the additional FTEs by fund. And we've broken it down in the general fund by neighborhood services, public safety, and administrative and community services for about almost 56 additional employees recommended in the budget. >> Almost 4%, so there's about 4, 5% increase. >> From 1,500. >> From 1,500? >> Yeah, a little over 1,500 going to 1,563. >> About 4, a little less than 4%. What is it? >> 3.9. >> Okay. >> And this is a table just of the overall proposed budget across all funds. You can see here in terms of the largest is the capital budget. And I should mention that the way we budget the capital budget, it's new funds but also any existing funds that haven't been spent yet, that are planned to spend in this year are included in the capital budget. So that's why that number's larger than just the projects we talked about this year. Those projects that haven't been completed yet and we have funds available are also funded in the capital budget. There you can see that's the largest one. You can see our electric fund here and then we go to the general fund in terms of the third largest and some of the other funds across the city. In terms of next steps on the council's agenda for the 11th , any time we propose a tax rate greater than the effective tax rate, I mentioned that our effective tax rate was about 65 cents, a little over 65 cents. Under state law, you have to hold two public hearings if you propose that. So we will come back on August 11th, the council has to kind of approve the notice for the proposed tax rate. We bring back a tax rate at the proposed of the 0.69636. The council can adopt a tax rate below the proposed tax rate, but they can't go above that tax rate. So we plan on coming back on the 11th, next Tuesday with that item for the council to put that notice out. Then we would hold two public hearings on the tax rate as required by state law, August 18th and September 1st. State law also requires us to do a separate notice for a public hearing on the budget, a little bit different. Timing requirements, so the public hearing on the budget will also occur on September 1st. In terms of budget discussions, we've set these work sessions up at all of the council meetings beginning August 11th through September 15th. We'll also have the closed session for electric on all of those for discussions. And the budget adoption is scheduled for September 15th. Real quick, so a percent increase in, like we assumed 4%, then we had an assumption of 6%, and they're going to use 2.5% for the council priority. So a percent equates to about how much? About 350,000, 360,000. Okay. Okay. Was that the end of your slides? That's the end of my formal presentation. Well, I appreciate it. Well, I tell you what, let's take a quick break till 10 before we get started into the... Huh? Till what time? Oh, I saw the second hand. Sorry, 10, 20, 10, 25. Yeah. You don't you didn't know I can make. All right, welcome back from our meeting that we took up to 10 o'clock. It is now 10, 37, so we took a 37 minute break. Just kidding. And thank you, Chuck, for that presentation very much. Very good and thorough presentation. I appreciate that and all the good information. And I'm sure we'll have you up answering a lot of questions or having you comment on something. So I guess... Well, never mind. So this is the time where council members, you know, you have questions or comments or observations, this is the time to raise them as we move forward in this budget discussion. Council Member Wasney. Keep in mind, this is my first budget go around, so, you know, it's still a learning experience. I know that utilities has its own budget, so I have a question on the 600,000 DME supplemental request and how that fits into the big budget versus the utility budget and what that 600,000 is for that we saw on this supplemental request. Well, I was going to, if it's okay, call up our technology services director. I think that was the 600,000 DME capital cost under the technology services fund. We need to make sure that we're not, okay, if that's that we're not talking about something that we need to be talking about in closed session. It's okay. Specifically, your question, Kathleen, is about... Kind of what it's going... Generally, what it's for? I think generally we can comment on that and Melissa on the technology part of it. I think we're safe on that. If we get into too much detail, we're going to have to do something about it. Okay, good morning. So the 600,000, it's mainly for server equipment and continue expansion of their applications and continue to grow for that. So there's going to be some procurement, so we'll have to do additional storage capacity to meet their needs. Melissa, can you elaborate a little bit more on what the storage capacity is for and more precisely what we've done in IT to accommodate the growth in DME services? Well, certainly. So one of the new things that we've done, it's they're wrapping up their AMI metering system. They were in the process of setting up a complete test network for that so they can test it from putting in a test service count all the way through the billing process. So with that comes expanded needs, expanded storage requirements to be able to build that test environment for them. So it's also going to have capability for expanding on certain reports that they need stored and certain intelligence gathering that we need for that to be able to do that. A lot of it does attribute to the energy management organization as far as some of their needs with their computing capacity. So for instance, in our corporate environment, if someone opens up a Word document, they're going to be needing to open that in a quicker format. So it kind of helps them with part of the decision making process. So if they're doing, let's say, a query for over 50,000 records, depending on the storage, you can have them decide, make a decision within eight hours, four hours, or three hours. It's finding that technology that can get them that decision a little quicker. I think Brian would like to elaborate a little bit on that, Brian, if you could. I think Melissa's done a good job talking about the technology. One thing I wanted to make sure the structure of the budget may be part of your question is we have a technology services, what we call an internal service fund. So this is a fund that we've created, and they charge all the different funds in the city based on the operations and services they provide. So technology services under Melissa's leadership, they provide all the technology services, the entire organization, and they charge DME for the portion of their cost related to that. So that's their core competency is technology. DME is the electric market, and so they provide that service to them. So that's how the budget's kind of constructed. There's also cost in technology services related to general fund activities, water, wastewater, and so forth, and they charge those funds for those services. And each year, those are apportioned out through an allocation process that we go through to identify which portions are charged to which funds and which departments. So that's why you see an increase in technology services that's related to DME activities. Does that help, Moveda? So for instance, for technology services for our electric fund, they're roughly 29% of our technology budget. Good, that. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I kind of wanted to get, dive in a little bit deeper about how vacancy management, salary savings, the budgeted savings for year 2015-16 at a little over a million dollars, how that teams with our new FTE positions. And if I'm not understanding that correctly, just a little bit more explanation on, like, you know, adds additional flexibility to deal with any revenue shortfalls. What we can really do there and what's been done, for example, during the economic downturns, mainly in a lot of cities, is the process we set up is how positions are filled. We're always going to have some attrition as individuals move to different jobs out of the city, and it takes a little time to fill those. But by having a process where it has to be approved by the assistant city manager in that area should sales tax not meet our forecast or one of the other budgeted revenues, we can put, you know, a freeze on of certain types of positions and hold those vacant for longer to be able to save that money. So that's really where the vacancy management program helps deal with any kind of shortfalls. We track on a payroll basis. We look at what's budgeted within each division of the general fund, what we spent on personnel services and what we project for the rest of the year based on each payroll. So we track that as we go to make sure we're going to meet our salary savings targets and meet with the George and the ACMs to have discussions about that on a regular basis and then make adjustments in terms of how we're filling positions based on how that's going. So in this next upcoming year, is this kind of more of a just a placeholder? We don't know which department that's going to be applied to. Yeah, it's really it's really budgeted kind of in non departmental as a negative amount. In other words, we budget all the salaries in the city as if they're going to be filled during the complete year and then we have a negative amount to offset that in terms of salary savings within the general fund. So it's not allocate I've been in cities where it's allocated out to each department, but we just keep that in total kind of as a salary savings figure within non departmental to net against general fund cost. Joy, if I could, I mean, the intent and the purpose is to allow us the opportunity to set priorities throughout the year on where we need personnel and where we need to dedicate our personnel resources. A more traditional way to do that in budgeting in years past has been you might in order to save money in personnel costs, which is something like 70% of our general fund budget is to just eliminate certain positions from the budget or to not fund what we're trying to do through this managed vacancy program is allow us to on an almost daily basis as positions become vacant. We understaff in terms of dollars so that we can determine some savings. But during the year, we haven't eliminated these positions from the budget. We just provide mechanism by which we can set priorities and say if revenues aren't coming in the way we'd anticipated or if the workload dimin ishes, we can say it's more critical that we hire police officers or police dispatchers or somebody in building inspections in the general fund than it is to hire somebody in another department or in parks at this time. It allows us to manage those positions without eliminating them from the budget, but to manage them to save the money in a more organized fashion and set priorities. How many positions does that equate? I mean, obviously it's not an exact number, but on an average what? In terms of total general fund dollars, it's about 1.5 to 2 % of the general fund dollars that we have budgeted for total salaries and benefits. So it's saving somewhere about 1.5 to 2% of the total salary and benefits in the general fund. So in terms of people, I'd have to look how many people are in the general fund. You haven't done that because the positions that are vacant or that we leave vacant may be at one salary level or one position level. No, no, I understand. So it'd be hard to identify how many people, but it's several people. And at any given time, there'll be, you know, there could be 8 to 10 or more people, positions that are vacant at a time throughout the year. We just leave that way or delay the hiring by 90 days to save the money. So I was looking through here, the document. So where would that be in the actual budget? You said the budget reflects full employment at full salaries, but this is an offset to that. Is it, I mean, I'm sure it's here. I know it's here. I just haven't been able to locate it. I'll tell you what division it is in. Yeah, yeah, it's really, part of it is in the non-dep artmental for 1516, which on page 67. Okay. All right. Yes. I want to make one additional comment about the Vacancy Management Program. The number that we have in the budget, this negative amount , Chuck's representing, really represents just normal attrition at this point in the budget. If there was a revenue shortfall or something had changed during the year that we weren't expecting, I think what George is saying is we have the ability, if we needed to get an additional $500,000 or an additional million dollars through that management process, we could do that without eliminating the positions. But the million dollars that we have in the budget at this point represents normal attrition rates. So we budget 100% of the positions for 100% of the year. We know with almost certainty that will not happen for the entire year. This amount lets us reflect that in the budget and have a better financial plan because of that. I just wanted to ask a question with a more specific example. Let's say, let's take the Planning Department, for instance . Did we have vacancies throughout the Planning Department, like let's say this year, that we haven't filled? And if so, do we know how many it was? Not for this purpose, no. If we had a position that came open and through that process of looking at the positions through Amy or the City Manager and they needed that position, it was filled. It was gone. Oh no, what I'm asking, did we have any that went unfilled? We had vacancies, yes. Yes. So if somebody leaves, it may take several weeks to get somebody back into that position. This is part of that million dollars as that happens throughout the city. There's probably not a department that doesn't have vac ancies at some time that take anywhere from a month to three months to fill. So those positions are budgeted and vacant during that time . And we have actually set a policy in place that departments are required to leave a position vacant for, I can't remember, something like 30 days. Before they can even start advertising. But in some areas, we don't do that. Okay. Police dispatching, planning this year. If they become vacant, we immediately start the recruitment process. So then this really isn't a, I mean, I was on council when this was implemented back in the recession hit as far as just trying to understand. But what I'm hearing you say is that this is now in the budget just simply as a try to be a little bit more accurate in showing that, well, yes , we're going to budget for full employment at full salary. But we all know that doesn't happen. And this is just sort of an offset to say this is more reflective of what is actually happening. So it's not really a savings per se. It's just more of kind of a for the presentation of the budget to reflect it more accurately on what was really happening in reality. Yeah, I think that's a fair statement. I do want to make a point though, in the time that we implemented it in 2007, 2008, I guess maybe 2009, I'm trying to remember the exact year. But when we did that, attrition rates were dropping dramatically. People weren't moving. They weren't going to other positions. And so we did have to actively manage to get to that number . Now with the economy getting better, people have more options. We see more movement in the workforce. And so because of that, this more reflects just that att rition. It may not reflect that in the future if there were to be some kind of economic event in the future that would cause us to have lower attrition rates. And we might have to manage that more actively. It just gives us a tool in the toolbox to manage to our numbers that we need to get to. And a target. And it identifies a dollar amount that we've obligated ourselves to achieve. So if the attrition rates did not come into what we expect them to be, we would have to manage to get to the million dollar figure to make the budget balance. I hope that makes sense. But we do expect this to be a normal attrition rate. