Jun 12, 2018 City Council on 2018-06-12 11:00 AM
June 12, 2018 City Council
Full Transcript
Good morning everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Dent
on City Council on
Tuesday June the 12th 2018. It is 1103. We've got a quorum
here everybody's
present. First order of business just I think the box lunch
es are served so what
we might do is how long do you think well first of all we
're gonna move
agenda item C to the beginning because it's the budget
overview and so we've
got some departmental budget presentation so we thought we
'd do the
budget overview and then have the departmental presentation
so how long do
you think the department the budget overview is probably 45
minutes yeah I
think that's part so we'll do that and then we'll decide to
take a break and
grab us some lunch all right so we'll go through our work
session oh request for
clarification of agenda items list on the agenda any
requests for
clarifications seeing none we'll move on work session
reports 3a I'm sorry going
to 3c I just said it receive a porthole discussion give
staff direction
regarding the preliminary FY 2018-19 proposed budget
capital improvement
program and five-year financial forecast thank you mayor
before mr. Puente gets
started through our conversations with council last
following last year's
budget presentation one request that came up was from a
couple of you was to
just spend a little bit of time talking about how the
budget was built major
themes that it's trying to address in the upcoming year and
how it's being
approached so Tony's gonna provide that that overview to
you before we in for
your feedback and then we'll get into the department
presentations after this
so turn over to Tony so quick quick quick question for you
start you shared
with us us that you had some new slides that's correct so
are you just point
those out as you go through this because you gave us a hard
copy and I believe
they're probably in the hard copy the new slide that's
correct so some air
Tony Puente director finance so what you have in front of
you is a hard copy of
the updated revised presentation there's a number of slides
in it I'll identify
those as we go through that we added some of those were at
a council members
request but and then there was some additional items that
we thought we clarified
regarding our budget process to give you some insights on
that again this is a
preliminary budget discussions where are still receiving
preliminary numbers on
our on our appraised values from the appraisal district
they continue to work
through the protest period of ARB period and so those
numbers will continue to
change out one of the items that I'll talk about you know
in one of these slides is what we're
assuming as far as assessed value growth within our
assumption so unless anyone
has any questions before I start I just keep going so today
what I want to cover
just briefly is a little bit about the budget process this
is going to be
focused on the general fund as you're aware we've already
been discussing with
you and the PB our various utility funds the only one that
's still outstanding is
the solid waste fund and we'll be talking with the PB into
the end with
the council very soon about a management study and cost of
service study that are
nearing completion and we'll be bringing that to you in the
very near future so I
don't talk about any of those also there's additional funds
a number of
funds that I'll identify for you that we've not touched on
in this
presentation but they'll certainly be part of the proposed
budget when we come
back to you in August to do the budget workshop and so
while this is only a
29 slide presentation the August 2nd will be much larger so
I can assure you just
a just a little bit of preview so we'll talk a little bit
about our about our
estimates in the preliminary forecast we'll mention a
little bit about the
over 65 and disabled tax freeze there was a council request
early early on
regarding the Homestead Exemption so we have some
information for you and ask you
for some direction if the council so chooses to make
changes to the Homestead
Exemption go through a little bit of the debt get another
council request
regarding the amount of debt that's outstanding and the
bond program
authorization and then finally just listen to solicit your
feedback any
direction the council may have regarding any of the items
that are presented to
you today so the so the budget overview this was a change
in state law that
occurred that was really effective last year requires that
that there be a 60%
vote that's five or more of the council to adopt the tax
rate the budget is still
on a simple majority again you'll be discussing that
upcoming and there'll be
a vote in September on a tax rate and also on the budget so
I want to just
remind you of that change in in tax law just briefly this
is our budget calendar
it's really a continuous process throughout the year you
know we start
the budget process internally in January February going
through preliminary
forecast and really you know developing the baseline what
we call the baseline
budgets for our departments and I'll talk to you a little
bit more about how
we do that departments are then given those budgets those
baseline budgets they
work through those baseline budgets they're able to make
some adjustments
within line items and then they really begin to prepare any
supplemental
requests for additional funding they'll also look at their
existing programs if
there's any reductions that need to be made as part of our
cost containment
request to the to the department's there's a couple of
other things that
we've implemented this year that I'll talk to you that
departments also do to
look at their existing budgets to make sure that they're in
line what their
needs might be and then in June and July we began to to go
through and prepare
the city manager's budget that then gets presented to the
council at the end of
July and 1st of August the council then deliberates on that
budget recommendation
provides count the staff direction August through September
there's public
hearings that are held both on the tax rate and also on the
budget and then
finally we end in September with the budget adoption and
then the cycle just
begins almost immediately again so it's really a continuous
process of
developing and monitoring and implementing the budget so a
little
about our budget process so as I mentioned in January or
February time
frame the budget department begins to develop these
baseline budgets and what
that what a baseline budget is is basically last year's
budget adjusted
for any one-time expenditures that may be added so if there
was a vehicle that
was added in the prior year we back that out there's a
number of other you know
one-time expenses computers and things like that that are
added to the budget
that we back out in the next budget the other thing too
that we started to do
really this year you know more heavily than we have in the
past we do a line
item scrub of the budgets we look at a three a five-year
trend on individual
but a line items and we trend those downwards if those are
trending higher
then we ask departments to submit a supplemental request
for that again not
always the most fun thing to do with our departments but
certainly something that
we've implemented and that we do the other item that we
started doing this
year is it's a little bit of a take of a zero-based
budgeting we've identified a
number of line items this year those included outside
contract services
licenses dues and publication and consultant fees and we
zeroed those out
and so we asked departments to look at what their spending
was and what their
true needs were what we've seen holistically across the
organization is
that departments have really taken a good look at that and
their
justification and generally speaking they're asking for
less money than what
they previously had there the other thing too that this is
what what this is
aimed at is we've had you know a number of turnover across
the organization
we're having managers that are calling the budget office
and say they're asking
hey I have X amount of dollars in this line item what is it
for well we really
didn't have a good tracking mechanism with that now we do
so now we have a
document that we can give to that new manager and say hey
here's what is
included in in that line item that makes up your 50,000 or
10,000 or whatever
that case might be that's included in your budget items
again it's it's also a
good continuity plan going forward for for our departments
I wanted to touch a
little bit about some of the initiatives that we've
undertaken some of these real
quick question do you have any idea on that third bullet
point what that dollar
amount was on the aggregate I don't off top my head we can
certainly provide
no sweat yeah just curious so some of the initiatives that
we've undertaken
over the last really year and a half is we've engaged a
number of studies
management studies and the areas of planning building
inspection solid waste
and electric suddenly those that were involved with solid
waste and electric
you've you've seen and and you've been involved in we've
also focused in on
eliminating contingencies within budgets there was a number
of budgets that we
reviewed and there was really no explanation to why certain
dollars were
included and so we've backed those out we've simplified our
fund balances and
how some of those are calculated one of the ones that I'll
point out is customer
service as an example we've we've pulled that out of of
water and so how water's
fund balance is calculated now does not include those
additional expenses we've
recommended to you to create a separate internal service
fund that does not
require a fund balance within that fund drainage is another
example we'll talk
a little bit about that later today in which we've excluded
that from the
calculation of the fund balance for wastewater as an
example a couple of
other initiatives is you know ongoing quarterly reviews
with our department
directors as we're presenting our as we're presenting our
poorly financial
reports those are shared with our department directors to
make sure that
they know where their budgets are and where they where they
stand any point in
time in the year if we have variances we certainly address
those with with those
department directors to make sure we understand where their
expenses and
revenues are lining up various management studies as I as I
mentioned
earlier monthly review of capital programs that's something
that we've
leaned pretty heavily on this year we really started that
back in in August is
is really taking a deep dive into all our capital programs
across our
departments I think that's had a huge impact in what
revenue funding might
might be needed going forward as well as what bond funding
might be needed as
you're aware this year we've not recommended to issue any
debt for any
of our utilities that's really kind of a product of that
process and and that
process continues we're doing that on a monthly basis with
our management team
and our and and our departments to go through each
individual capital project
and and try to understand the status of those projects
finally the other
initiative is what we call our lean program our process
improvement program
we've looked at a number of processes across the city to
streamline and
provide improve efficiency and also to eliminate duplic
ation of effort within
some of those processes I think once you start mapping out
a process you really
start finding out where some of that duplication occurs and
you start asking
why is this happening and you find that there's a lot of
items that have
happened that are there for that been there for many many
years may not be
needed now so it's a good way for us to kind of scrub those
processes and really
get them updated so beginning in really beginning in fiscal
year 1617 you know
city management has certainly focused in on right sizing
our organization
certainly to better serve our community in in the 17 18
budget we did eliminate
a little bit over 10 FTEs across the general fund that
totaled 1.16 million
as a result of those savings we were able to utilize about
800,000 of those
savings to add five additional patrol officers and a crime
analyst in our
police department and then within our utilities and some of
our other funds
we eliminated a total of ten and a half FTEs for a total of
1.17 million
dollars so again I wanted to make sure that the council
knew that we are
focused on cost containment looking at places to where we
can save and reduce
expenses certainly looking at programs that are maybe out
there so just really
quickly why to cover some of the some of the funds that we
manage in the city
certainly our major operating budgets and one that we'll
talk about with you
today is the general fund the general debt service fund is
another substantial
fund that we have that also a portion of property taxes go
with the fund our debt
and then electric water wastewater drainage is still
included solid waste
and the airport make up our major operating funds internal
service funds
as you can see those up there the one that I'll point out
is customer service
that's a recommended new internal service fund that will
begin with our 18-19
fiscal year and then we have our our capital funds you know
we have we have
to say segregate these capital funds by their use and so we
have those broken
out between general government and in all our utilities
separately to account
for those and then we have a whole list of special revenue
funds to that I'll
point out for you is the economic development investment
fund that is a
fund that continues $150,000 of our mixed beverage is going
into that fund
and in the downtown reinvestment fund I want to point out
that that the
hundred thousand dollar contribution from mixed beverage to
that fund was
discontinued there's still a small balance of about a
hundred and thirty
thousand in that the direction we had gone for the council
that will continue
to draw down on that fund balance until that fund goes away
and is discontinued
and they really that program has now been shifted over to
the downtown terse
fun and I think economic development will come to you soon
on a discussion
about that particular fund in that particular program so a
lot of funds
that that we are that we oversee within the finance
department really the city a
little bit about our 17 18 budget you know total of about 1
.1 billion dollars
the vast majority of that is made up of our capital program
again about 360
million dollars is is what's already there and has been
approved in previous
years it's just multi-year funding of that that rolls over
from year to year
and in new funding and in in 17 18 was about 154 million
dollars that is in
addition to what was already there in in capital projects
about 119 million of
that amount is general fund and then I'll point out the
electric fund at
about 180 million dollars that comprises the current year
17 18 budget again these
these percent these numbers and percentages will certainly
fluctuate as
we come back to you on the 18 19 proposed budget and then
finally what the
council adopts for 18 19 this is one of the items that was
requested this is
just a breakout of the 17 18 general fund revenues I'll
point out of a hundred
19 million dollars 37 percent of that is comes from a vel
our or its property
taxes and about 30 percent is made up of sales taxes the
next the next item next
largest revenue source is service fees followed by return
on investment from
our utilities and in cost service transfers these are
transfers that are
coming from other funds to pay for centralized services
like HR and legal
and accounting that are centralized in in the in the
general fund but that are
that are charged out based on on usage but to those
additional funds
councilmember Gregory I saw that in the departmental
budgets that are funded
through the general fund that there is also a cost of
service line in those
correct as some of those tend to be for tech services
primarily and so so when
when tech services allocates to the general fund they
identify for us where
those costs are actually at so so there's computers and
planning there's
computers and finance and so then those cost of service
transfers we show them
within those departments they really show the total cost of
that individual
department so that's primarily you know the largest
transfer that you see that
makes up that well yeah I get it when you're talking about
cost of service
from a fund like a rate payer fund because those are not
tax dollars but
when when you've got tax dollars funding or the general
fund revenue dollars that
are funding HR and then there and then they have a cost of
service charge how
do you keep from double counting that revenue well we
certainly have a pretty
complex allocation model that does that and so what we
calculate for HR as an
example is we calculate what the cost of HR is associated
with the general fund
and that's not transferred within departments that just you
know that's
the expense in that fund I mean in that department will we
allocate out to the
other the other funds it comes back in to the general fund
as a revenue to pay
for the cost of of their pro rata share of HR so it's out
and yes okay thank you
that helps so again this is a slide that was requested
really a breakdown by
category of that one point 119 million of budget for the
general fund
certainly the largest portion of that is personnel about
about 84 85 million
dollars in the general fund that goes to pay for for
personnel this is you know
firefighters police officers people like myself librarians
and the such so and
this is again another slide that was requested really a
breakdown of
expenditures by department as you can see here certainly by
far the largest
share of the 119 million is made up of public safety what
is fire community
improvement police animal services followed by parks and
recreation so that
's really where the bulk of the city's general fund dollars
are going to fund
the question councilmember Melcer thank you mayor first why
group group it that
way please an animal and fire community improvement seems
like community
improvement is largely also part of law enforcement in a
way but be that as it
may can you break animal services and community improvement
out as a percent
of general fund absolutely I think that within animal
services you're talking
about about one and a half million dollar expense the way
it's the reason
it's aggregated here is because they report to the police
department
community improvement reports to the fire department so it
's really a
reporting but I can we can certainly break that out well if
you said it's one
and a half million you're talking about a little over a
percent for animal
services so please it still be you know 27 or something
yeah correct this is
another slide that was that was requested I just wanted to
give you some
context of sales tax rates within cities and again there's
really no you know no
rhyme you know no no reason for me to include these cities
other than these
were the ones that had readily available information in in
for the city of Denton
our sales tax total sales total local sales tax is 2% 1% is
what's called the
general purpose so the regular rate we do have a half a
percent for property
tax relief and then finally half a percent for transit and
then again the
vast majority of cities are already at the 2% state law cap
except for in this
particular case Arlington is at 1.75 1% for regular rate
they have a quarter
percent for street maintenance and a half a percent for
sports venues so that
just gives you some context as to where where the city's
rate is in comparison to
some of these others councilmember Melcer I wonder if you
take a moment
just and just explain how how those carve outs work like
the half a percent
for property tax relief is that just does that just mean it
goes into the
general fund or it goes into the general fund but when we
do what's called our
effective tax rate calculation we do include the amount of
revenue that's
generated by the half a percent that has an impact on how
the effective tax
rate is calculated and it wasn't there the effect of tax
rate will be would be that
much higher and the half a point for transit is that is
that a direct
subsidy to DCTA that's DCTA that that's revenue that gets
that goes directly to
the DCTA it's not a pasture to the city but again it makes
up our you know 2%
local local cap and that is capped by by state law but it's
but it's not part of
I think instead of 30% of our revenue that's that's sales
tax that's not
included in that no sir that only reflects the revenues
that actually come
to the city yes sir so so for clarification we see two
columns economic
development section 4a and section 4b now it's my
understanding so correct me
if I'm wrong that you're capped at 2% but but that 2% is
that including the half
percent for transit yes sir all right so really because my
understanding is the
transit half cent could either be used for economic
development 4a or 4b or
transit in other words your cap really is one and a half
but you can go over
that except for but only for those two is that correct but
my understanding is
that half percent could only be used for one or two of
those and that's what my
understanding has been but if that's if I'm under the wrong
impression I sure
know that so that half a percent the voters elected to to
levy that and
dedicate that to transit and so unless there's an election
to repeal that you
could not allocate that out to to any of these other
purposes you would have to
have a vote to eliminate or discontinue that to half a
percent and then you
would have to have another election to allocate that half a
percent to one of
these other purposes or an election to sort of split it up
yeah or another
something something yes sir so then the cap is 2% correct
and you can pretty
much designate that where you want it to go based upon you
might have to have an
election based upon certain criteria yes sir okay and we
had an election on the
property tax relief one is that correct yes that was back
in the 80s yes yeah
I believe so 85 84 answer 95 95 so if our transit has what
's that 95 that's
okay long before I got here yeah there anybody else here so
that portion that's
about if it's equal to a half percent of transit if we're
paying 12 million a half
a percent of our sales tax roughly equates to about 12 or
13 million dollars
a year is that right so that's 12 or 13 million dollars of
our sales tax that we
collect simply goes to quote-unquote you know provides
property tax relief that
otherwise the tax rate would have to reflect to raise that
additional revenue
if we didn't have that that's correct
so so at this point that was those were the slides that
were added there's
there's a couple of other slides here in in this
presentation going forward I'll
identify that for you so some of the themes that that we're
looking at
currently that are going to drive this budget and certainly
we want to get your
feedback today on if there's any other budgetary themes or
priorities the
council may have for staff as we're as we're developing the
city manager's
proposed budget but certainly you know we want to highlight
again as we've
mentioned already the focus on cost containment
organizational efficiency we
have established this preliminary budget and we'll have a
proposed budget for you
that's in essence based on the effective tax rate and then
we'll certainly as the
same managers already briefed you we'll be coming back to
you and proposing
options for additional funding that may take us above that
amount for your
consideration on specific items again we'll be working
through those certainly
enhancing street maintenance and and the inspection
capacity in the city is going
to be a focus for us public safety and the response
capacity maintaining a
competitive compensation plan and then also looking at debt
financing options
for some capital projects and again these are preliminary I
just wanted to
highlight some of these that we're looking at there's a
discussion later
today with you about the radio system replacement there's
also discussions
about fire station 8 we'll be looking at potential design
for that service center
remodel as we've been having conversations with you about
our
staffing needs and and where we house our staff members
certainly that's part
of the consideration and then finally also you know making
whole some of our
residential streets reconstruction projects Todd Estes has
come up come
come before you and talk to you a little about that program
and where we are so
so we're gonna be looking at how do we make that program
whole so that we can
fulfill kind of what the commitment was to to our citizens
in regards to street
reconstruction the general fund and how the general fund is
broken up but we
kind of you know lumped lumped apartments within categories
and so you
know we have neighborhood services public safety certainly
we've talked a
little bit about those that also includes a municipal court
and the judge
transportation and an administrative administrative and
community services as
we prepare the budget we are kind of focused within those
major air major
areas focus areas and that's how we present the budget to
you every year so
some of the assumptions that have gone into this
preliminary forecast
preliminary forecast and again this is still very
preliminary we still have a
number of weeks July 25th around July 25th is when the app
raisal district
will deliver to us the actual certified role and and that
that's the role that
will have used to calculate our effective rate right now we
're looking at
about a 10% increased in assessed valuation assumes that
about 3% of that
is for for new growth again that's kind of been a
historical trend that we've
seen and then going forward again we base our our forecast
that we'll talk
about here in a few minutes on on actually adopting the
effective rate
every year of of the forecast so the tax rate is set at a
very rough and let me
just say that again it's a very rough estimate and so right
now we think that
that effective rate is going to be about 61 cents that's
about 2.7 cents below
what our current tax rate is of 63 cents we'll still be
looking at again all
contingent upon where our final assessed value comes back
also wanted to point
out that this year is the first year that the that the over
65 and disabled
tax limitation of the tax freeze will will take effect and
so we'll be talking
with the county and preparing that effective tax rate so
that we understand
what the actual effect that first year effect is of that
tax freeze and so
again we'll bring that back to you and let you know just
very clearly what what
that means in this first year sales taxes we've projected
sales taxes to be
for the for 18 19 5% above the revised estimate and let me
just say that our
sales tax for the current year has been growing pretty
healthy we've revised our
current year estimate from 36.2 million to 39.2 million
dollars we think that
there's probably an additional three million dollars of
additional revenue
that we're going to see going forward so we want to make
sure that we provide to
you the best estimates that we can so that the council can
can have clear
understanding of when they're setting the tax rate next
year what that means
in in other words we want to make sure that you you don't
feel that we've
sandbagged on some of these revenues right and so we're
gonna be very clear
yes sir yeah yeah do what no yeah well and that's a and I
think that's maybe
going to also need to be if there's a desire to have a
policy discussion on
that because I know that in the historically typically we
do have this
additional money I don't necessarily I want it to be as
accurate as possible
but when we start getting into the 5% range and things such
as that I mean it
doesn't take much for us to get into a situation to where
if it's less than
that then we are so that Delta between what we've typically
budgeted and the 5%
I'd like to maybe have a little bit more specific
indication of that amount of
money so that as we're looking at priorities as we're
looking at funding
priorities that we could say that well here's what we
typically do 3% here's
what we're projecting and let's just call it a difference
of a million dollars
I mean I don't it's probably gonna be more than that but
and therefore if if
we can say we have we'll fund all these things but if we
don't get to that
percent on the sales tax we already decide potentially at
the budget
process what would be something that we may look at not
doing I just I just
don't want to just sort of throw it out there and then we
sort of try to on the
fly figure out what that is because I would much rather
quite honestly have
money that we've in good faith put forth a conservative
budget and that if
somehow our expenses are less and our revenues more and we
have additional
revenue that we're able to to maybe do something with that
I just I don't want
us to get to where we're too confident that I mean I lived
through that 2007
eight nine and ten and you did as well I mean it's it gets
it gets interesting so
anyway did you have a question yes well I was gonna
basically make the same point
that another word for sandbag is conservatism yes I'm okay
with that yeah
well and I'll remind the council to that you know for and
of end of last fiscal
year we did end up with over three million dollars of
additional you know
fund balance and if we could did come back to you and
identified some one-time
capital projects that we utilize to fund that and so
certainly we're conscious of
that mayor I think that this projection I think you know it
is it is
conservative in my opinion I think that we've seen a
substantial amount of
growth in that area as you can see kind of going forward we
've tried to temper
some of that projected growth out in the out years to just
to kind of keep us on
a more conservative level okay so franchise fees is the
other item that
I'll kind of point out to you in this forecast we do
continue to assume that
an additional six hundred and twenty two thousand dollars
will continue to be
transferred over to the street improvement fund along with
any growth
in in the franchise fees and so you'll continue to see that
that the amount of
revenue from franchise fees that stays in the general fund
to continue to
diminish we still have that 10-year program so at the end
of this five-year
window we'll still have a little bit over a million dollars
in the general
fund from franchise fees that will continue over the next
five-year window
to continue to transfer over to street maintenance real
quick question in the
first value the 10% assume new value 3% of total value I
know when we get to the
five-year projection it's more the do you off the top of
your head if you
don't know that's fine the 3% of total the new value you
had to have some
figure in mind to to work the forecast do you remember what
that was about 300
million dollars of new value and so then you're thinking
the 10% so the 10%
includes the 3% so you're saying we're only gonna have a 7%
increase in
existing property and then another 3% for new property yes
well no no okay
no it's 10% and then 3% yes so all right so the 10% would
be pre-existing
yes properties and then the 3% would be added on to that in
new properties all
right so the 10% again all that 10% is going to to reduce
or lower that
effective tax rate so that's where you see that in a
lowering of that effective
right and that that amount that you use for the assumptions
do you know off the
top you're it okay all right thanks so the next item that I
wanted to talk with
you about again this is a request by the council to come
back and discuss a
little bit about our homestead exemption just want to point
out that our current
homestead exemption is half a percent of the market value
of a homestead of
property or $5,000 whichever is greater and so homes
currently from zero to a
million dollars all get $5,000 we have a few properties
that are above the
million dollars I believe it's about 18 properties that are
that are valued of
over a million dollars and so that's currently our homest
ead exemption based
on preliminary values as of May 31st we had about 19,000
single-family homes with
a homestead exemption that's a that's 64% of the 29,630
single-family homes so
there's a lot of homes within the city that either aren't
eligible or haven't
applied for a homestead exemption that's that that's a
value of about 92 million
dollars or about five hundred eighty eight thousand dollars
of revenue that's
foregone to the city that is being exempted and the city is
not receiving
based on preliminary values the average home is about 234,
000 again that number
will continue to fluctuate as as as the appraisal district
weighs through the
protest period and then just wanted to point out to that
and I have some
examples here for you but the appraisal district is
comprised of 42 cities 16
others of those cities have some type of homestead
exemption and they range from
half a percent or five thousand dollars to I believe one
city has a homestead
exemption of 20% or ten thousand dollars are those
whichever is greater
yes sir on those two customer breezes you have a question
well I can wait till the end to go back unless we want to
talk about this right
now your call I can wait till you get all right so again
this information
again is select cities certainly doesn't comprise all the
cities but I want to
kind of give you an idea of of where you know cities in at
least the largest
cities within Denton County are located within these
categories and so what you
have here is whether or not there's a homestead exemption
that's offered and
you can see that some cities have some and they range you
know from what the
city of Denton has to as much as you know 20% or ten
thousand dollars in value
you know Denton certainly is here over 65 exemption
disabled exemption that's
offered by all these cities again currently the city's over
65 and
disabled persons exemption are both at 50,000 they kind of
range in each one of
these cities Trophy Club as an example has an over 65
exemption but they don't
offer an exemption for disabled persons and then this next
column just
identifies for you which cities actually have a tax tax
limitation on over 65 and
disabled persons again you know it's kind of a half and
half of the cities out
there and then they want to show to you I'll show you here
is what the 2017 tax
rate comparison is for these cities you know all this
information is information
that's that's tracked and collected by the appraisal
district and that's where
this was obtained this was a this was a slide one of those
slides that was
requested that is in your revised presentation what we've
done here is to
try to show you what the average taxable home value is and
so in the city of
Denton the average taxable home value is about 214,000 that
's net of your
homestead exemptions that may be applied and then that as
you can see here you
know average taxable value kind of varies city to city
certainly in Frisco
it's about 413,000 about twice what the city of Denton's
average taxable value
is we have a rate comparison we've sorted this out for you
based on where
the tax rate is and so Denton is you know here at 63 cents
the high is 80
cents for Fort Worth and Great Vine a low of 28 cents we've
calculated for you
what the the taxes would be due on an average home within
the cities about
thirteen hundred dollars and again gives you the comparison
of what it is for the
other cities and then we just try to give you just the
basic two hundred
thousand dollar home to try to give you some comparison of
where we are in
comparison to to the other cities so again if you have any
questions be happy
to answer councilmember Metzler and then councilmember Gr
atery this is a new slide
this is a new slide yes sir okay thank you very much
because I I was really
hoping to get that I forgot to ask more thank you okay go
ahead yeah I just wanted
to comment I asked for this look because you know my
fundamental question was are
we high or are we low on our taxes and if you just look at
tax rate you know it
looks it looks one way and like for instance Frisco you
know looks what
looks great and if you look at it on a two hundred thousand
dollar home in
Frisco wow how cheap but you can't get a two hundred
thousand dollar home in
Frisco where it's a lot harder to do so in terms of tax
bill I want to see how
we stack up and you've got it sorted on the last column
instead of the second
last but just just eyeballing it we fall out about the same
spot there's about
six municipalities on that list that have a higher average
tax bill than us so
just sharing I just had a request I greatly appreciate the
slide being added
can you send out to us one that breaks out the tax rate
into own M and debt
service for each for all these cities to kind of see the
difference there or is
didn't debt heavy or is you know an M heavy you know where
does that fall we
can certainly do that for you okay so just wanted to again
you know to
address the request wanted to point out that if the council
chooses to make a
change to the current homestead exemption we would need to
notify the
appraisal district no later than July 1st for it to be
effective in this
particular tax a year we do have a couple of meetings
available we can
bring back to you an ordinance to do that if the council so
chooses we can
schedule it for June 19th or our or June 26th in order to
get that in before
July 1st just wanted to point out that the tax code does
limit the exemption
present percentage to no more than 20% and the council may
increase the minimum
in $5,000 increments and again that's how I presented this
here for you and then
just wanted to again just from remind the council that you
know $5,000 the
current exemption is about $588,000 that is foregone
revenue to the city on a
$5,000 exemption that's about $31 per year to an individual
homeowner and so
what this table does here is just attempts to let you know
that again this
is the the maximum value on a house that could get $5,000 a
house above this would
certainly be calculated off of the off of the percentage so
it's a it's it's
the greater of the two quick question on that on the slide
the statement is
council may increase minimum but must be must be in $5,000
increments is that
state law or is that charter it says must be where's that
correct in in our
conversations with the legal department I'm not sure that
that's if it's
identified in state law but that was certainly the are the
legal direction is
that that needed to be in $5,000 increments well I know
when we increased
the over 65 and this over 65 I guess and disabled or we did
the disabled this
last time that we did it in $5,000 increments but I don't
know if that was
the legal work so if we could just have maybe report on
that that'd be great
okay yeah so so that's really my last slide on on the Hom
estead exemption
mayor certainly will be asking the council for direction we
can either if
you want to discuss that now or you want to wait to the end
presentation
certainly your pleasure because member Briggs you've sort
of talked about this
and so we're fixing to move on to some different aspects of
the presentation so
if you have questions about the Homestead exemption I'd go
ahead and ask them now
observations yeah well the last slide asked for council
direction on this
issue so I of course brought this up and requested it
mostly because the
increased values has taken a toll on some of the homeowners
especially I've
seen comments in in our neighborhood so I asked for this
because I would like to
see the exemption increased to 10,000 and would like for
council to consider
that but we can wait till till the end of the presentation
to discuss that okay
if there's even anybody who's willing to discuss it okay we
can come back to that
so some of the assumptions that have gone into this
forecast regarding
compensation and benefits is we have assumed a 3% average
merit and it
increases to civil service based on their meet and confer
agreements again
these are just again preliminary planning level estimates
you know based
on where we think our market comparisons would be we'll
continue to work through
that process and have additional information for you in
conjunction with
the with the proposed budget in August future fiscal years
within this also
continue to assume a 3% average merit health insurance is
based on a 3%
increase to the city's contribution employee contribution
rates we'll
continue to review those and we'll be reviewing those in
the next coming weeks
and we'll have recommendations to the council as part of
the proposed budgets
if there's gonna be any changes to employee premiums or
deductibles co-pays
and and such quick question on that if that's okay I want
to understand what
that what that's saying so we've got so that's saying that
in the budget the
city built in the city budget if we're paying ten million
dollars a year we're
gonna increase that by three hundred thousand dollars three
percent what are
health care costs right I mean is that in line with what we
think health care
costs are gonna I mean we can that might be too much in the
weeds but I just want
to understand because if that assumption is if health care
costs are rising ten
or fifteen percent and we're assuming a three percent city
contribution that
means then part of that the other part of that equation is
then the employees
will bear that difference okay just all right okay and I
don't yeah I don't need
it we'll go into more detail as we get more into the budget
but I just want to
understand I just want to point out that you know Scott
Scott is here today he's