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Yes. I'm understanding it more now with that explanation, but there are just departments that need to fill spots. And I just didn't want them to feel like they're not able to do that. Right. I am curious, so waiting in some of those departments 30 days to fill a spot, is that just for HR reasons or just to make that? Well, I guess we implemented that change in the practice a couple of years ago. And it was, again, trying to manage and use that tool to hit the target number that we had. And we're not as strict on that at this point because activity has increased and we don't have the pleasure of waiting that long. Thanks, George. We'll go to Council Member Robyn and Council Member Johnson . Thank you, Mayor. I'd just like to start off by, Mr. City Manager, thank you for the way this is presented. This is, I guess, my fifth year to look at a budget. I learn more every year. After you dig into it. Your first year, you're kind of like, what the heck is this ? What do these things mean? And then you learn. So it's so much to wrap your mind around, but it's so well prepared. The budget team, thank you for that as well with the charts , the graphs, digging into all this stuff. I mean, you're giving us everything we need to know to understand this. So I appreciate that. It's a helpful presentation. In years past, as we've started this process and we kind of throw out questions or we ask for this or that report, I seem to remember kind of somebody kind of putting all that together and each subsequent meeting, we'd kind of get updates on those. Is that the plan again this year? Yes. We start asking for -- We usually try to put kind of written responses back to questions that come up that we're not able to answer or provide all the information at the meeting. So normally that would come back probably like with the work session on the 18th, additional information that the council wants that we can't just provide immediately. We'll bring that back. So I have several, but I'll probably just contain it to a few and let other folks talk and kind of come back to some of these. One would be in relation to the sidewalk improvements. And you had mentioned that there's a certain amount that's going to be funded because it was approved as part of the 2014 bond package. Just so that I completely understand the state of sidewalk funding outside of bond funding, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, there's a sidewalk fund for just maintenance of existing sidewalks and how much is that per year? It's funded within the street maintenance fund. So I'm looking over there for Keith. Do you have a dollar amount that's usually used for that? That's okay. In our operating budget, we have a general account and then we use that funding out of that general account. In this current budget, we have pulled some of the numbers apart and put some identified numbers into the current budget that goes forward to y'all for approval. So we're looking at about a million dollars for ADA sidewalk that we want to pull out of the general fund and try to put a separate account and use that. We've been working with budget to try to pull some of those numbers. In the past, they were lumped into a general account and we used ADA curb and gutter, but we're trying to pull those numbers out and put them into a specific line item to use for that. Or just maintenance of sidewalks? Yes, sir. Existing sidewalks that need work done too. We do two ways. We do it as part of the CIP program when we go and reconstruct the street. We improve the sidewalk and AD ramp. Or we do it as part of a customer request program. When someone calls in, we evaluate it. We either say it's a high or low, medium priority, then we fund it on a list. So when you're talking about wanting to kind of pull out a million dollars light on them for this year, is the idea that that will be kind of a quasi-fund that you're hoping to continue in the out years? We want to continue that and that's the reason we really wanted to separate it out of the general number so it would be easier for us to track and identify those funds. And in terms of new sidewalks, outside of the bond program, there's no funding identified for new sidewalks? Other than the bond fund, yes, sir. Right. And finally, I guess on this question, there was talk at some point of as part of our contract with getting our street OCI study done that that was going to, we were going to include a comprehensive sidewalk study to get a good sense of what our needs are, what that total is so that if we need to plan in future years, we can do that. Is that happening? It is. In fact, we just received a few days ago the preliminary numbers on that. We've not had a time to look and to dive into that, but we just got that portion back from our consultant and that is we are currently looking at it and going to it. As I think we're encouraging pedestrian activity, especially kind of around our universities and our schools, man, any time I put something out there about sidewalks, it's like it encourages a million requests for different sidewalk projects of my kid can't get to school because they can't cross here and there's no sidewalk. It's always a bit disheartening to say we have absolutely no funding for that. Outside of what we've done with our bond package. I'm going to continue to encourage that as we get that study in that likely not in this year's budget, but having to look at like we've done with streets, come up with some sort of way to start tackling these projects. That's complicated because a lot of places we don't have right away. You can't build a sidewalk when you don't have the right away. Then you got to go purchase right away. It's not just as simple as here's a road build, build a sidewalk. Absolutely. Then the ADA associated with it. Absolutely. Yeah, okay. Well, that's helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just mention in terms of in the bond package, we had sold this year 250,000, but there was 2 million in the bond package for the miscell aneous sidewalks expansion. Not knowing if that will be enough. I have my doubtful, but we did have that amount. That's it? Gosh, I thought you had like 20 or 30. So you're going to do five or 10. Okay. All right. Council member Johnson. No, go ahead. No, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, seriously, I mean, I do want to have a talk about the website redesign. There's a number of things that I'm wondering if we're not missing an opportunity to think about this comprehensively. So we have that the 311 request has been kind of on the horizon for several years. We've had some reports on that. Many cities are going down that path to make interacting with the city and figuring out we've talked about this new open records thing. So there's a lot of things that as we're looking at a new website, I wonder if we can't put pieces together in a way that we take a larger comprehensive view of all those things to maybe accomplish things in a more fiscally cheaper way. Thank you. As you mentioned, one of the packages that is recommended is the website redesign. And that's $200,000. And we would anticipate that included in that would be some kind of low level functionality of a CRM, which means on the front end, you provide an option for users to go on and request a service. There's some ability to track that through a process and to know when it's been resolved. The Committee on Citizen Engagement, as you know, has been vetting this idea of a more robust CRM system that has, in addition to the user experience, some functionality on the back end for staff to help automate those requests. What does CRM mean? Customer Relations Management. So kind of a customer service where you can request to have a pothole fixed or to have a special trash pickup or any number of services that the city offers. And so that more robust option helps staff on the back end not to have to do everything manually to be able to automate some requests and to be able to route things to different departments, integrates with whatever software they might already have to manage their work order system. Those obviously are a lot more expensive than just the front end user experience. And so the Committee on Citizen Engagement's direction to staff was, let's see if we can get a less expensive kind of interim step where we can kind of get our feet in the water and test the demand for that and what it would require from staff's perspective and then ramp up to a more robust system. So there are two separate supplemental packages. One is for the website redesign and one is for a CRM system . The website I do think would incorporate some level of a CR M, but it would be more from the user's perspective. And then we would be able to judge the demand for that and the staff, the demand on staff also, which may not be as much as we had anticipated. Open, I'm sorry. Open Records Request Software. That's something that would be integrated with the website. But the value of having that as sort of a specialty thing is the back end of that. And really that's the primary reason why we requested that is because right now that process is completely manual. And so this would have the back end capability to make us more efficient and be able to handle the increased amount of requests coming in from there. But there may be an opportunity as we go forward with the CRM that a CRM system also offers an open records module or something that we could buy into. >> So on the, I guess it's listed under council priorities on this topic. The 311 program that has $100,000 price tag to it. What is that getting us? Because the earlier more robust, of course that's not, there's no funding for that identified. But the earlier more robust program was somewhere in the ballpark of $5 million or something like that for the concierge package. >> I'm going to let Brian answer that question. >> What is that $100,000 taking us to if we were to approve that? >> I think the $100,000 figure that we put on the supplemental package list was really just a placeholder line item because you're right, it was a much more expensive package for the 311 system. Most of that was staff though, if we had a centralized call center handling all of these calls across the city, you'd need to staff a call center with some software, people who knew how to answer those questions and get that to the right department and then respond. So that was really a placeholder number for that. What we've talked about with the committee on citizen engagement is that we would start with some functionality, CRM type functionality in the website, learn from that and grow from that going forward. So that could be more robust as part of the website. It could be some kind of special application that we look at down the road. >> Right. >> Hope that helps. I know that's a- >> It helps. Yeah, and I'll just, I guess repeat and then I'll let Councilman Johnson take over. But we got this email yesterday from the planning department about this great new GIS enabled tool that allows anyone in the city to figure out what's happening in terms of projects, understand what's coming through the pipes for SUP requests , zoning change requests and whatnot. To me, I think the desire for that, people have, they love that kind of stuff. It gives a lot of goodwill towards the city that we're releasing information, we're more transparent, it's easy to use. To me, all of this stuff is part of one large comprehensive understanding of what are we doing digitally with data, with GIS to A, make our city run more efficiently internally, but B, make that presented in such a way that's more user friendly to the citizens. So I just throw that out there to think, make sure we're not siloing all these things, because to me that's all part of one thing. And so no real request on report, but- >> If I could just speak to that for a moment. As part of the design process for the website, we have preliminarily conducted interviews with each department and identified some of those things, requests from their users, things that would make their jobs easier, stuff that would make the user experience better. And some of those things we're able to accomplish through the website, we feel like. Some of them will have to be developed independently and then integrated with the website. So that's something that is at the top of our mind of how does all of this work together? And we don't want to be out there as one department developing a solution that doesn't fit in with what we're doing. Or there's another, maybe cheaper solution if we do it as a part of that. So we're right now in the process of writing the RFP for the website design. And we'll vet some of those issues through the Committee on Citizen Engagement. >> Council Member Johnson. >> Thank you, Mayor. My first question is it relates to the health benefits. Have we ever explored a wellness benefit refund concept that you're aware of, Chuck? >> We do have a program where individuals, if they garner a certain amount of points, they have to go through for a health checkup every year and garner a certain amount of points. They get a reduction in their employee cost on the health plan. I think it's $40 a month reduction. So if you go through and have an annual physical checkup or an annual checkup at the city's clinic and follow up with an appointment and then there's certain other steps you have to take, you can get a, I guess you'd call it a wellness benefit or a discount on your employee portion of the health insurance premiums of $40 a month. And we have participation of about half or more than half of the city's employees. About 60% of the city's employees follow through on that. >> Yeah. >> And I'm aware of that part of the wellness benefit and maybe there's, I'm not using the term right, but I used to work for a company that was self- insured. Their wellness benefit was if you had less than a certain amount of doctor visit, you had to do your annual physical. If you had less than a certain amount of doctor visits in a given year, if you had zero, you were refunded 100% of your employee contribution. The logic being some people habitually just go to the doctor anytime they have the sniffles or whatever. And as a young married couple, we get to November and you start really thinking do I really need to go to the doctor here because if I can make it one more month, if I've got the sniffles, I'm not going to the doctor because I'm going to get refunded my portion. And what I learned as I kind of got up into the management level of that company was the savings to the company was astronomical as it related to what they refunded. So I don't know if that really, if new technology or new studies would say that's a bad idea because somebody doesn't go to the doctor, then they're really sick and it costs us more. But I'm just throwing it out there as a part of that wellness benefit was you actually got, if you didn't use the services because you weren't sick, then you got a bigger chunk of it back and it motivated people to be healthy, to eat better, to exercise, to do a lot of those things and to not go to the doctor for every little thing. So I just throw it out there as an idea, not really a question. My second point is just as I'm looking through here on building inspectors and planning and fire, I'm remembering from last year my first budget work session when we were looking at the statistics on the increased demand on building inspections, planners and fire inspectors. And what we talked about last year was it's a little late now, we don't have all the analysis or the budget, but what's interesting about those categories is the faster you get somebody open the faster the revenue comes back to the city, right? So there's a return on the investment. I can tell you what I continue to hear even though I think our new planning director and what they're doing to improve is fantastic. I'm just not so sure we're throwing enough money at the process to get somebody to their permit, get their CO and get open. And I continue to hear from people that build things in other cities what their permit turnaround time is versus what it is here. And what concerns me a little bit is we've seen the statistics on the number of inspections that our inspectors are doing and some of those things. So I just want to throw out there for us as we think through the growth that we're experiencing, both residential and commercial is, you know, so not to, I 'll throw this one out there and people won't think I'm picking, but as I'm looking at it I go, okay, we've got a half a million dollar increase in parks. And we've got a $300,000 increase in planning. I don't know all the detail behind it, but as I think about the money we've spent, I love you, Emerson, so I'm not picking on you. The number, the money that we've spent on parks over the last, say, 10 years and the money we haven't spent on planning and development to gear up for this growth that we're now right in the middle of, I think we need to challenge ourselves a little bit to think, I know historically you try to make sure every department gets kind of what they're asking for. I want to challenge us to think about maybe we need to, maybe we need to not think through how do we make sure we maintain the status quo, but as it relates to anything that's getting built, they've got to get their plans reviewed, they've got to get a permit, they've got to get inspections throughout the construction cycle, and they've got to get a CO before they can open and start paying us, right? And they pay for a permit and they pay for a CO and they pay for their inspections, so as I think about the number of projects, including homes and commercial structures that are going to be built here, I think what we found last year is we were way understaffed and way underfunded in that area, and might we think about doing a little more than what we think we should do to maintain what we think is unacceptable? Because what I'm hearing from people that are building the exact same building in Denton versus other cities is the time to get a permit here is about 3X what it takes in other cities on average. And I don't know why that is, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the people. What I do know is we saw the data that suggested we've got people doing 200% of what they're supposed to do in a day in terms of inspections. Same load on the planners, and as we walk through City Hall West and saw people sitting in a closet, you know, examining plans, I worry about are we going to get and keep the best people if we don't really go spend the money we need to spend to make those departments run at what I would say is an excellent clip. So I'm just throwing that out there for discussion, I guess . I don't know if we're -- we have the number of increased positions that we're really going to need to meet the demand. I'm not sort of dovetail on that, just to sort of share an anecdotal story. Because I hear what you're saying, and having applied for a permit on a very small remodel project, and in fact I heard the story yesterday that somebody had submitted all their documents to Project Docs, but somehow, this is just what I heard, that 10 days later they're talking to somebody they usually talk to, and you haven't submitted yet. Because they hadn't sent an official -- I hear what you're saying about personnel, but I really have some observations and concerns with how we're utilizing the software that we have, and is it as efficient as it needs to be? Because from what I'm hearing, that sort of software system of which I've had to partake in is challenging. It's challenging, and we paid a lot of money for that. I think it was $600,000 or $700,000 for Project Docs or something like that. So I'm not sure we're getting everything we can from it or if it's acting. So I agree that what I want to make sure is that whatever we need to do, whether it's -- because if you throw more people, but somehow the process through the software is deficient, I just want to make sure that we're also identifying where the deficiencies are. So yeah, I'm with you on how do we make sure that we give everybody in that department what they need and what the community needs to move through this process fairly seamlessly. I know my experience was, because I knew where to look, I got an email back saying, hey, go look at the City of Dent website for this, you know, for your -- I sort of knew where to look because I'm just used to it, but if I were somebody who didn't know where to look -- so in that website redesign, I'm sure that that's going to be part of that, is a little bit more user-friendly. So I'm with you on that. I think it's also a comprehensive look at what tools do they have to make themselves more efficient. Yep. Yep. >> If I may, I'll speak to both of your questions and comments. Greg, you mentioned about $400,000 additional in the planning division budget. That is not comprehensive of everything in terms of resources that are being allocated to development services. About $400,000 is in the planning division. We've got about $350,000 in the building inspections division. And in addition to those divisions that are within the planning and development department, significant resources have been allocated to engineering services and to fire inspections that help round out that development team to ensure that every department that supports development has the resources they need in order to be responsive and to help us address those turnaround times. I think I counted up that 11 of the 54 FTEs support development services. And it's well over a million dollars worth of proposed budget allocations specifically to try to address some of these issues. So I do believe that while a small portion of that is within the planning division, we really tried to take a look at the organization as a whole. In my budget requests, I strongly advocated for additional resources in other budgets like fire and engineering where I saw we really needed to see some additional resources there for the overall benefit of the development community. In addition to that, we have performed an in-depth technology assessment specifically on the tools that our customers use like Project Docs and TrackIt. In fact, we had the Project Docs vendor on site this spring and they're coming back this month for a several-day implementation of some custom functionality features that we've identified are repeat problems with our customers. And so we're allocating about $50,000 in this current fiscal year to upgrade our technology tools that are problems for our customers so that we can try to streamline that and make it a better experience. Filled with that, we're also working very closely with Allison and Public Communications to really revamp and evaluate the website and how it's laid out so that if you can't find something, how do we help you find it and do a better job of that and become more intuitive about how we're presenting that information. And the tool that we rolled out yesterday is one example of that. But if you've been on our website recently, it's changing daily right now because we're actively trying to fix that now while we look at an overall website redesign in the coming fiscal year. So I'm not saying don't allocate more resources to this, but I want you to understand the comprehensive nature of what we're attempting to do currently. So I guess my question was specifically related to those milestones that we have to hit throughout a project, whether it's a home or a factory that somebody's building. From submittals, and you and I have had meetings with some folks that are going through some challenges where they submit, comments back, submit, comments back. And one of the things that's built in obviously automated in the software is once you submit, I have 10 days to respond and some of those things. So I just want to make sure, and I think I'm hearing it from you, but I want to make sure that not only are we working on the things that we think we need to work on, but we have something we're measuring ourselves against. Meaning I may think that a five day response from my customer is fine, but if my customer expects two, then it doesn't really matter what I think. So I want to make sure when I hear things like I've built this same building in 16 different cities over the last year, and here's my experience getting through your process, and here's my experience in other places, I want to make sure that we're, and you don't have time to go and talk to all these people and get the feedback and understand what am I measuring myself against, right? So in other words, do I want to be average? No, we don't want to be average. Well, what's excellent? And are we average today in terms of how long it takes to get a permit or a review, a permit permit, an inspection, a CO? Is there data out there for you guys that helps you measure yourself? There is, and we did cover some of that in work sessions this spring where we did some benchmarking and looked at how we compare to other cities in terms of turnaround times. And I would say we're right about in the middle just in terms of looking at similarly sized Metroplex cities. I'm not saying that's sufficient. I think where we have the most room for improvement is customers being satisfied regardless of the amount of time that it takes, feeling that we're being responsive and that we are addressing their needs and doing so in a timely fashion and being sensitive to the constraints that they're operating under and the timelines that they may have or the pressures that they may be under and making sure that we're doing everything we can to help facilitate keeping things moving for them. That's just my observation is that regardless of the turnaround time, and there are certainly some issues with turnaround times, and I think addressing the staffing levels will help that greatly. But I also think we're also looking at a comprehensive customer service assessment and how do we make sure that we're facilitating a relationship as well as confidence that we are helping the project along rather than inadvertently delaying it. So my last comment on it is just I look at this department as being very unique in that the way you perform has an immediate, has a direct correlation to the revenue. So unlike some other departments where the services are the services we're providing, with planning and development, the faster you get somebody through the process, the faster they're generating sales taxes, the faster their ad valorem taxes are going to increase, et cetera, et cetera. So we can't just look at it as a cost. We have to look at the improvements have a revenue impact to us as well in a positive way. They do. And if we have a reputation in the city as being difficult to develop in, that has a negative impact on our revenue because developers will avoid coming here and making investments in them. And that's what we're trying to turn around today. >> Let me just follow up with her on. On the -- you said you've got the vendor representative in. So on these items or issues that we're wanting to try and correct, are you getting -- do we have a mechanism whereby outside of someone calling up and screaming at somebody about something and where people can -- and maybe this is part of this website thing and sort of what you're talking about as far as just relationships, where if, for instance, I mean, this project that was sort of sitting there but because there wasn't an actual confirmation of I'm submitting, where they can say, well, hey, this is what I think you all need to look at on this. So is there a way that you get feedback from the development community? Because we can identify certain particular items, but I mean, it's really what are they experiencing out in the field? What mechanism do we have whereby we can capture those and then funnel those into this representative and say we need to fix this? We -- because of the way that we function, our permit technicians are interfacing with that -- with that technology all day, every day, and they, along with our other staff members who are working directly with developers and builders every day, we have, I believe, a very firm handle on what the issues are with those technology tools because of the feedback we've gotten. Additionally, we are conducting what we call a channel assessment, which is where we're testing the system to see where the failures or the disconnects are, just systematically going in, okay, if I'm going to apply for a permit, where is the breakdown happening? And so that we can identify those and eliminate those. A couple of examples of some custom changes that we're making to Project DOC specifically. Mayor Watts, you mentioned there's no submit button, so the city doesn't know when you're finished uploading documents. You don't know that you -- that we don't know you haven't finished uploading documents, which is why we end up in an email chain. Are you finished? Would you like us to process your application now? And that's -- as unbelievable as it sounds, that's not a normal feature of this software. So we're custom building it with the vendor. So we really are trying to look at all those little things that add up to a positive or negative experience. Another one that I know you personally experienced as well is having to repeatedly enter the same information, your name, address, phone number. You feel like once you've done it once, we have it. And so to have to do it in a different system or a different form is challenging. And so we are looking at all those things and how do we make it as customer friendly as possible. Have we ever done -- because I know that we've -- I'm sorry , Kevin, just one more follow-up. Because I know Councilmember Johnson mentioned the 10-day review period, and I think those are business days, if I'm not mistaken. And whether or not that's too long or too short, I don't know. I think what I hear is that it's not so much the 10 days, it's when comments come back and then they go back and there's something new or there's something that's missed or there's something that's so very much a minor detail. So just all those kind of things add up. I'd be curious to see if we decided to go to a shorter period, let's say five days, five business days, what would be the requirements from a funding perspective and a staff perspective, if any, that that would require in order to do that? Once you look at comprehensively the software -- because I really think that's a -- I think that's a huge part of it, quite honestly. It really discourages me that we paid that much money to have such simple things that are not part of it. But anyway. So -- I will tell you that we are, as a part of this team approach where we're putting one team on each project from start to finish, one of the things -- one of the opportunities that that affords us is to have teams who handle smaller projects with shorter turnaround times and a different, more experienced team that might handle the more complex projects that would take 10 days straight to get the plans reviewed if you did it full time and had two of you working on it full time, which we just experienced last week with a major project. It took two reviewers 10 full business days to get it done. But there -- on the flip side of that, you can have a team or two that's dedicated to window replacements and small things that just take 10, 15 minutes or an hour to review so that we can compress those turnaround times. And so what we might look at is setting turnaround times based on the size and complexity of the project to be able to address a lot of that. Because what we've heard repeatedly is that those small projects get bottlenecked behind the larger projects because everything's taken in order of submittal and assigned somewhat randomly. Okay. Good. Thank you. Councilmember Rhoades. I think this is a great conversation. It strikes me, Mary, in the context of this Bloomberg project, we've talked about kind of data-driven decision-making. And this strikes me as something ripe for that. As you determine what are your goals as a city in terms of turnaround time, times for permitting, what's your goals, and then how do these various ways that we've thought investing this way was going to get us there, did it or did it not? And that we could test every year. And let's try again. Let's reiterate. So something I think we can continue to think about. But, Amy, I just have to say, I think you're doing a great job. There's not a week that goes by where I don't get a compliment about you personally, your department, the culture. The breath of fresh air is obviously the phrase that is used. So thanks for everything you're doing. Thank you. You've been interim for how long now? Five months. Five months? Yes. It seems like five years, doesn't it? It does. This conversation just seems ripe at some point. Is there going to be, at some point, a data download from you, I mean, I think we're just scratching the surface on here's what I've learned during that time. Here's what we've discussed. Because you're giving us a lot of insight into some of these internal conversations. And here are my, as the interim planning director's, recommendations on where we need to go. Because I think that's going to get us at funding priorities moving in the future for her to be very candid with us, saying here's what we need to do to fix some of these things. Are we planning on some sort of discussion like that? We are. We had the first one on June 30th, which is you were out of town for that one, unfortunately. But that was kind of phase one where I did a big picture overview of what we believe are council priorities for the department and where the issues are in the organization and our ability to accomplish those priorities. And a lot of that is reflected in the budget requests that you're considering today. Not just positions, but also funding for outsourcing some projects that we want to make sure that don't go by the wayside. That are important to us, but are more efficiently and cost effectively handled by a third party. And so there's a variety of requests that have been made that are all related to being responsive to what we think the council's priorities are for the department. Now our next phase is we're doing a comprehensive mapping of the entire development process start to finish from when you get online to access eTracket and Project Docs for the first time to when you have a CO in our opening. That's a very complex mapping process and it involves almost every department in the city putting their hands on the project at some point in time. And so we're mapping that today. We've finished mapping it and now we're analyzing that map to determine where the disconnects are and the steps that are not adding value and the places where there's a