gonna be presenting the health insurance fund and maybe
that'll be a good time
that'd be great yeah thank you and then on on the
retirement plan for TMRS we do
have a decrease in the city's contribution for TMRS fire
pension rates
are being held at eighteen point five percent and then I
just want to point
out that we'll have a more detailed discussion with the
council in July or
August mr. Langley is you know be happy to present that to
you in July August
we'll be working on that we are we are we are pending the
most the most current
actuarial study on our fire pension and so we want to make
sure that we have
that available to bring that back to the council and we
anticipate that to be in
July or August so from my understanding sorry just I want
to make sure I have a
good overview so when you presented this slide with the pie
chart that showed
70% of the general fund is personnel service in other words
staff payments
salaries etc is this part of that the 17% which that's
probably a fairly large
number I would think 17 or 18 percent if you had the fire
and okay but that is
included in that 70% yes all right thank you
so briefly just want to point out that you know five-year
forecasting is
something that we've certainly done for a better part of 15
years or probably
before that within the city is multi-year forecasting just
helps us to
better evaluate budgetary decisions on a long-term basis
and then also to ensure
financial affordability and sustainability of budget
decisions that
are being made today and into the future so I want to again
just make sure that
the council understands that where it's clear that this is
a very preliminary
forecast for you it assumes the assumptions that we've kind
of already
gone through for both the current year estimate and also
the preliminary budget
wanted to point out that what we've shown here for you for
17 18 is the
amended budget if you recall we had made some one-time
funding of capital
projects that comprise about 4.8 million dollars that wasn
't in the original
adopted budget for 17 18 it's reflected here for you that
then goes to
calculate where we think we will end up in 17 18 right now
we think that we'll
have about a twenty five point six percent fund balance in
our general fund
again we continue to refine those estimates both on the
revenue side and
on the expense side as well and then going forward as I
previously mentioned
to you what we've shown up here for you is the effective
tax rate that is
calculating what we project to be our property taxes over
the five-year window
sales taxes and certainly we're cognizant of kind of the
mayor's comment on the
five percent growth but again we believe that that's that's
still within the
conservative range certainly in the out years we've we've
tempered that down a
little bit to continue to keep this as conservative as as
we can this this
forecast assumes currently about seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars of
new expenses that will be added to this the 18 19 budget
there's not any one
specific item that's identified as just a placeholder that
we show to the
council will be refining that recommendation as we continue
to review
supplemental requests any other direction that the council
provides to
us today and so with so currently based on on this forecast
we believe that this
certainly as a conservative forecast it keeps us well
within the fund balance
targets that the city's established for for this fund that
's 20% plus an
additional 5% resiliency reserve and certainly we believe
that this keeps us
within those ranges over that five-year plan so if you have
any questions go
ahead because I don't know if you would know this off the
top of your head but
how long have we seen that trend in in sales tax increase
and just and how
sensitive is it to to recession cycles just you know don't
see what tomorrow no
one ever knows it when exactly will come but seems like
some time in every decade
we generally get slammed we went we've been back to a
council member we looked
at a five-year kind of average and it's average about eight
percent I will tell
you that last year was kind of a banner year was over 12%
growth again I think
you know while I'm confident that we might see that going
forward again what
we've tried to do is to temper that estimate and try to get
more to a 5%
I think what happened was so what sales tax in those years
is felt self-sex was
really flat it was really on the property tax side that we
saw a decrease
in in in values and praise values and now that's really
where the hit was on
the property tax side correct so as Brian identified there
was a there was
one year that we saw about 10% actually decrease in
assessed values on on
properties in sales tax excuse me in sales tax so did you I
thought you were
pushing for you but okay no I think when we're definitely
sensitive to the to the
issue about not not being too bullish on sales tax and we
so we've paired back
that 8% number to 5 and then we moving forward it moving
down to 3 and 2% just
to account for that we've got a fairly high level of
certainty right now based
on what we're seeing in the new building that's going on
that sort of thing new
projects coming on board but one of the one of the
discussions I've been having
with staff is well it's great to have a three and a half or
four million dollar
you know I guess windfall at the end of the year that can
also be due to our
forecasting not being as refined as it needs to be and I'm
very concerned about
if we're going to be talking about potential tax rates
above the effective
rate that we would be as accurate as possible I mean
whenever gonna be
perfect we're always gonna end up with the one to two
million dollars on a
budget of this size but I do think that it's incumbent upon
us to be as refined
as possible to really insulate the council for many
accusations that maybe
we were too conservative and overtaxed raised property
taxes we didn't need to
so that's a lot of the debate that we've been having in
internal right now and
why you're seeing as paired back some of that sales tax
rate but something that
we still think is reasonable if we expect we've kind of
discussed being
within a couple million dollars on a base budget of 119
million is pretty
good but there also needs to be that point with which we're
talking about
other proposals you're gonna see we need to be comfortable
that we're not putting
you in an uncomfortable position down the road if we wind
up with too much
money and then the other side of that is well why did you
have this talk about
raising the property tax money so it's a it's a complex
situation and we take
that very seriously this is a great great segue into my
question because I
think we can look at this current budget as an example of
what you're talking
about I would have a I don't disagree with it but so the
current but the
current estimate is the fund balance is 31.5 million the
budgeted fund balance
was projected to be 26.9 so including the new one-time
expenses that was
originally budgeted in 2017-18 adopted and in the current
estimate carrying
those same ones forward we're still having a four point
five million dollar
potential increase in the fund balance which is what you're
discussing right
which what is a penny what's a penny of our sales tax but
is it seven eight nine
hundred dollars any of our sales tax or property I'm sorry
it's about a million
dollars okay so that's about three and a half cents on on
it which from
management side I get that we want to make it refined
because we've got a lot
of priorities that we're trying to fund and and things such
as that so I just
want us to be cognizant that yes we can raise that which is
fine but we it's in
the end it comes down to how much money are we spending
based upon our
prioritized needs so whether we have four million left and
we were to say you
know what we're gonna cut the tax rate and spread that over
two or three years
or whatever or we decide to spend the additional funds that
we are forecasting
for on on priorities I just want us to keep in mind that
that it's we are gonna
make the decision for the 2017-18 budget in the next few
months on hey we got
this or back in October I guess when we finally close the
books out November
we've got some money that is above the what we projected
what do y'all want to
do with it we could either spend it save it or give it back
I mean those are
basically I guess the options whereas in this budget cycle
what we're trying to
do is eliminate that as much as we can which means we still
have those options
which is we need to spend it save it or give it back and
and that's okay all
right fantastic and in the out years it's the assumptions
that just went down
to four and three percent like you said correct any
questions on this before he
continues on yes the only thing I'd say and I'm all for
having as a priority
limiting the amount of taxes that we that we charge our
residents but at the
same time I think our first priority is to fulfill the
duties of the
municipality I mean that ought to be always the first
priority and and we
were able to do both of those last year because we were
able to add some much
needed police officers I think we want I think we need to
keep looking at that in
terms of as we go through these presentations our our
response times for
for police going down our response times for fire calls
going down are we are we
real do we really have enough people to to do all of the
health inspections that
we need to do for the restaurants and pools and things like
that you know I
thought it was a great presentation a couple of weeks ago
about about
reminding us that the importance of building inspectors
that that we often
think of as just bureaucrats but no they're not they are
there people that
are protecting the safety of our of our residents so I
think that that we ought
to always have that priority and and each of these
departmental presentations
ought to be talking about how we are able to achieve our
duty to the residents
to provide for health safety and the general welfare of the
citizens and I
think along to your your points we're right on right on
task with you there
you know one of the things I commend our department had
team over the last year
so and we heading into this budget as well that since I've
been working with
them there's a lot of creativity in terms of you know alter
ing the the way
their resources are used if they're seeing other areas in
their departments
that that need attention and they're getting more efficient
in areas we've
been able to to shift those resources and not have an
impact on the taxes so
they're to be commended for that and mostly what you're
seeing in the the
new recurring expenses you'll can you'll continue to see
additional proposals
this year with to beef up dispatch police fire and and that
's really where
we're putting priorities in addition to the field
inspection work that you all
heard about recently with from mr. Estes and which is just
really critical so
those have been driving the budget is how do we continue
getting those
frontline services those public safety based services
funded and still work
within the effective rate and so far mostly because of the
the growth in the
in the property values and the growth in the in the sales
tax we've been able to
do that as well as cost-cutting measures that the
departments have initiated so
it's been second year if things look pretty good right now
we still got
another couple months to keep refining the numbers but that
's the I just wanted
to reiterate that's exactly the approach we're taking is
with those core services
which unless the council has any other questions I'll move
on did want to point
out that currently you know we are looking at reviewing
supplemental
requests from from departments currently they total a
little bit over 47 million
dollars I know that's a that's a daunting number I will
point out that
about 41 million of that is is related to capital and some
already identified
some of those fire station aids you know City Hall those
types of projects and so
we'll be bringing to you likely sometime in July a
discussion about what those
supplementals are get some council direction on some of
those we've split
this out into three categories we have recurring
operational expenses a little
bit over three million dollars one-time operational
expenses about two million
dollars again as I mentioned we're still kind of refining
those numbers working
through with departments certainly if there's other items
that the council
would like for staff to to consider and including that we
certainly want to
solicit that feedback and direction from you today so we've
not provided a lot of
detail here for you on supplementals again just because it
's a little too
preliminary so yes sir question on just the concept so when
I see capital 41 256
is that debts is that debt or is that cash outlay is that
cash flow or is that
debt well what we'll be coming back to use is giving you
some options to fund
some of that if it's a design as an example if it's a
design component of a
wider project likely the recognition could be to revenue
fund that component
but there could be a component to actually debt fund some
of some of these
projects well I think there's gonna have to be a large
component of that servicing
these projects I mean it's almost it's almost entirely dead
well and so that's
and that's a good point and I appreciate that so I'm just
messing around with
Tony I'm not getting on to you so that's my point is that
it would be helpful
when we find out what part of that is debt what that
translates into into a
debt ongoing debt service payment because that's what we're
gonna have to
structure the tax rate on is the debt service payment not
thinking we've got to
come up with 41 million dollars in this next budget now the
next two are those
kind of numbers in other words we're looking at 3.5 million
for
reoccurring which means it just adds into our expenses and
then the one-time
operational this is equivalent to the 4.8 million that you
had on the slide
for this current year I believe correct so my thought is
this obviously
reoccurring operational expenses and we went over this ad
nauseam last time
during the budget process that you can't you know just fund
those you got to find
a reoccurring revenue for that in the out years whereas one
-time operational
expenses that's like the 4.8 million or the 3 million we
came back with these
traffic center lines so if we're looking at a potential of
I'm gonna say four
million dollars increase in our general fund budget I mean
our reserve fund
because of you know new revenues forecasting whatever you
want to call it
I think we need to really think about because this is where
I was trying to
talk about the tax rate component because if we let's just
say we do this
forget the capital we'll figure that out but these six
million dollars we're
gonna it's gonna be in the budget so we've got to calculate
our tax rate to
accommodate that which from what I'm hearing you say is a
million dollars for
every cent so none of this these numbers have been included
in the effective tax
rate plus the 3% correct all right so if we were gonna do
all of them we'd have
to raise the tax rate almost 10% to do that well and and
and to your point mayor
you know in debt funding you know you know at least a
portion of or you know
the vast majority of these products assuming what the
recommendation is about
about a one penny on the debt service tax rate is
equivalent to about 10 to 12
million dollars of debt service right so right and so my
thought being if we if
we think we're gonna have a an overage which we're almost
to the end so we our
confidence level the additional revenue we're gonna have
over expenses probably
growing with each passing month because you have less time
for that to be skewed
I think we need to look at that's sort of what I was saying
is if we have an if
we have an idea that we were wanting to request or submit 2
.5 million dollars of
one-time operational expenses if we think we're gonna have
that left over if
it's just one time why don't we instead of waiting to
decide on new things in
October November why don't we just say okay we feel
comfortable that we can
allocate that here which will take a little bit of relief
or a little bit of
pressure off of the tax rate without quality without dimin
ishing services or
the kinds of things you're asking for so that's sort of
that's my it's working
that's exactly what he's showing I was just thinking we
could have shown this
slide butter but what he's doing is showing the total
number of quests there
have been especially the one-time operational expenses when
we know that
the department's coming well under budget we've just
basically said go ahead and
move these up especially if it's critical to reducing
future costs so we
probably could have laid out a table that hit the points
you're trying to make
a little bit better so you'll see what you will see during
the budget
presentation is kind of the net of those decisions and then
what's still left
okay great yes councilmember Melton thank you mayor in the
process of you know
going through the the whole budget review will there be
some point where
you might provide some guideposts and some education maybe
others don't need
this as much for fiscal responsibility with respect to debt
because it you know
and I think I say this with appreciation for a couple of
points that have already
been raised I appreciate councilmember Ryan's request to
look at debt service
as a percent of budget you know across comparables and I
appreciate the mayor
you know asking specifically for the debt service
implications of our debt
requests but it has a little bit of the flavor of the
feeling of like a magic
cookie jar when we hear that it's dead like oh we won't
have to you know decide
about that in the same way that you do cash and you know at
some point we have
to have a clear understanding of what's over leveraging you
know and what when
do you start bumping into bond rating impacts and so on so
so will we have a
review that will help us you know give you guidance back we
will we will now
and and so yeah we'll bring that back these are really good
questions and I
think the other thing that it needs to be put into some
context is excuse me
how debt falls off over time as well and and how the bond
rating looks at that so
we need to provide that more holistic picture over the next
several years so
you can make those kind of decisions but it's just lacking
a little contact
context at this point but we will certainly put all that
together in a few
slides for you and if I could piggyback on that comment
because I know when you
look at in our budget like if you look at the adopted
budget was it 16 15 16 in
other words the adopted one have about had about capital
improvements capital
of gosh I mean six or seven hundred thousand dollars or
something but then
the actual came in at about three or four hundred but you
and I had a
conversation that that component that line item has a
couple of different
components in it one is if you've approved the debt there
somehow it's it's
we have to carry forward so that number I think sometimes
is not necessarily
representative of exactly what's going on so if when we
have that discussion if
we could just sort of go into what flows into that line
item on that adopted
budget that would be great so this is a kind of a good
segue into into what the
current debt is again this was part of it's not a new slide
but it was it was
requested so we provided this for you this shows you kind
of a point in time
as of 930 17 where the city's total principal and interest
debt is by fund
and so I just wanted to point out you know 1.4 billion
dollars you know if you
look at the electric line item I just want to point out in
case you go back
and look at the electric presentation that we've made some
slight adjustments
here so the sixty point five million dollars that's in in
TMPA is not part of
this number we do pay for that through our purchase power
cost and then I have
in this excluded or there isn't an exclusion about sixteen
point nine
million dollars of bonds that we have that will offset the
thirty three hundred
and forty six million dollars of revenue funded debt that's
for the deck that
that was part of the capitalized interest and so again just
trying to give you a
little bit of reconciliation to what we've shown you in in
the electric
budget and then also again this was as of 930 17 so this
does not include any
pay down in debt that we'll have during this current fiscal
year nor the addition
of twenty nine point six five million dollars in debt that
were that will be
issuing for general government purposes at the council
previously approved and
it will be selling later this this week so again as of 930
17 this is the the
total debt by fund that the city had on its books as of 930
17 by fund okay the
other request that was made is you know regarding our geo
bond authorization
again after the issuance that we'll be doing this year of
that 26 million 19.7
million is is to fund the 2014 bond program we have now
issued all the debt
associated with a 2012 so there is no more remaining
authorization on that
there's still third there will still be 34 million dollars
of authorization left
in the 2014 bond election program the bulk of that is
associated with street
projects 700,000 still remaining for drainage and about
five point five
million is associated with with parks so we have two years
remaining to issue geo
bonds for that program will be bringing that back to the
council recommendations
on what projects to fund both in 1819 and 1920 as we
continue to to look at
those and look at this program and solicit feedback from
staff so any
questions on on this so just as a reminder you know the
departmental
presentations will continue you know the areas that that we
'll be focusing on
certainly you know the staffing and the structure goes and
accomplish it
accomplishments performance measures cost containment and
process improvements
departments will be going through their individual
presentations started last
week really with tech services and it'll continue today
just to give the council
kind of the preview and what what's coming up so the
calendar again June 23rd
we'll be going back to the PB with seeking their
recommendation on the
utility budgets May through July will continue our
departmental presentations
July 25th is when we get the certified value from the app
raisal district we'll
be working through the truth and taxation or the effective
tax rate
calculation with that will the county assist us in that
calculation August
2nd is the scheduled budget workshop with the council also
consideration of
adoption of a maximum tax rate for for that and we'll talk
about that a little
further at the workshop August 14th and September 11th we
've scheduled
public hearings on the tax rate and proposed budget and
then finally on
September 18th we've scheduled the adoption of both the tax
roll the tax
rate and the budget I want to point out to the council to
that all of these
presentations discussions that we're having with the
council regarding not
just the general fund budget but the utility budgets all
the other budgets
departmental presentations we have a dedicated page within
the city's budget
city's website where we're posting all of these that were
they're readily
available for our citizens in addition to that we have a
portal that's available
to citizens to solicit their feedback on on the budget
process if we get those
we'll certainly be sharing that with the council if our
citizens are submitting
that to us and then lastly the last slide that I have for
you is again to
solicit your feedback and direction regarding any of the
budget themes or
priorities the homestead exemption and any other feedback
or direction that the
council may have for staff as we continue to develop the 18
-19 proposed
budget okay open it up council member Briggs so again I
would like to see the
homestead exemption increase at least a ten thousand I know
we have the tax
freeze for 65 and older but we do not have any relief for
young families and
that is whom I'm here to represent just a little bit of
information so we
average about ten foreclosures a month in our city and out
of that we only have
I think the number was ten thousand or 19,000 homeowners
and so I'm not sure of
the reasons for foreclosures but I do know that we want our
families to be
able to own homes so so that's so help me understand the
connection between the
foreclosure data and the homestead data well there's some
it's my understanding
that there's some people who cannot pay their property
taxes or their mortgage
keeps going up so much a month because their taxes are
going up their escrow
account increases yes and so they can't afford their homes
anymore and so
they're foreclosed on that that's where I'm relating that I
don't know what our
part in that is but I do know it's a real issue and if
there's something that
we can do even if it's minimal at this point I'm willing to
do that I the
amount was I think five hundred and eighty eight thousand
and in revenue but
looking at the budget we're still over thirty million in
our fund balance so
that's I'd like for council to entertain that option all
right anybody else yes
councilmember Hudson yeah I would ask is looking at the
themes priorities I'd
like to get some sort of snapshot of how many additional
roads or backlog of
approved fixes we could we could get in what does that
number look like right so
if at this rate we can squeeze in we can make up this gap
or whatever and and if
we could if we could make that actionable so kind of put a
component of
how many crews we can put to it you know shovel ready
projects we can expedite
something like that it or paste that we're already taxed
whatever that looks
like but I'd like to kind of see that in actual fixes and
how fast that can be
turned we will have that as one of our supplemental
discussions with council on
the debt service time what I've asked Todd S is to
basically give me some idea
on our local roads what it would take to make that those
packages whole and catch
that up and provide some kind of a plan and what would that
translate into debt
if we went ahead and moved it there's no way you could
afford to do it cash right
now so that'll be we'll bring that back sometime the next
month if you could go
back to slide 19 real quick this is on kind of talking on
the homestead
exemption I don't think I would have an issue with raising
the homestead
exemption to 10,000 because you're really only affecting
homes but that have a
value between a hundred and and two hundred thousand
dollars you're not
affecting anyone under the hundred thousand because they
already are gonna
max out with five percent at five thousand and if you're
over two thousand
or two hundred thousand you've already got an exemption of
over ten thousand is
that is that correct so so every home if you go to two
million if you go to ten
thousand keep the same percentage every home from zero to
two million would be
would get an exemption of ten thousand dollars it was until
you go above that
well no I think I think you're talking about it's a it's a
half a percent right
based on a half percent I'm sorry based on the half percent
or what we currently
have percentage wise correct we if you if your home is
currently valued at
two hundred thousand dollars or more you're already getting
a ten thousand
dollar or more exemption it's a thousand yeah yeah it's a
half a percent it's not
two hundred thousand five percent would be the ten thousand
dollars but it's a
half a percent it's either a half a percent or five
thousand whichever is
greater is that is that correct yeah okay so at what point
do you get more
than a five thousand dollar above a million dollars
currently currently yes sir okay I guess I'd like to know
where that five hundred
eighty eight thousand would go to if we did do that change
that that's an
important factor to understand is how much of a difference
would that make so
there would be an additional you know five hundred thousand
that would not
come to the city and that would be ongoing for the for the
for the five
year you know period so you're looking at you know two and
a half million
dollars of revenue that it's no longer coming into the city
plus any you know
any growth and we see about a two percent growth in Homest
ead eligible
properties every year so what you're saying is if we went
from a five
thousand dollar to a ten thousand dollar that we would go
from from the five
hundred and eighty eight thousand to you know about a
million little over a
million sir
go ahead yes so building a little on councilmember Hutzpah
comments on roads
on streets first of all thank you for providing the map of
where the poor and
very poor condition streets are which are the public hasn't
seen sort of all
over the place so while maybe 25% of streets it's probably
a much higher
percentage of trips you know involved going over poor and
very poor streets so
I think that you know lens leads to the that perception of
our streets really
being horrible but what I what I'd like us to get to in the
planning is is a is
a plan that ties to a target OCI a sustainable OCI you know
that we think
we can really do that we think we can really afford you
know pulling in the
impacts of finishing out the 2012 and 2014 bonds plus
whatever new bonds plus
whatever we identify for for street repair but I think it's
quantifiably
modelable right to say if we do these things on these dates
and we know the
things that we're not acting on are are deteriorating in O
CI right we ought to
be able to see that you know we have a plan that ties to
that target OCI and is
sustainable so that's especially if you're gonna you know
ask us to
consider coming back to the taxpayer I'm just I'm just
gonna talk a little bit
more on this you know in addition to having a plan that
makes sense on paper
I believe the citizens need to know that we have the
capacity to deliver on them
you know I don't think anybody in 2012 thought that those
bonds were going to
be still being worked on you know in 2023 you know five
years from now which
is going to be the case so I think you know we want a good
assessment of our
our capacity for putting projects out the door which we've
seen evidence over
the last few years that we you know that this management is
able able to improve
that significantly but let's make sure that our vision you
know ties to a
rate of projects hitting the street that we know
organizationally we can
actually deliver well I'm not sure you said the 2012 bond
program still gonna
be working on in 2023 I don't that sounds a little is that
isn't it over
five years no we've got a plan right now to clean those out
by 2020 2021 so okay
it was still beyond what anybody imagined in 2012 I imagine
right so back
to the homestead so what I'm hearing is 580 thousand is
about a little over half
cent on the on the on the tax rate I want to see some more
numbers on the
tax freeze impact and things such as that before I mean we
're only if all we
have is two weeks to make a decision on that that seems
pretty quick I mean
five hundred eighty eight thousand dollars seems inconsequ
ential I do when
you said only ten foreclosures in a month I mean I know
that seems like a
lot but ten years ago it was probably ten times that amount
if not if not more
I mean it's just I mean that's and I know that they do have
state law does
provide that your homestead can only go up from a taxable
perspective ten
percent look if we have a 15 percent increase like there's
average 20 percent
increase and then once it comes down 15 percent it can only
go up 10 percent for
tax valuation purposes is that right that's the current
yeah and this is the
same this is the same sort of concept that when this
council considered
whether to adopt the tax freeze sort of unilaterally and I
don't I don't know if
you can send a homestead to the Folgers but part of it was
your concern is for a
certain income level I think of people and I understand
that that's sort of was
the same I think approach from from the tax from the over
65 certainly the
disabled that's a whole different situation so I'm not
categorically
opposed to it but I think I don't know if I can get the
information that I mean I
would like to have at least some more analysis of the data
to make that in two
weeks that that's I mean maybe we can and then this council
can decide on it
so I'm not opposed I just don't know if I have enough
information right now to to
be able to make that decision without it just being a
decision based on more than
maybe just the data and I'll just point out that the homest
ead exemption is
available to all homeowners regardless of whether or not
there's a freeze on
that particular property and so any homeowner that that
designates their
houses at a homestead we'll get that right right it
currently does yeah okay
yes so just on that in April there were 18 I just I took an
average like there's
there's more in three months there were 42 foreclosures in
our city that's not
the county in the county they're way way up yeah so just
just to add that in there
and it's it's for homeowners period not really an income
bracket oh no it's for
all of those that were left out of the 65 and older I guess
okay you would say
okay and we'll have those that impact the impact of the tax
freeze or impact
or the number of that's that if that wasn't in place what
it would have been
we'll have that at what time do you know likely the plan is
to have that for you
during the budget workshop in August okay as once we have
the final certified
value we'll be able to kind of run those comparisons for
you and provide you a
better explanation of what that is well if I could then ask
colleagues unless
you know of it now if you if there's information that you
need to be able to
make a decision on this particular issue to give direction
in the next two weeks
so most likely we're going to put it on an agenda unless
there's four of us here
that don't even want it on the agenda and and then we can
talk about it I just
I mean I don't have an issue with it if there's if I can
get some more data of
exactly you know how that's gonna impact where that
additional money will come
from just so that we can see exactly what that decision
entails
councilmember I just want to go on record I asked for this
well over I mean
a while ago so I remember you discussing yes ma'am yeah you
're right yeah anybody
but yes councilmember Hadsworth yeah for me to make a
decision I'm gonna need
more than just foreclosure numbers so I'll circle back with
staff but just
because candidly if someone goes to win star and bets it
all in black and then
comes back and lose their home that's very different than
someone that that
lost a job or just say I mean it's just there's no site
into that right I mean
I've made you know Dave Ramsey calls it stupid tax I mean
but the thing is I've
made decisions that have been costly to me in my household
right and so I think
it's important to look past that first level and look
deeper into those numbers
and so I just need to process what that looks like to me to
get there but and
I'll tell you I'm absolutely hesitant because we don't know
the the effects of
the freeze we're just not far enough into that to really
understand what that
looks like and and what did you is it is it a what
commitment is it I mean once
did you say five years is that yeah freeze the tax freeze
no no no oh the if
we how often you can change the rate the council can change
that annually okay
up or down okay well good well no so I mean but I just don
't I mean that to me
I'd like to see maybe two years historical data of what
where we are
with the freeze before we because that is really what's
troublesome to me if we
here you go here's the additional homestead exemption and
oh by the way
we're wrong we got to take that back you know that is is
really bad to kind of
pull the trigger early and let me point out that in order
if the council chooses
to make a change in order to make it effective for the 2018
tax year would
have to be before July 1st if the council takes action
after that then it
will be in the 2019 okay sorry okay any comments on this
particular topic
because my short answer is I need more information all
right any other direction
what works I mean we've sort of addressed the hums budget
themes
priorities we talked a little bit about that any other
direction on this
particular issue I mean I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of
information coming
forward a lot of details so it's been a good discussion
anybody else all right
appreciate it thank you well let's just take a quick five
welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on
Tuesday June 12th
2018 it is 1240 we're gonna proceed continue to proceed
with our work
session reports I do have a housekeeping item I've been
asked it seems like work
session item 2d is in David their staff has asked that that
be postponed and
pulled for a different discussion so some further
clarification and facts can
be developed so we will not be proceeding through work
session item 2d so we're
gonna go back up to the top of the agenda is that what we
're doing all
right going to agenda item 2a which is received
important whole discussion received department
presentations in preparation
for the FY 2018 19 proposed budget good afternoon mayor
council members I'm
Nancy toll I'm the budget manager for the city of Denton we
're gonna proceed
with the department presentations and of course they'll be
at every council
meeting from now through the end of July the departments we
have today are fire
community improvement human resources risk retention fund
the health insurance
fund library and drainage and drainage was the held over
from last week so it's
gonna be today our first one is fire and it'll be chief hed
ges
good afternoon mayor city council members pre-hud being
here to watch our
presentation so I'm excited to be the first of seven
department presentations
so I guess it's good to be first was it this your first one
is fire chief this
is my first one so please be gentle so as we go into this I
'm gonna go through
slides I'm really gonna kind of highlight one or two points
on each
slide obviously if you have any questions please feel free
so first
looking at our goals and accomplishments looking over the
past 17 18 fiscal year
one thing I really won't point out is with council support
was the in service
of the medic from station for so this actually is our
eighth frontline medic
and this was partially funded by FEMA grant and that unit
dig on circles on
April 1st interesting point on this the fire service is
very big on when they
run EMS is to have more fire units and actually MS units so
we are very
innovative in didn't is the fact that now we have eight
frontline units that
is actually more than what we have on fire units and that
was really derived
from our main goal and are actually are the driving force
was the fact that EMS
constitutes 65 to 70 percent of recall volume and let's go
through this I'll
show you some more statistics as that call volumes
increasing on annual basis
as well as we look into our future goals of 1819 some very
specific ones that
really will impact our technology side is the
implementation of a new computer
a dispatch system that's a group project with purchasing
tech services fire and
police and then also our RMS which is our record management
system both those
systems we have in place right now over 20 years old and as
you know technology
20 years old just not very feasible and we're not quite
getting the data
analytics we expect from that so that's exciting and the
last one is actually
the future opening of the agreement we have with our GAL ES
D district that will
actually be serving the ropes and ranch area they expect to
be open October 2018
and with that if you recall the city didn't with the ISO
audit this past
summer and excuse me last year actually and we went from a
rating of three down
to two which lower the homeowners insurance rate ropes and
still outside
what they considered the range of five miles so they were
maxed out it was a
ten when this station opens we both identify a map and send
it to ISO and
ropes will go from a ten to two literally overnight so the
homeowners in
that area should actually experience anywhere from 20 to 40
percent
homeowners savings on their insurance rates so obviously
that's very positive
as we move on really when we look at the emphasis as far as
fire department for
this last year we respond to our 14,000 calls and you see
there's 68 percent are
EMS I want to point out in the past two years we track this
by calendar year so
for 16 to 17 the department experienced a 20 percent
increase in call volume so
as the call volume increases obviously you know the budget
request kind of
aligned with that when we're going through calls I didn't
point out we did
start actually tracking homelessness so exactly how much
were our crews
impacting and being responsive to EMS calls related
homeless and we started
this manual process back in January it's very cumbersome to
try to track this but
I can tell you since January to this date about 2.5 percent
of our EMS calls
is related to homelessness
I just took a bite do you have a monetary value associated
with that
percentage of what that cost to taxpayers we do not at this
point
because when you go on a EMS call there's different levels
there's a basic
level and an advanced level as well we can actually supply
you first further
information to drill down on type two calls and then price
them type of
approximate value as well may I request that I'm sorry say
that one more time
I'd like to request that okay what's in that
and chief if why you're doing that because I mean that's 2.
5 percent that
could be responding to a shelter it could be responding to
a park so if you
have just some general categories of where those calls come
from and if maybe
one station is fielding more of them if one if one station
is fielding more of
them than others just just some basic general okay yeah we
can drill down and
get all that data for you okay moving on cost containment
so what have we done
internally to try to cut cost and within our department and
I'm gonna focus on
the top one terminology may not quite fully understand so
let me walk you
through this so it's a parallel system this designer our
answers previously 15
20 years ago is up to the employee to take the full weight
of a patient on a
medical call and to move that patient into the ambulance we
have since
transitioned through numerous different advances in the
industry into where this
is actually a automated system where the employee rolls the
patient up on the
cot and it does all the lifting so our ultimate goal here
is just reduce
injuries to our employees average back injury we've got you
know not exactly
drilled down costs and you know on each type of back injury
but they could range
from 500 or 50 to 100,000 on that these units are costing
50,000 per ambulance
do the math I mean that several back injuries but these
systems are designed
last 10 to 15 years I think our return on investment are
definitely shown on
that are you tracking the metrics on so if it works the way
we hope it does we
will see a decrease in the type of injuries facilitated by
the old way of
doing things correct that is the ultimate goal is to reduce
injuries to
the employees so are we are we trying to track that in a
more specific way
regarding this particular purchase or is it just injuries
in general it's just
we choose to track injuries in general so we can associate
it if it's what type
of unit they're assigned to what part of the body the
injury is affected as well
so we can once again go down to the specifics and see did
this exact purchase
benefit overall okay great yes thank you how long have
those power load systems
been available we started installing December 2015 it was
just a transition
through supplemental requests and also when we replaced new
units and with
medic for going into service April 1 that was our last unit
so we have eight
and all the frontline images have they been around for 15
20 years no it's new
technology they probably have been around for probably
within the past five
to eight I'm just remembering back to years ago when our
fair city made
national news and state news when we decided to charge for
overweight people
that we had to pick up in our ambulances so bad that we had
to present the
council at the time had to present that what do you know
what year that was
prior to 2008 okay sure you that that's when I went into E
MS so I know that
wasn't within my realm well I'm glad to see that and
because it's it's good to
get those folks do those work in people's homes yeah it's
just a pat battery
powered cot so they put the patient on the cot room to the
ammits a piece of a
device pulls out the ammits connects the cot and it's
automated it just works off
battery packs thank you and actually each one is rated up
to 700 pounds
moving on on cost containment something that the department
started back in 2015
is we actually do a quarterly report and this is top 12 is
what we call this
report it's really identifying some of the process the
department does and it's
just really brought awareness not only to fire
administration to the department
as a whole turnout time you'll see up there in your upper
right side that was
a big thing that we have control of so that is the time
from whenever a station
receives alert until the unit checks in route that is
purely up to the employee
so we've really been focusing on that for the past two
years and we've really
seen significant strides in that and kind of reducing that
not only on just
the employee aspect but also bringing technology on board
as well unit
responses that's a just how quick units can get to the
scenes and we try to
break that out by type of instance as well fire EMS so we
can just see I mean
the more data you have the more you can actually draw down
on your processes
moving on to the process improvement so what have we
completed and what we're
looking forward to so last year budget process we were
approved for what they
call a Knox brought box program that is one company that it
's installed in
businesses and it has one key accessible port that allows
fire service to access
and inside is actually keys the entire building so how that
benefits us if our
department's call to an automatic alarm after hours or
nobody's on site
previously you would either try to contact the owner and if
the owner was
not available and you suspected something you actually had
to damage the
door window something to make access now they actually have
a key system where
they can actually get into the business without damaging
and then also is audit
trail so it shows who in the fire department actually
pulled that key out for tracking
Mexican mechanisms honestly current fire station learning
expansion this is
something we came to you last year as well and this started
in station to the
reconstruction project that opened in January 2017 this is
an automated system
that now removes the 9-1 dispatcher so when it calls
dispatch this computer
system actually gets the correct information and sends it
to the right
station by computerized voice we have seen significant
improvements on the
turnout time and dispatch time by removing the what I call
the human
factor station two is the only one we have online right now
we have seen the
average turnout time reduced from one minute 20 seconds
down to one minute in
four seconds just by this system alone so significant
improvements future
process automated annual bidding this is something small on
paper but it's huge
for the department up to about five or six years ago we
were still at one point
in the year in December all units would congregate in one
location just to pick
annual vacation our employees pick vacation one time for
the entire year
and that was pulling them out of districts and was taking
several out of
service we have learned better we've learned from a mistake
so now all units
stay in their districts and they stay in service this is
just another piece of
technology that has aided as far as the bidding auction
system that employees
actually go on any type smart device they can pick their
vacation so just a
process improvement this slide is just what we actually
submit quarterly for
the financial report for our department performance
measures just going through
this this is 17 18 targets we're actually in the process of
reviewing
those numbers you see they are a little bit under is what
the 16 17 actions are
and we may be making adjustments to this for the future the
percent of active
structure fire responded five minutes less that's just the
NFPA standard we
follow as is several of these did you have a question
customer Mel sir asked
not asked but answer okay good one thing chief on the last
slide about the the
ESD the fire station out in our GAL yes if maybe you could
just send out an
informal staff report about you know when we contracted
with them originally
there were certain projections about the impact of the
budget and you know how as
the expansion continued out in that area how that would
impact our contribution
we could just get an update on what we think the actuals
may be as compared to
what that forecasted was moving forward since it's almost
online okay we can get
that out to you thank you
okay how lots nothing really here stands out I did won't
just point miscellaneous
line item you see a significant increase in the 17 18
budget then you see a
decrease in what will be the 18 19 baseline that's actually
based on
actuals primarily that account is for our meeting defer
agreement with the
firefighter association for the employee physicals so we
had budget 135 true
numbers came back so we have less than that for this
upcoming year as well the
only other thing I'd like to point out is there on the
materials and supplies
you see an increase in the 17 18 budget cycle that was
actually cost associated
with Ashley placing that eighth frontline medic in service
medic for so
you have the cost of additional equipment EMS supplies
items of that
nature so chief the again the question I asked it at the
higher elevation in
personal services that's where the city's contribution to
the fire pension
plan is located is that it is that number within that
budget that should be
included that's okay it's all in them personnel thank you
okay moving
forward this is the current work chart with the department
as mentioned earlier
you'll see that CIS actually does fall underneath the scope
of the fire
department now for reporting structure so right now the
department has 186
civil service and we have 5.25 civilian positions and then
community
improvement so it puts us right about 200 person department
actually last slide so I just want to break it down as far
as FDs assigned to
the area not a significant change you see over the course
of years as we've
added medic units you see that uptick the 18 19 baseline
does show a shift in
administration numbers that is just really due to payroll
with a new payroll
system come online it just made more sense to move eight
people from
operations into the administration line so it still bounces
down there at one
ninety one point two five for a total yes go ahead well
that was the question I
had because who are those folks are those like battalion
chiefs it's
administrative battalion chiefs correct and staff okay that
is all I have any
further questions yes I have a question about response time
yes I know that the
implementation is the for medic was going to reduce those
response times to
you since it's been operational do you have any information
on that on the
reduction of response time since it's been active we have
not ran that they
just been in service right at two months they're actually
not even in the new
station which will have the computer station alerting we
can actually see if
we can go back for the 60 days and see if we can see a
difference on that you
still had previously before that medic was placed in
service you still had
engine responding so it just did not have the transport
capability is still
delivered the exact same medical care that what amens would
it just did not
have a transport function but with the ambulance it is a
smaller vehicle is a
little bit more agile it should respond quicker but we can
look at those numbers
for you as I recall the ambulance was coming from a station
farther away so
the the fire the fire truck would get there sooner than the
ambulance so I'm
just just stick just to kind of see the importance of it
because I know that
it's really significant for our area really what we'd be
looking at is
transport time how quick we could actually get a patient in
that you can
transport because that's the delay prior to that ambulance
going in service in
fact you did had to wait for a transport unit to come from
an outlying district
into station force district right some of those minutes are
critical yes they
very mature thank you
got a note for mr. city manager I would like to ask that we
in conjunction with
the information coming back from the homelessness kind of
counts I'm gonna
again breathe life into a nurse station downtown and so I'd
ask you to kind of
prepare fold that into consideration right or with I can we
can kind of talk
about it I guess outside of that but I think there's some
data that a nurse
could provide if it shows that there's a higher number of
calls coming from the
that downtown area there may be a way to alleviate some of
that based on the
numbers that come back so just the heads up that that I'll
chase that data with
with that with those questions thank you to follow up with
that I think if we're
collecting that information it would be interesting to see
a lot of the hospital
groups in our area have outpatient clinics and shopping
malls different
directions from the center of town so I think it would be
interested to at least
inquire with with those facilities that already do that
sort of thing if they
would be interested in partnering with the city on
something like that or doing
it in place of the city
and you might want to we've talked about this over the
years but sometimes we get
emails and just like a little clarity on our ambulance runs
apparently what
you're sharing is that there's different levels of
transport they're providing
different level of services regardless of the level of
service we do bill at a
rate there's probably a rate that a flat rate of for this
service this service
in this service or however it's calculated correct so when
we bill out
and let's say someone has insurance that they you know
insurance says we're all
gonna pay so much and it doesn't cover that bill then we
still bill for that
difference is that correct yes the difference is built to
the patient
directly okay and if someone doesn't have insurance is it
still that same
rate or do we offer some type of non insured rate or is it
I mean I don't
know I'm just gonna pick a number let's say $1,200 that's
what that's what we're
charging and so I I need the service and I don't have
insurance well I get billed
that 1,200 or if you if we don't if we know that people don
't have insurance do
you say well don't have insurance we have this rate that we
can do or do we
not have that I don't we do not have that I mean one thing
we have to work
with is with Medicaid Medicare they do state that they will
specify they only
pay a certain amount right so you work with those federal
government agencies
as well there's other agencies we work with that assist
patients on payment but
we set our fees we go out on a reoccurring basis to just
short up our
current cost and we run evaluation with our compare cities
and usually we're
right in line on those charges sure it's a matter of fact
coming up in June you
will come see before you a contract for a new that EMS
billing contract we're
went out for RFP we have the evaluation back just waiting
to bring that to
council for approval that actually will up our billing
percentages and at that
point I definitely can have more information because I can
't quite fully
sure talk about the depth of what we do I mean that's go
back and investigate
that we have people that specialize in the bill aspect that
should work as
liaison with our contract and with the federal agencies so
on the Medicaid and
Medicare so what I'm hearing you say is that there's only a
certain charge that
we can charge and in those cases the the patient does not
get build the
difference or they do they do okay I'm gonna nod from over
list okay yes they
do get build the difference yes councilmember Briggs on
that to my
understanding there is actually a charge that insurance
doesn't cover no matter
what insurance it is it's the basic trip charge and it's
like over a little over
thousand dollars that people get billed for no matter if
they have insurance or
not and so when we're talking about you know people without
insurance I mean
there's still there's still a charge that they have to to
come up with if they do
have insurance is that correct correct there's still gonna
be a certain amount
that interest companies know where Medicaid or Medicare
will cover they
will still be upon that patient oh no I'm just saying yeah
no matter if you
have insurance or not there's a certain amount of bill that
everybody receives
yeah yeah it's a trip charge that insurance will not cover
they won't even
touch yeah not assuming the you'll have this off the top of
your head and I know
it's your first time presenting but just raises the
question I'm curious to know
what our bad debt percent is you know how much to go how
much goes on collected
I think right now with the current company I can say we're
collecting around
25 28 percent collection rate which is not necessarily out
of the ordinary for
EMS for 9-1-1
thank you yeah there's a couple of other partners need to
come up here no we
still got about three hours worth of departmental
presentations yeah yeah
we'll give that to you mayor good afternoon mayor and
council members my
name is Brad Layhart with the fire department of fire
assistant fire chief
and fire marshal I also receive community improvement
services with me
today to is Lansing Bentley she manages day-to-day
operations of community
improvement services we want to be aware of your time today
so I'll give you a
real high over few community improvement services budget
our accomplishments last
year the number one of our top accomplishments last year
was really the
cleanup of the downtown rail center which not only involved
regular cleanup but
it also involves a lot of agreements between the railroad
and the city and
the you think it's a really easy task to do but working
with the railroad and
getting the rights to clean around the railroad tracks is
daunting at time and
takes up a lot of time to do goals for 1819 we're going to
continue our right
away maintenance and property maintenance contracts update
our
agreements with the Union Pacific Railroad and then we've
been working on
partnership with keep done beautiful to review the mural at
Dallas Drive it's
what about ten years old so far needs to be repainted so
and we're also going to
work on enhancing customer experiences with customer
improvement services
community improvement services and so to that point on that
last one what exactly
how do we measure that what are we going to do well we're
really wanting to work
on the officers do a great job when they interact person to
person or over the
phone with the community and the resources we what we see a
deficiency in
sometimes is our weight and communication it's really the
notice of
violation it's a little bit confusing it keeps on going
through different
transformations over the past several years and we're going
to look at that
actual form that gets sent to the citizens and can we
clarify it a little
bit and make it more user-friendly something that they
instituted about a
year ago was a 24-hour notice which we don't like posting
notices on people's
doors but it's actually one of the most effective tools
that they've gotten
because they actually see it's a 24-hour notice and it's
like oh my god I need to
do something now so they'll have some they'll pick up the
phone contact the
community improvement services officer the next day so we
get a really good
turnaround that way so it's generally it's about it's about
the form and the
about the form you know where we can improve on the form it
's a little
confusing for a lot of citizens thank you plan and vision
the number one items
can continue our voluntary compliance rate right now we
average in the mid
90s for voluntary compliance the higher our voluntary
compliance goes enables
us to keep our budget intact and keep our budget where it
is now instead of
continuously going up year after year after year so I just
wanted to call
attention to the last item on the previous slide mm-hmm so
that that 10%
funding increase is not in this budget that's in
supplemental requests I'll be
in supplement and is that I mean is that really sort of
optional in the same way
the supplemental requests are if this is the actual bit
amount that came in we
will recommend that that get funded so the the the reason
why it's
supplemental like and Tony wanted to keep it supplemental
is because we're
gonna bid this out late fall right after probably after
October 1st so we truly
don't know what the number is we do know most likely we're
gonna see an increase
because we actually had two contractors doing this work of
which one contractor
pretty much bailed on their their contract so they're no
longer doing it
and so we're having to use the other contractor and the
other contractor was
higher in certain aspects so we know we're not gonna most
likely get that
low bid again so we're just trying to be proactive real
quick question that 10%
increase that's a mowing expense mm-hmm it would I thought
parks handled mowing
is this so see ya we do a ton of money really yeah okay
parks does primarily
the medians in the right ways okay like if you go down
Dallas Drive parks and
recs take care of the medians okay we take care of the
right away and the
drainage ditches on the other side all right like that the
ongoing mowing okay
gotcha that's the easiest example appreciate that yes I don
't know how big
a number we're talking about I'm just knowing but it's just
kind of raised an
interesting question about whether you know it's cheaper to
do it through one
department or the other if there's a way to maybe find some
efficiency we're
always looking at that and in Lansing and the previous
parks director they
spent a considerable amount of time looking at maps and
stuff like that
because drainage also does mowing too of which you'll hear
from them too so
there's actually three departments that do mowing so there
's pros and cons to
everything you know the advantages and disadvantages but
you contract some of
the mowing out do you contract some of it out we contract a
hundred percent do
you have to pass a background check in order to do that I
've got a lot more and
I'm gonna have some time on my hands you have to have a lot
of insurance work for
this yeah yeah I got some for you cost containment
strategies 85 to 90 percent
were discretionary funnies contractual services which a lot
of people don't
know and I didn't know this until we start running the
reports last year we
did about 1700 graffiti abatements which gets costly right
away maintenance is
the 215 acres that we maintain and the dangerous buildings
the number one item
on one of our line items to help contain our cost is
through facilitating
building rehabs each building that the city would has to
tear down pay for
ourselves is anywhere between 15 and 20 thousand dollars
now so it's a lot better
for the city even though we understand it takes a lot
longer time and sometimes
the neighbors get a little bit more upset but it's a lot
better for us to
get a house or building rehab instead of demolishing it so
we have a high
voluntary compliance rate - you can see oh yes I'm sorry so
on the on the
dangerous buildings if a building was our home is it is it
generally just what
kind of structures are they for the most part is it a
residence or most of time
it's dilapidated houses almost all the time it's dilapid
ated so we could rehab
the homes and then are they would they be city property at
that point no at
that depend on how it is usually it's still the ownership
of that of the
homeowner we get them to rehab them or in certain
circumstances I know we're
going through a couple of them right now the homeowner what
it'll be a vacant
house for past ten years and the homeowner will finally
sell it to a
developer and then that developer will then rehab the home
so but the cost is
to the city no the cost then would be to the developer but
it takes a little bit
longer period of time obviously for develop a for the
person finally decide
to sell their homestead then developer to come in finally
decide exactly what
has to be done how much it's going to cost get all the perm
itting in place to
do it so it does take a little bit longer period of time
sometimes to do a
full rehab but that's much preferred route because then the
city's technically
out nothing compared to if we had demolished a house and
then put a lien
against the property and based on the size of a lot and
stuff like that 15 20
thousand dollars a lot may not even be worth that
with the graffiti removals what kind of structures are we
talking about is that
on the own structures where are we doing graffiti public or
private it's a lot of
times private what we do is we'll get the landlord property
owner to sign an
agreement with us saying that we have the right to come and
remove graffiti
and we do that for free is 1700 it's an awful lot so I
suppose that must be
spread over a lot of private properties I was just
wondering if it's a lot of
repeated graffiti on the same public structures and if we
've connected the
dots and put graffiti resistant you know coatings in those
areas the community
improvement officers if they think it's a repeat or
specific people there are
certain tags that are all start using they work closely
with the police
department and start working it that way they we don't just
simply come and
remove all the graffiti right away they'll take detailed
pictures of it and
forward it on to their case file and also the police
department case file so
yes just in response to that a lot of the the complaints I
've gotten are on
concrete drainage channels that's where a lot of the
graffiti removal is yeah for
your neighborhood yeah a lot of it's in the concrete yeah
downtown we'll see it
on all the traffic signal boxes and he's flats metal
surfaces side of
buildings you know but on the northeast side of town it's
the concrete it's
usually juveniles or something messing around rubs and r
akes doesn't get a lot
of graffiti that's that's the best line yet process
improvements the number one
area that we're doing a process improvements I like to
refer to the
three Stephanie project because we use Stephanie Barry
Stephanie Lang and
Stephanie Neil there are three attorneys for community
improvement services what
Lane seen in her supervisor Leo have done this past year
has really worked
with those three on cases and brought the cases to of them
beforehand and
worked out you know out of the ordinary type cases with
them before we even take
them to court so we're all on the same page before we even
get to the judge
here's our performance measures they're pretty
straightforward I've hit on a lot
of them already I'm sure saying questions budget our
budgets pre-flightline
this next year if we any questions yes customer husband in
the earlier numbers
did you does it capture trees as well I know that's an
issue if private property
if they don't self-correct for staff ours trees weeds yeah
is that was that
factored in your okay yeah thank you yes
one of the concerns I had was and I don't see it I just see
percentages when
we reduced the number of folks going out to do inspections
my concern was is that
we might have a reduction in the actual number of cases
worked do we have a
account of cases worked and how that's changed and and how
did the change of
staffing has we could supply that number what happened is
instead we increased the
districts on everyone everyone's district got a little bit
larger right
and then a supervisor actually goes out halftime to and
covers a smaller okay
well if we could just get those numbers to you they seem to
still be doing a
great job on my street yeah notices I get this is CIS is on
the far left-hand
side as I mentioned I'm sorry I'm sorry I had a question
yeah so just a follow-up
to councilmember Hussbuss question about trees and Mike my
question is about but
the property private property and there's a dead tree on it
and there's a
risk of it falling on a neighbor structure or injuring
somebody is that
something that this department can can do or what what do
we do in that
situation generally no it's a private civil matter in that
situation what we
can do and what we have done a few times if if it's luckily
in the city right away
then then it could be considered a public danger so we
could take care of
it then but if it's on private property it's it's a private
civil matter
unfortunately I mean I live in the same neighborhood as you
I have 35 post oaks
in my backyard so I'm responsible for 35 post oaks so my
neighbors have several
dozen post oaks too so okay so there's no it's a homeowners
insurance issue basically
okay thank you that's my we've had that issue before
especially if a tree is
dead and is on the edge of a property and really is endang
ering somebody else's
home and we don't have any ordinances that address that
right now there's one
not that I'm aware of that's right next to a back fence
line and ranches are
falling out onto the alleyway mm-hmm unfortunately nobody's
been hit yeah but
we just don't seem to have any kind of if you if you let us
on that specific
case if you let CIS know about that what they could look to
see is if it's an
easement or something like that I mean there's possible
some alleyways have
the actual easements in them for utility lines and stuff
like that so we could we
could look at that matter but if it's in the middle of a
property chances are
city has no right to access that property
no just it was kind of just a situational thing and it is
it was so
like a caddy corner neighbor has a dead tree that is
hanging over our neighbors
and we were outside and part of it broke off yeah and fell
down while we were
outside and so I'm looking they'll come look at anything
that you guys ask them
to come look at and issue opinion in a couple options but
sometimes if it's in
the middle of the property chances are it's gonna be just a
property owner so
it's just like go knock on the door and kind of yeah
neighbor new okay that's
good it's like everyone that has Bradford pairs that are
like 15 years old
thank you well it's also my understanding and I mean I
think if you
have something that's encroaching upon your property line
whether it's dead
alive whatever you had the opportunity to trim that yeah
back to the property
line you can't you can't go beyond that but I mean if it's
coming over you can
just sort of draw that invisible line up and and trim it up
yeah yeah we have
those questions a lot actually this is how CIS reporting
structure the number
of FTEs that we're proposing is 11 which is the same as
last year and do you
have any additional questions questions comments on the on
the dilapidated
housing do we because I know those are sometimes very
challenging
circumstances but is that a way that if we have funds
through our home program
or something like that I mean is that a resource we're able
to draw upon or is
it just usually that's very separate from that it's pretty
separate with that
to tell you the truth we we budget $45,000 a year for dilap
idated housing
for tear downs it's 15 it's between two and three houses if
we had to tear it
down oh what I meant was for the rehabs in other words if
you find somebody that
is willing to rehab but they don't have the money do we try
to connect them with
the programs the city might have to help yeah with some of
those you keep doing
beautiful okay yeah okay right that's what I mean yep okay
all right
wonderful and that all space on their income level a lot of
time right and
grant money any other questions for community improvement
services okay
thank you very much you still have a coming on to agenda
item B no good
afternoon mayor members of City Council my name is Carla
Romine I'm the director
of human resources under the human resources umbrella we
actually have three
budgets I'll be presenting the first one which is human
resources under general
fund Scott Payne our risk manager will be coming up after
me to talk about the
risk retention fund and the health insurance fund wanted to
quickly remind
council some of the major functional areas we have in human
resources which
is depicted here on the slide we have 22 FTEs in human
resources 11 of them are
budgeted in general fund while 11 are budgeted in our risk
retention fund if
you'll notice there have been two that have been added for
fiscal year 17 18
but I want to point out these are not new FTEs to the city
instead they were
transferred from our utility safety group which was budget
ed up under the
electric department so now they're reporting to the risk
manager here's our
org chart those in yellow are the risk retention fund and I
do have one
additional HR assistant that's budgeted under the risk
retention fund as far as
performance measures we track a lot of information but
these are the the
performance measures we thought would be interesting to
counsel our turnover rate
you can see we're at 8.32 percent year-to-date as far as
the performance
reviews completed within 30 days we've made some
significant improvements over
last year with the help of the city manager's office and
with some of the
new leadership so here's some of the major accomplishments
that we've either
completed this year or will be completing this year just a
few that I
want to point out on the second bullet we have implemented
a requirement for
mandatory supervisory training so we're requiring 12 hours
per year to coincide
with their annual performance review the other area I
wanted to point out is on
the fourth bullet our comprehensive policy review we've
started looking at
all the policies within human resources and risk management
there's 91 of them
back in the 80s they got pretty happy writing policies so
we're trying to see
how we can consolidate those make them clearer we've
already brought three of
them to the council on June 5th I'm bringing this up
because I wanted to
give you a heads up that you'll be seeing more coming over
the next year
and then the last thing I wanted to point out is the last
bullet working
with technology services to find a new information system
right now we have a
lot of different systems within human resources from
performance reviews or
training tracking applicant tracking benefits enrollment in
addition to
Excel spreadsheets and other online forms that we've
created and so we're
trying to make this easier for us to administer as well as
easier for the end
users and trying to find one system to the best of our
ability to house all of
that assuming we're successful and it's something that we
can afford we will be
working with technology services to implement that new
system for 1819 if
we're not successful then we'll continue working with them
to find a solution and
you can see that we want to complete our review of the
policies and then we're
trying to do some more content development on our internal
website to
make provide more resources and tools for employees and
supervisors most of
our cost containment strategies are really about time
savings we talked to
council last year about some of the online forms we've
continued doing that
adding some more online training and again adding some more
content and
redesigning our internal website as far as the mandatory
supervisory training
this is really cost avoidance we're trying to minimize
liability and
exposure for the city with better training for our
supervisors and you're
going to see our process improvements mirror the cost
containment thing I just
talked about future recommended process improvements
obviously if we get the new
software that I talked about and just so y'all know we're
looking to offset so
all the money we're spending on the current systems we're
looking to offset
that for the new system but obviously there will be a lot
of changes if we
implement a new system and then we're looking at all of our
functional areas
that in that first slide I showed you and we're looking to
improve
efficiencies where we can our budget when you're looking at
the baseline for
1819 over the budget for 1718 this represents a 3.15
percent increase those
are mostly in the personal services and then fixed costs
like the insurances and
the tech services there have been some other little minor
adjustments based on
the spending trend that Tony talked about earlier in his
presentation where
we just haven't been spending money that is the end of my
presentation I'd be
happy to answer any questions you may have
councilmember Briggs so what what types of training do you
implement is it new
hires and I know you're going to be continuing it so can
you just give me
some examples of the types of training you are implementing
is it certain
sensitivities is it ethics is it all of the above we have
leadership training
communication training we have some compliance training
like your FMLA
FLSA all the alphabet soups of HR we do work with Cassie
and her group to help
with some of the ethics training we have harassment
prevention training I mean
there's there's a lot of training that we offer yes
how do we ensure that we maintain a diverse workforce that
's a partnership
with all the departments whenever there's a vacancy we are
working with
them to see if there's an area that they're demographic
they're wanting to
target and see if there's opportunities for posting and
those different sources
I know police they do they do recruitment fairs and they
try to go to
some of those areas where they're like San Antonio or
Houston where there's
opportunities for maybe some more diverse recruiting it's
really a tough
question to answer specifically kind of at that over the
last year or two we
we've also tried to diversify the panels as much as
possible take any biases out
of hiring processes making sure that we've got more of an
equal mix of
females males that sort of thing so all that starts to play
into it but we're
getting a little bit more aggressive in the larger
departments in terms of where
we're recruiting and trying to figure out how to grow our
own talent as well
at least in fire right now particularly fires working with
the school district
just kind of brainstorming issues as well to try to
increase diversity as well so
all that plays a part but to me the biggest move this last
year is just
trying to put the interview panels get those interview
panels as diverse as
possible to ensure against any biases that the that you're
bringing with you
that's member Hudson thank you looking at the benefit
consultant is that
that's gonna be in the next okay got it I'll wait any other
questions for human
resources thank you appreciate it
Carla was sandwiched between all the tall guys get from
council mayor my name
is Scott pain and the risk manager for the city and I get
the joy of presenting
not one but two budgets to you and some of it will have
been led into a little
bit by what cause already talked about because there is
some blending obviously
between the groups but first we're going to talk about is
the risk management
budget and that's going to be the risk retention fund this
is an area where
there is some crossover with the health insurance fund we
'll talk about next
specifically with the number of employees all the employees
where they're
managing the risk side of it or the health insurance side
of it our budget
out of the risk retention fund and so you'll see that born
out here as call
I mentioned where you did have two employees transferred
over from the
utility safety and training group into ours effective this
year but they won't
show up in our budget until next year and so we look at
changes in cost what
you'll see is related to that change and also the funding
of a vacant compliance
special that we've had before so for this purposes we're
talking about the
five employees there across the middle of the line there
the safety claims and
compliance again we have three this year and going into
five next year here's the
organizational chart again we report it through Carla and
the ones in yellow or
sort of the ones that are focused more on the risk
retention side of it so our
safety claims administrator claims coordinator to other
safety resources
and then the compliance specialist and one admin person
that assists us as well
the compliance specialist and the risk management assistant
don't report up
through me they're funded out of the risk retention fund
but they report to
other supervisors within HR again like Carla said we do
track and count a lot
of things the way the main measurement they report up
through to management has
been the workers compensation cost per $100 a payroll we
had a bad year last
year most that was driven by one kind of catastrophic claim
we had those cows
are still blending over in a little bit into this year as
well as two other kind
of complex claims that we're dealing with but quarter two
is looking a little
bit more favorable and we're getting trending back toward
what our target is
of 0.75 as far as accomplishments again those are there for
you won't go over
all of them the two ones I want to highlight for you is we
are working on a
two-year safety strategic plan now that we have those
additional resources we're
putting a more focused effort on our safety operations
throughout the
organization we've already had a lot of really good
dialogue we've already
realized a lot of areas where we can make some improvements
to improve our
safety culture and they are working on some more tactical
goals to try and
bring that about and then also other areas are securing the
property insurance
for the new didn't energy center as far as goals for next
year obviously we'll
be implementing the things we're putting it together in our
safety
plan I'll be a year two of that process we'll need to be
updating our
actuarial study on one of the next slides we'll be talking
about our fund
balances and a big part of that is what the actual says we
need to have in
reserve for our workers common liability claims this is a
lot of information but
really what risk management is about is trying to ensure
that we do everything
we can to protect our assets that's our employees that's
our fiscal resources
that's our property so whatever that needs to be done
whether it's training
accident investigation procuring insurance and on down the
list as you
can imagine some of the main cost drivers we have of course
are the salary
and benefits load again those three employees to do that
were transferred
over and the one that's being filled as a big driver of our
cost increases for
next year certainly workers compensation claims have been a
challenge over the
last couple of years and then just some more insurance
procurement so I get to a
little bit here in the future as far as cost containment
strategies nothing
major there one of things we're really proud of is we're
working with fleet
services to reduce some costs to the city when we have
liability claims where
we're at fault and we've damaged some parties vehicle to
the point of it being
a total in the past we had to rely on paying storage costs
at body shops and
sometimes almost having to pay someone to come get rid of
the salvage because
there wasn't a lot of value there in some vehicles but now
working with our
fleet services to be able to store those on site takes away
that storage cost
component of it and then put those vehicles in our city
auction so we get
some level of money for those I'll lose this before but the
main cost drivers
for us again are the salary increases we did at a cyber
liability policy this
past year obviously that's a big thing that's been the news
a lot with other
cities being hit with cyber liability issues and so that
was an area felt we
needed to procure some coverage and then just the ongoing
property insurance
market and Texas is obviously a challenge the last bullet
points there
are estimated fund balances and the risk retention fund as
the end of 2018 and
then also 2019 a little bit of dropage there but again
nothing to be concerned
about and still within the range of where we're supposed to
be at Scott
what's the how does the coverage work on that cyber
liability is there a maximum
coverage and I mean how does that how's that work it's a it
's a one million
dollar policy and it's a what I'm sorry one million dollar
policy and probably
the biggest piece of that is going to be in the area of if
we do have a data
breach the notification piece of it to let all of the
people who have been
affected by that breach the credit monitoring and all the
work to try and
get all that taken care of us literally is where a lot of
expenses come in and
so that's the main benefit of having that coverage Melissa
craft and I and
her team we talked a lot about this and you know knock on
wood we feel like
we've got a lot of parameters in place we don't capture a
lot of that personal
identifiable data a lot of our third-party vendors do that
but there
are some areas where the risk is there we've seen some
pretty significant
breaches happening with some of our Texas cities here
locally and so we
thought that was important to add to it and it's a fairly
low cost coverage for
some pretty good sleep good feeling so it's not coverage to
cover if there was
a liability component to damages I mean or it would it just
it's up to a million
dollars whether that's notification all these kind of
working with agencies or
people but if let's say something happens and we get sued
well then we got
a whole another issue about immunity and all that never
mind forget it yeah no
we're good we're good yeah no I appreciate that yes that's
a that's
another conversation for another day any other questions at
least on this slide
so again this is our revenue highlight we really only have
a few revenue
sources coming in the vast majority these are allocations
to the departments
based on whether it's a per FTE losses number of vehicles
or whatever that
brings that in as you can see in the 1617 numbers those
went down quite a
bit that was a decision that was made to reduce those alloc
ations back to the
risk attention fund in order to fund other projects
specifically those were
some parking lots that got funded so that number is
definitely an anomaly
when you look at the other years in there but again the
vast majority of
that five hundred thousand dollar increase is going to be
the salaries of
the employees that we talked about earlier and then finally
the expenses
again no huge change there majority that is going to be the
salaries for the
employees and some of the initial insurances we purchased
so questions
about the risk retention fund any questions it's sort of
very kind of
mysterious department it's not nearly as exciting as the
fire department or is
entertaining us the library that you'll get next yes or the
medical like we're
fixing it I guess is that right sadly yes yes
so one thing I know there was some question that came out
during Tony's
presentation about the health insurance and what we're
being brought forward to
you obviously the health care costs are kind of a high
dollar thing and so that
we have to kind of wrestle with every year as long as I
feel like a chew toy
for a really big dog being shaken around by health care and
what it drives and
what we have to do sometimes because it is a really large
animal that we have to
try and deal with we will be bringing back components of
the health insurance
to you all one thing that Brian has asked for is that we
look at keeping the
city's contribution to health insurance flat and what that
would look like by
our current projections that's about 1.8 million dollars we
're gonna have to come
up with either in increased employee contributions or plan
design changes that
will hopefully lower our costs by that amount and so we
want to kind of put all
that together and see what that looks like so you guys have
an understanding
of what that might take to do that again we're I think one
of the questions came
up was you know is that six percent keeping up with medical
inflation it
depends on the source you look at but everything I see says
on the medical
side of it's about eight percent on the prescription drug
is we're really seeing
the greater impact for medical inflation that's about
twelve percent
historically although we've had some really up-and-down
years our trend has
been about five percent so even though we've had a couple
of really anomaly
years you know we usually typically will come down from
that and our historical
trend has been less than what the overall medical trend has
been in your
slide presentation where you go into you talked about that
the cost I think you
said 1.8 million that either gets made up with employee
contribution or change
to the plan to reduce the cause was it 1.8 million correct
that's to keep the
if the city's contribution remains flat for what it was
last year that's what we
have to change about the plan and is that some of those
just higher
elevation concepts in the presentation are you just
answering the questions
from I was asking the questions that were there I mean we
're gonna talk about
the specific number and that's got the full six percent or
five percent
increase built into it again we may have to work back from
that if that's what
the council's direction is or what management feels like we
need to do to
make the bout the budget balance but so I'm knowing Tony's
presentation I think
one of his slides said a 3% increase in city contribution
was I correct on that
3% you're saying keep it flat is 3% is that considered flat
or what it would be
keeping the same amount that the city contributed last year
would be for this
year so no increase at all to the city's contribution okay
so it's like 20
million eight hundred fifty thousand dollars I think was
what the city's
basically working on a sensitivity analysis for you that if
the city's
costs were zero what would that mean in terms of plan
design employee
contributions if we went up to three what would that mean
so there's gonna be
a serious have that okay could it seem like there was a
alright thank you
appreciate that yes I'm sorry why do you believe that that
we're
lagging larger medical inflation is it something we're
doing on purpose or is
it just kind of chance you know based on how things have
occurred within our
population yes I like to say it's not purpose when things
go down and it's on
chance when things go up but it really is a lot of that we
try and manage the
plan on a yearly basis about keeping up with trends looking
at ways to maximize
the benefits for employees we've tried to work on you know
wellness strategies
and one of the things we're gonna right now is revising our
current wellness
program or healthy incentive program so I think it's a
combination of all those
things we do have our shock claims our high-cost claims
that certainly drive
that we we sort of bridge that by having stop-loss
insurance to protect the city
the maximum exposure on any one claim is a hundred eighty
five thousand dollars
and so even if we have a one million dollar claim for
example we've capped
our exposure for that and so I think it's all those things
in joint use and
to help that councilmember Gregory well it might be helpful
I think one of the
things that when we put it into place was our clinic our
staff clinic that
reduced some of our claims but if you don't have it now if
you could send out
some updates on the stats on that absolutely I can send
that to you
jumping back to the presentation again you see this slide
before this is our
breakdown of where the staff goes now I'm talking about the
second at the top
line the benefits and leave retirement staff there's about
four employees that
deal with that that area again we have a benefits
administrator we have a
benefits and leave coordinator and then two benefits and HR
S stands for human
resource information system that's what color was talking
to you looking at other
options in that regard but a lot of the stuff we do from
the benefits is
enrolling people getting in the system managing their
benefit levels and those
types of things I'm not touching it that much once a bit a
couple of key
performance measures that we do track is the number of
health risk assessments
that goes into what Councilman Gregory was talking about
those are the basic
the physicals that we have done our employee health clinic
we track the
number of folks that go through that we are currently at
about 603 I believe for
the year thus far so we're having a pretty large increase
about 39% over
this time last year so a lot of folks are going and
utilizing our clinic and
then our clean insulation rate we try and work around 80%
and we're currently
around 95% for the quarter and about 93% for the year so it
is being utilized
quite heavily. Thank you. Why is 850 the target? What does
that represent? For a
number of health risks historical averages and kind of a
kind of just a
goal we set again as our employee base grows that has
increased over time so
it's roughly about half of our budgeted positions and about
80% of our number of
our employees who are on our health plan achieving their H
RA. We just have some
folks that aren't going to use our clinic regardless and so
you know there's a
challenge there sometimes but that's part of what our
healthy incentive
program is working as a component of it is to incentivize
people to go get that
annual physical done the way we look at is leave at least
once one time a year
they've spent you know 20 minutes with a doctor and whether
they choose to do
anything with I've been told or not that's up to the
employee but at least
they have the information about what's going on with their
health. Yes. Do you
still think it's a good target or should the target be
higher it sounds like
there'd be a lot of benefit to having you know as many as
possible go through.