breakdown between departments so that we can come back essentially with a proposal for a new process and set some goals with that of what those turnaround times would be. Great. Well, I've got you up here and connected with this although it's a different part of your department and that is kind of what our investment is in neighborhood projects. So I know we have the $50,000 neighborhood grant fund. We have a position I think dedicated to that. I know we have this neighborhood summit. I'd like to as part of the budget process to get some basic report. A, I don't know what's been funded out of the neighborhood grant program for the last year and I'd be curious to know how that's going. But just what are we spending in that? What are we getting from that? I think there's just a lot of folks interested in making better neighborhoods. We got a lot of with KDBTree discussions. We got a lot of possibilities. Just want to make sure we're heading in the right direction with that. Absolutely. Just some sort of brief report. So one of my first recommendations was that we actually create a new division within planning that is long range planning, essentially comprehensive planning which encompasses neighborhood planning. And so that division has been created at this point in time and now we're allocating staff resources to determine the best way to support that division. But neighborhood planning is a function of our comprehensive plan which we're working on implementing now. And so one of the things that the comprehensive plan calls for is for us to do small area plans which is a neighborhood planning activity. And our neighborhood planner has already identified by priority the top five areas in town that need a small area plan. And now we're looking at how do we allocate staff time and resources to accomplish those small area plans and really work with the neighborhoods. Their boots on the ground programs where you're interfacing with that neighborhood multiple times over an 18 month time period in order to get a plan that is what the neighborhood wants to see and desires for their future. And so it's an intensive type of planning but we are looking at how do we focus on that because what we've found is that with so much increase in development review, we've had a 60% increase in number of new planning cases in the last two years that if we don't have planners that are dedicated to comprehensive planning, it will not get done. And so that's why we've created that division. So I hear what you're saying, Kevin, and we're looking that direction. How do we make sure that that doesn't drop off the radar? Thank you, Mayor. Dr. Murrah-Hawkins. Amy, I, too, hear just what a professional you are all the time. I know in that email you referenced a GIS analyst. That's correct. And so in the supplemental, there's a GIS technician. I don't know what that is. Can you tell me what that is? It's essentially a -- it's a GIS person who is highly trained. They have a degree in GIS and so they would be able to perform the same kinds of functions. And in fact, we have a GIS intern right now and she was a huge support in creating that tool that launched yesterday. And when we requested that GIS tech position, it was in order to be able to retain her. She's just now graduating and she's starting to look for positions and she's very well equipped to help us use GIS for functionality and being customer friendly. And we would like to be able to keep her, which is why we made that request. She's already supporting and helping today and it will be a loss if she takes another job. Okay. Thanks, Amy. I want to thank you, too. Planning has needed help for a long time and the rework is underway and that's what the citizens need to hear. It's what business needs to hear. And I want to thank you for putting the hard work and shoulder behind. It's truly a total reorganization of that department and it 's a department that impacts everything that happens in this city. Everything. So to hear a 60% increase, I am encouraged with the new plan to have the four teams. I think that's just that's a business model and I just congratulate you and thank you because it's been frustrating for citizens and business and I think we're on the path and congratulations to good work. Thank you. Got a couple. I guess I'm going to run down my list. Is that all right? Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it. Yeah. You I've heard very good things about the process and I think the good thing is we're getting rid of some of the problems that really dogged us to really get down to look at what really seems to be the crux of the matter on some of the real frustrating things that occur and I think it's with just your leadership and just things are going better and I really appreciate that and I think things are going well in the city. I mean it's really popping right now so it's important that we keep that momentum going because we've got a lot of good things coming down the pike so thank you very much for that. Thank you. Yeah, a couple of more philosophical observations and then more specific and I'm not sure which ones I'll start with first. Are you finished with me? Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. You can sit up there and answer all these if you want. One question is on the medic unit and I know there's been some discussion about ambulance transportation charges and all that which I think we're going to probably touch on in a different work session specifically about that but in the budget it shows ambulance service fees. The estimate for '14-'15 was 2.3 million and the proposed is 3.15 million and I'm assuming that's if you get transported and you know there's a fee charged for that. Is that correct? There's also an additional program that was implemented in the current fiscal year but the impact of it is next fiscal year where we get reimb ursed through a state grant program. It's kind of federal funding that comes down through the state for a portion of our Medicaid transports but the vast majority is for the uninsured transports that we have where we can get reimbursed through a program to do that. We've hired an outside consultant and you have to make application to the state. We made our first application this year and we're getting about two to three months worth and I think that's about 175,000. We've estimated next year from that program will be reimb ursed about estimating about 750,000. So that large increase you see is really the additional reimbursement we'll get through this program. It's the same program where hospitals get paid for unins ured patients that they deal with so that's really the large increase. It's not a change in charges for ambulance services or increased collection. It's really the increase is the reimbursement from that federal program. So we're not really including any additional potential whether we get it or not. Obviously we're budgeting for some kind of with our current ambulance services we're budgeting some kind of reimbursement of fee charges whether it's at the full amount or some because it's $2.3 million. Are we including any from that medic seven? It doesn't sound like we're really showing that there may be some revenue generated from that. That's how we're doing it right now so that's the only reason I'm asking is if we're adding a medic seven a new medic unit transportation unit and you are right the 2.3 is this current year and if you add 750,000 to that it's the 31.50 which means there's not any in there for some potential revenue from the new medic unit that comes online and maybe it's coming online too late but just why is that I guess is my question . I'll turn it over but I think we're responding to those calls now I think what the new medic unit is going to do is speed up to the response to those calls but if they're within our city limits we're responding with a medic unit. So it's not increasing the number of calls it's reducing the time? Yes. Okay. And that's exactly correct. We do have an escalator in our revenue increase primarily of course the big dollars are this additional revenue source but because they increase call volume we are speculating and budgeting for an increase in revenue but the increase in the units is just a redistribution of the total number of calls impacting response time. Okay. Yeah that's right. Thank you. That's a great explanation. Thank you chief. One of the things fundamentally that I've thought through on the current budget is and not sure if we can do it this year but sure would like to look at it next year and that is and so I asked my colleagues for some help here because I think I'm stuck on something and when I see when I see the budget request and then I see the forecast out of course we're trying to look at what's the projected fund balance and we've got a one cent tax increase projected and those assumptions are four percent on the revenue side moving forward in years two through five and then when we come in and the budget is based upon an assumption of six percent and I know we've talked about this before there's a disconnect for me in the sense of okay why don't we if we're going to say that we're forecasting on a four percent assumption increase that the budget come in at the four percent level and if it's over then we sort of go through this what we're doing now just at six percent in other words we've got this sort of overage council priorities quote-un quote and you know what do we want to do with that and that may just be something that's just my pet peeve I don't know it's not even a pet peeve it's just sort of a disconnect for me so don't necessarily have maybe that's something you can respond to and the questions is if we're assuming in our forecast a four percent increase like last year when we looked at this year we assumed a four percent and we so we made decisions last year based upon these forecasts and then when it comes in it comes in at six percent because I know that that's the most accurate potentially the most accurate of what we think it may come in but I just and I think along with that if you could share in the report for these questions is how much of let's just use the six percent of that increase is is personnel you know I know personnel 70 percent of it and so that means the increases I'm just trying to see exactly what we have to work with outside of just personnel increases you know the merit increases and things such as that because I really don't know what those numbers are so that that's one of the more philosophical things that I've said it here before and I'll say it now I really would like to see some type of tax rate decrease you know I really wanted to see that last year when we had an eleven point four percent increase and this year we have an eight point six five percent increase which is almost twenty percent over two years and I think it would be prudent and financially feasible whether it's a cent or a half cent I mean I'd like to see a cent which means your net's not going to be that much because you're raising it on the O&M but that that's what I would like to see because I think it helps us I know someone would say well that's seven hundred thousand what is what is a cent is it five what's a cent reduct how much it's about eight hundred and fifty thousand okay so somebody said well eight hundred fifty thousand over ten years is eight point five million dollars well if we're going to look at the analysis that way we'd have to do it on everything that we're making decisions on but I think it would be it would send a good message of we're really trying to when we see these kind of increases to make sure that because we're never going to have enough money to do everything everybody wants to do and when I look at those projected tax increases out I mean when you start popping on the seventy cent per thousand so that that is something that I would like to see and there was a report that I thought y'all might have received but we're going to receive it on the home from the homelessness task force about you know some recommendations or some thoughts on on what we can do there and one of the recommendations was to to somehow find whether it's the city or a cooperative agreement like with we have with mentor Denton to fund a homelessness coordinator that would would help with all of the different nonprofits in the area that are doing the same work to ensure that hey are we maximizing our efficiencies and my thought on that wasn't necessarily that that's a city position but it may be something that we can look at some funding for in cooperation with either United Way or even even DISD because they're homeless students out there and I don't think it would be something and we may be able to find people in some other organizations that they can augment their their job description with that so I'd like to see that as a as a potential objective economic development fund I saw that there wasn't any funding for an economic development fund what I would like to do or or make the request that I know we have an economic development fund for downtown which I think is a hundred thousand dollars is that right and it 's funded through the alcoholic beverage tax if I'm correct and I would like to either say based upon the TURS information and what we're seeing down there I think downtown is what's it's starting to build it's like a fire you know once you get the coals burning then things really heat up and start moving so I'd like to see maybe using that money to be part of that seed money for just a city wide economic development fund that we can use not to exclude downtown but to open it up to some other areas and in the future look at I think Chuck you gave us and I really appreciate that what economic development incentives are expiring within the next three to five years within the forecast and I think it's like 80,000 or but to look at do we want to take a portion of that 50% or 30% to use as this fund and because I think it's important I mean folks we've got a lot of good stuff going on in this town right now I mean we've got a lot of people moving in we've got some really great projects that are going to help us fund some of the other things that aren't necessarily revenue generating like homeless coordinator and parks and things such as that so I think it 's important to really try to find a mechanism to help to help with that let's see let me look because I know I got let's see can I can I yes go ahead yes yeah just jump in so on that well on the point about economic development in the downtown you know one of the challenges with that is here's what I would say about an economic development fund if we're gonna do it we need to do it right okay hundred thousand dollars for downtown that that money gets broken up into a bunch of little small contributions for awnings and you know signed grants and paint and small things that make a big difference downtown a general economic development fund if you talk about a hundred thousand dollars spread out over a whole city you're never going to be able to make an impact on squat so my opinion is we what we really should do is have a a solid conversation about let's stop talking about how we don't have for a for B let's start talking about what we can do and let's do something in a big way because if we limp in with a hundred thousand dollars and try to spread that peanut butter that out over the whole city we're never going to make an impact I think what you what you hit upon is the right way to look at it is as these incentives expire look at directing those funds into an economic development fund that allows us to have some real substantive dollars to make large impacts with right because that's how you get a return on your investment we're not going to get a return on our investment with a hundred thousand dollars spread over the city you know what what we're trying to do I was on the downtown task force when the hundred thousand dollars happened was and we requested five hundred thousand but the idea was make it attractive so that pedestrians that are walking down see things and they feel comfortable they feel confident so to me rather than I would actually like to think about the reverse don't take the hundred and try to spread over the city have a have a conversation about how we do a real quality economic development fund that allows you to do the things all over your city that you need to do to make the economic development happen because I don't think the hundred thousand is going to do squat for us well and I guess my point in that is to not make it exclusive to the downtown area because it's not being used to attract it's being used as you said for aesthetics and things such as that and I'm just simply saying I think there's other parts of the city that could could use some of that not just the money but that kind of upkeep and let me tell you we just spent three million dollars on a street segment to beautify downtown that's coming out of the the general