Certainly I mean I would love to see every you know
employee go through that
every dependent to go through that but I feel currently
based on what we've got
in place at 850 is a reasonable target.
Again for accomplishments we're currently working on rev
ising our
healthy incentive program our wellness program we have
several RFPs are gonna
be going out this year for some of our voluntary benefits
our dental division
our life and disability among others. One thing that I'm
really excited about is
we did launch a new program called the Denton fit program
that's a program
that's a partnership with our recreation program where we
have roughly a $30
credit for each employee to take advantage of some of our
recreation
programs so basically the programs that are exercise
wellness based things to
get them basically off the couch and out doing things so it
could be a swing
dance class the senior center or rock climbing at Dean year
what have you and
the idea behind this is that it gives folks that an
opportunity to try
something maybe for the first time without having the fear
of signing it
for 30 days worth of lessons or a two-year gym membership
or whatever it's
just a way of giving them to try new things to see if they
might find something
that will meet their needs from an exercise standpoint. So
we just got that
started in April and I think we've had about 33 employees
that have taken
advantage of it. The good thing about the program is is
that we're funding out of
our wellness budget but that we're being reimbursed by a
wellness credit we have
from UnitedHealthcare so essentially there's no cost to the
city for that
program but hopefully we'll generate more opportunities to
the RIC programs
and also get people on the path maybe to a more healthy
lifestyle. Goals for 18-19
again I know Councilman Hussbeth has talked about the
benefits consultant
that's one of the things that will be going out for our FP
their contract is
ending for us then another program we're looking at on the
wellness related is
the real appeal program that health care has it's a weight
loss program so many of
our health care costs are driven by the obesity epidemic we
have in our country
your high blood pressure your cholesterol one of our main
cost drivers is going to
be musculoskeletal issues a lot of that's being driven by
the high weight
we're talking about ankles and knees and hip replacements
so again this is an
area where we can focus and hopefully create a lot of value
to our members.
Councilman Hussbeth you had a question about the benefits
consultant I don't
know if this is a time for you to... Sure. Okay. Yeah so so
my question is how do
you measure the return on that investment what are the how
do they earn
that that rate what are you looking for what are you
looking for them to do I
know they coordinate a lot of different moving pieces but
how do you evaluate
that for value? That's a good question they do help us with
pretty much all the
moving parts of our benefits program so all the benefit
levels from health
dental vision etc. They help us with RFP preparation they
help us with the
technical specs a lot of times because they speak a deeper
level language when
it comes to health insurance and understanding things we
ask for from a
claims manager standpoint or from a networking standpoint
so they help us
with that technical piece of it they're helping us now with
the things we're
putting together for our employee insurance group and
management about if
we make these types of benefit changes what is the savings
that goes along with
that so it's a lot of the projections for us what we're
doing right now is we're
monitoring every month that the change in our projections
and so that goes into
then the projections for what 18-19 is gonna look like and
down the line and so
we get that from the consultant as well so there's lots and
lots of things that
they they bring to the table for us we pay them about $48,
000 a year for their
services and whatever we've gone out for RFP that's always
been an incredibly
competitive rate so they do a lot of things that frankly I
don't think I
would have the skills to dig down into and manage for us
because they bring not
just knowledge of our plan but knowledge of city plans
throughout the state of
Texas and even beyond and so that helps us to from a
comparison basis as well
but is there a so understanding helpfulness but am I
looking at the
wrong line item so consultant fee for employer is that
that's the revenue piece that comes in for we have a it's a
percentage of the
amount that the city contributes toward that and it goes in
that line item but
we pay much less than that for the consultant okay very
good so that kind
of goes in the overall funding of the health plan okay well
and so I guess for
me it would really be helpful if if there's a way to
develop a straight line
one two or three if not for this component we would have
spent you know
this much money so I don't know if that's hey we would have
had to hire
someone to negotiate this contract and that that value is
this I just would
like to see a kind of a linear approach to how to evaluate
that service I just
don't know enough about it to understand if that's if 48,
000 is is earned or not
I'm certain it is I just don't have a way to to see that is
that okay
we can put that together for you thank you again moving
back to the slide deck
the health insurance fund basically it's was set up in 2017
sorry 2007 we moved
to a self-funding model that's just basically where all the
revenue for the
city's benefit program all the expenses come out of as far
as cost containment
strategies the biggest one there is revising the healthy
incentive program
again we want to try encourage as many wellness efforts as
we can to reduce our
overall health care costs and also get our employees
healthy we're looking at
our revenue and expenditure kind of challenges certainly
the uncertainty
with all the RFP's that we have going out I know in the
past when we have gone
out for Dillon sorry for disability and life for example we
we were able to see
significant savings for the city we currently purchase life
insurance and
launcher disability for our employees and we saw some
pretty significant
savings there so I don't know if we'll be able to realize
those same type of
savings again but those are out going to be on the market
this past this next year
mission before the the rent for the clinic space up until
last year we had a
really sweetheart deal from didn't regional medical centers
last medical
city for that lease space when we wanted to create it they
came to us with a
dollar a year lease but once it moved over to medical city
they felt like they
need to get a fair market value from us and so we're that
obviously added to our
cost that we hadn't had before but it's about 23 dollars a
square foot I believe
for about 2800 leaseable square footage there in the
professional building next
to medical city or sorry the medical city professional
building and so one
thing is we're going to be doing is looking over the next
few months to make
sure that's a good rate and that's the spot definitely
meets our needs and it
definitely serves our employees but want to make sure from
a rate standpoint
that that's a good rate yes yeah does that come with a
certain amount
of equipment or is that just space and then the equipment
is ours in the clinic
it was just for the space itself all the equipment that's
there is property of
the city of Denton so the beds and the stethoscopes and etc
are all ours yeah
so yeah mr. city manager I'd really like to see us do
something different there
right I mean for me I think even if we partner with UNT
maybe their athletic
programs something like that or someone that is served in
is developing their
their health services side of things and so if we can
partner with someone and do
a better job keeping it in the family that would be my
preference I just think
there's that I don't think we I don't I don't want to pay
market rates I just
don't think we should have to because of I just don't think
I'm biased that way
but or if we are I think let's contribute to someone right
let's that
is contributing back that sort of thing so I think there's
some return we can
get okay and you're talking specifically for the space yes
yeah because if
there's no value add in them in equipment that sort of
thing you know
the location sure I get it but we have really fast
emergency services if we
need it hopefully we won't but and I think then we can if
we're invested in
served in and helping them get up and running faster to
serve other citizens
then that's fantastic you know we can take a look at I know
Scott's been
researching different rental options for us so we're happy
to look into it and
see if it makes sense sure okay thank you that was what I
was gonna ask for as
well so I sort of shared that similar sentiment yeah the
last two bullet
points there are just the fund balance again and the health
insurance fund 20
about 2.1 million dollars I'm estimating of 2018 about 2.8
when are at the end of
2019 again that's on our current projections that number
will flush out
as we get the firm numbers in there for what the health
plan is going to look
like these next two slides are just the revenue structure
of money coming into
health insurance fund the majority of these are going to be
employee
contributions for their portion of the health insurance for
their portion of
life insurance etc there's are some that are city
contributions for the city's
life insurance and for the health insurance that's the big
number there in
the middle the 20 million dollars to the 2850 that I
mentioned before and that
comes over to the next page we get down to the totals that
are there you'll
notice in the first two columns for 1415 and 1516 there are
some stop-loss
numbers there that are absent as we go further on that's
because that's when we
had a separate stop-loss company and so if we got reimburse
ments from that it
came in as a revenue source now UnitedHealthcare is also
our stop-loss
carrier and so it's a credit toward claims and so it gets
pulled into the
claims number versus being a separate revenue line item go
back to the last
slide so the employee the city of Denton pays okay we have
dental vision that's
employee pay okay so we are basically paying twenty three
point three million
dollars a year it proposed budget the proposed one twenty
million eight fifty
is what the city paid last year the city's contribution and
the proposed for
the net this upcoming year is twenty three point three that
's without having
the exercise we just talked about to to try and bring that
back down to the
twenty million eight that's the three percent or what it's
actually six percent
okay so we had a nice all right so you're saying that may
depending on how
everything else flushes out based on council policy
decision whether that's
stays the same as last year right or is only to one percent
two percent what I
okay correct and then the expenses again hopefully those
match up close to what
we have for the others begin the biggest piece of that
being insurance which in
this case is that the health plan twenty three million
dollars so the total health
insurance go back to that I just want to make sure I get
the gravity of this so
when you combine all of them employee paid portion of the
premiums for health
insurance you're telling me it's what you're adding all
that up to the twenty
to the twenty rates it's these three numbers here the one
point two and the
five seven three point two so twenty four million there
yeah and if it goes to
and also oh go ahead also that we also have the retiree
premiums over here that
added to that as well so twenty five million dollars and
and that's everything
that's health plan that's the administration of it that's
our stop-loss
expenses that's all those things and that is in when we're
looking at that pie
chart again I'm just trying to relate to where these
numbers so the in the health
insurance is that under personnel sir where is that inside
that pie chart of
our expenditures should be under personal services so I
want to make sure I
want to make sure I understand something so we got a let's
say a hundred million
dollar budget 110 million dollar budget 70% of that is
personnel services or 77
I forgot 72 somewhere around there so that's 70 million
bucks or 70 75 million
dollars 25 of that so I'm okay I just want to make sure I'm
not getting that
so somebody show me if you could just sort of explain I'm
trying to put the
pieces of the puzzle together this is different well this
is across all funds
right so Tony was showing you the chart earlier which was
just the general fund
pieces so a component of the 70% is there but this is also
DME water
wastewater so forth got you so one of the things that we
did last year that I
just want to remind the council which I thought was helpful
is we broke out all
of the personal services cost and you could see that by
funding so you'd be
able to see salaries overtime no that's good pensions and
so we'll provide that
as part of the budget process this year so you can see all
those yes
councilmember and in that if we can have a just an example
of the the pay
increase and if the city does not choose to increase the
health insurance
portion along with that how much more of that increase is
going to go to the
health insurance because that's cancer yeah so just would
like to see that
please
that's all I have okay any other questions fantastic thank
you
[ Pause ]
>> Thank you.
My name is Jennifer Becker.
I'm the Director of Libraries here at the City of Denton.
And I'm going to talk all about our department.
So this is our current org chart.
We do have three library branches.
And then there's library administration.
Within library administration,
we also have our technical services department.
That's the department that does all of the ordering,
processing, cataloging, and interlibrary loan for materials
.
Under administration, we also have a technology librarian
who works with the three branches and is our liaison
with the technical services--
technology services department within the city.
So this is just an overview of our positions
that we've had over time.
We did have a little bit of change this last year.
We eliminated a branch manager position,
actually transitioned that into two part-time librarians
to provide some additional coverage.
We are transitioning an assistant branch manager
into a librarian archivist position.
And then our marketing library assistant moved
over to public communications.
And we are adding part-time library assistant too
to assist at the service desk at the Emily Fowler Central
Library.
>> So does that mean that one
of the branches does not have a manager?
>> Stacey Sizemore oversees two branches.
He's-- his focus is branch services.
So he oversees North and South branch.
Kimberly Wells is our branch manager at Emily Fowler.
And her additional focus in addition to her branch is she
oversees all of circulation as well
as she oversees programming for the system.
So each branch manager has an add-on, if you will.
Just Stacey, his add-on is another branch.
>> I looked at some of the other information that you
provided
and I saw some numbers but I didn't--
it might be in there and I might have missed it.
But I'm a little bit concerned about the staffing not only
being
flat but going down a little bit over the last four years.
Does that mean that our-- the patron visits and the
services
that we're providing to our patrons is remaining constant?
>> So I've got some measures on some future slides about
some
of our growth.
Our overall visits have gone down in the last five years
by about 2 percent.
However, we've done significantly more outreach
within the community.
That's a changing trend among libraries and just among kind
of the population in general.
People want things where they are and where they can get
to things conveniently.
Our overall circulation the last five years has dropped
about 5 percent and I've got some analysis of what that is.
It's really DVDs and audio books which is being picked
up by downloadable materials.
So that's most of that drop there.
We're still circulating 1.18 million items a year.
So that's a lot of items in and out.
>> OK.
>> So we're very busy.
We're packed to the gills and we are looking at future
growth.
>> Thank you.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Great.
>> Great question.
>> Right. Well, so yeah, my comment was kind
of along the same lines.
If I remember correctly, last year the presentation was
that some of the libraries or one of them was going
to close certain amount of time
so that your employees could get some time off
because they were working overtime and, you know,
is that still the case?
>> We actually didn't follow through with that.
We adjusted our internal staff scheduling and some
of this reorg helped address some of those issues.
When we broke out a manager position
to two part-time librarians, those librarians are working
nights and weekends to help with that rotation coverage.
We also do have an internal committee who's looking
at scheduling, particularly our desk scheduling
and our scheduling rotation.
Currently the full-time staff and public services
and circulation work either Tuesday through Saturday
or Monday through Friday.
And then it switches every three weeks which can be kind
of difficult to schedule your life around.
>> Yeah.
>> So we're looking at some more stable scheduling and we
hope
to get that implemented with the new fiscal year.
>> Thank you.
>> So this is a look at our performance measures.
We met our performance measures last fiscal year and we
plan
to meet them again this fiscal year.
We are above target at the 50% mark for several
of our measures already.
Our third quarter is our busy time.
It's those summer months.
So those ones in yellow should be full green
by the end of this quarter.
So these are some of those trends that we've got.
This slide particularly focuses on population and service
trends.
Our population served which is not just the city
of Denton population but it's
in a population assigned to us
by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
That population has increased by 10.4% over the last five
years.
And our number of card holders has increased
by 19% over the last five years.
Our cost of service has seen a 15% increase
and that is total library funding,
our total budget divided by the population served.
And then our staffing FTEs was pretty static.
Our number of programs had a huge increase of 39%
but we're particularly proud of our program attendance.
That has increased by 50% over the last five years.
So a lot of people doing stuff.
And then this slide focuses on our collection.
I mentioned that collection trend
with the audio visual materials going down.
That's just with new technologies, that's the trend.
People want to stream things and download them
at their convenience and carry them around
in their smartphone and tablets.
Our print circulation has gone up which is bucking the
state
and national trend so Denton has a lot of readers
which is fabulous.
And then our other includes kits and interlibrary loan.
They're very small.
Hoopla is static.
It is a-- we pay an upfront cost and it won't grow
without additional funding.
But our overdrive downloadable services, you can see
that that's an increasing growth in our circulation
and a significant portion of that growth is
with downloadable audio books.
The pie chart to the right is just a recent Pew Research
Center study from January of this year.
>> Okay, real quick question.
Council Member Melton.
>> Yeah, I'm sorry, I just don't know what Hoopla is.
>> Oh, Hoopla is a downloadable
and streaming service that we offer.
So you get the app on your tablet smartphone
or get to it on your computer and you can download e-books,
audio books, stream TV and movies and documentaries.
>> I'm going to get that.
>> Yeah. You'll want to use it between midnight
and 6 a.m. before it tops out though.
It's really popular which is why we need more funding.
>> And so on that you said it will not grow unless we--
>> Unless there's additional funding, yeah.
>> And so it's maxed out daily.
This is a service where you pay an amount per year and we
divide
that by 365 days a year and then there's so much usage per
day.
And currently the system resets at midnight by 6 to 8 a.m.
We're done.
That was not me.
>> I take that as a sign.
We should increase that funding.
>> So we have about 550 patron turnaways.
We're going to have to reduce that by a month.
And one of our goals is to reduce that,
actually eliminate it if we can.
So people are still reading.
Unfortunately, 25 percent of the population is not reading
but the rest who are reading about half
of that remainder is reading print only
and the other half is reading a combination of print
and digital and that does include--
the print and digital includes books as well as audio books
.
We did a lot this year.
We're still doing a lot.
So one of our most exciting things was we created the
legacy
lab at the Emily Feller Central Library.
If you have old photos, videos, 8 millimeter family films,
you can digitize those for free.
We have staff who will show you how to use the equipment.
It's been very popular.
And then our goals for 18-19, we are in the midst
of developing a new strategic plan.
We have-- I have already met with staff and the library
board.
We're doing public input.
We're going to do an online survey
and do a couple of public input sessions to try
to see where we need to go.
And we'll have that up and running with the beginning
of the new fiscal year.
>> Yes, Council Member Riggs.
>> So on this, on the teen room at South Branch,
I'm just thinking of the teen room at North Branch
after Strickland lets out and how overwhelmed it is with
students.
Do you see the same thing or at South Branch with--
is it McMath?
>> It's not-- it's not as intense.
>> Okay.
>> Strickland Middle School is right next door
to North Branch Library.
And if you've ever been to the North Branch on a school day
from 3.30 to 5, it is packed.
I recently looked at some video of that teen room
and we had 50 teens in there for an hour and a half period
and it is not that big of a room.
So sometimes we do get concerns from people
that it's really loud.
The teens themselves aren't usually being too loud.
They're speaking in a normal voice but when you pack 50
of them into a small room, that's a lot of rumble.
The South Branch because they're further away
from McMath Middle School, it is getting used but not
at that intensity right after school.
They get a lot of weakened usage out of that.
>> Well, I appreciate the teen room at North Branch.
I do know that my son has enjoyed himself over there.
>> Yay, guys.
>> A couple of times.
>> Council Member Duff?
>> You probably know that Ropes and Ranch has their own
library
which is not really huge.
But I just wonder if you've done any collaboration with R
opeson?
>> We do.
We go out quarterly.
Jess Turner coordinates that program.
So we make quarterly visits
and occasionally we'll do additional one-offs
but at least quarterly scheduled visits where the library
comes.
We help any residents access the digital resources,
any of our online other learning resources,
help them get library cards, update existing cards.
And we're looking at expanding that if possible too.
>> Very good.
>> So our budget emphasis is focused on identifying
and growing those high impact services and programs
that we offer, responding to that increasing demand
for digital resources, and then strengthening
and growing our outreach services.
And you'll hear me talk about DPL2Go.
That's our main outreach service.
It's Denton Public Library 2Go.
So anytime we are doing any activities outside
of our library, that's DPL2Go.
So we had some cost containment strategies last year.
Our biggest was through our library reorganization
where we had some salary savings.
We are also planning to save about $15,000.
We're getting all of our PCs refreshed.
And there's a nonprofit organization called TechSoup
that facilitates donated software.
So we're looking to offset those costs
for 50 of our public use PCs.
And then we do get an annual reimbursement grant
from the state library for interlibrary loan services.
And that helps cover that staffing cost.
>> Just as an update, I think they're working on the HVAC
events.
So that's-- so nobody's going to come flying through the
roof.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's hope not.
>> So our process improvements included
that library reorganization.
We did a time study and we reorganized staff
to better match skill sets and make more equitable
distribution
of responsibilities as well as solve some service coverage
issues.
We are working on a lean review of our statistics gathering
process.
We are librarians.
We love data and information and we collect tons of it.
But we're looking at better ways to do that
and reducing redundancy and irrelevant work.
And we have already done some updates
to our EnvisionWare print release project.
And we are working with our self-check vendor
to implement an option where if you forget your library
card,
you can scan the back of your driver's license, that bar
code there.
So you can still use our self-check resources even
if you forgot your card, which I know nobody would do.
But.
So these are our budgetary highlights.
There's not a whole lot of movement there.
And then questions, comments?
>> Any further questions, comments?
Yes, Council Member Melton.
>> Yep. Mr. City Manager, will we have sort
of other opportunities during the year to hear more
about library vision and so on?
Or is this, you know, pretty much it?
Just I want to know if I, you know, can I get things
that are not strictly speaking budget?
>> In terms of the master plan and that sort of thing,
strategic plan?
Yeah, we'll bring that back when it's ready for,
just to bring you up to speed.
And we're still also in this particular budget,
we're still working through a couple of supplementals
related
to the hoopla and the other online program,
which are wildly popular.
We're trying to figure out exactly what kind of investment
needs
to be made in those particular systems
and how much money that's going to take.
But anyway, in terms of the planning exercises,
that sort of thing, we can certainly bring something back
when we're ready to go.
And if you have any other subjects you'd like us
to discuss, we'll be happy to bring those back.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Yep.
>> Well, and I know in the past we've usually had a lunch
eon
or something at the library where they've gone over--
>> We usually do an annual report review.
>> Yeah, annual report.
So yeah. Council Member Hussbett, do you have a question?
>> First, I just want to say that I see our library
everywhere.
I mean, at different events, I mean, no matter what the
function,
they have a table there and books at the ready and
information.
So I think that that's outstanding.
And then I've used both the-- I think it's the overdrive
functionality
and now the Libby for the audio books and it's fantastic.
And I've always had-- I mean, I've always been able to find
--
I mean, I'm about seven, eight books in and I crank that
thing
up to about 1.8, it's awesome.
Get through it.
But no, but I've always had success finding what I needed
and so I think you're doing a fabulous job, whatever that
is.
And I've been able to kind of share with other people that
they've kind
of done the same, picked up on it.
So thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> Any other questions, comments?
Okay. Thank you very much.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Well, I didn't know if you're waving at me.
You got a question or comment?
Okay.
>> Well, I just want-- I wanted to echo that as well and
say thank you
for all that you've done and I really enjoy our library
systems.
They're really great.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
Thank you.
Yeah, we've got drainage I believe, isn't it?
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Now we're going to start over with this one, right?
Going to go through the whole thing?
I'm kidding.
>> We can, Mayor, if you'd like.
>> No, no, we're good.
>> So Tony pointed to Director of Finance.
We had already covered last week kind of the financial
component.
I just wanted to go just really quickly just to let you
know again,
we covered a lot of history about the drainage fee.
The drainage fee was implemented back in 2002.
We are not recommending through this budget process any
changes to that fee.
It's still the same fee schedule that we've had since 2002.
The other thing too that I'll point out is that again, we
've brought this to you separate
from the wastewater fund.
It is part of the wastewater fund.
These expenses are no longer included in how we calculate
the fund balance
for the wastewater fund.
We have shown a million dollar drainage reserve.
There is an ordinance attached to that that limits that to
projects
in the emergency type situation.
As you can see, the drainage debt is projected to be
completely paid off by 2023.
We are ramping up the revenue funding of capital.
And Daniel Kramer, who's our new Deputy Director of
Operations over drainage,
will talk to you a little bit about the capital program
that they'll be focused on.
You know, this is a capital program, but it's maintenance
related type capital.
It's not your large PEC 4, Magnolia drainage type projects.
Although, you know, the council may recall that we did
utilize some funds
from the drainage fee to make those projects hold.
Council approved that recently to us and those projects are
moving forward.
That really kind of concludes my piece.
Again, we had already talked about it a little bit.
And I'll ask Danny to come up here and kind of go through
his departmental presentation.
Unless the council has any questions for me or if you want
to wait until the end,
whatever your pleasure might be.
>> Any questions?
Okay. Thank you.
>> So Daniel Kramer again is our new Deputy Director of
Operations over drainage.
And so he'll walk you through his departmental presentation
.
>> Good afternoon, Mayor, Council.
Hopefully we can get done today so we don't have to go over
.
So for drainage, some of our goals and accomplishments that
we've had over this past year.
Worked on the Canterbury, which we are about 80% complete.
They will finish up this week on our part of that and then
paving will be
in it the week after to get that done.
We've had Kingswood, which is also complete.
We've had that one completely done.
And the Rockwood is actually in design right now.
About 60% plans on that and we'll be starting that later
this year to finish that one up.
Some of the -- our future goals coming up is South Bell,
which is in design
about 30% plans.
The Smith is about 60% plans right now.
And then the Oak Tree and Choctaw are not set up until the
late fall of 2019.
Our budget emphasis is, you know, making sure we do focus
on our citizens and all
of our storm drain systems and keeping those up to date and
where they need to be.
We've had a lot of stuff, a lot of things in the works.
Making sure we maintain all the storm drains, keeping all
the silt and everything
out of the systems and, you know, improving the potential
flooding risk for everybody else
and also working on the mosquito population.
Process improvements, we've been doing mapping the storm
drain.
Pecan Creek, that one is about 90% complete.
We're going through aquatic control, verifying everything
that's correct on that
and all the information that we have in there and there's
no missed processes.
Inspection inlet for mapping, we've also been working on
that.
And some of the future processes is keep going with our
mapping of all of our assets
and our drains and everything and making sure that all of
our --
all the information is in the system so it's readily
available.
We can go look on our GIS maps, verify exactly what size
assets we have there,
how long they've been on the ground and everything else
that we can track through there.
As for our position summary, in fiscal year '17, we had one
FTE increase due to watershed intern
and a reduction in one which was when we pulled the street
superintendent out of drainage
and completely under streets.
Some of our five-year capital plan have a lot of different,
as you can remember last week,
we talked, Chad was up here working on a lot of those --
talked about a lot of those projects and discussed most of
those through there
that we're working on.
We are using 2.8 million from the channel rehab to cover
some of the 4.1 million
in revenue funded projects coming up.
So, that's most of those going through.
Sorry. So, some of the bond funder projects for the 2014,
you got the Eagle Drive improvements which is going to
council on the --
on the 17th and on July 17th and construction in August --
late August.
We also have the Magnolia which is going to be advertised
in June and construction late fall.
And then PEC 4 phase two is actually in design,
waiting on some new construction documents to get finalized
on that so we can go
out for a bit on those.
And then the downtown section, that's going to be in
beginning of 2019.
And there's a map of some locations of those projects.
And future projects, some of the unfunded ones that we've
been working on, the Mingo Drive,
they're going back and resetting some of the floodplains
and verifying a few things on that.
So, expand the scope and make sure we have everything
straight on those.
And we talked about, you know, Sherman Drive a little bit
last time and PEC 3 and 4 design,
you know, that's going to be looking at the next bond cycle
when we come up with that.
So, we're looking at roughly about 26.9 million in future
projects that we have unfunded.
And those are some of the locations for those.
And basically in summary, that's about all of our basic
presentation we have.
A few comments.
>> Oh, I'm sorry, do you have a question?
>> Yeah, I have a question.
>> Yeah, okay.
>> You mentioned that mosquito control is under drainage.
I know years ago we used to have where citizens could pick
up the little donuts
that they had an area they couldn't drain.
Is that still available for the citizens?
>> Yes, those are still available.
That's kept down in our street drainage area in the service
center over there.
>> How do we let citizens know that that's available?
Is that put out on a utility bill or anything to?
>> I'm not sure on that.
I will get back to you and let you know what we need to do
on that.
>> We can get something in the next newsletter on that and
put something online.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> A couple of things that, you know, we're focusing on
coming up.
We have a lot of direction that we want to take this
department and a lot of things we got
to look at using some of our current software and, you know
, different things we have
in our works and some other stuff that we're looking at to
make sure
that we can actually do the best of our ability and make
sure we're running efficiently,
especially with our street sweepers and everything we have
coming up and looking
at different ways we can adapt those to help out and make
our routes as we have more
and more neighborhoods come on board and, you know, how
often we want to do the routes.
You know, we have GPS tracking on those.
So we're looking at different ways we can make sure we're
doing everything efficiently
in our departments and going through all that.
>> Great. Any other questions?
Oh, Councilmember Fraggs.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> I have to ask just because I normally do, but do any of
those future projects that you listed
up there include going in channelizing natural creeks with
concrete?
>> All those plans are looked at.
These specifically, I can't tell you 100% if they are or
not, but I know we do look
at the cost difference of both and going each way and then
we present all that information
out and we will make sure that everybody has an opinion on
which ways they need to go.
There are certain areas that we do have to look at in the
flooding
and we are putting together different numbers.
To make sure because, you know, there's costs associated
with each way and we have to make sure
that the environmental effect and the cost that we're doing
the best we possibly can.
So, yes, ma'am, we will, all that information we will bring
out.
>> We'll follow up with Todd on that.
I know PEC 4, phases 3 and 4, that's underground culvert.
>> Yes.
>> And so we'll either put pavement or grass on top of that
.
I'm not sure on the other three, but we'll ask, we'll
follow up and get back to you on that.
>> Thank you.
>> Questions, comments?
Okay. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right.
Let's take about a 10-minute break.
Then we're going to move on to agenda item E. Welcome,
everyone, back to this meeting
of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, June the 12th, 2018,
back in session at 2.35.
I'm working through our work session item reports.
We're going to move down to agenda item 2E because I
believe we have some airline flight schedules we
have to be able to maintain and I was told this was about a
two-hour presentation.
>> No.
>> I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
Yeah. All right.
So I'm going to go ahead and call the item, item 2E, which
is, 2E, receive report and hold discussion,
give staff direction regarding options for proposed radio
communication system replacement.
>> Good afternoon, council, mayor, city manager.
I'm Alyssa Kraft.
I'm the chief technology officer.
Today we'll be discussing the current state of the Denton
radio system and some of our pain points
with the current Denton radio system.
Also with me today we have mission critical partners,
Richard Gaston.
We also have Motorola and a police chief and fire chief as
well.
So let's talk about the current Denton radio system.
This is a 800 megahertz 14 channel smart net 2 system that
's been in place for over 18 years.
An interesting tidbit.
This was actually procured back in '97.
It was purchased used as part of the Olympics, in case you
want to know that.
We also did some minor upgrades and adjustment in 2001.
So this primarily serves our public safety dispatch and DME
operations.
Part of the radio system also includes two radio sites,
mobile radios and handhelds.
Some of our system users and partners for the radio system,
again,
multiple departments rely on this, police, fire, EMS, DME,
water, wastewater and parks.
We also provide support to the UNT and the Texas Women
University too with a total
of over 1500 radios.
Some of our tower sites include one tower over at McKenna
Park and another at Teasley Lane.
We lease this through the Denton County.
As part of our tower sites we also have equipment and
generators and secure enclosures.
Right here you can kind of see a visual of what that kind
of looks like.
Some of the present issues with our smart net radio system,
it's reached on a life.
Motorola stopped manufacturing these systems back in 2011.
All support ceases in 2018 and we actually experienced a
couple of recent failures.
While it hasn't been catastrophic, we have received
intermittent issues
where some people were unable to communicate over the radio
system.
The gold elite dispatch radio console that's used in public
safety communications
and DME operations has reached in a life.
Software updates and repair service will not be available
through Motorola
as of December 2018.
Again, they stopped manufacturing these parts in 2011.
The dispatch console system uses Window XP.
Microsoft stopped supporting this back in 2014.
Some of the current issues, it does not provide adequate
coverage throughout the city.