fund debt service to pay for that so I guess it's just it's wanting to say okay we're committing a lot of money there well let's see and the objective was to really get it moving and I think it I think it's moving it's all because of Joey yeah yeah yes I'll restrict my comments to this point because I think this is also a great conversation and probably on that hundred thousand dollar fund because I think what you're talking about is a larger tool which I think set kind of a separate conversation but somewhat connected and I agree with you mayor I think perhaps the way to do that is for us to as a council and a community come together and say let's target another area or a couple of areas to pinpoint I mean I'm even thinking one one might look at and I think I don't know how much of it is in the D tip area that would already be qualifying for but if you were to say hey we're going to segment this off we want to put all that into say east of the railroad tracks someplace that's not yet sparking in the same way and might need a little bit or we want to look down south on locust and say we're going to restrict it now to here because we want to incentivize folks doing stuff because it's not really taking off the way downtown proper is but that to me that would be the conversation I have yes to pinpoint that yes yeah no no and I think that's uh yeah I think it's it's just to really open that up to different ideas and creativity to provide that kind of opportunity to to different parts of the city but you're you're right councilmember Johnson I mean it's it's of course you know what we really could do is you know we took a million dollars to pay for the land across the street we could just fund it with one time I'm just kidding transfer from anyway let's see on the there was a I got an email well on the budget supplement on page one under building inspections building inspector and health inspector I show vehicles of 24 610 and 20,000 that's the vehicles not the issue my question is when we move these numbers forward into the forecast you know the the these supplemental numbers because the vehicle obviously isn't going to be a year by year budget expense so are we offsetting I mean it shows 99,000 and 100,000 basically for those two positions which include vehicles so the net of those are about 80 are we moving into the next moving forward in our budget projections that full 200,000 or we move in the 160 how does that work some of the one-time costs that we've identified in here we break that out because those costs don't roll forward but what about the vehicles do they roll forward no they're considered one-time cost their one-time costs okay they're just not in that category so I that's why I was asking yeah okay all right let me see I'm sure I'll have some others but like Kevin I'll let me see what we do on the health insurance of you know we're self-insured do we ever do we have a way of going out and I mean and I've always heard when you're this large of an organization self -insurance is the way to go and I get that from a cost perspective but do we go out and take snapshots sometimes or okay if we were to go back to an insurance you know sort of a more traditional where you have an insurance company and a pre do we go out and benchmark that with well if we were to not be self-insured and that we would be insured in a more I don't know if it's traditional or not and this is what it would cost us do we go back do we go out and look at that or do we just assume it or how do we come up with that data turn it over to Scott Payne is a risk manager thank you mayor it's data that we I think we presented the council several months ago I think we did an overall update on where we were from a self-insurance fund and also on the clinic and what we do was look at our consultant to kind of help us do that analysis for us because we don't go out every year and benchmark ourselves okay well if we went to the fully insured market how much would it cost and so I don't remember the exact figure but I want to say since we've been self-funded since 2007 it's been about 11 million dollars worth of estimated savings he thinks versus what we would have paid to be fully insured because again we're always going to save the profit and overhead that the insurance company is going to want to charge us you know the fixed costs are going to be pretty much the same the actual nuts and bolts of adjusting claims and paying bills and that you know that kind of stuff developing provider networks are going to be the same but it's just that if our claims are less than what our premium was then we retain that savings versus the insurance company getting to keep it and then if we have an increase you know our rates going up by 20 and 30 percent every year versus us being to say okay now we've got a fund balance and we can absorb that and so we don't have to do dramatic changes to our health plan whereas in the past we were fully insured that's what we had to do you know we would get the renewal rate from our fully insured carrier to say okay we're actually going to go by 35 percent based on your loss history and so then that became this exercise of how do we find that 35 percent you know we have to increase contributions we have to eliminate benefits you know how do we get there because we never have a chance to win when we're paying a fully ins ured premium so. And the consultant who gives us that data is that is that the same organization that helps us with our self-insurance or is it a totally third- party independent consultant? We have a consulting contract with a company called McGree ves, Sebelz and Williams for our benefit people. And it's for the full benefit package so they help us with our dental, our vision, our disability, our life and our health plan. And so they're they're plugged into they have lots of public entity clients they have some that are fully insured and some that are self-funded and so they're able to extract that data they know what the marketplace is doing and so it's a ballpark number it may be more than eleven million dollars it may be less than a million dollars but we've saved money definitely by being self-funded. Good all right thank you thank you very much. On the parks supplemental and it's just I'm trying to understand on item 20 okay this is their number item 28 which is on page 2 it shows the parks maintenance unfunded O&M and the personnel services was like 59,000 then has ongoing costs of 22,589. What does that represent? If you'll give me a second to look at the details and then if I. Because that that is moving forward in the in the forecasting is what my assumption is because it says ongoing. Okay I'll let Emerson come up he can probably answer it more quickly than I can look up the documents. Oh oh I'm sorry it's on page 2 in line item 28 if you look at ongoing costs it says 22,589. The ongoing costs in this case most of that is relates to H ickory Street it's water it's electric it's chemicals it's replacement plants it's items like that that are ongoing in the budget they'll remain in the budget. Yes. And but this isn't just I mean this person isn't just for H ickory Street I mean I wouldn't think no that person is picking up well that FTE is helping out with a number of properties that the city has acquired park properties that we've acquired Hickory Street's the primary focus of it quite frankly but the the ongoing cost is is like I say it's chemicals it's water it's electric. Well okay I guess I'm surprised that so Hickory Street what you're what you're telling me I mean there is some capacity for this person to do other things. Yes. But yet primarily the objective of this particular budget item was to address that segment primarily. Yes. So $100,000 a year $85,000 a year for that stretch of road. Well there are a number of properties that were included on the on that list. We actually asked for a FTE and a half. We asked for more than than what was granted so that position will get will have responsibilities all over town. Right. But the primary purpose was primary is Hickory Street. I'm not trying to that's not picking on you I'm just trying to get accurate information. Yeah okay. Yes. So so do we do an analysis of outsource versus in source on things like that in terms of and I need to understand when you say ongoing the 22589 ongoing is that outside of the cost of the employee? Okay so it's just supplies and whatnot right. We kind of break down in here we kind of break down FTE or employee cost and other ongoing costs that are you know supplies or contractual costs that 's really for our purposes they're both ongoing cost but we kind of break down the personnel costs separate from the other cost. Okay. So. Is the distinction being between those ongoing costs of personal head supplies versus one time costs which might be a vehicle. Correct. But you I think you said that this figure primarily represents the water replacing plants that may die. Yes. For the hit that hickory street corridor. Yeah and bear in mind we've also done a good portion of the tree planting that council asked us to do out of the tree fund council did elected not to fund any of the maintenance on those trees out of the tree fund. That's what this represents. That's what some of the ongoing costs represent. Water replacements. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm sorry Greg I interrupted you. No no I just I was yeah so the the only that's that's helpful. And ongoing because when I think about maintenance ongoing I just know what it costs to maintain the grounds of a shopping center and hickory street would be similar except there's no grass and so I'm just trying to reconcile that amount in my head and I'm guessing do we do we employ any third party landscape maintenance services. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. So anytime we're looking at something like this would we. We would consider it yes. In this case we feel like we're better served in this particular case to ask for in-house staff. So what percent of that person's time is going to be spent on hickory street. Probably 60 to 70. Okay. So so let's just say it's 60 percent. $50,000 a year to maintain the plants on hickory street. And then pay for the water and like I say it's the whole thing. And it's tough because now we're focused solely on hickory street here and I'm looking at a list that includes hickory street landscape the mcnat animal adoption facility which we didn't get any I mean this is our opportunity to get resources to maintain that facility. That's a class a facility so it gets mowed on a weekly basis and it's got irrigation. This is a difficult part of the of us putting together these packages because there's a little bit of irrigation in relative terms there's a little bit of irrigation on hickory street in the scope of things for us. There's a little bit of irrigation at the mcnat facility. So while I may be asking for one FTE, you know that FTE it 's not necessarily the same person. I may have a person collecting litter up and down hickory street every morning five days a week seven days a week because we run a trash truck seven days a week. Part of that FTE is a two-man crew that's fixing irrigation out there or fixing irrigation at mcnat. So it's hard or maybe fixing the irrigation on the trees that we've planted at Carl Young or at North Point Park. So maybe the better way to think about it is this is just increased capacity. Exactly. Overall not think about it as the FTE. Yes sir. That's helpful. Yes sir. Thank you. No that's good. Oh sorry Joey go ahead. I didn't see you. I was gonna ask about streets if yours is still on this one go ahead. Well I was just gonna say I mean another project to probably I don't know that it impacts this particular thing but it's it's something that will approve something and not know the unintended consequences. So the property we just purchased in the Township 2 area which now becomes park property and exactly requires park maintenance that part of that purchase didn't involve granting them a bunch of money to go mow it and do all that sort of stuff . So we probably do that all the time and not realize that so I get this. Yeah yes. Great. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you Mayor. Yeah my question we just recently had that presentation on the streets and it seems like us as a city we're kind of gaining momentum or streets are getting better but we still have a lot of work ahead of us and on the supplemental for micro seal there's a hundred thousand dollars. Where are you? What page are you on? Page six, street improvement and it's that last line. And on the ongoing cost of a hundred thousand dollars obviously the city we do micro seal right now are we just requesting to do more and does that actually is that just a very temporary fix to the streets? I'm trying to remember from that presentation what micro seal actually did and if it just prolonged the life of the street and how much and. Well I'm not even sure that the item you're looking at is not included in the city manager's recommendations. It's not. No yeah. Okay all right. Yeah. So but I just I still wanted to ask about that. Yeah you bet. I mean neither was the GIS tech spot so. So micro seal. What is that request ultimately for or all about? We've done some changing from the time that we actually presented our white papers to the budget committee until now and kind of changed some of our ideals how we wanted to prevent and do our budget but micro seal is a preventative product. If you look at a life cycle on the street you do a preventing maintenance at two dollars and 19 cents a square yard here which extends the life of the street. If you wait the street goes down here at 75 dollars yard. So we currently do work spent with this year we spent four hundred thousand dollars on micro seal alone. That doesn't include the activities to get ready as far as crack seal base failures potholes that are on top of that dollar. So we are increasing keeping our good streets good so to speak and that's what micro seal does. So this hundred thousand you want to do more of that you already do some of that now. Yes sir we're continuing to increase our efforts to ensure that our streets are staying in a good condition. Okay thank you. Okay go ahead well our lunch is ready so can you hold that until. I can just ask you personally it's okay. Oh you should no no no. That's good. You sure? Yeah. Okay we're going to now reconvene our budget discussion and not sure who had the floor. If not I'll take the floor. A couple of other items just for clarification on and Council Member Hawkins you had sort of been on the street maintenance. So I had a couple of questions on that specifically on the on the asphalt recycler. Obviously we're trying to either cut costs oh no the mic's on yeah. Oh you're good thanks. We're trying to become more efficient either with our time and or our expenses on the street recycler which is a I would presume a pretty substantial piece of equipment. And so I see the one-time cost but I'm how do we handle maintenance on that? I mean there's not a there's not a charge on ongoing costs for maintenance on that in the budget is that handled in a different department or how do we account for the maintenance on that piece of equipment? That's within the street maintenance fund so that piece of equipment will be purchased out of the street maintenance fund so maintenance of that that the upkeep of that would be out of the street maintenance fund for like ongoing maintenance . Okay so so when I see the other fund is street improvement is where the asphalt recycler is it's under the street improvement fund I guess. Correct. So the maintenance for that would that be coming out of the street improvement fund as well? Correct. So where where is it on this particular supplemental request budgeted that we're anticipating some level of maintenance on that piece of equipment moving forward? I don't think it's within that request it's just within a line item in street maintenance or the street improvement fund where they have maintenance of all their equipment. Okay all right so there's been an increase in that particular line item maybe to help cover the potential increase in this. Okay. Yes. Okay and on the street maintenance crew five positions now I know when we talked with Emerson and Parks their request for and we focused in on that one F TE and the ongoing cost that was a capacity sort of discussion is this in that same vein or is this actually we're going to hire five people to create a whole new street maintenance crew? What we're having is we're having continued difficulties getting contractors in to help supplement our organization and we're continually doing the activities we're doing now. This new crew is to basically come in and say right now on the O&M side if we have to base failure sometimes we have to shut this crew down to help this crew or we have to crack shield we shut this crew down