So this also includes in areas by Robson Ranch and also by
380 and North.
The radios and used by the departments have also reached
in a life that will not be supported after December 2018.
The system does lack redundancy.
If we were to have failure damage to a tower,
it would really cause communication issues or lack thereof.
Radios used by police and fire while they were replaced
back in 2016,
they are operating at a reduced capacity.
So as part of this, we spoke to it in our previous budget
presentation.
Previously, the radio shop used to report on a deadness of
electric.
As part of our centralization of services and coordination
of services,
they came under tech services.
We hired mission critical partners to really come in and
take a fresh perspective
to really look at the radio's operation, people and
processes.
As a result of that, they're going to come here today and
kind
of give you their finding, analysis and recommendation with
that.
So with that being said, I'll let Richard kind of take the
floor.
>> You and Paige down.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Mr. City Manager.
I'm Richard Gaston, Mission Critical Partners.
Also have with me today Bill Loggeman, Bill's a radio
expert.
I think he was around in Marconi, founder of the system.
So if we have any high level technical questions we have
Bill.
[ Laughter ]
And of course we have our partners from Motorola here as
well.
[ Laughter ]
I reiterate what Melissa said.
We were brought on in 2015 and one of our tasks at that
time was
to do a high level operational assessment of the radio
system.
And the findings of that time are echoed in the current
report
that it's reached end of life
and it's reached the technological support offered
by Motorola.
So we are at a critical juncture here with the radio system
.
We were brought back in in 2017
to do a much more detailed assessment of the system
and update the findings from the previous report.
So as she mentioned, we-- you're operating
on 800 megahertz Motorola Smart Zone,
our SmartNet 14 channel trunk system serves all
of the city departments that utilize radio systems
currently.
So an outage would seriously impact the ability not only
for public safety to respond in an efficient manner
but also for the other users especially, you know,
DME would be another critical user here.
We completed a very thorough assessment.
We went out to both the tower sites that the system uses,
the McKenna and the Teasley site as well.
I looked at the towers themselves.
There was a secondary engineering firm that came
in that did a structural analysis of the towers to
determine
if there was any upgrades needed
to supporting additional antenna structures
or microwave systems that might need to go on these towers.
Looked at the grounding systems, the generator,
the backup power capacity.
We've done a thorough assessment
of the public safety communications.
Dispatch operations where we're seeing the redesign
and the renovation over there working closely
with the architect and facilities management.
We're also involved in the procurement
of the computer dispatch and the records management systems
for law enforcement fire as well.
We've been to the DME operations center,
did an assessment of the backroom equipment they have there
and the radio systems and their radio requirements and met
with the Denton County Sheriff's Office and been
to their sites and did assessment of their system
to determine the interfaces that are required
to bring the city system on the county system.
The, let's see my slide.
The findings were the same that Melissa just echoed.
Again, we're at end of life on the systems,
the radio system itself
and the dispatch radio console system that's
in use in police dispatch.
Currently that's the system
that the dispatchers literally use to push the buttons
to switch between channels if you will,
to talk to the different user groups.
Same system is in place over to the DME operations center.
So that's also reached end of life
and no longer will be supported.
Our recommendations based on these findings are
that the city move forward with procurement
of the Motorola Astro Project 25 Phase 2 system.
This is a digital radio system
that Denton County's already implemented it.
They brought a number of other municipalities
in the county on board.
The Louisville join, I believe Frisco's considering joining
as well.
The benefit there is that the county's more in the cost
of the brain of the system if you will,
the controller that would represent a significant savings
for the city by partnering with the county at this point.
In essence, the residents
of the city wouldn't be purchasing two separate radio
systems, you'd be purchasing one system
and just simply expanding the capacity of the county system
.
We also recommend replacing the gold elite console system
in dispatch with the new digital MCC 7500 console system.
That would be seven positions
in the newly renovated dispatch center
and seven additional positions over at DME operations.
The partnership with Denton County would offer the
capability
to expand the system coverage as well.
Robeson Ranch has been mentioned several times today.
Coverage in that area is lacking under the current system.
Fortunately, there is a county tower that you'll see
in some slides coming up that would provide coverage
to the Robeson Ranch and some areas further west
as the city grows out that way and complete coverage
for the ETJ area.
The also joining the county system would eliminate the need
for the city to purchase and construct two additional tower
sites at about a million dollars per site.
So that's significant cost savings there.
We're also looking at implementing a microwave system
to provide another level of redundancy
between the police dispatch or the communication center
here
and the McKenna radio tower site
and the Teasley radio tower site.
Recommendations continue with the replacing
of 440 non-public safety analog mobile and portable radios
with the new digital radios.
Public safety radios were upgraded
over the last two years
so they all have the digital capabilities
so they can already be used on the new system
when it comes online.
Again, implement that microwave link between the dispatch
center
and the McKenna park tower to provide redundancy.
That would actually be -- that's actually a shared system
between Denton County and Denton 9-1-1.
So the limited expenses there just piggybacking
on existing system.
And the tower structural analysis has already been
completed.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> So as we were having discussions with Motorola,
they're able to provide a project discounts of up to 3.2
million if the city utilizes the Denton County contract.
Now these are time sensitive different proposals.
We're still kind of evaluating kind
of what the actual contract amount looks
like at this point.
The Motorola contract allows the cities and agencies
with Denton County to purchase Motorola radios and
equipment
at a 20% below the lowest HDAC contract.
In order to integrate with Denton County and be compatible
with the upgraded technology,
I will say this particular technology
with Motorola systems is proprietary.
>> Question.
Council Member or Council?
>> Yeah. Sorry.
I just don't know what HGAC is.
>> That's a cooperative purchasing contract
that other cities can utilize.
That's been pre-bid and pre-vetted out through--
>> Houston, Galveston, and Gary, Galveston.
>> Houston, okay.
>> Houston, Galveston.
>> Gary.
>> Gary.
>> Gary, okay.
All right.
Did you have a question, Council Member Briggs?
>> Yeah. I think-- well, I have several, but I think that
kind
of answers my question is why we don't do the--
is this why we don't do an RFP because of this, right?
Okay.
>> And I think we'll have options too if we wanted
to utilize that product as well too.
So some of the benefits of the new system,
I know Richard had mentioned,
Motorola did some current state analysis
of what our service area reliability is.
Our current state is 80.54%.
If we were to upgrade the system utilizing the Denton
County
in partnership with that, it would be 96.62.
So that would show around an 18% coverage improvement
for our service area.
Also, as part of the new system,
we'll get enhanced system redundancy should our primary
method of communication fail.
It also allows us to share costs with Denton County.
And also the ability to communicate
with surrounding public safety agencies.
And I know that's one thing for, you know, police chief
and fire chief and operability is pretty critical,
especially when you have any type of large scale disaster
or any type of communication requirements
within the same jurisdiction.
Having that interoperability work seamlessly really helps
with response times to getting on scene to communicating
with county and other folks within that area.
>> Council Member Hussbett has a question.
>> Yes.
>> Can you help me visualize what that looks like?
So a break in communication, so you say 80% reliability,
90% that gap, so if there's a break in communication,
what does that look like in actual, like an event?
You know, just, so not like mass event,
but just a regular everyday we have a missing communication
.
What does that trigger?
>> So currently, let's say if they're going
out to the Robson Ranch, as far as the clarity and the tone
of voice, it might get weaker as the signal goes.
In a digital, it would just completely cut off.
So that person handling
that subscriber unit couldn't really transmit that.
And also, what to, Motorola, if you have anything else to
add
to that as well too.
>> If you do, you'll need to come to the mic please.
Yeah.
>> Yes, yes.
>> Yeah.
>> Hello everyone.
>> Hello, Motorola.
>> My name is Rahul, by the way, but I'm glad
to be called Motorola, that's fine.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. So, yeah, to answer the question though,
again the 80% versus 96%, it talks about
where you get what we call 95% reliable coverage.
So you might be able to get audio coming through the radio,
but you can hear it in bits and pieces and patches.
It won't be what we call reliable coverage.
You may be able to hear parts of the conversation,
and it's just not what we recommend
for mission critical systems.
For some commercial scenarios that kind of works,
but for mission critical scenarios we always wanted
to be 95% reliable, and that's where we try to baseline it
at that when we say 80% of coverage
for 95% reliable systems.
>> Okay.
>> Yep.
>> Thank you.
>> Yep.
>> Appreciate it.
>> So I think as they're looking at some preliminary
designs,
that's where that over 95% was on it.
Also, some of the new radios do possess noise cancellation
technology to enhance voice quality, and also encryption,
that's something that's not currently available.
So if we had some type of SWOT thing we had to do
that would help provide some encryption for that.
So additionally, it also, I know we talked
about increasing the service area reliability.
It also allows us to double our talk path capacity as well.
So here's some of the equipment totals.
I will say these are preliminary numbers.
These are not nailed down numbers at this point
because I think as we're looking through the contract,
Motorola did offer some time-based incentives.
Originally, we were looking at bringing that as part
of our fiscal year '18-'19 budget.
We're currently investigating options
if we could potentially do it sooner to take advantage
of some of these time-based incentives.
So, yes.
>> Yeah, did you have a question?
Oh. Okay.
Let's go with Council Member Briggs
and then Council Member Mathis.
>> So in 2016, you said we approved a replacement amount.
Do you remember, recall what that was that we spent?
>> I want to say it was over 2 million,
slightly over 2 million, Chief.
Does that sound right?
>> Okay.
>> For the radios.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Whoever's going to give any kind of--
>> That was before they were under TAC.
>> Yeah. I know there were a couple
of different purchases of radios and I think one of them
was
about $800,000 and the other one was, again, close to a
million.
So it was about 2 million total.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Council Member Belser.
>> Has Motorola persuaded you
that this time aspect is very serious?
It sounds to me frankly
like what every salesperson always says.
I'm sure my-- without you telling me otherwise,
I'd assume they'd be happy to take our money a day after,
whatever that deadline is, as soon as the day before.
>> So we also brought them here today.
So if you have specific questions for Motorola--
>> I'm happy to say it right to your face.
>> They would be happy to answer that for you.
>> Good afternoon, Council, Mayor.
Brad Rice with Motorola.
To address that, absolutely.
We're happy to work with you any time of the year.
Unfortunately, the one-- one of the incentives that was
tied
to this is the actual Denton County contract itself,
which expires-- it expired June 1st, but our legal gave us
approval
to extend it through the end of this month for you all to
be able
to take advantage of some of those discounts.
But again, like I said, absolutely, we're happy to work
with you guys any way we can beyond that date.
Just unfortunately, that contract itself does expire.
>> If I may.
>> Yes.
>> But is there any indication that that county contract
won't be renewed?
>> It will not, no, sir.
That was actually tied to when Denton County purchased
their radio system.
It incorporated some additional discounts and future
purchase discounts that Denton County
and other users' entities that are taking advantage of the
system and working together
like you all are considering, were able to take advantage
of.
So if they buy a new system, new radio system next month,
then absolutely, they'll renew it.
But I don't foresee them doing that anytime soon.
>> And so do you guys guarantee that 95% reliability?
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Is that part of that?
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> We do-- it's part of a-- the initial part is obviously
study and testing using our tools,
but after that we verify it and validate the data to prove
it.
>> Thank you.
>> Councilmember Gregory.
The other system has been supported for 18 years.
We got it used, so actually more than 18 years.
Any notion as to how long this system will be supported?
>> So we obviously-- we're a technology company.
The one big benefit that helps for the new systems coming
out, most of it's all software based.
It's, you know, just like everything else is moved more of
a software platform versus a hardware.
So it's going to last a lot longer.
Typically, when we design-- when we build systems and the
components of it, we have a roadmap
and plan on it being able to be upgraded.
They don't necessarily set an end date at any early stage,
but what they do is once they've identified
that something is coming up for end of life or they're
going to stop building it,
we notify the end users and then we still will support it
for usually for five years after that point,
which is what we've been doing with you all for past five
years now, working with you.
So it's not going to be a hard cut off and these systems
are designed to last decades.
I mean, they're not going away anytime soon.
>> Thank you.
>> Also as part of the proposed Motorola contract, there's
also a software user agreement package
that helps us kind of keep up to date at a certain level,
at a software and support level.
As we're joining Denton County's core, we're all going to
agree to maintain a certain support level
as well too, so.
>> Council Member Hesbitt and then Council Member Ryan.
>> So two part question, have you talked to Denton County
to get a feel for their experience?
>> Absolutely, they were actually part of the process when
we were doing kind of the scope of work
and just the stakeholder engagement to try to define the
needs surrounding the radio system.
So Lieutenant Willis was there with us for those several
days as well too.
>> Okay, and then this may be a Motorola question.
Can someone speak to me about the frequency and so
competing frequencies and is there a wave
that's set aside, how does that work to prevent inter
ruption?
So I don't know.
>> So I can answer part of that.
That's done through our FCC licensing as far as what
frequencies we're allowed to talk to
and what other entities are allowed to talk to as well.
>> But are they carved out like they're exclusive for this
type?
Type service or it's exclusive to the City of Denton?
>> It's exclusive to the City of Denton.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> So as part of the licensing process, one of the things
that's done is in the study they look
at how powerful are those repeaters going to be transm
itting at and they actually look
at who are all the other users within 20, 30, 40 mile area
and they do an analysis to make sure
that there's not that interference happening and the
frequency band this is going
to be in is very well regulated so you're not going to have
any kind of interference happening.
>> And is that across carriers or is that carrier specific
or I don't know how it works.
Is it the frequency, is that frequency exclusive to a
particular carrier
or multiple carriers have the same frequency?
How does that work?
>> So this is not going to be used by any of the carriers.
This is dedicated for public safety so you know in the 7,
800 megahertz spectrum
that we say this is all going to be only public safety
agencies.
There's not going to be other carriers who are going to be
interfering with that.
So it's, the spectrum is carved out for public safety use
so it's not going to, you know,
you're not going to run into that problem.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> That's my right.
>> Thank you, Mary.
>> On Denton County, do you know if they went with the
lease purchase
or did they do a cash or bond pack?
>> From our understanding they did the bond package.
>> The bond package?
>> Yes.
>> Also I'm guessing because of the new technology is why
we would have coverage at Robeson
that we don't currently have or other areas of the city is
just has to do with the technology.
Is that correct?
>> I think as we're expanding and growing the current
system is at capacity so to add new features
and functionality we wouldn't be able to do that.
>> Okay. Well, I'm thinking that Robeson right now is
because it's beyond the distance
from our towers but we're not, part of this proposal is not
to add another tower.
>> No.
>> So does the new equipment just have a longer distance
that it covers?
>> I think as part of this proposal if we join the Denton
County's core
like Richard was mentioning kind of the brain behind that,
we can take advantage
of Denton County's tower to provide us coverage in those
outlying areas.
So there's going to be some benefit there using a shared
system.
>> Okay. And I guess I understand that but we are currently
using the tower,
the same tower as the county or does the county have
additional towers?
>> They have several towers throughout the city as well.
>> Okay.
>> And we're using different technologies so they're not
integrated with each other.
With this solution we would integrate both systems as part
of an overall area strategy.
>> Okay.
>> And lastly I just want to say that I'm glad to see that
this is software based
because still being stuck with something that runs on XP is
--
>> Me too.
>> Makes me awake at night.
>> Yes sir.
>> Yes.
>> Very, very scary.
>> It's very scary.
>> So again these are preliminary numbers.
We're still kind of working through the contract but you
can see lease versus bond.
You know we're still kind of investigating which option is
the most feasible at this time
but it will kind of give you a gist of, you know, the
annual lease payment would be roughly
around 660 where years two through three--
years two through six for as far as maintenance of system
upgrades was around 1.9 million.
Here you can kind of see the financial cost by fund.
Again, these are preliminary numbers until we can figure
out, you know,
when the execution of the contract is working through
Motorola,
we'll have more accurate numbers with an actual contract.
You can kind of see here as part of next fiscal year's
budget, the amount would be 685,000.
You can kind of see how it hits most of the funds and the
users of the different departments
where general fund does take a big portion of it primarily
for, you know, public safety.
They're the primary users of that system and then parks and
rec and water and waste water as well.
>> Is this based upon the lease or bond or they pretty
close?
>> They're pretty close.
>> Okay.
>> So you kind of see over time.
You can also see it in 1920, this would be that first year
where that maintenance payment starts
to kick in which is roughly around 400,000.
As part of, you know, the years two through six, we will
expect an increase of around 3.5%.
>> So help me understand because, I mean, what's the
maintenance and the upgrades?
That's not the warranty on the equipment.
I mean, we're-- let's say we buy it.
That's $6 million.
So are we only getting one year of, I mean, quote unquote
warranty?
I mean, is that it?
>> No, no, no.
And then years two through six can-- that's part of your
warranty, your maintenance
and your upgrade and support.
So that would include your maintenance and support should
something break,
we would call Motorola through that agreement for repair or
replacement.
>> Well, that's what I'm saying though.
If in year two, second year, something breaks, if it's
software based, I don't know what--
some component breaks, it's fairly expensive.
We're paying for-- it's like an extended-- I look at it
like an extended warranty, OK?
Not quite because you have upgrades but I'm just saying
from years two through six,
which is four years, do we think that-- I mean, first of
all, so we're not getting any coverage
on a warranty item after year one.
If something were to break a component after year one, we'd
have to pay to repair or replace it.
Say we didn't get the maintenance agreement.
We got to-- is it just a one-year warning?
Is it-- can somebody from Motorola help me understand?
Sort of share with me what-- I'm trying to understand.
If we're paying $6 million, how long do you all stand
behind the product?
>> So typical system warranties are the annual, the first
year is included.
And the way the years two through six that she was
presenting,
that incorporates your ongoing maintenance, it incorporates
your--
we'll call it SUA2, which is the upgrade agreement which
every other year we do an upgrade
for your system which it not just gives you the upgrade
for the software that's anything that's required.
It also covers any hardware that is either out of support
or is not capable
of upgrading to the next level.
So it is-- it's incorporating multiple aspects in that.
Yes, sir.
>> So let me ask you a question on what you just said about
the hardware.
So you said it would include hardware that either is not
capable of being upgraded
or is not being supported any longer.
>> Correct.
>> So I must not be understanding something.
So if we're buying a new system, why would something not be
supported after year two or three?
>> So--
>> What would go out that's not being supported after year
two or three?
>> Operating systems like the XP, you know, on-- if there's
any kind of server-based components,
any kind of third-party components that are tied to the
system that are required for it
to function and if we do an upgrade and it does not-- it's
not upgradable,
then we replace the entire hardware with it.
>> So these are third-party pieces of equipment that would
be included
in the purchase price of the system.
>> Yes, sir.
>> So it'd be like we're buying something and we bought
what you guys sold us
and in two years something may go out that is no longer
being supported.
>> Correct.
So we make sure that your system stays at that upgradable
point and is maintained
at that same level all the way.
>> So after year six, what happens?
>> You have the option of either extending.
Basically, we typically do-- you know, we do multi-year
contracts because it helps you level--
lock in some of the escalation, you know, factors that go
involved in that.
But you can do two-year, five-year, 10-year.
I think that's the year that was requested, it was two
through six, a five-year warranty.
So you have the option of renewing, doing whatever, you
know, if you want to change it up,
add to, take things off of it.
>> Okay.
>> You have that option.
Yes, sir.
>> That just seems high to me for paying five or six
million dollars for a new system
that we're paying $400,000 a year for five years and then
we have
to pay another four or $500,000 a year to-- so, I mean, we
need it, we need it.
But I certainly want to explore, I mean, because I don't
know what those components are,
I don't know what those upgrades cost us, you know, so--
>> So now, typically, now that it's becoming more of an IP-
based system that's pretty standard
across any of our kind of hardware or software procurements
, usually the ongoing maintenance is
anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of the original cost as a
service.
Now, if you start looking at cloud technologies, you know,
that's pretty streamlined and then you start
to see the 5 percent increases thereafter.
So, you know, as part of the radio components, you have
firewalls, you have switches,
you have routers, you have PCs, you have management
consoles.
There aren't-- they weren't typically there before with the
analog solution that are there now
with the upgraded, when they mentioned software base, it's
more IP-centric.
>> And I understand that.
I guess my response to that is if we're buying equipment
that could be unsupported within a year
or two because it's being offered through the total package
and it's a third-party piece
of equipment provided by Motorola in this sort of turnkey
system,
that seems a little concerning to me.
I mean, you know, it'd be like me buying a car.
It seems like in the transmission is not going to be-- so
it's--
and I understand it's not the same because you got third-
party vendors who they can choose
at any time, we're not going to support X. So, it just--
I might have to maybe get offline and just get educated a
little bit more about that.
>> OK.
>> Council Member Briggs.
>> Just on that for clarification.
So, it's 6 million to begin with and then 2 million years,
two through six.
So, we're potentially talking about a $16 million system.
Am I off?
>> No, I think it's roughly going to be around 8 million.
>> Total?
>> Total for up to year 6.
>> OK.
>> And I think we're still trying to, again,
figure out what that final number looks like, so.
>> Well, I want to talk to the Motorola guys when we get
off because I--
back in 1965, I came in second.
[ Laughter ]
And the-- in the-- this ticket sales for the Longhorn
Council Scouterama.
And I won two Motorola Walkie Talkies.
And Buddy Stewart and I would activate those on our bicycle
patrol
for the Idiot's Hill Bicycle Patrol.
We kept it safe, but I'm having some problems with them.
So, can I talk to you guys afterwards about that?
OK. They're good radios.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
And I think we've got radios that are over 17 years old.
It still works.
So, definitely got our money's worth of that.
>> But '65 is more than 18 years ago.
>> Yeah. I won't tell you what year it was born.
[ Laughter ]
So, here are some options for the radio system.
We could-- option would be not to replace the system or
repair as needed.
We don't recommend that due to the sensitivity of public
safety utilizing
that as the primary source of communication.
When out on calls and in the field.
Option two, we can request to do an RFP for a Denton only
radio system
where the new system is owned and operated by the city of
Denton.
This again would kind of run two different systems not
connected to Denton County.
Do want to add if we choose that option not to connect to
Denton County,
we would probably incur or require the need to add two
additional sites
at a cost of a million dollars per site.
Option three would be a regional radio system where the
city joins an existing system
and shares cost in supporting infrastructure with Denton
County.
>> Is there any downside to finding out what the answer is
in option two?
Would it in any way prevent us from ultimately choosing to
do option three
if we didn't, you know, like the way option two looked?
>> We can definitely explore it.
I will say if we want to use the Denton County system, we
would have to go with the Motorola
technology to ensure the integration between the systems.
So, you would just be completely on your own.
>> Well, I guess it's really just comment.
I guess we would then-- let's say it comes-- it turns out
to be cheaper, right?
Then we would be able to say this is the amount more we're
willing to spend in order
to be interoperable with the county.
You know, that-- and there might be some benefit just in at
least knowing that.
>> So--
>> I'm sorry.
>> Hey.
>> Well, two questions to go with it.
Any notion whatsoever of what option two might run?
You've already said about $2 million for towers.
>> Yes, we would have to go through the process.
>> Okay. The other thing would option two reduce our
effectiveness
in communication with other agencies in a major situation.
>> Yes. The interoperability factor with being able to talk
to others
within the same jurisdiction would definitely be limited.
>> Would be what?
>> Limited.
>> You know, I'm interested-- I would be interested in
exploring the cost savings,
but if it means that we really can't operate effectively
with our other--
the other agencies that we need to especially in a major
emergency,
I'm not sure that it's worth waiting for option two.
>> I also have Richard Gaston because, you know, we had him
come out and do analysis
so he can kind of elaborate as to how he came with those
recommendations as well too.
>> Let's let Bill address that.
>> Okay.
>> When you're speaking of interoperability, the federal
government SAFECOM,
which is the Office of Emergency Communications within DHS
and the federal government has recommended one of the
standards for the system
that it be a common standards-based system which would
allow interoperability.
Here, if you have the county and you would have city of
Denton, the county, Louisville,
Flower Mound, and--
>> Probably Frisco.
>> And--
>> Potentially Frisco.
>> Potentially Frisco and Highland Village all operating on
the same system.
So the officer, the firefighter, it's a matter of selecting
a talk group or a talk path
or a channel, whatever you want to call it.
On that radio, to communicate, it makes it a whole lot
simpler and the technology,
it all works together.
So there's a real advantage and I think the second thing to
consider here is that if
for some reason the Denton City portion of the system,
which is the two towers
that you saw, was to fail, you would still have the county
system in place providing
that second level of redundancy and interoperability and it
's the same thing.
You go somewhere, you go to-- you have to send someone to
Flower Mound or to Louisville
for mutual aid, again, it's almost-- it is its intuitive
for the operator just to switch
and get on the proper channel and they're talking to those
people.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
So are you a consultant or are you with Motorola?
>> No, sir, I'm a consultant.
I'm sorry, I'm Bill Wagaman, I'm a senior consultant for
Mission Predictive Partners.
>> Well, he had introduced you earlier.
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure.
So do those systems also communicate with this like DPS,
Department of Public Safety for Texas?
>> Not right now.
If the technology is available and depending
on what DPS finally decides to do in the way of a statewide
system.
>> Okay.
>> I think DPS is working that right now they operate on
different frequencies.
There's not a lot of good ways to have interoperability but
it's improving
and as the DPS units they start to add more capability
and give that capability to the officers, yes.
>> Well, based on what I'm hearing, I would lean for option
three.
>> Okay. Council Member Rates.
>> So-- oh, I have a question really for staff because six
months isn't really
that long of a time for when this ends.
And so back in 2016 with the replacement of the radios, I
don't recall this conversation.
So I guess I'm just wondering why we're just now hearing it
.
>> So that's a good question.
You know, as part of that transition to streamline of
services,
that's when we really decided to take a step look back and
really look at it holistically
at people processing technology within the Denton radio
shop based on discussions
with the chiefs and I know the-- sounds like the request
was brought up and, you know,
to be frank, the people that were over that at that time,
you know,
I'm not sure if that was necessarily a priority or I don't
know.
>> Go ahead.
>> So what do we do with all the radios that we have?
>> In terms of can they be recycled or--
>> Yeah, yeah, or--
>> Do you know the answer to that, Melissa?
>> So typically what we try to do is go through our normal
process
which is probably either take it out and put it out for
auction or see if we can recycle it
within the jail or other areas that might utilize that,
maybe a smaller city.
>> I have just a few more questions.
>> Well, let me get-- Council Member Ryan, you let her
finish?
Okay, go ahead.
>> And so on this system that's being proposed, you said TW
and UND,
do you both use their own separate systems?
>> They utilize our services to use the radio system.
>> Okay, so it's through us.
So would they help with the funding?
>> So as part of that, historically they haven't but they
will pay for the radios.
>> Okay. Is that-- okay.
And there's just one more question.
On the tower, you mentioned McKenna Tower.
I think that we actually lease that tower with the system
stuff that we put on that tower
for this new radio, would that interfere with what else is
going on currently?
>> No, ma'am.
What we did was structural analysis.
We will have to do modifications to the towers to
incorporate some of this new technology
as part of when we were doing the comprehensive radio
analysis.
So we did get quotes for modifications.
We got three quotes.
It's going to range anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 to make
sure we have enough capacity
at those towers to supplement the new radio system.
>> On each tower?
>> On one tower, which is the Teasley Tower.
McKenna, we have enough capacity to add.
>> Okay, thank you.
>> Okay.
>> Council Member Ryan.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
Looking at option two on this, can you turn back to slide
14?
>> We're getting what, a little over $2 million discount if
we move on this in rather quick fashion.
Can you imagine that an RFP or RFP would come back that low
?
I mean, looking at the base price for the equipment, I just
can't see
that we're going to find anybody else out there that going
out for an RFP would be beneficial to us.
And the extended warranty is going to be about the same no
matter who we go with.
So I'm strongly in favor of option three.
I did have one kind of follow-up question.
The UNTTWU, you said they'd pay for the radios that they
would be using.
Or is it right now they're just not paying for the services
, the ongoing cost?
Is that what they're not covering?
>> We do get services through our revenues.
So we, it's based on, it's part of our staff time helping
them troubleshoot the radios
and working through that process.
So we already capture some of those revenues through UNTTWU
.
>> So they will be paying their share on this?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> For services consumed.
>> Okay. I need to understand that a little bit more.
>> Okay.
>> So currently, they're using the same system we're using.
>> Yes.
>> And so one of their radios goes down or there's a
problem.
We have staff that will help them troubleshoot it and then
we bill them for that.
Is that correct?
>> Yes.
>> So if we go with option three, because they've been
using them,
if we've been using it for 18 years, they've probably been
using it.
Had they been involved in this conversation?
>> So I know as part of the discussions, we've reached out
to several of our stakeholders
to include even some of the hospitals too to really try
to gather what those requirements would be.
So I know we've been in contact with them, yes.
>> Okay. But has there been any discussion about we're
fixing to do this?
This is going to be a very expensive proposition, but it's
going
to provide a tremendous amount of additional capacity and
redundancy and it's going to bring us
into the 21st century of this kind of communication
equipment.
But there's been no conversation about would they like to
help with some of this, you know,
or just what the ramifications are and just the
partnerships.
I mean, we're working on building partnerships and this is
something I think
that would be beneficial obviously for the whole county.
So I think that's just worthy of a conversation in that
regard.
>> We will absolutely reach out.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> All right.
Council Member Meltzer and Council Member Hudspeth.
>> So the current system we have, we got around the same
timeframe as 9/11
and if you remember the 9/11 Commission Report, like the
main failure that, you know,
was assessed or one of the main ones was lack of interoper
ability of radios.
You know, a lot of lives would have been saved if fire
and police have been able to talk to each other for
instance.
So, you know, clearly the benefits of interoperability, you
know, are there.
The question is just, you know, what, without some kind of
a benchmark, how do you know if,
you know, if you're getting a reasonable price and
reasonable terms?
You know, the fact that it's, quote, unquote, a 20%
discount or whatever, I mean, you know,
if you want, they could double the list price and we could
get 50% off, you know,
those are very manipulable terms.
So, you know, I lean toward ultimately having a result that
is interoperable,
but I want us to be smarter purchasers and, you know,
otherwise it could be absolutely any price on option three
and we just sort of say, well,
we'll pay that because we prefer that.
I think we need to have something to compare to, you know,
make sure we're being smart.
>> Well, sir, we did look at different aspects with the HD
AC contract.
They did go through that bidding process kind of for us as
part of that also.
And as well, working with Mission Critical Partners, you
know, they've worked with Highland Village
who just recently did an upgrade.
They've been in contact with Lewisville too to try to get
kind of a benchmark as far
as what other cities that have recently upgraded their
radio systems as far as, you know,
was it similar in pricing?
I don't know if you want to kind of give your perspective
on there.
>> Yeah, if you'll-- yeah, because we're televising and we
just can't hear
if you're not at the mic.
Sorry. Thank you.
>> Mission Critical has been working with multiple large
system users, Wake County,
North Carolina, Broward County, Florida and others.
Also, for your own reference to put your own mind at ease,
very large system just
in Tarrant County, city of Fort Worth.
So, you could talk to the people down there to see what
sort
of discount Motorola offered them.
Typically, you're going to see in these 20, 25, 30 percent
discounts
on the equipment hardware, again, depending on what
incentives the vendors have as far
as meeting their own numbers to keep Wall Street happy.
End of the year, these sort of things, the deals tend to
get better at the end
of the quarter and at the end of the year simply because
they're trying to make their numbers
to make-- they're all public corporations.
They want to look good in Wall Street.
>> Great.
>> Sure.
And then we'll go to Councilmember Huss.
>> Yeah.
And I would just suggest, you know, make us feel a little
smarter by putting at least some kind
of estimated number up for what option two might look like
and, you know,
then I don't feel like I'm buying a bag of magic beans.
>> Councilmember Huss.
>> Yeah.
>> So, my question is if I could--
>> I think if you wanted to look at it just from a--
basically a list price perspective,
something like that to put four tower sites, master
controller, some consoles,
you're probably adding about $2 million to that $7 million
that's up front.
>> So, it would definitely cost more--
>> So, you're looking at about 9 to 10 million dollars in--
>> Then it's easy.
Then it's a no-brainer.
>> In that--
>> Okay. Councilmember Huss, but then Councilmember Duff.
>> Thank you.
Is it Brad?
Is that right?
>> Yes, sir.
>> If I can borrow you again.
Sorry, Bill.
Thank you.
>> I feel like we're in a wrestling match tag team.
>> Yeah. So, can we go-- I love it.
Can we go back to 14, the project cost estimates, please,
and thank you?
All right.
So, I need a-- if you can give me a straight line answer,
please do.
If you can't, I get it.
>> Yes, sir.
>> But it affects my decision.
So, equipment total, do we have a list of equipment that
falls under that number?
>> Absolutely.
>> Okay.
>> Yes, sir.
>> So, if I can see that list of equipment and then--
so, when we're looking at system-based discount, didn't
count it.
So, it's already in place.
It's already active.
I need help understanding-- my understanding is it's going
to be a program type thing more
than a hardware fix that we're taking advantage of.
I mean, I'm assuming if the program is already operable,
already on the towers
and didn't count is already using it.
It's covering that area.
So, it's as much as-- and pardon my poor tech lingo,
but it's like a node we're connecting to or something like
that.
I mean, I need you to help me understand what that process
is
that affords us that discount, right?
What-- because absent that, that's kind of what we're
talking about, right?
That's in theory the motivator is this $1,800,000 discount.
And so, absent that, there's a process.
If we don't opt for that and we wait and didn't count it
goes offline, then there's a process.
And if we take advantage of that, there's a separate
process.
I need to understand physically what's done in that that we
can take advantage of that nets
out to a $1.8 million refund.
>> So, I want to make sure I understand the question, but
there-- so, there's two things.
So, the Denton County contract is an actual purchasing
contract,
which is what we're referencing and then the discounts are
based off of that contract
that were awarded when they purchased the radio system.
So, the $1.8 million that was referenced in as far as the
discount was because of that contract,
that contract discount that is afforded to users that are
going to be tying into the Denton County system.
So, that is-- that's all it is, is a purchasing contract
and that's where those discounts come from.
Now, as far as the physical part of it, the physical aspect
, part of the discount for you all
in pricing is tied to the fact that you are utilizing their
existing core.
It's the brains of the system and some of their
infrastructure.
So, you're basically extending their system and expanding
the current system,
which will benefit everybody.
So, you're saving cost for the city upfront by not having
to buy a core which is in the million dollar range
and then adding additional sites.
So, you're utilizing your two sites and then the backup of
the county sites as well.
So, there's two sides of that.
So, I don't know if I'm answering your question correctly.
I want to make sure I understand what you're--
>> Sure. Yes.
So, I'm tracking with you generally.
So, there's no physical action tied to that discount.
That's just-- it's a friends and family, hey, if you have
other people that you refer us to in this window,
they too benefit from your wise decision.
>> Well, in theory, yes.
It's basically because you would become technically a user
on the Denton County system.
>> OK.
>> Or a partner on the system because you will have your
own standalone portion of it.
But no, it is absolutely the-- it's the contract verbiage
that allows users,
primary users on a system to take advantage of those
discounts as well.
>> OK.
>> It's kind of a co-- it becomes a co-op type purchasing
contract and it allows--
it's part of the benefit of people working together and
trying to manage
that interoperability goal as one of the benefits.
Because when you get a mid-size city, that's a lot of money
for a radio system just
to purchase outright and when you can convince cities and
counties to start working together
and share some of that cost, it helps the whole region.
And that's part of the goal behind that.
>> OK.
>> That was actually Denton County's original intent with
the radio system.
They built enough capacity for those that reside--
those cities that reside in Denton County to join in.
That was their original intention with the upgrade as well.
>> OK. And if I may.
So-- and I think Mayor Watts touched on a good thing.
And so I don't know if you need-- if you need to go back
and check.
But I do have heartburn on equipment wise, if something
breaks, I need that to--
I mean just for my own peace of mind.
I mean that's like anything, right?
If I go-- my cell phone, if it's on a lease, it costs me a
discounted rate.
I mean it's an insurance policy that I'll then execute
that then gets me a new phone at a reduced rate.
I just-- I can't imagine and my phone bills a lot less than
this.
And so I can't imagine a scenario where we move forward and
Motorola is not willing
to guarantee us the equipment if it drops, falls in an
emergency situation, right?
I mean it's like this is built for bad stuff to happen.
>> Right.
>> For them not to cover that to some degree for some more
than a year gives me heartburn.
I mean because I just don't-- I don't like it.
Just personally, I just don't think it's good to ask
someone to give you $7 million
and then you're on your own after a year.
And so I would ask you to go back or revisit that or at
least make a phone call during the break
and see if there's some way we can get to a reasonable--
there's got to be some coverage for the phone without
having to wait for an upgrade, right?
So now the phone's under a fire truck and so it can't be
upgraded so we get one at that exchange.
I just don't-- that just is a problem.
>> And I understand.
So the initial purchase price, the way we split-- the
reason why it was split that way is
because you have your purchase price and it includes your
first year.
Some customers, some cities like to do things all at cart
and will just do their ongoing maintenance.
Some people are not concerned about future upgrades because
they're not necessarily tied
with another entity and need to maintain the same level of
upgrades.
So it's closer to the $5 million range for the system
purchase.
The other-- the 1.9 is the out years alone.
So those-- we split that out so that you all have the
ability to pick
and choose the level of support that you have.
Now that-- the out years of service absolutely includes the
break fix.
It has-- we have what's called a CSM, a customer support
manager that is responsible
for every customer if there's an outage.
They-- it's the hotline, it's the tech support that
maintains the system.
And if there's any kind of alarms or anything at any of the
sites, all of that's taken care of.
That's part of our process because it's public safety.
Lives are dependent on it.
So we've set these programs up to make sure that we respond
within a specific time window.
We have folks spread throughout the territory to make sure
that we have resources
that are quickly available and can respond adequately.
So we also build in spares in a lot of our designs.
So if there's a piece of equipment that is possible that
would be a failure, we have spares
that we, you know, have set up that you swap it out and it
's back up online.
So everything we do is redundant and is got backup for
backups.
That's part of public safety.
So that's part of all of that.
>> Let me just clarify.
So everything you listed is covered in that 1.9?
>> Yes, sir.
>> So there's no-- so that break fix--
>> That's all included.
>> And the backups are in there?
>> Yes, sir, absolutely.
>> Okay. I would just need-- if someone could-- I don't
know why this is going on.
If someone has it back at their computer, obviously someone
has an agreement someplace.
A list of equipment and break out this 1.9, what goes in
there?
I mean, it's a quick-- I mean, it's a quick bulleted list.
Just get cut and paste, give it a meet and that helps me
make a decision.
>> Okay.
>> And also part of that intention, we wanted to separate
what was actual capital
and what was O and N too so you can visually see what's
capital
and what's the ongoing maintenance of that product.
>> Sure. Yeah.
No, absolutely.
>> So-- oh, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
You had one other comment?
>> I actually just wanted to address Councilperson Briggs'
question about the radios.
I want to make sure that it's clear that the purchase that
was made last year,
year before, those were all public safety radios.
Those were bought for this new system.
So those are not going away.
That was kind of a future purchase that was planned for
that.
The ones that are included in the proposal are more like
the public works radios--
>> Of cars.
>> -- that are not able to be upgraded.
So while you will still have some of those that you can
recycle, sell, donate,
whatever that may be, you're not-- this is not a forklift
replacement of all the radios.
That was part of that purchase.
>> Go ahead.
Yeah. And then--
>> Sorry.
>> Councilmember Duff, yeah, because I know you guys are on
a time frame.
So we got about 30 minutes left.
Yeah. Okay.
So we're going to go with Councilmember Briggs' follow up,
Councilmember Ryan,
Councilmember Duff, yeah.
Go ahead, Councilmember Briggs.
>> In response to that, so then we can add the 2 million
onto this as for the total system.
Then, since the phones were purchased for this system in
2016.
Basically, that's what-- okay.
>> Yes.
>> Thank you.
>> Yes.
>> Councilmember Ryan.
>> Okay. Since at least 2011 when they quit making our
current ones,
we've been doing all in-house maintenance.
There's been a cost to us.
Will some of those costs go away if we're under this
warranty?
>> Absolutely.
Currently, we have around 100K in our O&M that we use a
third party contractor to kind of help
with some of those maintenance and some of the break fix
since Motorola currently can't support that system.
So we would-- and that also is part of what's included on
this here.
It just takes an account in the 100K in our current year's
budget
that we can put towards the payment for that.
>> Okay. Good.
Thank you.
>> Councilmember Duff.
>> Do I understand that our present system does not have
any encryption?
Is that correct?
>> Not that I'm aware of.
No, sir.
>> I would think that a new system with some encryption
would be really added benefit.
>> Absolutely.
>> You have a SWAT team out there.
I can't imagine that their radio signals are being able to
be picked up by anybody.
To me, this whole thing is-- I mean, option three is-- it's
a total no-brainer to me.
I can't see us going in any other direction.
It doesn't make any sense to go any other way.
>> Do you know, Melissa, how many radios are supported both
at UNT and TWU?
>> Off the top of my head, I don't, sir.
I'd have to come back to you with that.
>> Okay. So-- okay.
So I really think that that's going to be-- I mean, I'm
obviously for option three.
I mean, I think we're all having a little sticker shock
here, but I think it's just the way
of the world right now and you're wanting some additional
detail information.
But I think we really need to talk with our partners, our
education partners,
because I'd like to know how many radios they have on there
, because we've got a certain number
of radios and so you can almost parse it out as well.
This is costing us X amount per radio.
Does DISD-- do they use their own radio system?
>> Oh, they do.
>> They have their own separate one?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. All right.
So there-- so yeah, I think we just need to speak with
those at those respective institutions,
say, hey, this is sort of what's happening and see if we
can't, you know, collaborate on a way to--
because this is a big upgrade for the city.
I mean, this is-- this isn't like sort of getting onto a
system that's 18 years old.
This is revamping the whole thing, spending $7 million.
>> It's also a very complex upgrade too, keeping in mind
even communication
with the different hospitals and the different emergency
responders as well too.
>> Yeah. So I think that's a worthy conversation to have,
Mr. City Manager.
>> We will do it.
>> In that regard to see if there's some opportunities
there.
Okay. I see you got a couple more slides.
We've probably gone through all this but--
>> So the staff does recommend option three.
Again, we're still looking at the time sensitive incentives
and kind of how that falls into play.
So we'll keep you posted as we make progress.
The city can share costs to assist the maintenance and
operations
by partnering up with Denton County.
Also, this still enables us to keep autonomy of our mobile
radios and independent radio sites.
And again, just gaining that redundancy that we currently
don't have and that interoperability
with this option, we would definitely gain that.
Staff have request approval to proceed with proposed option
three.
NIFA approved, staff will bring forward Motorola's contract
.
Again, we gave you some preliminary numbers but we wanted
to really run
and see what the impact would look like against all funds
and kind of the recurring cost on that.
And also in the process of working with Denton County on an
interlocal agreement
and future council agenda.
>> Okay. Anybody have any more questions?
So as far as the conversations with our educational
partners, we have time to do that.
>> Yes.
>> We're not having to execute this by tomorrow, you know.
Or we get up and walk out and the manager comes running
after us.
Okay. All right.
Any other questions, comments?
Yes, Council Member Hussbett.
I know you got some information coming to you.
>> Yes. Now, are we going to communicate to them how much,
right?
I mean, I think it's going to-- I think that's fair to say
once we figure
out how many radios you have, here's the new--
I don't know if it's fixed rate, whatever that-- you know,
whatever that is.
But we'll communicate that in advance.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
Fantastic.
Any other questions, comments?
Thank you very much.
Great presentation, great information.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Melissa.
All right.
I think we can get back on our regular agenda schedule now.
Now that we've only got two left.
>> That's right.
>> What the heck?
Let's just go to half, you know.
We're just going to-- no, we'll go back to agenda item 2B.
Receive report and hold discussion regarding the status
of the Oak Gateway Area Plan.
>> Thank you, Mayor, members of council, Ron Magida with
Development Services.
Really just want to give an opportunity, wait for these
folks to step up.
>> Sure, no problem.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, get out of here.
>> Thank you for the opportunity just to give the council
an update on the area plan.
As you all know, we started this effort back in August when
we hired Friganese and Associates
to help us prepare an area plan for the area.
As you can see here on this slide, south of Panhandle, east
of Carroll,
north of I-35 and just west or east of Bonnie Bray and I-35
as well.
The area encompasses the area that you see here in light
brown.
The area that is in green is the University of North Texas
property.
You see that there are two historic districts within the
boundary,
Oak Hickory as well as West Oak.
And of course, the reason why we started this effort is the
Fry Street Overlay District.
When we started this effort, when we began to think about
putting together an update
to the area plan or to the overlay district, we had a
number of developments
that were proposed for the area, large developments.
And really that's what triggered the need to revisit the
area plan as well as the overlay district.
Some of the challenges that we saw with these developments,
of course,
were related to mobility, parking impacting the
neighborhoods,
as well as development compatibility.
They were proposing really higher buildings or height than
what was surrounding them,
as well as looking at established neighborhoods.
>> So I want to make sure that when you're talking about
what sort of spurred this discussion,
when you talk about big projects, so correct me if I'm
wrong, I can remember two.
>> Right.
>> One on Hickory Street, which is where the Vertmans is.
>> Right.
>> That one.
And then the one on Scripture Street, which was the big
apartment building.
>> Correct.
>> And both of those are within probably about 400 yards of
each other.
>> Correct.
>> And so I don't have an orientation on the map here.
>> Yeah, one was generally in this area here.
>> Right.
>> And then one just north.
>> Okay.
>> So this whole small area plan that I'm going to call the
big area plan.
>> Okay.
>> Nobody, I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't go back
into this.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to be like Council Member Hutsbeth.
And so I just want to, so that's sort of setting the stage
of we came up with this big area based
upon the challenges we had with two projects within about
300 yards of each other
that both were rejected from the City Council.
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> And just to add to that, we also saw similarities in
other areas that we also know of.
Did you all know that there's also a large development on
Eagle and Bernard?
And so that's generally in this area over here.
And we see potential development happening in this area as
well.
So that's partly the reason why it's larger than, you know.
>> Is that, what area is that?
>> That's the cement city.
>> Okay. All right.
Owsley Park?
>> Owsley Park.
>> Okay.
>> Right.
>> So we saw development activity not in just these areas,
specifically near Fry Street,
but also in other areas that's shown in this particular
boundary.
>> Okay.
>> So just to make --
>> No, no, I understand.
>> Okay.
>> This slide is just to help illustrate a little bit why
we're doing a small area plan.
Of course, it's a long-term planning exercise for a
specific area in the city.
It involves the community and stakeholder input.
What it does is it provides a shared vision and development
priorities or policies
of how we want to see an area to be developed.
We do that through a small area plan, and we hope to have a
vision for the area,
and of course, recommendations that meet that vision.
Back in September, the council appointed a member of
citizens made
up of the following committee stakeholders, from residents
all the way
down to local builders, bicycles, and other stakeholders as
well.
So photos that you see here are one of the first meetings
that we held
in which the committee was introduced.
And we held exercises to identify some of the issues and
concerns
that the stakeholders felt that the area needed to be
addressed.
>> How many of the committee members actually reside in the
plan area?
Do you know?
>> I'd say about half.
>> Okay.
>> Yes. And the remaining either work there or live in the
city outside of the project area.
So following the kickoff of the steering committee, we also
held interviews
where there were multiple interviews held several days.
We also then commenced our committee meeting number one,
which again,
we talked about the structure and the actual committee
itself.
Started working on guiding principles.
Again, an illustration here that shows the committee
working together,
identifying some of those issues and concerns that they
felt that were
in the area and needed to be addressed.
Committee meeting number two, we selected a name.
We didn't have a name until then.
The committee chose Oak Gateway Area Plan.
So that is the name that is for the area plan.
Again, Oak Gateway.
>> Thank you.
>> Bless you.
>> Committee meeting number three, we then selected a chair
and vice chair.
And at the time, it was Councilman Metzler.
Metzler that is.
And also Patrice Likes served as vice chair.
>> I'm sorry?
>> No, at the time it was private citizen.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Yes. At the time.
And then we also talked about upcoming work-- an upcoming
workshop.
And you see the photos here.
These photos were taken from that workshop where there were
six stations.
The first three were of each sub areas, one, two, and three
.
We had a station that spoke of parking, mobility,
and then we also had street corridors as well.
Where the attendees of that committee or that community
workshop participated
in providing input and feedback on certain items related to
how they thought
that the area is currently and how it could be improved in
the future.
>> I think Councilmember Briggs has a question.
>> Of the 24 committee members, do they--
have they all attended the committee meetings
or what's the percentage of attendance?
>> I'd say the first four or five, we had a really high
number of attendance.
Probably 20 of them attended on average.
However, the last three or so, probably half of them showed
up--
or is showing up, so about 13 or 14.
So less than what I would hope, but we are getting half at
this time.
>> And I think some of them may have moved away and I know
that you--
I don't know if you can still be on it or not.
So I mean, is there a time where we need to give you more--
>> Yes, actually that's a great comment to bring up because
I was just talking
to your current chair that, you know, as we continue with
these meetings,
we want to make sure that we meet quorum and also we want
to get input.
And for those that are no longer able to serve on the
committee,
we would like to seek their interest and if they are not
interested any longer,
we'd like the council to repoint some other members that
could attend or should attend.
And so that's something that we would certainly welcome
as we move forward with this committee.
>> Council Member Meltzer.
>> Yeah, I mean, I'm willing to do this unless you prefer
to, Ron,
but I thought I could talk about the change in the
frequency of meetings
which probably has something to do with the attendance and,
you know,
kind of what that shift was about or--
>> Sure.
>> -- did you want to do it?
>> I can certainly mention that to that.
Let me see if I can mention it through my next slide.
>> Yeah, well, is there a slide that you'll address that?
>> Yes.
>> Okay, why don't we take that--
>> It's coming up.
It's coming up.
I just want to make sure we get through some of what has
occurred and so in doing so,
we'll get to that point.
Committee number 5, we start talking about a vision for
area 1
and I believe you all have a copy of the exhibit.
I'm going to just show you really quickly the sub areas as
we talk about them.
We currently are looking at three sub areas.
The first one you see there is everything north of Hickory,
north of the university, the residential neighborhood.
Area 2 is the area that is more or less the cement city and
west of Bonnie Bray.
And then area 3 is the area just southeast of the
university that makes up Bernard Eagle
and the other neighborhoods to the south.
So those are the sub areas that were identified.
So going back to meeting number 5, we started drafting the
vision for sub area 1.
Following that, we held a tour.
We actually toured areas 2 and 3 to get a better
understanding of each area.
We, as you can see here, took a number of our committee
members on a bus and drove around
and stopped at several locations and looked at areas 2 and
3.
Following that, we then came back and had a meeting.
And this is where I wanted to bring up that discussion.
We had a concern from some of the-- I'm sorry, the council
members, the committee members,
that the focus and the direction wasn't going in their
direction.
So we had a meeting and we've changed our focus a little
where now the consultants are more
of a resource and they're not driving this committee.
The committee members are actually facilitating and are
doing more of this input.
And one of the things that they decided to do, which is
great, is to hold more meetings,
more weekly meetings so that we don't go from month to
month and not have a continuous discussion.
So the committee has decided to meet more weekly meetings
that is.
And we are actually meeting and doing all the work from the
committee's perspective.
So we selected a new chair because now we have Councilman
Meltzer that is no longer able
to perform or be on the committee.
We selected Patrice Lake as the chair and Kim McGibbon as
our vice chair.
And they're both here.
I don't know if Patrice would like to come up or the
council would--
>> Yeah, well, let's get to the presentation first and then
if we have questions
or comments certainly want to hear your thoughts.
Councilmember Hutsbeth had, I believe, a question or
comment.
>> Yeah. So a couple of things.
So before we get to the committees, I do have a concern
reading the backup.
So there's a subcommittee that met with the consultants
absent the rest of the committee.
>> No. There was a committee made up of members of the
committee that met
to discuss how we want to proceed.
But it wasn't a formal subcommittee created and the
consultants were not present.
So I'm not sure where--
>> OK. Let me find-- I'll find it.
>> OK.
>> But you know, I think the point of reference is there
was some angst amongst the committee
because some meeting, right?
Yes?
>> Correct.
>> OK.
>> Correct.
>> And so was the whole committee aware of this other
meeting?
>> No.
>> And staff is at these meetings and staff is OK with that
?
>> It was just one meeting and that was--
>> OK.
>> It was just one meeting and that was not intended to be
a meeting
that was not to include the entire committee.
It was just an opportunity to address how we want to move
forward.
And so it was not a meeting that involved the consultants
or any idea
of creating a subcommittee, it was just thinking how we
should address the project moving forward.
>> Got it.
So I'll ask it a different way.
>> OK.
>> So staff's at all the meetings.
>> Yes.
>> Staff-- and some point staff was at this small meeting.
>> Yes.
>> So staff's aware that this small meeting is planned and
staff is OK with that.
Or it happened so staff thought it was OK.
>> Sure.
I'll ask Scott.
>> Let me jump in on this because I had an instrumental
part in doing this.
And so what had happened is there were a number of the
committee members that had concerns
about the consultant that the consultant was-- had prepack
aged a program,
delivered it to the city and the committee wasn't able
to truly provide their input and feedback.
So I visited with the chair and we met with the chair and
vice chair at the time
and had the conversation about having any number of options
available to them which was
to increase the frequency of the meetings or have meetings
without the consultants
so the committee could do the work as well as whether we
wanted to have subcommittees.
And so that was just that initial conversation that took
place.
There was a meeting scheduled.
Now, the meeting that was scheduled was intended to be a
committee meeting
and that notification did not go out as it being a
committee meeting.
So ultimately, I think there were six or seven members that
showed up for the meeting.
Conversation took place.
No action was taken.
And ultimately, we regrouped and then we have the chair and
vice chair send out a meeting
that was in accordance with Open Meetings Act.
And then the committee is now working as a committee.
They elected not to have subcommittees of the committee.
It's the entirety of the committee, a quorum being present
and then working through each
of the sub areas to tackle this.
And again, staff being truly a resource to the committee.
So we provide a space and anything that they'd like to have
.
The committee is doing all of the work and we have not--
we've yet to engage the consultant but we're working
through what it is the consultants were
trying to do some months earlier that they weren't able to
do
because they were being very direct in what it is that they
had for a process
and there was pushback from the committee.
So this was all designed for the committee to be most
effective and there were a couple
of steps that were sideways and absolutely staff didn't try
to do something nor did they support the fact
of trying to do anything outside of what the design of the
committee was.
>> So-- and I want to be concise.
I'm really trying but I'm trying to get to the meat of it.
So six people at this committee meeting, staff always has
like a set email list, right?
I mean it's just, hey, you grab an email list, you send it
out.
So at whose behest did the email list get truncated?
>> And I can't tell you the specific short of the fact that
it didn't go out as a normal meeting
because this was the first conversation through the chair
to try to address this.
>> So through the chair.
So the chair decides these six people get an email.
>> Fundamentally, it was an assumption on staff's behalf
that an email went out and whether
or not the chair believed the same thing from staff, I can
't tell you.
But once this was identified, it was corrected.
And there was only-- and it was the first meeting trying to
talk about organizationally what to do.
And really it was the concept of trying to help the
committee to be more effective.
>> I understand and I'll just let it go because you're not
going
to give me a concise answer and that's okay.
>> I don't have a concise answer.
I don't think to give to you.
>> It's a function of the process.
If there's an email list that goes out, right?
>> Yes.
>> And that email list gets truncated, that's an easy
understanding of who--
and who asked email to be truncated and who sent the trunc
ated email.
That's a very short concise answer.
And if you're saying you don't know who orchestrated one,
the truncation of the email,
and two, the sending of the truncated email, and at whose
behest, if that's the chair,
that's the chair, but if those three components aren't
known, then point me in the direction
of who I can ask and I'll get that.
But that-- just a minute, just a minute.
But that's my concern is that it's okay to do it, but it's
not okay to do it
and then not stand behind it, right?
I need someone to stand behind it and own it in a perfect
world.
And if we don't have that, I'm not going to ask the
question again.
You know what I'm trying to get at?
I'm trying to get at three people.
Who asked for it to be truncated, who truncated it, and who
sent it.
Those are the three things I'm looking for.
And if I can't have them, I can't have them, but it's very
frustrating.
>> Councilmember Melton.
>> Yeah. I was the chair at the time.
I don't recall that I sent an email.
I had conversations with individuals who were concerned
about the direction of the committee,
had a conversation with-- and as I said, I don't remember
sending an email,
but we had a conversation with a few and it became obvious
pretty directly that we shouldn't have.
That we should have done it by way of sending out an email
to everybody
and then having the conversation with everybody.
So that's what we did immediately thereafter.
And in fact, at that meeting, you know, I took
responsibility and apologize
for having had a conversation with a few and not all.
And I think we're, you know, on track now.
And also, you know, in that second meeting, by virtue of
not wanting to have council members
on the committee that was intended to not have council,
I resigned from the committee at that time.
I don't know if-- does that get at the questions?
>> No. Because your-- the email went out and you're saying
you don't know who sent it.
>> No, I'm saying I don't recall doing it by way of an
email.
I remember having conversations with, you know, several
individuals who were very active participants
and we probably just agreed to a time.
I don't think there was a mass email.
>> Okay.
Yes, and did you have a question, Council Member Briggs?
I thought you had it.
>> Well, I was just going to say that I'd heard the same
concerns regarding the consultant.
And so I'm glad that you guys addressed it if that were the
case.
>> Well, and I will say there's two issues out of this.
And, you know, the first one out of this is I think after
spending quite a bit of time
with Scott and the team in planning, we're not going to
have another process.
I know Council Member Hussbett, you've mentioned this
before, where we've got a consultant coming
in laying out their process to us and taking us through.
It was clear that we should have, you know, that staff
should have had the process laid
out with the residents before the consultant and not just
had something in the can.
So that was a lesson to learn.
It was something that was very upsetting to them.
I think the second thing is we'll have a conversation with
you a little bit later, probably,
I think in July at some point, is just the whole issue of,
you know,
I don't think you'll see this happen again, the staff, and
certainly,
if we have any additional planning meetings.
But the other thing that was an issue here was compliance
with the Open Meetings Act.
And I know that's where you're going.
And I think it's something that I know our city attorney
would like to discuss, and I would too,
with the council in terms of expectations with these groups
.
We set up ad hoc committees, and does it apply or not?
Because staff really got in the middle of an interesting
discussion on that one as well.
So a lot of lessons learned here.
We're not hearing talk anymore about jettisoning the
process, jettisoning the consultant.
I think the residents on the committee are very passionate,
and they wanted to drive the process.
So we've made those changes.
It could have been handled differently.
There's no question it could have been handled differently,
but I think we're back on track.
>> And there was no email for the meeting.
And I think that kind of supports that fact.
It just, it happened in a unique way by virtue of
conversations and who was going to be,
staff was there to be a facilitator offering space and man
power.
We didn't send an email out for that meeting.
So there was an assumption made that an email didn't in
fact go out.
So with that being said, I assure you that we are now
orchestrating that,
and we are ensuring that that doesn't happen to the future.
And that's all I can assure you of.
One meeting, no action, and then regrouped, and we're on
the right path.
>> Okay. Yes, Council Member.
>> Yeah, and if I can, you know, maybe allude to more of
the substance behind this dynamic,
you know, of the change, it really goes back to perception
I think shared by some
over here that it's not really a small area.
And one of the consequences of it not being a small area is
that members of the committee felt
that there were distinct needs that were different between
these sub areas.
We didn't start out with the idea of sub areas.
So a lot of the conflict was over, I don't think it was the
consultant's fault, but, you know,
they're kind of taking on the charge of saying, what are
the common needs of this whole area?
And the members of the committee were saying,
that very question is denying the thing we feel, you know,
needs to be examined,
which were the differences.
And in fact, the first time those sub areas were sort of
exposed more broadly was
in the public input where there was polling done among
people from all over the community
who came to ask what were their perceived priorities for
each of the sub areas.
And they came out quite different, certainly between sub
area one and the other two.
So that was a lot of the drive behind all this was to sort
of, you know,
get the committee members more driving the bus so that we
could really explore what the
differences were between the needs of those different areas
.
>> So I'm going to -- I'm surprised I still have some hair
in my head
because I'm almost pulling my hair out.
I'm going to have a real problem if this gets split up into
three sub areas.
But with the -- well, number one, it should be.
From all the get go, it's been too big in my opinion,
because you've got Allesley Park, which is a highly dense
multifamily.
You've got, you know, historic districts and residential,
you know, strong residential,
single family on the northern side of this down in the
other part.
But that's why I think it's too big because they do have
three very distinct different types
of issues that may have to be addressed.
And if that's the case, if that is really the assumption or
the conclusion that we're drawing,
I think we need to have three different --
I don't think the same committee needs to be addressing
those because if we'd have had three
different sub areas, then we would have known, well, maybe
I need to appoint someone more people
to an area where they have an interest more in this sub
area.
So when it was all considered as a whole, it's just, well,
if they live here, you know.
So this has been my concern from the very get go that we're
going
to try to take this big concept.
Now we're dividing it and it created this kind of, you know
, procedural anomaly that, you know,
look, yes, some people really got upset and we'd all like
for it to have been different
differently, lessons learned, life is scar tissue, so we'll
make sure that we do that differently.
My main concern about this is that moving forward, if we're
going to --
and you're shaking your head about sub areas, but I do
believe that those areas
that were identified, there's a little bit of overlap
except maybe down in three
where you've got some pretty much some geographical
boundaries.
They're very different areas.
And so this has been my struggle this whole time.
Not that I don't think we should have small area plans.
Not that I don't think that the areas that we were
protecting and the areas
that we rejected those projects on based upon public input,
based upon the residents coming out,
just commonsensical decision making on why are you wanting
to put a 300 bed student complex
in the middle of a residential neighborhood that has some
historical components
that are just on the outside of that.
So yes, do we want to have small area plan, but this thing
is ballooned and now --
and I think that's part of the struggle is how do you get
your arms around this
with such different types of approaches for these different
areas.
So this doesn't surprise me, I mean, frankly.
>> I think we've got a solution moving forward just because
it's a larger plan doesn't mean
you can't have, you know, different mindsets, different
design philosophies
in different parts of the area.
So regardless of whether it was three small plans or one
plan,
what drove this again was UNT, not us.
>> And that's fine.
>> They laid out an expansion plan down in what you saw was
sub area two.
They laid out another expansion plan in sub area three.
They were asking us to close roads, which would have
affected the first area.
And so it wasn't staff necessarily driving this, it was UNT
and not wanting --
in trying to take more of a holistic approach as we slowed
down their requests
to redirect traffic patterns and development.
So I get what you're saying in a perfect world.
We probably could have set up multiple planning areas,
but the way they were approaching it and the way that they
were envisioning their master plan
when we started meeting with them a year ago, it wasn't
possible.
Because as you start closing the streets and changing
developments,
it just pushes traffic in other areas.
So we needed a holistic analysis in order to say, we'll
either support you or we won't.
>> Well, but that's -- to me, that's a very different
approach and --
I mean, that's a presenting problem.
You know, you've got traffic patterns, parking.
Okay, those are pretty finite issues you can sort of get a
grip on.
And so you can address those.
I mean, you can figure out a way to address those without
necessarily having to create this big --
and I don't have a problem with whether it's UNT driven or
whether it's resident driven.
I mean, if a residents -- you know, if a group of residents
in an area want
to create some small area plans that really protect the
integrity and the culture
of their neighborhood, man, I'm all for it.
And when you look at these three, there's some pretty vast
differences.
Regardless of what -- if UNT was doing nothing, this still
may be something that's appropriate
to look at because they're very -- they're vastly different
.
I mean, there's been people advocating in Owsley Park to
tear it down and build more density.
Well, that's in total opposition to maintaining a
residential feel here.
So my observation is that if this gets split up into
thinking about these in more sort of --
not isolated, but segmented groups of this area, I don't
know why -- especially --
and this may be the opportunity.
If people aren't coming to the meetings and they don't have
an interest anymore,
I think we need to take another look at this and go, okay,
well, if we're going to be breaking this
up, then maybe we need to make sure that we've got people
who have --
you know, what interest do they have?
Somebody who has an interest in Section 2, they may not
have much of an interest in 1 or 3.
And they may have a very different approach of ideals, of
solutions, of those kind of things.
So, I mean, this may be the best thing that's happened
because it's given us an opportunity
to sort of reengage -- not restart, like start over with a
whole new committee.
But if we're going to do this, then let's make sure that we
're doing it as efficiently,
effectively with the stakeholders in mind because whoever's
in District 3,
if they don't have an idea of what's going -- the people in
1, if they live there,
they're going to have a certain, you know, vision for that.
That doesn't mean they can't look at 2 and 3 and have a
vision.
But our whole goal was to get people who have a vested
interest and a stake --
not a financial interest, but a cultural, a home interest,
a neighborhood interest.