to help this crew. This crew is hired basically to supplement and shore up our current program to allow us to dedicate time and resources to those activities so we can provide those services back to the citizens. Okay so then I would guess that this is to increase our ability to have a more expedited turnaround time on the different projects. I guess what would be helpful and since this is sort of a new it's like we did this I believe with the was it wastewater? We had a new wastewater crew set up or something and I'd sort of like request that but since we're starting this anew it'd be interesting to see how we 're doing now having some benchmark about this is what we're able to do this is how many jobs we're able to complete patches with the current crew and once this crew gets implemented to show the delta of that because I think I mean it's it's a considerable amount of money and we're doing it for a purpose of increasing our response time and our ability to respond to street maintenance issues. We're also increasing our funding in our accounts every year so we're doing more so not only are we doing more we want to do it better and more. Okay yeah that's so you're saying it's not just it's not that the amount of work stays static and we're just trying to get it done faster we also have the amount of work is growing yes and therefore we also need this to backstop a capacity issue as we talked about before but also maybe increase the turnaround time sort of a combination of both. And just like the asphalt machine right now we're $54 a ton for us to purchase asphalt we've done some studies and we've done some comparison with cities we think we can produce asphalt for $20 a ton and it takes two to two and a half hours for our trucks to wait on the load of asphalt so this machine will produce 11 tons an hour so therefore we can then put that material back into the streets and do it quicker and a better job of it. Oh I guess I don't know what an asphalt recycler is. Well what we're looking at is a machine you know when our current activities we mill a street yes and so we're taking that material putting reju venator and re recreating asphalt okay and so that's the purpose of that machine is it'll produce 11 tons of asphalt an hour that we can then turn around and use to go back and patch streets potholes utility cuts where right now we're buying that product. Okay but for that machine to generate that that means it's having to take that up it's not it's not a batch plant it's saying we're going to take up let's say I don't know Bonnie Bray Street we're going to we're going to take it up and so this machine allows us to take it up add some process to it and reuse it. We currently use millings and if we have a leftover product in the machine because asphalt gets cold and you can't reuse it we can then bring the mill ings product that we do on all of our activities on our reconstructing our mill and overlay because we use that product on it for temporary driveways so now we can take it not only use it for temporary products we can take that machine and take that material and bring it back to our shop which we store and then we can take asphalt and add to that and then create basically new asphalt with that product. Okay so this machine then because when I think of asphalt recycler it's taking up the old asphalt and we're doing something to it so that we can reuse it. So if we have a stockpile of asphalt we can take this machine use the asphalt that we already have stored and lay down so this is not just grinding it up it can also put it back down? What it does is it's a process you dump the old millings in you dump rejuvenator in it and then you fire it through a machine and then it heats it and then it basically creates new asphalt again. Okay and then you offload it somewhere it doesn't lay it back down it just creates it? No sir. Okay all right and you found that this would be the most cost effective way to help with what we're doing? Like I said it's $20 a ton to make it versus $54 to buy it and then I don't my trucks don't have to sit there and wait two to two and a half hours to get it. Fantastic. All right well and so I think I was confused in the beginning then what's the actual machine that's tearing up the street that's what I thought this was ? Well that's good that could be one of two things that could be a milling machine that actually mills it and loads it in a truck or you can have a mixer which incorporates that material back into the subgrade we do both. Okay but that's what I thought this machine was. Yeah that's I did too which we currently we already have a milling machine that we use and then we bring that product back so it's a product that we already have or we already create we're just going to benefit from it. So on Hickory Street you know there were people who were saying that that we were waiting on the milling machine a lot of times for that was that an accurate thing or? I wasn't over that project but I can tell you some of the things that they suffer from that we're suffering from. We call our asphalt company up say we need a pavement company and we can be there in three weeks right so we all are suffering that we don't have enough contractors in trying to our contractors trying to hire a contractor so in the market that we are working in today there is a shortage of operators machines and companies to do that work so that's some of the things that we do a lot of the outsourcing but we do a lot of it to help that deliver the services. But we do own a milling machine. We own a small one because the ideal is dust draw is our current contractor. They want to come in and mill to 3,000 yards they can make money doing that they don't want to come in here and do a base failure that's 10 foot wide and 20 foot long it's too big of a base failure to fix with a backhoe it's more productive for us to mill it with a small machine and then pave it with that and then we would take that material and then reuse it to make more material to fix another spot. Okay. Thank you. And then my final one at least for now is I got an email on economic development of course I attended last year the South by Southwest trade show with I think it was CBB and so I'm not sure what the history is from last year but under economic development shows South by Southwest interactive trade show and there was a budget request of 22,000 and that wasn't in the city manager's recommendations. Is that something we funded last year or was that fully funded from the CBB or how? Last year it was funded utilizing some existing funds which were marketing funds for the Codenton program because of the content of the message at South by Southwest specifically that it was South by Southwest interactive and there were a lot of tech companies down there. We knew we were going to have some program savings in that program and so we agreed to participate on a one time basis knowing we had those funds available and because the CBB is going to continue to invest and do it again this coming year they've asked us to cost participate again but we don't have the capacity in our budget to do it without a supplemental request at this point. Okay. Yes. Amy, I understand that UNT heard about that deal last year and that they have offered it up to contribute the 20 something thousand dollars but my understanding was that was a match. If we contribute it they contribute it. You know if that's true? I honestly don't have the details on that. I know they did contribute. I know that the CBB is contributing and we had originally split it 50/50 last year. I can find out though regarding the matching requirement. I would just toss out there that it's 20,000 bucks. My understanding was that UNT offered a matching contribution to the city's contribution so if that's the case I just think we ought to revisit that. I would hate for us to not put our best foot forward at that event as a city especially if whatever we can come up with UNT would match it and allow us to do something bigger and better than what we did last year. So I don't know who would be the person to investigate that and figure it out. I'll take care of it and come back with some more information. I'll come back with more information on the match and happy to look further into it. Thank you. I just want to add to that and second that. I didn't get a chance to go. I know the mayor was a rock star down there as I understand which is great but I participated a lot in the planning process up to that. You know it really is a marketing and economic development thing for the city and it had some really strange tangential unintended benefits. One of which was some really great discussion of what's the brand of the city of Denton and how do we best communicate that to the types of folks we'd want to invest in the city and that aspect of it was kind of free of charge because it was the right people at the table really thinking through concepts and what are we displaying, who are we getting here. I also understand it energized a lot of our kind of small business community. It did. Because they had a platform of displaying what they did. We had them participate and come down and be featured inside the booth and it energized them and it boosted their sales and their visibility across the country because of the attendance at the show. So to me if a $20,000 investment becomes an $80,000 investment because of Partners for One to come to the table and it's all about selling Denton at the type of place we'd want to sell it to. So I think it's worth looking at as well. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah I heard that. So it's a national, international magnet event. The people are there from all over and gosh that's your opportunity to really have exposure in front of a lot of different people and organizations that you may not be exposed to on any other level. So if that's a drop in the bucket in terms of cost to I think cost benefit and there are benefits sometimes you can't measure but you've got to market yourself and that is a place we need to be. Well I tell you it was quite an event down there especially when the brewer there on Shady Oaks, they gave out free beer samples and it was like the sand bass running. Lots of people coming up and down. It's an old fisherman joke. You know and I think moving forward if that's something that we are thinking we want to participate in on a regular basis and I think sometimes I get confused about what hot funds can fund because I know we fund the CVB and so is this something that could be included because I would always rather use restricted funds first as to general funds so this year I don't have a problem with that but if it can be something that we need to look at in hot funds moving forward that would be something that I'd certainly be open to. Right we'll take a look at that as well. There will probably be somebody there that could figure out our high speed internet needs to parts of our city that our current partner is willing to help us in. Thanks. Okay. All right thank you. Yes Kevin. On that note you know we've had some internal discussions on this fiber question about the city and it seems like there's a lot of pressing issues that we're still kind of waiting on some feedback in terms of cost or whatnot but I'm a bit concerned that we may not have the funding capacity to be able to act when we do decide get that to the level of policy discussion and what that takes so I don't know if there's some preliminary analysis that's been done already as a result of the last meeting we had on that topic that we could have as part of this budget cycle just to make sure we're planning ahead on that in case we decide to make a big move. Kevin if I could let me ask Melissa to address it I know we 're doing some work on it we've had a lot of conversation but I don't know that we have answers to the questions on the call. I think so based on preliminary analysis I've met with Grande AT&T charter and I think me and Amy meet with Verizon on Monday to kind of talk about that. So part of the preliminary one of the immediate requests that I've been receiving from a lot of these internet providers is well how many businesses are interested in the downtown area and the industrial corridor and by the rail yard so they kind of want us to provide some assistance in that regard and I think Julie Bubber is going to help us get that together so we can kind of give them more precise information so they can actually come back with a proposal that kind of outlines what does that really entail. So as of now I think there's two providers that are kind of close to downtown which is charter and Verizon. Okay good just want to make sure we got that on the radar as part of this process. It'll take probably a couple weeks. Okay if I can ask. Oh yeah sure I'm sorry. I did want to looking at this council priority kind of unf unded items here one of them I wanted to kind of draw out and get some feedback we had a discussion and a work session environment on the community market and their requests at looking at spots they were looking across the street from here I think council kind of was trying to steer them away from that and steering them towards maybe some other options including one they had previously rejected down my exposition in East Hickory and I know there's been a lot of conversations since then. Can we get an update on what specifically they're asking for and how that might play out if we choose to fund that this year? I think Mr. Nelson is heading up toward the podium. Good afternoon so if I understand the question you're looking for what their current request is in terms of utilization of city property for community market? Yeah maybe I guess for everyone's benefit since we had a work session and we haven't really talked as a full council on this topic since at that time they've written that side off but as I understand they're warming up to the idea and had said if we're going to make that move here's some of the amenities we would need in year one, year two, year three so I guess where are we at in that conversation and what are they looking for to be able to make that site viable? Okay so just a quick recap the community market is currently located on a county property they've grown their market year over year for the past six to eight years and they're looking for a long term lease, up to a five year lease so that they can provide some level of stability to their business model and for their vendors that participate in the community market. They have approached the city in the past actually through the bond committee process a year or so ago or better than a year ago to seek funding for expansion of some type of a facility. It was I believe upwards of about two million dollar requests at that point in time. That was not recommended as part of the bond package they looked at the location across the street as you mentioned. We provided some cost figures associated with that and as you indicated encouraged them to take a look at the site down at exposition which is southeast of the police department. Since that time they've gone out and take a second, second and third and now fourth look at that particular location. They see some of the potential now of that particular location and have it requested that and we've gone through a couple of different communications in terms of that are submitting requests for infrastructure to include things that they currently have at their location which would be electric hookups and water availability, green space. They're looking for at least a one acre location or one acre of green space. That particular location if you recall from previous presentations about a two acre site. We basically took their layout for the property across the street, dropped it on that particular location, walked through the opportunities there. I think they now see that there is again as I mentioned there is an opportunity to expand at that location. They've asked for again taking out some of the existing hard surface that's there, some of this deteriorating asphalt, turning that into green space. They've asked for some lighting, security lighting so that they may be able to transition over a 12 to 18 month period if things work out. Transition from that location over to the exposition location doing some night markets in the interim. And so then they're looking for some shade structures, trees, restroom facilities. So we've provided them some cost estimates associated with that, asked them to go back through, re-prioritize what they would like to have or what they really have to have in a phased approach. That dollar figure came out to about $268,000 to provide that green space, to provide some shade, looking at maybe working with the tree fund to plant some additional trees to provide some shade in the future. Extension of some sidewalk amenities throughout or up to the location, some signage and marketing components, as well as providing temporary or porta potties for temporary restroom facilities, maybe looking at a date down the road where they have requested a plumbed bathroom facility. So again, with the utilities, electric cookups and some water, that number's in the $268,000. We also have as part of that potential project would be then taking the other remaining acre, maintaining that parking to meet code for City Hall East as well as primarily for the police training facility as well as to provide overflow parking for the transit center to reconstruct, remove existing pavement and reconstruct that pavement. That's roughly in about a $400,000 range. So what I like about this is it's visionary in that not only is it solving a need for them of getting them a spot that we've talked about and we said we wanted to look at that, but it really is a catalyst site for redevelopment. To put a market in the middle of a spot that we're looking to get some interest to, it livens up the area in a significant way. And I would say at a great risk to them. They're in the center of Carroll right now, and so the drive-by traffic significantly more. So I'd like us to consider that and look into those details a bit more. I think they sent us, I think they sent the council some specifics on that, didn't they? I don't know that we've gotten anything officially from you , have we? I know they sent us all individually. They sent some information out on June 14th, and council should have received information about a week after that and a follow-up email with some costs or price points on specific infrastructure and amenities that we researched on their behalf. Well on that, because I think you could, you would look at that and say at some point we're going to have to reconstruct the expedition parking lot just for staff parking anyway. I think you would look at that 400 grand and say we probably need to spend that anyway. I'm guessing that's the thinking of why they're separated out. Right. In their first cut on request, we kind of indicated that that parking lot does need to be reconstructed, so there's probably some joint use of that. Just to be fair to the return on investment, that's where I 'm going with this, is what helped me make the decision is, or to make my decision on what I think is a good use of funds or not is what's the return on the investment, meaning so they have a lease agreement, they'd be looking to do a lease agreement with the city of Denton instead of the county, so what would that look like in terms of how much rent would they pay? Additionally, those are businesses, in many cases those are just individuals, but in many cases those are businesses that are in there selling their goods, so I'm assuming those people pay sales tax, so meaning if we're going to go spend 300 grand to create a space for somebody to do business, then I would like to just see what's the return on that investment to the city, because it's a quasi event, gathering event, like you would look at Twilight Tunes or a festival, but it's also, it's commerce and people are there selling things, so here's where I'm getting at, you have a small business who takes a risk and leases a space downtown and they sell jewelry, picket doesn 't matter, then you have a small business arguably could be the same size selling a similar product at the community market, well the person who leased the space is paying their sales tax, they're contributing to have a lower tax, etc., they're buying electricity, they're doing all those things, what I don't want to get in the business of as a city is we're creating an environment where one business has a competitive advantage over another in the same area, so what I mean by that is if we pay for all this and the lease is a dollar, they can lease a booth space to somebody for a dollar, well what, is us doing that as a city really fair to that business who is paying a market rent rate and those sort of things, so I just want to understand what's the return on the investment in terms of the lease itself and I think it would be fair to assume that those people that are operating as a business there that they would be paying the sales tax generated there, so what would those numbers look like? And I don't have that at this point in time, it would be an opportunity. I'm just saying I think that would be, because we're talking about spending a lot of money here and I just think those are things that we should be thinking about because what we're not doing is building a splash park, right, we are creating a place for people to do business and that's just, I think it's a fine line we have to walk in that regard. Thanks. Community market, is that technically considered a non- profit? It is now. I believe they are. So one of my concerns would be spending $300,000 for a non- profit when maybe we're not looking at some other worthy non-profits that were not opting to fund $300,000, so I just want our council to kind of step back and make some really sound decisions along that line as well. And I have another question on the bus stop shelters that we've talked about. We had a citizen who came and made several presentations to council and her group had done a lot of homework and I sure see the lawn chairs that are chained to bus stop signs. It's going to be what, 103, 104 today? So I'd like to know what the $50,000 breaks out into when it just says bus stop shelters. Is that the actual shelter shelter or are we also looking at just some to get a little bit more bang for our buck, just places for people to sit? So traditionally the transit authority provides the capital in terms of the bus shelter, the bus bench and the development of the site. Because we understand that there's a need and there's a desire, at least as I understand from council, to assist and further those amenities, what we've done is taken a look at some of the development costs, whether it's because they 're seen as a developer when you come in and develop that particular location, covering some of the permitting, excuse me, permitting and inspection process as well as connectivity. And many of the locations that they have that they would like to place a shelter or a bench, there's not an existing sidewalk. And so typically a developer would have to extend or complete that infrastructure. So our thought is that for the use or for as a partnership would be for us to extend or complete that component of the infrastructure, then to allow them to simply construct and implement the bus shelter pads and bus bench pads. >> On that point, I took some pictures and I'll share them with you offline at some point the other day because it feels like I'd like to look into the policy that requires all of these amenities just to get something like a seat down next to a bus shelter. And I went through the park on my commute home on my bike and was taking a picture of the variety of types of benches we have on city property, on grasses, tilted, some senses. I mean, our risk management department seemingly doesn't have a problem with, there doesn't seem to be a legal issue in being able to place those on public property. That I wonder if we're not overthinking this and that perhaps, I would just like to dig into that policy a bit more because it seems like we see some of these types of more lo-fi benches in other cities in Texas seemingly having to follow the same state and federal statute. >> Well, one of the issues, again, because it would be put on the DCTA bus system which receives federal funding. They are required to meet ADA requirements, which means they have to have the accessibility. So if they go in and change anything to a bus stop where there's adding a simple bench or adding a little more robust infrastructure, i.e. a shelter with trash can receptacle. They've got to bring everything back out to meet ADA standards. >> Is there, and again, we could probably dig into this some more at some other time, but I guess my question would be, can that be fixed if it's not DCTA initiating that project? In other words, if there was another entity that wouldn't be holding to the same regulations because it's not DCTA. >> Not as DCTA. >> Not as I understand it. >> Or like a city or something. >> We can certainly request that and verify that, but as I understand it, no, you cannot do that. >> Yes. >> Well, I agree with you, Kevin. It does seem a little crazy that there's bus stops in our city where people are wanting to sit and we can't put a bench there, at least. Is that ultimately what we're saying? >> Correct. >> We either need to get right away, then we have to go through planning, or all these people are just sitting in lawn chairs right there. >> Right. We have worked with DCTA. We've asked them to provide a list of priority based on their budget capacity. We've got a process that we're working with in the planning to advance and fast track that. >> Even if you put a bench there? >> Correct. >> Wow. Refresh my memory on something if you would, or I don't know if you can, but it's funny. DCTA, the city I think contributes a half cent sales tax. >> Correct. >> And do we know what that amount roughly is? >> In the 10 million range. >> Okay, now that's 10 million a year. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. $10 million a year. Let me say that one more time. $10 million a year. It's also my understanding that, and I'm not sure if TWU does, but the University of North Texas does provide some revenue to DCTA for the bus system in the city of Denton as far as to help move the students. It's a contract. Do we know, I thought I knew what that was at one point. I thought it was two or three million dollars a year or something like that. >> I don't have the figures on that. I can certainly bring that back to you. >> That would be helpful because I think let's put it in a larger context. And that is we're looking at $50,000 to help with development fees and all that, and they're subject to federal regulations and all that. But these bus shelters, these bus stops are DCTA. And we do, for our contract, contribute $10 million a year to DCTA. And I know that that, and that's based on our sales tax. So as our sales tax go up, that goes up. Whether there's increased services, whether, if everything stayed the same, as long as our sales taxes are increasing, then that amount increases. So I really think that if we really want to really try to remedy this problem, we're going to have to probably work through the system that's in place, which is DCTA's state. And we can provide some help with the development costs and all that. But in the end, it's really their process to move forward, especially with the federal regulations that are required. So I think it sounds like we're wanting to send a message, collective message. Hey, we really, in our city, we want to make sure that we 're meeting the needs of our citizens and our mass transportation. If we want to increase ridership, if we want to make it convenient for people that want to move around and that want to drive their cars or ride a bicycle in 104 degree weather, certainly not sit around in that. That we, is that, are we the top contributor of the three cities or are we the second? I know we're probably above Highland Village, but do we know? >> I think we're still just under Louisville. >> Right. >> But we're gaining. >> Yes, so again, I think since we do provide $10 million and growing that, isn't there a commercial like that? 10 million strong and growing, something about kids. We're kids, I'm sorry, I digress. So I think the message seems to be clear with the council that however we need to do it, it's something that sounds like a priority, but it seems like most of the impetus lies with DCTA. And we just need to really encourage that because we do provide, and I know they provide services, but I know North Texas does provide some of that bus, they do provide- >> They contract one of them. >> They contract for them. >> Revenue hour basis. >> Yeah, and citizens can ride those buses, they pay, but students pay it in their service fee, transportation fee. So they get it free, but it's still open to, so it's a lot of money. When we started this, I think it was like $7 million back when I was on council. So, then I'll go here and then I'll come over. >> I know you were saying even increasing ridership, but there's a lot, when the lady who came and did the reports, she always showed pictures. >> Well, there's a lot of elderly people. >> Yes. >> We just gotta, I mean, these people live in our city, so I agree, I mean, there's some rules in place for a reason. But sometimes we gotta figure out how to just get some things done too, so. >> I would mention, in some cases, these bus stops are on system roadways, so they've gotta work through the text dot system. And in some cases, such as university, text dots ask them not to put any type of infrastructure in there as they're coming through their reconstructing. >> Oh, sure. >> So there's some other issues other than just basically. >> Sure, and that's what we would like to know is really what are some of those restrictions and. >> Just one more. So when DCTA is deciding where the bus stops go, how does that happen? >> There's a couple of different parameters, they look at ridership, then they look at requests from their ridership. Just again, overall ridership, then specific requests from their ridership, and in some cases, requests from member cities saying we're planning to do certain activities where we'd like to see amenities in these locations. I mean, you'll see in some. >> Just thinking out loud, I wonder if they would ever. Maybe we should pick that spot because there's already a bus stop there. We've already built something. >> In terms of. >> Yeah, just thinking. Anyway. >> Do we have any say over how that 10 mil is spent? >> I don't think so. >> We don't. >> We've got a representative on the DCTA board. >> But we don't give the 10 mil with any type of recommendation or. >> There's a two thirds vote, which is two thirds of the contributing members. So Louisville, Denton, and Highland Village. If there is a service plan amendment or a financial, a significant financial commitment or decision . And two of the three contributing members must vote in favor or against, depending on what the specific request or action is. >> Yes, Council Member. >> And when that process gets running and there's a controversial issue to any of the member cities, because I stayed out into that a bit, like we had back when there was discussion of what to do with night and weekend service. Denton gets involved in a significant way in terms of lobbying it and talking to folks. Even our citizens got real active in some of that and moved the needle on that. So it's an open political process like anything else that they respect. Last time that happened our mayor spoke at their meeting to be able to kind of push an issue forward. So while we don't have formal veto power, we have a lot of input. >> So I'm just going to see if I can be a little more bold. >> Yes, I'm on the mobility committee and we listen to these things and this sweet lady who's come here and done all this work and continue to show it. So here's what I hear. I hear we talk about all the reasons why we can't. Well, text dot. Well, right away. Well, whatever. And this isn't complicated. It's shade structures so people don't sit in the sun. So here's what I would like to see us do. We're going to put ten of them up by the end of whatever month. Somebody just take the lead and go do it and goes, yeah, I hear you. I know it's hard. Come on, grab them by the hand. We're going to go to text dot's office. I need this right here. I mean, we're all, we're a municipality. They're a provider. Text, I understand it's complicated. But I think we also overcomplicate it. And I think it's pretty convenient for DCTA to talk about how complicated it is. And I think we need to be willing to say, guys, we give you ten million bucks. It's three million more than when it started. And if it's that complicated, then go buy some temporary ones. We got people sitting on the curb. We have old people sitting in the sun. It's 104. I mean, part of it sometimes you just gotta say, I know it 's hard. I don't care. Do it. Because that's what happens in my business, by the way. My customers don't really want to hear how hard it is. They just want to know that it's done. So it's just really getting old, honestly. And you know, here's this, if it weren't for this sweet lady who's championing the thing, we probably wouldn't even be talking about it. And let's face it, none of us have to ride the bus. So we don't get to deal with it every day. But come on, enough already. I mean, Kevin, Kevin rides a bike because he hates, they don't have bus stops. So he just rides a bike. But I'm serious. I mean, you know, so just somebody raise their hand and say , I'm going to take the lead. I will. I'll piss off everybody over there, I guess. But let's just do it. I mean, we can't buy temporary ones. Let's