So that's my thought on it.
I just think this gives us an opportunity to, you know, ret
ool or, you know, have some new direction.
But yes, Council Member Hutsbeth.
>> Yeah. No, I could not -- I could not imagine rolling it
back.
And I think they do -- the three subsections connect
because if --
for example, if you go more density in Seamant City, which
then allows you
to create a green space buffer before you get to Hickory or
allows a grander entrance
to that historical district, then that's a win.
That more density there that then creates a block and a
half or so green space density
and allows UNT to create an entrance from that west side
kind of north on Bonnie Bray is a value.
And I think you -- and just organically, when you're
traveling, if I'm going from IHOP to Oak Street,
I'm not going down Avenue C because it's 20 miles per hour.
I'm then going down through Section 3 here down by Eagle
and kind of circumventing --
>> I'm not saying redo it.
>> No, no.
>> I'm not saying redo it.
>> No, no, but I think they interconnect.
You travel it all the same, right?
I mean, and I think --
>> But the connection is different.
The connection -- if you're talking about a connection, you
're talking about buffers,
you're talking about travel ways, but what we're talking
about here is development.
We're talking about how do these neighborhoods develop?
Are there distinctive differences in these neighborhoods?
The connectivity, I totally agree with you.
I totally agree with you.
But you've got to -- but they're -- philosophically, they
're different.
The commonality is UNT.
UNT is right in the center of those three areas right there
.
So I'm not saying undo it.
I'm not saying unwind it.
I'm just saying that if you're going to separate it -- not
separate, but if you're going
to put it into sub-areas, let's just make sure that we have
the people in place,
which we have people in place now.
We have some that may not be participating much anymore,
and we need to make sure --
this is important.
I mean, this is important.
This is -- we don't want to try to just willy -- nobody's
saying we're willy-nillying this,
but this is important to get this right and to have the
people involved who truly care
about this area and have a stake in it, who can know the --
they know the connectivity,
because they're driving it, they're walking it, they're
biking it.
So I'm not saying let's see them as three separate ones.
I'm saying let's ensure that we understand that they have
very different needs
and they have very different development kind of futures,
but you're right.
The connectivity is the same.
So no, let me make sure I'm very clear on this.
I'm not saying we disband the committee and we start all
over.
That's not what I'm saying.
What I am saying is this is a chance to have a fresh look.
Have a fresh look.
>> Yeah, no, and I think you're spot on, and I -- you know,
but I don't know --
the path there means do you start reevaluating who an
individual member --
>> No.
>> -- appointed?
Then I don't know how you get to -- I don't know the path
forward to --
>> Right.
>> I'm trying to catch the vision of the path forward, if
you could help.
>> Well, what I did here, which Councilmember Briggs had
brought up, was that, you know,
somebody asked about attendance.
Who asked about attendance?
And that attendance has been -- well, that's another thing.
We don't need 12 people deciding the development of all --
we need people that we've appointed who are committed, who
are working hard and being there
and providing their expertise and their vision to this.
So I think the path forward is if there are people who are
not participating at a level that,
you know -- and if you're meeting every week, you're -- I
mean, that's --
I was surprised about that.
I didn't hear about that.
So if people don't want to participate, it gives someone an
opportunity to maybe say, hey,
I mean, if they're saying I don't want to participate
anymore, what do you do?
Do you just leave it vacant?
Or do you get a chance to nominate someone else?
>> I think you signed up for it once a month, and then it
got --
>> Right.
>> -- kicked up on you midstream.
So I don't know how you -- I don't know how you do --
>> It's true.
>> Because when I'm reaching out to someone and I'm saying
it meets once a month --
>> It's a good point.
>> -- and then all of a sudden they throw it in fast, I
didn't get a chance.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, I just heard about it when I was reading the
backup, you know, so that it got --
>> Right.
>> -- that it got fast-tracked.
And so there was no, hey, council, this is happening.
It really was, you know, just, oh, by the way, this
happened, you know.
And I'll tell you, I don't know -- I could be shooting
myself in the foot.
I don't know who assigned 623 Newton to this committee, but
I could have saved them.
I could have saved an appointment.
>> Oh, boy.
>> I mean, you know what I mean?
>> That's not -- that's not going to happen.
>> That's the emotion going into it, right?
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, that's not, to your point, that's not -- I mean,
I could --
there's a clear track record that you can make a decision,
you know,
and that's just -- I'm absolutely biased in that regard.
>> Sure.
>> But I'm just telling you, I think it's important to
evaluate --
>> Right.
>> -- and look at it holistically in reality versus, you
know, this sounds great, you know.
And so I look forward to the conversation with the path
forward is I --
the city manager knows how I feel about consultants driving
--
I mean, I'm absolutely sensitive to that, you know, but we
can't go on eight years,
you know, at a snail's pace hoping we get to it.
I mean, there's got to be -- City Hall West is -- it's --
we end every meeting with, hey,
what's next, staff kind of prompts us and do those things,
but we got to --
I mean, it's got to keep moving.
I don't know if every week is the deal.
I mean, I don't know if my appointee has signed up for
every week.
So I think there's some --
>> Sure.
>> -- some -- we got to get it back normalized.
>> I've been trying to get in here for a year.
>> Okay.
>> Well, and I just want to offer a couple of pieces here.
So in the initial meeting, we had great participation and
it waned
because of any number of factors.
And it wasn't necessarily the frequency of the meetings
because we were losing attendees
by virtue of some of the discontent, the feelings from the
consultants.
So that's why it is that we became a little bit more
aggressive in the pursuit
of getting the committee involvement, getting that
participation.
I will say it's very positive now.
And I will say those that are probably that were most
opposed
to what were happening are the greatest champions and have
been supporters.
And so last week, the weather was horrid.
The power went out in our building.
It was pouring, lightning, and we had -- I think we ended
up with 13 people.
Is that correct?
13 of the committee members.
So I think that says something especially when we know that
we've lost four or five.
So a path forward is to continue to do what the committee
is asking to do.
So we're supporting what the committee is wanting to do.
I will say that their work for the last couple of weeks
have been doing a SWOT analysis
and they started with area two and area three.
So looking at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and
threats and saying, what do we do?
What -- looking at those areas and saying, here's an
approach.
And then we want to distill all three of the areas and then
say, well, kind of from an overview,
but not lose -- be sensitive to the fact of the uniqueness
of those three areas, to your point.
And I think that we ultimately can, as staff, go out and
try to solicit or engage some
of those people that might be in area two and three because
that's our lowest attendance as far
as most of those committee members are in area one.
So we have very little participation from area two and
three.
So we can provide some names for council to consider or
council obviously can provide those.
So we need to fill the gaps in the vacancy of those that
may have participated once or twice
or have moved or just no longer wish to participate.
I know that there was correspondence that Councilman Mulvig
aray's ultimately appointee said,
well, she's not here.
I'm no longer a participant.
And wherever that came from.
So I think we can offer some things going forward.
>> Sure. No, that's fine.
>> And there is positive momentum and some real work being
performed by some very dedicated people.
And I don't know if it helps to hear from the Chair on that
.
>> No, no, we're going to hear from the Chair.
Absolutely.
Yeah. One question I have is, though, we've been meeting
now for how many --
well, I've only been in two or three, but the Development
Code Review Committee.
So obviously, zoning, the zoning map, is that part of this
discussion?
>> It is.
>> Okay.
>> It is.
>> Okay.
>> We're taking a holistic approach so they understand kind
of the present,
the future, and what they want the future to look like.
So we've talked, as a matter of fact, about UNT.
We've got a piece of property.
The committee asked about that piece of property if it
could be a park.
So we had some conversations last week with UNT, and I
think they were somewhat receptive
to the fact that maybe some short-term lease of that
property to some organization.
So, I mean, some things are -- very positive things are
happening,
and I think some outcomes.
>> Sure.
>> And again, without the consultant.
So we're going to bring the consultant back as far as how
it is
that we present this in a different format.
But the reality is the committee is doing some very
wonderful work,
and I think that's important to note.
>> Where are you in the presentation so we can hear from
the Chair?
>> Maybe we just really --
>> Why everything's still fresh.
>> Just one slide, just really --
>> Okay, yeah.
>> -- summarizing what Scott just said and what we're
talking about.
Vision statement, which we are working towards, one, two,
and three, and overall,
sub-years and overall as well.
The plan itself will have guiding principles, goals, and
then recommendations,
and then ultimately an implementation strategy on how to
implement those recommendations.
So that's where we're going.
We're going forward with these items, and then public open
house where we can get more input,
feedback from the general public, and then hopefully to you
all
in the near future with the public hearing item.
>> What is the timeframe for identifying people who may not
want to participate
and then trying to beef back up --
>> We can do that, yeah, as soon as possible.
>> No, I'm just wondering, have you all talked about that
or is this sort of a novel idea,
I mean not novel, but is this the first you've really
thought about maybe doing that?
>> We've talked about it, talked to Patrice earlier this
afternoon about it,
letting her know that that's what we wanted to reach out to
those
that have not participated as much as we hope, and then
hopefully we can either --
>> Encourage them to come or --
>> -- come back or if not, replace them with others that
can provide input.
>> Okay, great.
>> Definitely.
>> All right.
>> Patrice?
>> Madam Chair?
>> Okay, whoa, I almost forget.
Patrice Lyke, 1109 Eagan, current chair of the, what I like
to call the OG, SAP.
Kim Kibben is the current vice chair.
Some of the things that I want to address, some of the
concerns that I'm hearing is that, yes,
we started out with a larger committee, absolutely.
We had good attendance, the first one, the first two
meetings, but people trickle off.
What we did then learn is that meeting once a month wasn't
cutting it for a lot of people
because we discovered once we got together, we have a deep
bench on that subcommittee.
We have a lot of people with experience on boards, on
commissions.
We have a lot of people who have our experience with zoning
, who know the DDC,
who have been on the Denton 2030 plan.
So as we're listening to the consultants, absolutely, the
consultants are useful.
They can bring us information.
They did the overview of the district.
So that we can look at our acreage.
We look at income.
We look at single family versus rental, all those things.
So all this is good information for us, but we also
discovered that we are the boots on the ground.
And so, and like I said, meeting once a month was not
cutting it because we are talking
and then we are not talking for a month.
Then we get back together and we don't talk.
So that's how we discovered that we needed to take the
reins for this particular committee.
Use everybody's expertise.
Use the consultants for, you know, finding information for
us, finding models that work
in other cities for areas, and use them as a resource,
but not as the driver for this particular plan.
Now, some of the things we also noticed is that absolutely
the residents who were chosen
to be on this committee are predominantly in what we did
have to break out as sub area one.
And that's just the nature of this entire 1,000 plus acres
of this small area.
And sub area one has the residents.
We have the long term deeply rooted residents.
Sub area two, sub area three both have a more transient
population.
But also I feel like the residents in sub area one are very
aware that anything that we want
to keep out of our neighborhood, right, any of our NIMBY
policies mean that we're going to,
it's going to get squashed.
It's going to get squeezed out of sub area one, sure.
But sub area two is going to get some of our problems.
Sub area three is going to get some of our problems.
We don't want that.
Well, most of us in the residents in sub area one have been
in there.
I've lived in my house for 22 years.
And I'm also, and I teach at UNT, so I'm super aware and
sensitive to the area.
And I don't want sub area two to falter
because I don't want something happening in my backyard.
I don't want sub area three to falter because I don't want
something.
But they do end up, these three areas do absolutely end up
interconnected.
Because truth, yes, if we are going to, in sub area one,
absolutely, I'm not going to lie to you,
we do want to keep SROs out of our sub area.
Are they going to go somewhere?
Yes. But how are they going to develop in sub area two?
How will they develop in sub area three?
I have an investment in that just from the long term.
So, yes, you know, that is the current resident, you know,
demographic.
And like I said, we really do hope we don't dump our
problems on these other areas.
All of these areas, of course, are affected by UNT.
And so, it's all part of that jigsaw puzzle that UNT binds
us together.
It separates us as well, but it also binds all those areas
together.
One thing I did, like I said, the consultants are super
handy
with giving us demographic information.
One thing that we're all, I believe, very concerned about
is while we're thinking
about how development, I know Mayor Watz, you know, you're
saying this is development.
We have to, we're going to guide development, absolutely.
And one of the things that I discovered because I can do
math,
despite the fact that I teach English.
But this area is only 2% of the overall acreage that Denton
, you know,
spreading out Denton consists of.
But it contains 18% of Denton's population.
So, it's a dense area, but it's also a dense area
that currently does not have a grocery store.
So, there are a lot of these, you know, high altitude yet,
you know, on the ground kinds
of concerns that we, I think, are hoping to address.
And if we are not addressing them in subarea one, we're
hoping to address them
in subarea two and subarea three.
Now, in terms of, you know, kicking up meeting schedule,
absolutely.
We had to.
We have a lot of questions.
We have a lot of discussion.
We started to meet on Thursday evenings, 530 to 730.
And we take up at least, we take up easily those two hours.
Staff has been fabulous with providing the guidance for our
discussion.
We've been doing the SWOT analyses.
And we've been workshopping vision statements.
So, we haven't said, oh, here's the vision statement for
subarea one.
Now, subarea two and three better just fall in line with
those two.
We workshop, we're leaving it as a rough draft.
We're thinking about subarea two, subarea three.
So, we can go back and retool all our visions for those sub
areas.
And then they can come together and form an overarching
vision for the entire,
yes, small area plan.
Any questions?
>> Any questions for the Chair?
So, you all are meeting once a week?
>> Yes. We're planning to meet once a week.
And that's just going to go on our schedule.
And yes, as Chair, and I know the co-chair agrees with me,
we'd be delighted to have more participants.
We have a core set of 13 to 14 people who show up every
time and show up on time.
They're there.
They're ready to work.
And then we have people that I know we could identify as
being there once.
And no, we've never seen again.
>> So, of those 13 or 14, how many would you say reside in
one, two, and three?
>> I'm -- let's see.
Of the 13, what, maybe four?
Help me count.
Four of us --
>> Three quarters.
>> Yeah.
>> So, about nine?
Eight to nine?
>> Yes. Yeah.
>> And we have people who own businesses who in the area
who also are showing up.
And UNT has had a representative.
Their student government shows up regularly.
And DCTA is showing up regularly.
So -- and we have a couple of representatives from the
cycling community
that are showing up regularly.
So, in terms of overall representation, I think out of
those 13 to 14 people,
we're getting some good representation.
But it's always good to have, you know, more perspectives.
Because we are lacking the perspective of transient
residents.
And I don't mean transient in a bad way.
>> No. It's transient housing.
It's more of a transient --
>> Transient housing.
>> Transitional neighborhoods.
>> Right.
>> They're just -- so -- and that's a good segue.
Because when you said that, you know, our main goal being
the residents of district --
district one.
Sorry, council member, but it's not district one.
>> Sub area.
>> Sub area one.
>> Uh-huh.
>> Is we don't want SROs.
So, we're going to move the things that we don't want
necessarily out to, you know,
where -- they have to go somewhere.
So, what about, you know, either area two or area three?
Totally get that.
>> Right. And the important part about that is that we're
not --
we don't want to do that to the detriment of sub area two
or sub area three.
We have to figure out a way for them to be contextually
appropriate
and be the thing needed in that area.
>> And I can appreciate that.
So, I think that the way that happens is because someone
who maybe has more of a --
you said you have a vested interest -- I mean, you've been
living in your house for 20 something.
You obviously have a vested interest in that area in sub
area one.
So, people who have been in sub area three or two, whether
they be either residential
like yourself or let's say that they're more commercial.
They're more from a development perspective or something
like that, that they're going
to have a different approach and a different set of view
points and ideas.
And so, if those aren't there to help with what you're
trying to say is, well,
we want to make sure it's contextual.
We want to make sure it's this.
We want to make sure it's that.
If there's not someone who can give some feedback to that,
well, then it tends to go the way of,
you know, the people who are in sub area.
I'm just saying I'm all for, as you said, trying to find a
better way to include people
who are in those sub areas who have the same level of
interest from their perspective,
whatever that perspective is, as that you have from your
perspective having lived
in that neighborhood and seen that, having fought the
challenges of people coming in
and having to say, hey, this is probably good somewhere,
but it's not good here.
And that's all I'm saying is that there's a greater mix of
viewpoints and perspectives
that would help, I think, create a better solution.
So, I think we have an opportunity to do that.
>> Yeah, we have.
Well, there was, we had a developer who showed up in 2017.
And we haven't seen him since 2018.
>> Okay.
>> So, we did have a member of the development community on
the committee who, yeah,
showed up when we were meeting at the village church.
And we had, and we discontinued seeing him.
We have moved some venues.
We were over at Highland Baptist Church, again, just to try
it.
And we had our van tour.
So, we've been trying to mix it up a little bit in venue,
meeting the venues.
Everybody has been apprised of those meetings and of the
van tour.
But, and I don't remember who the developer is.
But we had, early on we had one, but that developer has not
shown up.
>> Yeah, and I don't know if who you're speaking of has any
kind
of connection to these sub areas.
But I'm hearing, we're agreeing that you desire to have a
little bit more input and feedback
from people who are more directly connected to those sub
areas that would help,
I don't say round out or even out, but provide a more
collaborative discussion in that.
So, I think we have an opportunity if people are just not
participating and they say,
I don't want to participate, then yeah, I mean, we need to.
And so, you all are, you're okay.
You think your committee would be okay with, you know, if
people aren't going to participate
and don't want to, I'm not saying we're kicking people off.
But, I mean, this is important.
I mean, we need, we need people to participate.
>> Right. And I would agree that I would like to see more
voices
from the development community.
I would like that opportunity because, you know, early on
consultants do what consultants do,
which is ask you what is your dream.
>> Right.
>> And that's part of, as I'm saying, you know, we have a
deep bench on our committee.
So, we also could say, we know about what the dream is and
we know that there's reality.
And so, if we did have another voice, some more voices that
were also able to say, well, yes,
you know, that is, we would like to have that particular
Disneyland over here,
but the reality is it's not going to happen.
So, yes, I'd be, you know, happy for more voices to hash
some of that stuff out now
so that when we get to PNZ, we're not watching something
die so that it is lame
by the time it gets to city council.
>> Well, and I thank you and Kim for stepping up and, you
know,
providing the leadership to that committee because the
chair moved on to,
I'm not sure if it's bigger and better things, quite
frankly.
It might be tougher or, I'm not sure.
It sounds like it might be easier compared to what's been
happening.
But, any questions for the chair while we have her here?
I want to give the vice chair an opportunity, if you'd like
to share just a few moments.
I mean, if not, that's okay.
Well, if you are going to speak, you'll need to come to the
mic
because we're televising and they can't hear you.
>> It's something very simple.
>> Okay. Great.
>> Any of you--
>> Oh, no. If you could just, yeah.
>> My name is Kim McKibbin.
I'm the vice chair for this committee.
Any of you that would like to come and see what we're doing
to look at the processes
that we're going through to meet the people who were there
on an ongoing basis to look at any
of the notes that have been taken, the charts that have
been done, the maps that have been drawn on,
the massive amount of information that we've gone through
and looked at to make sure
that exactly what you're saying, you don't want to have
happen,
these tiny little things is not going to happen.
Please come.
Please come to the meetings.
Obviously--
>> But only three of you.
>> Huh?
>> But only three of you.
>> But only three of you at a time or two or three,
whatever the--
>> Right.
>> You can't all come at once.
And listen to what's-- listen to-- well, you know, can't be
in the same places.
So-- but please, send people that you would like to, you
know, listen to the--
it's an open meeting.
We're not doing anything that's secret and there is a lot
of good work being done there
and a true effort to look at what this can be.
And we're very aware of the fact that we're the pilot.
>> Right.
>> This won't be the last small area plan that you have in
Denton.
And we're happy to make the mistakes as the pilot and then
figure
out what not to do next time.
>> Sure. OK.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
>> Mr. Mayor, we'll reach out to each of the committee
members and we'll define those
that are continuing to serve and those that opt not to.
And we'll also provide some recommendations of some
participants.
The developer she referenced is an area too.
I'm certain he would be willing to participate or continue
to participate as well
as we'll look for a communication study that some means
that we can probably reach out
and see if we can just get some general attendance
so folks can participate in the process.
>> Fantastic.
All right.
Questions, comments?
All right.
Seeing none.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
You bet.
Is that it?
We got one more.
Don't move.
>> Nope.
>> OK. We've got one more on our work session reports and
we'll go into closed session.
Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction
regarding the city, hotels,
occupancy tax and sponsorship programs.
>> Mayor, city council, Tony Puenta, director of finance.
First of all, I just want to say that this is a follow up
presentation to one
that we made back on February 27th based on direction that
we get at the time from the council
and I think other direction as well from other
presentations regarding sponsorships.
We did meet on April 26th with the hot committee.
And so what I want to do today is kind of go through just
really quickly and talk
to you a little bit about the hotel occupancy tax programs.
We refer to as the hot program, the proposed hot and
sponsorship committee,
sponsorship program for community events.
Just briefly go through the calendar and then seek your
direction on a couple of items.
So just as a quick reminder before I kind of go through the
guidelines.
And so there is a 13% charge tax on all lodging establish
ments per room.
Seven percent comes to the city and six percent goes to the
state.
This information is not on your -- on this presentation.
I just want to, again, based on what we previously
discussed.
The city does have a hot committee that's made up of three
council members, the mayor,
council member Hutzbed and also council member Gregory who
's the chair are the current members.
Of course, with council member Gregory leaving us, we'll
just have two.
So we'll need to have a third person.
But so anyway, so I wanted to just kind of recap that.
All lodging establishments within the city limits pay these
fees and we monitor those
on a monthly basis or due to the city on a monthly basis.
So just a little bit about the hot program guidelines and
the application.
We did meet with the hot committee and they gave us
approval of the guidelines
and the application for this next year.
We've actually already posted those and have received
applications.
We're kind of going through those applications now.
I did want to mention to you that we did update our
guidelines for two items specifically.
Signage was something that was added, was a category that's
been in state law.
But as we were reviewing the guidelines, it was not part of
the guidelines.
This signage is specific to directing the public to sites
and attractions that are frequented
by guests that are visiting locations in the city.
To date, I believe we've gotten one application that we're
currently reviewing
that has submitted a request for funding in that area.
And so we'll be presenting that to the hot committee at
their next meeting.
In addition to that, we also clarified some language
regarding transportation.
That is transportation that is owned and operated by the
municipality or privately owned
and operated but partially financed by the municipality and
may not be used
for a transportation system that serves the general public.
So this wouldn't be DCTA.
To date, we've not received any applications in that area.
But it is something that's provided in state law.
So we wanted to kind of put that in the application just in
case.
Two items that were of interest to the council previously
that we went back and reviewed.
And so according to state law and also in our hot ordinance
, the contributions of the category
for arts is capped at no more than 15% of the annual
revenue into that fund.
We do have a separate resolution that sets out that at
least 2.4%
of the hot revenue be allocated to public art for fiscal
year or for PY 18,
which is the current fiscal year, we allocated a little bit
over $73,000 to that.
That's overseen by the Public Art Committee.
In addition to that, there was an additional $45,000, one
time that was approved
for some public art at the police department.
For program year 2018, there was total allocation within
this category of 11%
or a little bit over 347,000.
There's approximately another $110,000 that the committee
could have allocated to get to the 15%.
And so the council had asked for us to come back and brief
you on that.
I think there may have been some interest to potentially
allocate more for public art,
all for public art.
So that is something that we'll be asking you today.
If there is direction to do things differently, that you
provide us that direction
so that we can discuss that with the committee.
On the historical side, the historical category,
that has historically been capped at 15%.
That is now capped at -- excuse me, at 50%.
That is now capped at 15%.
State law, once you go over the 125,000 population,
that reduces the cap from 50 to 15%.
Based on our estimated population for 2017, we're already
above that.
And so, again, we believe that the 15% would apply.
For program year '18, we've allocated about 12% within that
category.
So there's approximately $84,000 of additional funding that
could have been provided
within that category to stay within that 15% cap.
So as I mentioned, the HOT Committee met on April 26th.
The committee discussed not just the HOT guidelines and
application,
but we also talked to them a little bit about the sponsors
hips
that are currently managed in the city by three separate
policies.
We talked to the committee about reconstituting that
committee
to the HOT and Sponsorship Committee.
The committee has recommended to the council that the
council consider doing that.
In addition, they also are recommending to the council that
we repeal the three separate
sponsorship policies and create a single policy whereby we
would manage all sponsorships
for community events, and we'll talk a little bit about
those in the next slide.
So in addition to those items, the other item that we
talked about,
because we have four separate funds, actually five separate
funds that are budgeting
for these sponsorships under the guidelines that are
currently set
up with three separate policies, total is about $87,000
that we would set up a zero balance fund
in which these dollars would be contributed to that the HOT
Committee
within make recommendations that would be managed within
that fund.
Any residual money that's left over, if everything isn't
spent, that would be allocated back
out on a pro rata basis to the contributing fund.
But that way, all of these dollars would be managed and
they're a single fund
by a single committee and that the council would then make
recommendations
on that $87,000 that's currently included in the '17-'18
budget,
and there's no proposed changes to that at this time.
>> Okay.
>> Yes, ma'am.
>> Councilmember Ritz has a question.
>> So just for clarification, because I'm trying to
understand.
So right now, that $87,000 for sponsorships that comes out
of the general fund
or different funds like from taxpayers and the ratepayers.
>> Correct.
Correct.
That's in the individual funds right now.
>> Right.
>> Yes, ma'am.
And so this is proposing that it go into the hot committee
but come from hot funds,
which are -- no, so it would still come from the general
fund.
>> It would come from the general fund, the electric fund,
solid waste fund,
and we would aggregate all of those dollars, $87,000 in a
single fund
that the committee would then, based on the applications
that are received,
allocate -- recommend allocating those dollars out to those
events.
And then that would come to the council as part of the
proposed budget for the council,
you know, to make a recommendation or a decision as to
whether or not to approve that.
Very similar to what we do with the hot funds, a complete
separate fund, though.
>> Instead of the different departments choosing who gets
the money, is that --
>> Correct.
Correct.
So --
>> Oh, no, I'm just -- I wasn't in favor of the sponsors
hips anyway.
I guess I just thought by reading this that the money would
come in the same way
and it would just be the sponsorships would be allocated
and use the same kind of process
that the people that are applying for hot funds do.
So --
>> Correct.
I think part of the challenge, council members, that some
of these events
that are being sponsored don't necessarily meet the
guidelines under the hot program
in promoting tourism and the hotel industry.
And so this is a separate avenue that those events would --
you know, could solicit funds from the city is by
submitting an application
under a sponsorship program, which is very similar to what
we do today,
except that those are happening at the individual fund
level.
And also, those sponsorships will be managed by the
individual operating departments.
And so then that removes that management from the operating
departments and moves it
to the finance department, again, where we're used to
dealing with the hot program
and we'll just manage it very similar to that.
>> Council Member Meltzer.
>> I wonder if there's another way to look at the sponsors
hips.
I think it's a little bit different with hot funds, clearly
that's about putting heads in beds.
You know, with the sponsorships, the objective is kind of
an advertising objective, right?
I mean, it's not -- it's certainly not necessarily
attracting tourism,
nor is it specifically kind of philanthropic.
You know, it's really about trying to reach a specific
audience that's relevant for, you know,
a city department with a specific message.
And I wonder if there's some part of the city that has more
that kind of expertise.
I don't know if it's in public affairs or -- you know what
I'm saying?
So the evaluations being made are about is this a good
spend for us to reach our audience?
>> Yeah, I think in theory that it has been explained like
that in the past.
I think that as we've gone through the last couple of
budget sections, though,
there's been concern about how much money is being spent on
sponsorship.
You know, the council has gone ahead and approved smaller
budgets that move forward.
There was a concern -- the reason I initially suggested
this be combined with the hot funds
because the rationale and the way that we're critiquing the
funds,
it's somewhat arbitrary to begin with.
However, and we just felt like whatever rationale that the
hot fund committee is using
on some of these events, it probably makes sense to apply a
similar rationale
in the sponsorship area.
The staff really, I think, is hard pressed to make strong
arguments that they're benefiting the --
from an advertising perspective.
I think this has just been something that's been
historically a way for them to get the word out,
perhaps educate folks to what DME might do or the solid
waste department might do.
But it's really been more of a philanthropic supplemental
budget.
And once we got the policy direction from council to go
ahead and skinny down the budgets,
but they were comfortable -- a majority were comfortable
where this landed,
the methodology to assess these requests is not all that
different than the hot funds.
And so I just felt like if we're going to go ahead and move
the -- you know, keep this program,
it belongs in the elected official's hands rather than
having staff come up
and get beat up every year.
I mean, it really is an important thing that -- to keep
those philosophies somewhat similar.
And it's the priority of the council whether they want to
keep the sponsorship programs moving forward.
So that and we were also getting a lot of questions about,
well,
how much did one organization get versus another
organization?
And is one organization getting money out of the sponsors
hips and also hot funds?
And it's a real clean way to sort of answer all those
questions and put a magnifying glass on it.
>> Councilmember Ruegel?
>> Well, and I think part of it also was that there are
some of the requests that come
in that probably would warrant some type of city
participation,
but maybe wouldn't fit as well under hot funds, wouldn't
fit as well under the category of heads
and beds, but there's still an interest in the city
participating.
And therefore, there would be those other avenues.
And so I think that the idea was to help provide those
kinds of sponsorships
with the most appropriate source of funding and that that
group could help do that.
>> And again, these sponsorships are occurring now.
They're governed by these three separate policies.
You know, the joint policy that we would recommend would
just be, you know,
basically keeping the same processes that we have now but
under a single policy.
In talking with the committee, the committee felt very
comfortable in the recommendations.
It did direct staff to go ahead and begin to notify current
and prospective recipients.
So we've done that.
We've identified those recipients that have received
sponsorships
over the last year to two years.
We've notified them.
We've placed the application and guidelines.
And we are currently going through applications that we've
received
from organizations out in the community.
So just to touch a little bit about the sponsorship program
, again,
all this language already exists within the three policies
that we have.
The purpose would be to support nonprofit or civic-minded
programs or organizations
that further a charitable cause, economic or community
growth, or serve a public interest.
To be eligible, they must be a nonprofit, a Texas
corporation,
federally exempt organization, or an educational
institution.
And the requirements are that they be able to execute a
contract with the city.
I will point out that under the current policy and what we
would come back
to you as a recommendation is that request below $2,500
that those contracts could be executed by the city manager.
Again, very similar to what we have today.
Anything above that amount would then come back to the city
council
to award a contract in that particular arena.
So to touch base just with you on the calendar and kind of
next steps,
you know, based on council direction today, we, as I
mentioned,
we are receiving applications, have received applications
through the 1st of June for both hot applications and
sponsorships
where staff is going through those now.
We'll be providing that to the committee around June 21st.
And then our hope is that by August 2nd, in conjunction
with the city manager's
proposed budget, that we would bring back to the council
their recommendation for for the hot fund and also this
this other separate fund that we would call the sponsorship
fund.
So what we're asking the council today is to provide any
direction to us
regarding allocating a different percentage for public art.
I will mention to you that we have a number of recipients
currently
that receive we have nine recipients.
That receive hot funds within that arts category.
If the council was wanting to allocate the full 15 percent
to public art,
we would recommend that we provide some type of notice
and either implement next year or at least identify those
nine now,
let them know what the council has directed and that they
relook at their budget submission and their application and
potentially craft that.
In some cases, some of these organizations
may have general fund dollars that are paying for
additional advertising,
other eligible expenses.
And so they could redirect those dollars to the art
component
and still some and resubmit that amount under another
category
within the hot program.
On the historical designation is the same type of issue
here.
We do have three recipients
that are requesting
funding within that historical category.
If the council is wanting to designate that full 15 percent
for historical cultural justice purposes, I know that
economic development
is working on a presentation on that particular issue.
If the council is wanting to reserve that for that purpose,
then again,
we would ask that that we that we be allowed to to work
with these recipients
either redo the current year application or make make it
effective
for the following year so that when we provide the
guidelines and the application,
we can let let these recipients know
what categories they will not be able to submit requests
for.
So I'll kind of leave that there for now and then we can
talk about the sponsorship.
OK, so you're basically asking for direction on the
historical,
the public art and the sponsorship program.
Council members. Yes, that's my baby.
I'm OK with both of those changes.
I do. I do have a question.
Did the 2018 guidelines for the hot funds change at all or
are they just the same carried over?
It's the same. It's the same carried over except for the
signage component
and the transportation. OK.
Yes, Council Member Hudson.