just buy them, put them up, let them tear them down if they want to. TechStat's probably not going to come tear them down because there's a shade structure at a bus stop. It's just aggravating. Is that a clarification? Is that the city pays for that? Or do we want DCTA to ensure that DCTA's paying? I think DCTA should be paying since we're giving them $10 million. They're not that expensive. You know what might be helpful sooner than later is let's have a presentation by DCTA in a work session on this particular topic, this specific topic, bus shelters, what's the process, what are the costs, what are the obstacles, why do we not have -- let's have a conversation and see if we can't begin to say, hey, let's just get it done. Let's see if we can't form a joint goal. >> Let's have that work session when Greg's not here, by the way. >> If we can -- yeah, that would be something that would be helpful. >> I think it is there but nobody's cut it so I wasn't going to go cut it myself. Any more discussion on that particular topic, on the bus shelters? Okay. Thank you, Mark. What else? At least for this particular budget discussion. I know we've got several questions we've asked and research to do. Yes, Councilmember Johnson. >> I have one more. Sorry. >> Yes. >> Sorry, I got a little fired up about that. I always start thinking about that little lady and those pictures made me angry. >> Angry. >> No, I'm not angry. I was just angry. I'm over it. So this one's solid waste. Looking through, you know, we've talked quite a bit about the challenges with the dumpsters that are on the sidewalks in our residential areas and, you know, we've seen some charts and some of that but for me that one kind of falls into the same category of, you know, I know it's complicated. I'm sure it's complicated but could we, I don't know, Vance , could you talk about where in the budget is it that we're really tackling that one? Because I don't see, I didn't see anything kind of specific to that. Can we get an update on where we stand on that and when that's going to, that problem's going to go away? >> Thank you. We have two projects that are sort of underway and the first one is the issue of dumpsters infringing upon the sidewalks and we will start working with those about 10 property owners who chose not to voluntarily move their dumpsters and we will proceed over the next two months to tell them that they need to move those off the sidewalk for various reasons, mostly ADA issues. So that will take care of about 27, 28 of the dumpsters in the public right of way. The most contentious of the dumpsters in the right of way and that will hopefully solve all of those sidewalk issues to give the community free un encumbered access to sidewalks. The second group is probably more complicated and that would be for those sidewalk, for those dumpsters that are on the public right of ways and we will come back to you with some at a work session in the near future to discuss how we might address getting those off of the, where possible, off of the public right of ways . So that's planned in our operating budget. That's funded to have some amount of our effort to get those moved. One of those is that particularly in the downtown area we 're going to propose that we have some something similar to what the Williams Trade Square common area is for dumpsters. We'd like to have four of those locations to support the downtown core area and we think we have three other sites picked and so we'll come to you and talk about those and how we can acquire those and get those funded. So when was it that we had our meeting out at the landfill where we had a presentation, we took a tour of the landfill and we had a presentation and talking about all these issues? It seems like it was early this year, right? Yeah. Yeah. So because I thought where we ended up there was that we had a plan that was well thought out, almost completed. There were a few decisions that we had to make yet but it sounded very similar to what you just said just now and so I'm just curious if that's in the budget and you said you're going to come back to us with a plan because it just feels like we're kind of kicking the can a little bit on this one and as we have done so much in our downtown to beautify it and to create pedestrian friendly environments and all that , we still have a lot of smelly dumpsters but then also just as you oak history and some of these streets over here, kind of the main roads, we still have some dumpsters sitting out there so I'm just curious if we don't have it funded for this year, I want to make sure we have it funded. It feels like we're kicking the can and maybe I'm just not paying attention. We have a draft informal report that we'll give you an update on prior to a work session and we'll get that scheduled so we can let you know what the status of all those, this project is. I just want to remind you, we did send you an informal staff report several weeks ago on the sidewalk issue and we've already outlined several categories of challenges that we had with that and Vance and his staff has already gone out. I think you've gotten half of those off the sidewalks already so this is something we're already in the process of and you'd ask us to come back and report to you what the status is. We're at the point where we think we've exhausted all of our volunteer tools to be able to encourage those people to get those off the sidewalk and we're preparing the informal staff report that Vance has indicated is a report to come back to you with a recommendation on what the non-voluntary options may be to get them to come off the sidewalk. I'm completely aware of the sidewalk. So the second one that we just sent you, I think it was two Fridays ago, was a comprehensive analysis on the downtown dumpsters and the situation we were asked by the council regarding trash being bagged, cart, service, those options, we gave you an analysis of that and that's what Vance is referring to as a recommendation that we made in that informal staff report that we would move forward with the four satellite locations. So the last piece that we're working toward is the right-of -way dumpsters across the city and that's still an element that we're focusing on but the resources that we have in the budget we have the resources we need to attract, attack those issues. It's just a prioritization that we received from council at that early meeting earlier in the year. You told us to go after the sidewalks, dumpsters first, to go after the downtown dumpsters, and then finally the right-of-way. So we're working in that sequential order but we are making some progress. But it's all budgeted. That's all part of what we need to have in our resources is in the budget at this point. Okay. With the exception of, as Vance said, if we need to identify funding to buy land or resources to consolidate dumpsters downtown, we don't have that specifically budgeted but we believe there's opportunities for us to find the resources to do those programs. Thank you. Well, and I'll just tell you, I'm specifically aware of the sidewalk dump. I've got one of the apartments that has a dumpster on the sidewalk and I think I'm going to go ahead and switch to carts which I've sat with Vance and his staff on several occasions to try to help identify some of the ways that we can because I think some of these are conducive for carts. If you've got four or five carts can work. So I can attest that they've certainly been working that plan. I can attest to that personally. So I appreciate that. I still got to meet with your staff. I thought they're on my calendar but we'll get that squared away because I'm ready to do that. Any more discussion today? Yes, Joey. Probably just one more. I know earlier you had said about just discussing a possible tax decrease. And maybe if we could also just discuss prolonging a tax increase just to see that makes me, we're in a great situation that we can even talk about that . But it just makes me a little nervous if we did do that and then have to do an increase later. So I just, and I'm totally willing to have the discussion and I think it's a good one to have. But just possibly just leaving it as it is and just prolong ing an increase as long as we could. Well, and that's a good point. I guess to clarify where I am is to have a decrease and then to not have to automatically assume we have to have an increase. I think it's about really scrubbing things and I mean when there's a tax increase forecasted for three or four years down the road, and that's not anything about the budgetary, about staff or presentations. Sure. But I think that's that philosophical kind of approach. I think when you know you have revenue coming in that there 's a, you know, it certainly is helpful in trying to forecast what you want to do with that. And I just, I don't know if I want to automatically assume that we have that because I think it can take, it can change the context and the environment of how you look at your revenue and expenses. So when I said about a tax decrease, I wasn't saying we're going to have a tax decrease and then we're going to basically take it back the next year. Mine is let's have a tax decrease and let's see what, you know, let's, let's. Well, and I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I still feel like we're an old city and we're trying to play catch up on some things. You know, we talk about trying to invite businesses to come to our city and what our city hall looks like and all the different buildings and how old our streets are and those sorts of things. And I did not mean to put words in your mouth. But I just want to have that conversation too. Just feels like we still have, we're in a great spot. I mean, Denton's awesome, but we still just have a lot of needs. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I think it'd probably be healthy to devote some time next time we talk about this to that subject. And I think what would help me is for somebody to remind us , cause it seems like when you talk about tax increases or tax decreases abstract from things or projects, it's, everyone's always going to say yes to a tax decrease and no to a tax increase. Yet, when our 50 member bond committee got together, they were recommending a pretty significant increase beyond what council was even willing to go to in order to, because it was in the context of seeing needed projects. And then the voters overwhelmingly said yes to tax increases in the context of voting for those projects. So it, abstractly, this is a strange discussion. I mean, nationally people talk about tax increase decreases . So I think it's worth kind of looking at and seeing what this means. But I did have one final question and maybe clarification from the mayor. On the city council and citizen suggestions, you had mentioned this homeless coordinator position, which I'm intrigued by. I saw some emails and I think that's probably a good thing to look into. There's a line item here for additional funding for homelessness prevention programs. Is that different than that? When I saw that, I don't know the answer to that question. When I looked at that, I thought I could, I'm okay with those being one and the same, because if you have a coordinator who is, that could be part of their charge is working with the nonprofits who see the needs and how can we, cause I know several nonprofits who do just that to try to prevent it by providing some rental assistance and budgeting kind of tutorialing and tutoring and those kinds of things. So what I like about this is I know you've had the mayor's task force on this issue. And I think as we're people are interested in this subject and I think it demonstrates a lot of leadership on behalf of the city steps out and puts a bit out there to help, which would actually help consolidate and collaborate and all these sorts of things. So I would just like to second your request to kind of look into that. Well, and you know, the United Way has that Denton County citizens committee on mental health and they've got a United Way has a staff member who specifically work on it. And when we look at some of the projects or some of the goals of that committee, two components of it are homelessness and housing. Well I think that's in essence when you're dealing with homelessness, you're dealing with how do we provide or how do we coordinate housing at these different levels that the task force has identified. So I think there's a lot of synergies, the possible syner gies out there that that we may not see as readily that we might be able to. So I appreciate that. But I sort of interpreted those as the same, honestly. Yeah. Yes. Just talking about the I'm glad you brought up the bond election. Because in terms of a tax decrease, I know this. It's pretty easy to spend whatever you make, unless you have a plan to not spend whatever you make. And I think that to your point, I mean, we're budgeting a 4 % kind of long term look, you know. Well, if you look at our 3% merit increase across the board on our labor expense, right? That's more than half of the total budget increase. So that's 2.1% of the total. If staffing is 70% and you got a 3% increase, that's over 2 % of your total increase in your budget. So if that's a given, then you've really only got less than the 2% increase to fund everything else you need to do. So the question really in my mind is, is 4% the right number going forward if you've got a built in 3% increase on your labor? Because that's a baseline given almost. So I'm not sure if the 4 is the right number. But I'm glad you brought up the bond election. Because when the voters did overwhelmingly, like on this issue, they really did overwhelmingly approve of the 96 million bucks, right? Well, it'd be nice to give them a little something back when there's a surplus. Because on these bigger things like a new city complex and those things, those are going to be bond funded kind of things anyway. So on the surface, while I haven't read every line item on here and go through and try to figure out is there a little fluff built in here or there or whatever, because I'm sure that doesn't happen, I would never do such a thing. On the surface, I'm inclined to say we need to give a little bit of that back. Meaning if we're planning for 4, 4.5 and it comes in 6 or it comes in 8.5 or it comes in 11, well, there's going to be another bond election coming, probably another big one. And just on the surface, it feels like it would feel it would be a nice gesture, I think, when people step up and approve a 96 million dollar bond. And then we have a surplus to not just spend it, but give a little bit of a back. And then if next year rolls around and the market takes a dip, the economy, you know, maybe you have to increase it. But it's a year to year decision anyway, in my mind. So I'm not nearly as smart about this stuff as you are, Chuck, but on the surface, it seems to me like you're making your decisions year to year on what you spend. And I just think it would be a smart thing for us to do if we're really thinking long term to try to figure out a way to give a little something back in the way of a decrease. >> It certainly sounds like that, I mean, there's been some requests to have more conversation on that. We don't necessarily have to have that now, but it sounds like that's going to be one of the major topics for the next discussion about the questions and the things that you're bringing back. Are there any other questions for this open session of the budget discussion? Because I know we've got a closed session posted for DIT Municipal Electric. Any questions? Of course, we'll have more as we continue to move through the material and we look at it and as the questions and answers come forth. But again, I want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues. Great job on the budget presentation. I mean, I think the supplemental package presentation, especially the one we got earlier where we broke it down from subtotals, or at least that I had done that is really helpful in seeing what is actually there. And so I really do appreciate the yeoman's work that you and your staff have done. And the whole city staff obviously is involved in this process. >> And I want to thank the whole city staff. But before I leave and Phil takes over the executive, I want to thank the budget team, Nancy, Tony, Mike are over there, Christine and Dan, they do the yeoman's work on this. I just kind of come up and talk about it, but they do, they put it all together. So I want to thank them for all their hard work. >> Yes, as well. Thank you guys for that work. Any other questions for this open session? Seeing none, we will now convene a closed session at 1/24 on August 6, 2015. We will consider the following items. Certain public power utilities competitive matters under Texas Government Code section 551.086. And we'll take a five minute break before we cake break. We're gonna take a cake break.