Yeah, no, I wouldn't.
I wouldn't want to change.
I just think, again, I'm hypersensitive to the fact that we
're taking money from hotels
and and for that,
we should incentivize
heads and beds type activities, not to say art doesn't do
that, but it's it's not
it's not as direct as I'd like.
I mean, obviously, there's exceptions to that.
But just as a general principle, understanding it just it's
an application process at that point.
I couldn't get behind doing that because I don't
I'd rather allocate the money to events, that sort of thing
that would actually
you can track that that has a hard line to it that I can
then go back to the hotels and say, hey,
this was this is how those dollars were used.
Here's the net result for your industry.
Thank you. Is that the only way that public art can be
funded
or it's just that it can be funded by hot funds?
It can be funded
under the public art policy, certain geo funded projects
also
generate additional dollars in the bond program.
And so I believe it's vertical construction on vertical
construction projects.
A percentage of that can be designated for public art under
the policy.
That's where the four hundred thousand in 2012 bond program
came from.
There was additional monies in 2014.
In addition to that, if the council would want to fund
public art
within the general fund, other avenues, those could also be
sources of funding for that.
Because I'm you know, I'm inclined to
agree with Councilmember Hutsmith that the intention of hot
funds is to
directly drive people to come into the city.
But it's not to say that, you know,
that I want to change what public art gets.
Councilman Ryan.
Well, if I'm not mistaken, I'm seeing that currently it's
at 11 percent.
So we're not talking about that large of a delta on there.
But I do like the idea of reserving the full 15 percent on
historical
for in cultural districts while we are still trying to
decide
what's going to happen with City Hall West.
I think that's a potential place to fund that, that it will
be
potentially have a venue for events that would draw people
into the city that would put heads in beds.
OK, so I want to make sure I understand what you just said.
When I hear reserve because
the question is on the public art, do we want to go to the
how much was the percentage?
Fifteen, fifteen percent.
Right now, we're not doing up to that. Correct.
So do we want to move to that level and then we'll make it
effective
fiscal year 2020, give everybody notice and the funding and
so forth.
So the historical.
So we're not doing any historical right right now.
We are. There's three recipients that receive funding
within that
that category. And what's the percentage of the slide?
Escaped me. So right now we're allocating about 12 percent
of the 15. So about three hundred and seventy three
thousand dollars
in historical is going to three separate recipients.
OK, so that's where I thought what I heard you say.
You wanted to reserve the 15 percent for X, X, X, when
right now
we're already funding people up to 12 percent.
So maybe for that delta three percent, three percent.
You're saying reserve that eighty eight four thousand
dollars.
OK, to kind of sure put people on notice at that eighty
four thousand.
Most likely could end up being used as as a funding source
to force
City Hall West, depending on what the committee decides
and how it moves forward through council and OK.
I don't have any issue with the 15 percent for public art
because it's an eighty four thousand dollar delta.
I could go either way on that.
I mean, if the consensus of the council is to go ahead and
allocate that up
simply because I know if City Hall moves forward,
see how West moves forward with a well, almost did it again
.
Almost knocked out man. That's a lot more full water right
there.
I'd have been buying you a laptop.
If that if that were to move forward with some major
funding requirements,
that's probably going to be something that.
I think the grand scheme of things, it's going to be fairly
small
compared to the impact to that particular budget is going
to be fairly small
or minimal compared to even just a eighty four thousand
split,
let's say evenly between these three organizations.
So I can go either way.
Don't have a real objection to reserving it,
but I don't have any real opposition to putting it off.
So and then as far as the sponsorship program,
I think that, you know, is that have we approached that yet
?
We haven't talked about that yet.
It was OK. Sorry. Go ahead.
On that issue, I'm wondering
if some of the money from the hot funds
were to be directed towards City Hall West.
It could be under art or it could be under historical
because if if City Hall West is being used to promote
art studios and art performances,
then it could be under that category.
It also could be under historical if we're trying to do
some restoration
or some things like that.
So it would seem to me that if we said we're going to
reserve the full 15
percent in those categories and notify these
different groups that are already getting money,
then we're basically saying we're inviting you to come in
and apply for the full amount.
And which would leave
no money in either category
if the council wanted to use some of the money in either
or both categories to help
find some of the work to be done on City Hall West.
So I would say don't make the reserve.
Don't reserve those amounts.
Don't notify those groups at this time.
Leave it as it is so that there's more flexibility
for decision making for the council.
So let me make sure I understood that.
You're just saying leave the status quo the way it is.
But so if somebody if we wanted to make the decision for
the 15 percent,
we can do it. OK. Got you.
You can fill in that money.
You could you could do it.
And you could direct that money towards a project that
is an initiative of the councils.
Yeah. All right.
Well, anybody else want to weigh in on that?
We what I'm hearing right now is
you wanted to go ahead and allow the.
Increase in the 15 percent, is that correct?
On both of them.
There's a lot of money that goes in into hot funds.
And I know that each budget year we're looking at ways to
try to fund things.
And sometimes we're like, well, you know, could that be
funded with hot funds?
And sometimes it's not there.
So I think there's an opportunity here.
And public art is more than just, you know,
it encompasses a lot and it can bring people to Denton
and it can put heads in beds.
So I look forward to economic developments
presentation on as well the historical and cultural
district,
because I think that we are not thinking
out of the box here on things that can be funded through
these.
OK. Council member Hudson.
I think I think that I'd invite anyone
that that echoes that sentiment to watch or go look at the
minutes
for the Hot Funds Committee, because there's my first time
to sit in it
last year and it's in its eye opening.
And so sitting with Councilman McGregor, the requests are I
mean, Tony,
what's the number the request versus the dollars available?
Because right off the top of the bat, you get the CBB
that's going to lop off million one, two or three. Right.
So million one, two, three out the door at go.
Then then what's left versus the request?
I think I think elsewhere, we generally get in excess of
the,
you know, three million dollars in hot fund revenue that we
get.
And so the committee generally,
you know, stays well within the projected revenue
that staff has for that fund.
This past year, there was a a one time drawdown for a
couple of projects,
but those were kind of one time projects.
The fund does have a foot balance, about two point two
million
at the end of of seven nine thirty seventeen.
And so kind of based on that fund balance,
the committee felt that allocating some additional money
for public art,
the committee events there, there was no item that escapes
me now
that again, but generally we get well in excess of three
million dollar
of worth of requests. Right.
And so I think that's the you have the.
Black Film Festival that I asked for, whatever, let's say
they ask for 50,000
and we're giving them 10, you know, because it is just that
high demand.
So there is not this I mean, it's it
it is more daunting than you would think outside looking in
. And.
You have to justify those knows
and to take away, I can't justify a no for art
when there's I want to give the community market a lot more
money.
I want to give Black Film Festival a lot more money.
And I think there's and there's some other needs in my
estimation.
And I think I think a few meetings back,
Councilman Gregory was was spot on when he said it is it
becomes subjective.
At some point, you can you can analyze the data all you
want,
but at some point it becomes subjective.
And so for me personally, it's just hard to one.
If the hotels are volunteering the money, that's great.
Then I'm willing to kind of take those educated risk.
But just because they don't have a say so in it,
it's hard for me to get there.
And I don't think there's this I mean, it is absolutely
kill or be killed in that room.
So it is it is it is difficult.
And it's difficult afterwards because because you get that
you get the questions
you get, hey, why didn't this happen?
Or I requested 90,000 and you gave me 10.
And and and so your direction.
Yeah.
You don't want to get the higher.
No. But I think again, this is three times.
So I'm coming down with something.
But but I think I think Dalton has a point that if we
decide to go there later,
then then you're there and you've not set this this table
for,
hey, we're going to move forward something else.
And then, oh, by the way, we're going to we're going to
transition on you.
So I think there's something to be said for that.
What I'm hearing is.
So.
Well, the way I look at it is to go ahead and reserve it
for now to block it out.
And if we decide down the road, we don't want to use those
funds
for a particular project, they are available and we can
hand out more.
It's people will be happier because there's more available.
But if you're letting them know in advance that there's a
strong possibility
that these may be this portion of the funds may be going
away.
So when you're requesting 90,000 and you're getting 10,
that you might only get 9500
next year because a portion of that may go a different
direction.
I think it's you're better off.
I see it as more conservative to let them know that that is
a.
There's a strong possibility that they're not going to get
to get that
or that to plan to not get it.
There's also the possibility that they will
that if you just leave it there, you don't warn them that.
You could change it at a moment's notice.
I don't know if that makes my response is in a way you just
said,
I'm trying to think through this because you're talking
about reserve in another word.
You're saying.
If we reserve it, let's just use that term.
But we don't allocate it because what Councilmember Gregory
is saying is,
why don't we just leave the status quo if we want to
allocate it up to 15 percent
in any given year for any given project, we can do that.
If not, if it's not spent, it just comes.
It just flows down to the fund balance.
What you're saying is, let's reserve it.
If we don't allocate it, number one, it flows to the fund
balance.
If we do allocate it, we still have to let these people
know that
this doesn't mean you're going to get this every year.
We may decide that there's something that's coming along
that warrants
this additional funding or a higher priority than what we
're doing.
Is that it?
I don't know if that captured the essence of what you said.
Yeah, and I guess if I were to use an example, and I don't
like using this example
because I've fought against it, but several councils ago,
there was a large
portion of the hot funds that was set aside for the
convention center when it
was going to be a city owned convention center.
That's part of why we have the buildup we have today is we
haven't worked our
way back down out of that, but they were trying to set
aside three
quarters of a million dollars every year just for upkeep on
that facility.
But they warned the community that was receiving the hot
funds that that could
happen in advance.
And that's what I'm getting at.
So let's give them, give them fair warning so that they're
not planning on getting,
you know, most of them get a, you know, three to 8%
increase, three to 10%
increase every year.
So, Hey, look, there's a possibility that you're, you know,
we're going to set
this off to the side and you need to work with what, what
you have been
getting that continue to get that increase.
So I guess I, I'm not confused, but let's say this year, if
we wanted to
allocate 15% of the, all the way up to 15% for public art,
and if we wanted to
allocate all the way up to 15% for historical, we can do
that.
Yes, we can do it.
So we're not reserving anything.
We can still do it.
I mean, what you're simply saying is do we go ahead and
carve that out?
Not for the purposes of allocating it because we can
allocate it every year.
Am I missing something?
I mean, help me understand the distinction between, well,
in, in what I'm
seeing up here is that starting in 2020.
So we're looking at a couple of years down the road.
So we're going to inch our way into this.
Well, no, well, that's on the reserve part, but, but, and
that's not correct me
if I'm wrong, this, this season, if we wanted to allocate
the three members of
that committee to recommend to council 15% for the public
art recipients to go
up to 15%, the historical that $84,000, if we wanted to
allocate that to them,
they re if they requested it, we can do that today.
You can, yes, today we can.
And, but what you're saying is in 2020, we're saying that's
the drop dead date.
We're not going to, we're going to reserve it to not so
much for allocation,
but for almost non allocation, except for something that
might be coming up
different, giving them proper notice.
And I think what that does, it allows us to, to let our
current recipients know
that, you know, within that category, when they're
submitting their request is
to not submit any request within the, within the art
component or within the
historical component either, because again, if the council
directs that all of
that, all of that would go to public arts or all of that
would go to historical,
they would not be able to submit requests within those
categories.
Okay.
Well then I was confused in the sense of when you say
reserve it, you're saying
pull it out to where people can't ask for an allocation in
those categories that
we're saying, no, we're going to reserve it for some other
project that is deemed
more worthy and to build up a balance somewhere or use it
for something.
Now, now I think if the committee, if the council decides
to do that,
we can do an internal designation very similar to what we
did with the
convention center to say this portion of the fund balance
is designated for some
future historical cultural project.
Okay.
I think I, I mean,
we're talking about how much money, 84,000 and what else?
Well, 15% currently is about 450,000 in each category,
assuming
that, that no recipients would be, you know, would be
getting any of that funding.
Well, I'm just going to say this.
When this council decides to pass a policy where nobody can
ask for public art
money out of hot funds, if that's what I'm hearing, the
only, the, if, if the
council decided to give 15% to public art, that would go to
the public art
committee instead of the 2.4%.
2.4% is the minimum amount that can go to public art.
So then we would just change that to 15% or the council.
But that's by our code.
Correct.
That's by our resolution.
Correct.
Okay.
Okay.
I've heard from one, two, three, four.
I'm still deciding any of y'all have any comments on this
either way?
I was misunderstanding.
Okay.
Yeah, I was too on the, on the arts portion of it.
Okay.
So let's, let's see if we can't try to restart this.
So you're, you're asking, do we want to reserve the full 15
% of public
art and the full 15% of historical starting in 2020, the 15
% would go
only to the public art committee.
Whereas they're only getting 2.7% now, which is 25,000.
I can't remember what it is.
25,000.
So other people have applied for that particular category.
Category.
And so we're saying you can't apply for that category
anymore.
This goes strictly to the public art committee.
Correct.
All right.
So the historical portion, who's getting that now?
So currently we have the Denton County office of history
and culture.
Okay.
Uh, the firefighters museum.
Okay.
And there's also the, uh, the city square maintenance
program that is
funded out of the historical component.
Okay.
So if we reserve it, then that's saying it will be reserved
for a future
historical slash cultural district that we've sort of, that
we've just either
initiated or begun the process of how do we do that?
There'll be a discussion in the future with the council on
that.
So then that money goes away.
So these three organizations that you've just described,
they, they would lose
that funding because it would be reserved for this other
specific purpose
entity or specific purpose.
Correct.
And, or they could, or they could redo their applications.
If they're able to, and request that same money out of some
other category,
generally speaking, it would be, um, advertising would be
an example.
Sure.
Okay.
Um, the, the one program would be the square maintenance
program.
Um, again, I think that one would be a challenge to, to
request within
some other category within the hot funds.
And so, uh, likely that would turn into some type of
supplemental
request, uh, for general fund funding.
Okay.
So customer Ryan.
Well, I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question, because I think that's a
good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
I think that's a good question.
So it sounds like, as much as I know Council Member Hutzpah
hates to admit it, that the
direction may be from the wise old sage, which is Council
Member Gregory just saying just
sort of keep the status quo the way it is.
Sorry, I've got to get a couple of zingers in there before
you leave.
Never mind.
OK, so it sounds like the direction may be keep the status
quo and then we'll sort of
deal with it as we move forward and if the cultural
district gets created, we'll figure
it out.
Or public art, we'll figure it out.
We can do that.
OK, all right, fantastic.
Sponsorship program.
Oh, we still got another one.
OK, all right.
So the recommendation here would be to reconstitute the HOT
Committee into the HOT and Sponsorship
Committee.
They would oversee the sponsorships under a single policy.
We would repeal the existing three policies and again
utilize a zero balance fund to manage
that $87,000 approximately, you know, in the aggregate that
it would be managed by the
finance department within very similar guidelines that we
have currently for the HOT program.
OK, all right.
Thoughts on that?
I think Councilmember Brix.
Yeah, I have a few questions.
So can an organization apply for both?
Can they apply for HOT funds and the sponsorship?
Yes, ma'am.
OK.
So on the sponsorship program, will we have I didn't look
at the application.
Will there be like a scorecard or some sort of return on
investment kind of how Councilmember
Meltzer was talking about earlier so that it's not just
arbitrary?
There isn't any kind of return on investment that's
contemplated currently within the application,
but certainly if that's something that the Council would
like for us to consider, we
can certainly do that.
Well that would be something that I would be more in favor
of.
I'm not necessarily I wasn't in favor of the sponsorship
programs before from the funding
source.
And so if we do maintain that funding source, having some
sort of return on investment or
some kind of this is the good that's doing it's doing for
the city and that it's worth
this $87,000 investment would be my preference.
Can I ask you a question of clarification on that?
No.
Well, we're good.
I think that I think the pizza and sandwiches are coming.
You talked about the funding sources for those sponsorships
in the past.
They'd come from DME, sometimes some of the other utilities
, economic development, those
kind of things.
So the funding source here would be hot funds?
No, it would still be the same funds.
Oh, OK.
Gotcha.
But it's just Hot Funds Committee is making those decisions
.
That's what you're asking.
I originally thought that it was Hot Funds and I was like,
yes, good, but it's not.
So that's where I see it.
Well and I think, I mean, these have been historically, as
you had said, philanthropic
in nature.
I mean, there's not a we can't even get a rate of return on
our Hot Funds funds.
We can't even we don't even can't even tell how many people
are coming to a hotel because
they're coming to the Jazz Fest or because they're coming
to something else or some championship
softball tournament or something like that.
So we don't even have the capability to do that.
So the truth of the matter is these are sponsorships that
have been provided for the different
organizations in the community simply on a philanthropic
nature.
So to me, that's really what I'm being asked is do we want
to continue doing that?
And if so, how do we make the decisions on who we provide
that those that funding to?
I don't have a problem with that.
I mean, if we centralize the decision making and it still
comes before the council for
a recommendation or no, or is this the budget?
The budget will be approved by the council.
Okay, so so it's with the recipients.
Right.
And so if there's a concern with a particular recipient of
one of these sponsorships, that's
where it gets vetted at the council level.
Correct.
As well as at the committee.
So if there's a council that are proposed for organizations
above $2,500, there would
be a contract that would come to the council for approval.
Example, I say they're mainly philanthropic.
There are a few examples that are North Texas Fair.
I mean, I think they we just approved them for was it 5000
or 3000.
So obviously, it's a huge event.
We still can't measure who's coming to put their head in a
hotel bed.
So I'm okay with it being centralized here because then you
have a centralized decision
making or recommend recommending body and it's still
decisions still gets made by the
council, the council doesn't want to provide that funding,
then the council can say no,
we're not going to provide that funding.
And it's more of a discretion at the budgetary process.
And the state fair is an example of an organization that
already receives hot funding.
So in addition to the hot funding for 1718, it was about 15
4 was 154,500.
They then also got a $5,000 sponsorship.
Yeah.
So if we wanted to make a different decision on that, we
have two opportunities to do that
at the hot funds level, committee level, and then at the
council level.
So yeah, I think what that does is gives it gives the hot
committee opportunity to look
at both those requests and say, okay, we're not going to do
the sponsorship, but we're
going to give them the $5,000 for hot program because
generally, they will request a lot
more than the 154.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm okay.
I'm okay with this because it's not we're not saying those
are etched in stone, that
we can change that as we move through the process.
Okay.
Yes, Councilmember.
I think if we wanted to measure more and request
measurement more, we'd get it.
If it was understood that your ability to measure hotel
stays was connected with certainly
future funding, I think we'd get it.
Secondly, sponsorship is different than hot funds because
the thing that is being delivered
to the city is different.
But we're looking to deliver to the city and hot funds, I
disagree that it's entirely
philanthropic.
That's because we have failed to measure, but it is meant
to drive people to come to
the city to drive commerce and so on.
And sponsorship is to deliver messages.
I know people have disagreed with that, but having sold
sponsorships, there are parts
of the city that have as part of their mission getting
messages to particular groups of people.
And it's hard to come up with something better, frankly,
than for instance, the city cycle
of festivals.
If you want to be visible with a message about recycling or
whatever it is to people who
are engaged and out in public in the city, that's an
outstanding way to do it.
And it's hard to come up with something better and more
efficient if that's who you want
to communicate with.
And I think that the measures there are what audience did
you deliver?
And I think if we ask for that measurement, especially as
part of documentation, especially
as part of qualifying for future funding, I think we'll get
it.
Are you talking about referring to the sponsorship or hot
funds?
Well, first, they talk about hot funds.
That's where you want to know you want the measurement of
hotel stays.
And like I say, if you want that measure, and we require it
, we'll get it.
And then for sponsorships, you want to know audience
delivered.
It's a different thing.
The fact that you might get it from the same organization,
that's sort of neither here
nor there.
An organization can both drive people to come to the city,
count them, and they can deliver
messages to members of the public in a sponsorship.
So let me and I'm not going to agree or disagree with your
statement of if you require measurement,
then you'll get it.
But the way because the organizations that receive the hot
funds, they're not directly
responsible for tracking or keeping track of the hotels
have to do that.
And this is a conversation we've had.
So you're not -- hotels are not receiving any hot funds.
So we can't say to a hotel, you're not going to get this
money unless you keep track of
who's here.
What you'd be saying is to the Denton Festival Foundation
that puts on Arts and Jazz Fest,
unless you can document how many people are here solely for
the fact and are staying here
in a hotel room solely for the fact that they're coming to
your festival, we're not going to
give you your $100,000.
>> Do a survey, for instance.
>> Well, they do -- >> That's one way to get documentation.
It's an indication.
>> It's voluntarily if the hotels participate.
I mean, you're talking about passing out a survey at the --
well, honestly --
>> It's 100 ways to do it.
>> I've got to tell you, if all you're talking about in
taking measurements -- because when
I hear you say that, I have a certain perspective of what I
think that means.
If you're just simply saying pass out a survey card and
tell me whether you stayed here or
not, if that's the level of measurement you're talking
about, well, then I'm going to withdraw
my comments because that doesn't seem like -- well, to me,
that doesn't seem very reliable,
number one.
And I guess it's better than nothing.
So that's where I was confused.
I mean, to me, it's like, hey, you've got to prove to me,
show me by empirical data that
you had 50 people staying in the Convention Center Hotel,
you had 20 staying in Best Western
Premier.
But if you're just saying pass a survey out to people, hey,
fill this out and just drop
it in.
>> Okay.
>> Well, if I can respond.
>> Yeah.
>> I was sort of saying in between, there's like 100 things
you can do.
Some are better than others.
If you're offering, you know, say a discounted group rate
at a hotel and you've got to give
a certain code to get it, then you'll have that count,
right?
And some organizations are going to do a better job than
others of validating that they're,
you know, delivering the thing that qualifies them for the
money.
And I would just offer as, you know, an example in the
community of an organization that's
great at insisting that you comply, Debt and Benefit League
, you know, that group's been
doing it for decades.
And you say you're going to do something, you've got to
come back with -- not these
things, but, you know, they require documentation and you
've got to do it or else you're not
in the pool.
>> I will mention to you, Councilmember, question 11 of the
hot application is provide three
years' attendance and estimated hotel night history for the
events listed.
And so it is information that we are soliciting.
The organization provides that.
>> They provide a number --
>> How they provide that, how they gather information.
>> Yeah, there's no way -- if somebody had to do an audit
on it, there's probably not
going to be a whole lot there.
>> Correct.
So we do request it.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, some events lend itself to make it easier to
collect that information than others.
For an example, when people sign up to do the turkey roll,
they have to register.
And when they register, it would be easy for the Kiwanis
Club to ask, did you stay at a
hotel?
They can do that.
Same thing for the storytelling festival.
And they collect that information.
Now, they're not going to get all of it because there are
people that don't register for the
whole festival, storytelling festival.
They just come for the evening concert.
They may or may not stay.
For things -- for an event like the arts and jazz fest, it
's very, very difficult to collect
that information because of the nature of the festival.
Same for the North Texas State Fair.
So there's some that are going to be easier to get that
information on than others are.
And so I think you put folks at a disadvantage if the
nature of their particular event is
one that -- where you're going to have to document that
event.
>> I'm going to take responsibility for putting us down
this rabbit hole because we're talking
about hot funds now.
We've got a sponsorship program that's really the direction
here.
So I'm okay with this to see how it goes.
I mean, we can always make a change if we don't like it.
And we can always make a change of the sponsorship levels
or who we're giving it to and who we're
not.
So I'm okay with, as staff has proposed, consolidating this
, decision making, recommendations, hot
funds, moving forward to council.
Yes?
>> One question just on the scheduling, how would that look
?
So assuming we don't get -- would it roll out next year
giving everybody notice that,
hey, you have to have your sponsorship request in by this
date or would it kind of be year
round we just allocate the dollars as the requests come in
and that committee would
then reconvene as needed?
>> The communication that we've given to past and current
recipients of sponsorships is
that they need to submit that application now once a year.
Now there may be other recipients, other folks that may
want to submit an application throughout
the year and we're going to have to manage those on a case
by case basis.
As we're looking at sponsorships throughout the city
organization, there may be others
that we're not quite familiar with yet and so we'll need to
address those kind of on
a case by case basis.
But this will be kind of a first year kind of stab at this
process and hopefully next
year we'll have it a little bit more perfected.
>> Yeah, that would be the only ask.
We don't freeze out anybody during the learning curve.
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> I would just like to follow up with a question for the
city manager just to give us some
more information because the HOT program, the two, art and
historical, I assume they
came to us for a reason.
Somebody suggested it and if there were programs or
projects in mind for the money that this
was being suggested for, if you could follow up with us and
let us know specifics because
I feel like there's some piece of it that's not really here
.
>> Good question.
>> Correct.
>> Back in February when we presented that, there was a
council member had requested that
the council consider dedicating 15% completely to the
public art and that's why we're back.
>> Okay.
Great.
Are there any objections to moving forward on the
sponsorship program as staff has requested?
I don't see any.
All right.
You have your direction?
>> Yes, sir.
>> Fantastic.
All right.
We will now -- that completes our closed session -- I'm
sorry, our work session reports.
We'll now move into closed session, convene the closed
session at 530.
Okay.
But I've got to call it -- we will be deliberating
regarding certain public matters, certain
public power utility matters under Texas government code 55
1.086 and we'll also be deliberating
under Texas government code section 551.071 and I believe
those are the only two.
Is that correct?
>> Three.
>> Three.
Okay.
Let me see my cheat sheet.
That's good.
551 -- well, there's only two.
551.071, 551.086.
Yeah.
And then -- items for individual consideration, agenda item
1A, consider adoption of an ordinance
of the city council of the city of Denton, a Texas home
rule municipal corporation, providing
for and authorizing and approving the execution by the city
manager or his designee of a base
contract for sale and purchase of natural gas.
I caught that typo too.
Good evening.
George Morrow, general manager of DMA.
As the mayor indicated, we're here tonight with an
agreement for your authorization.
It's with Conoco Phillips.
It's called a NAISB agreement.
NAISB agreements are general accepted boilerplate contracts
for acquiring natural gas.
We previously had a NAISB with enterprise and this would
give us another alternative for
future natural gas supplies.
NAISB stands for North American Energy Standards Board and
their contract is protected and
copyrighted so we were not able to make that available to
the public but we did make a
redacted version available for inspection at the city
secretary's office for those that
are interested in that.
And I would mention that the NAISB doesn't represent a
transaction.
It's simply what we call an enabling agreement.
It allows us to do transactions and have the general terms
and conditions related to those
transactions if and when both parties should ever agree to
transact.
But in and of itself, it's just simply there as a boiler
plate.
On the redaction question, what kinds of things did we red
act?
I have a slide here, so tax ID information, bank account
information.
There's other very unique performance and payment
provisions that aren't in the general
NAISB agreement or there's some modifications to it.
And then we did redact also the special provision section
where the parties mutually agreed
to make some adjustments to the base contract that one or
both parties may not be willing
to do for everybody.
And so those tend to be commercially sensitive types of
provisions and so those get redacted.
And talking with the counterparties, this is pretty typical
kinds of things that need
to get redacted.
But the good news is most of that contract is available and
open for viewing of the public.
So ConocoPhillips, everybody's heard of Conoco.
I believe they're a large U.S. multinational energy
corporation headquartered in Houston.
And they're provided a link here to some of their
sustainability information.
They're a good corporate citizen.
They're in the gas business and they know how to operate
respectfully.
So there is an ordinance before you tonight that authorizes
execution of the base contract
with ConocoPhillips.
And that's my recommendation.
Any questions for staff?
And I'll mention the PUB did concur 5-1 to support this
recommendation.
Chair would entertain Councilmember Ryan.
Move approval of item 1A.
Councilmember Hudson.
Second.
We have a motion and a second for agenda item 1A.
All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand.
All opposed by like sign.
Motion carries 5-1.
And you noted who voted.
Okay.
1B.
Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton,
Texas, Home Rule City, Municipal
Corporation authorizing city managers as they need to
execute a waiver agreement relating
to the global settlement agreement between Texas Municipal
Power Agency and its member
cities.
So the background on this waiver agreement, Texas Municipal
Power Agency, for those that
are not familiar, manages our Gibbons Creek project for the
four member cities.
TMPA pays aircot a postage stamp transmission fee.
And that's just some terminology that's in state law with
how they're to calculate it.
Yeah, it's actually codified under the PUC rules to tell
them how to calculate transmission
costs.
And basically they're averaged peanut butter type
transmission costs.
So they pay those on behalf of the members to get power to
each of the cities from the
TMPA projects.
The global settlement agreement was executed back in 2009
said, you know, starting September
1st, TMPA will no longer pay those fees on our behalf.
Now we do reimburse them for that.
So they pay them, send us a bill and we pay that.
But no longer would we do that after September 1st.
Problem is we're getting close to September 1st and looked
at that issue very carefully.
And that's a bad date to switch responsibility for those
transmission charges because aircot
works on a calendar year basis with respect to its rates.
And doing something midstream is problematic from an
administrative and an accounting standpoint.
So TMPA asked the four cities, hey, could we do a waiver
this September 1st date and
instead make it January 1st?
So that would be consistent with the aircot timeline.
And that's what this waiver agreement does.
It has no financial impact to us because whether we pay it
directly or they pay it directly
and we reimburse them, there's no net change in the total
number of dollars.
So staff is recommending that we go ahead and approve this
ordinance which authorizes
the waiver agreement.
- Yes, Council Member Briggs.
- So I know recently, or it seems like recently, we
approved an extension of the TMPA contract,
but that wasn't necessarily for transmission.
That's something separate.
- That's correct.
- Okay.
So this is just for that transmission part of it which does
not end?
- Correct.
- Okay.
- Anybody else?
Oh, you still got five more slides.
(laughter)
Okay.
All right.
So we're going to move on to the next item.
- Okay.
All right.
So all right.
Chair, would you have any questions?
More questions for staff?
Council Member Ryan?
- Move approval of Item 1B.
- Council Member Briggs?
- I'll second.
- We have a motion and a second for approval of Agenda Item
1B.
Everybody in favor, please signify by raising your right
hand.
Motion carries unanimously 6-0.
Moving on to public hearings portion.
Thank you, George.
Public hearings.
Act I of two public hearings for voluntary annexation of
approximately 47.466 acres of
land generally located on the south side of East Ryan Road.
Before I forget, I'm going to go ahead and open the public
hearing.
Is that what we need to do that?
And then we'll have staff presentation and take any public
comment at that time.
And there's no action on this?
- Correct.
- Okay.
- Thank you, Mayor.
Council Members, let me just pull up the presentation for
you.
Okay.
A18-000.
A18-0001 is the first of two public hearings for a
voluntary annexation that's located
on the east side.
Excuse me.
The east side.
I'm sorry.
That's incorrect.
That's located on the south side of Ryan Road, east of the
intersection of Andrew and Ryan
Road.
The applicant is proposing to annex 47.66 acres of land for
a single family subdivision.
The site has already been platted per a pre-annexation
development agreement that the city approved
with the landowner last year.
The applicant was required to bring in the request for a
voluntary annexation within
10 days of the plat approval.
And the applicant has complied with that request.
This is the proposed annexation schedule.
Today is the first public hearing.
June 26th will be the second public hearing.
July 17th will be the first reading of the annexation
ordinance.
And August 21st is the second reading and adoption of the
annexation ordinance.
That concludes my presentation.
And I'll have-- stand for any questions.
- So on the map, I noticed that there's a gas well on the
property.
Is that an active gas well?
- No, I don't think so.
I don't think so.
It is-- it's been sealed off and kept.
- OK, so that wouldn't affect the development of the single
family.
OK, good.
Thank you so much.
- We also have the applicant here, if you have any
questions of him.
- Real quick question.
If you could go back to the map, please.
So I remember this is the-- this is where you had a couple
parcels.
You had one that had the gas well that were going to be
bigger home.
Then you had some that had the gas well that were going to
be bigger home.
Then you had some that was in the floodplain that really
wasn't much going on with it.
And you said that we're going to put only one or two houses
on it.
Is this the same property we were talking about?
I believe it is.
- Yes.
This is tract 1C.
- Which is that?
Which is-- - This large one right here.
- Right.
OK, so the other one is the ESA-- - Exactly.
Exactly.
There's another tract that kind of-- this one's somewhat
bisected.
- Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- And then there's the-- - Right.
- Refresher course on sales tax allocation, and we're at
our cap,
and we're gonna obviously have some conversations about
transportation
and our half-cent transportation, see how we can maybe make
some efficiencies there
and maybe recapture some of that for various different
reasons,
but would appreciate that.
Anybody else?
Going once, twice.
We will now adjourn at 714.
[ Silence ]