May 23, 2023 Special Citizens Bond Advisory Committee on 2023-05-23 6:00 PM

Welcome to the bond. What is this called? Special Citizens Bond Advisory Committee. My name is Kepp Roach. I'm a great unfortunate student chair. But thank you all for serving on this. This is one that leaves because it's a real public open meeting. So we're going to call it being to order and we're going to get started with agenda item cvac23-001. Welcome from city staff and introduction of committee members consultant transcend for strategies LLC and support staff. So thank you all. Some of you know me. I'm Sarah Hensley. I'm the city manager and I just want to if I have a talk to personally want to thank you. I understand what a commitment this is for you to spend nights with us actually from about six o'clock until eight. But it's one of the most important things I think you can do because this is your voice. This is your time to decide what if any moves forward for a bond program. I do want to address one thing and that is why did we hire a consultant? We hired a consultant for two reasons. One is in 2019 which is a little ways ago we were a lot smaller but we we did it ourselves from a staff perspective. I will tell you that it tasked the staff out and a lot of our staff was from finance and we're missing some positions in finance right now that haven't been filled. The second reason is for me it's all about openness and transparency and with a consultant who leads this the staff is only going to give you factual information. But if staff were leading this process then and it was programs like parks and recreation like a library there's a lot more invested into that. So it's important to me that we have a very open and transparent process and that you as committee members make the recommendation based on your votes and it moves forward whatever moves forward. And so that is the reason. And then Cassie there was one other reason and I want to say that. So with that our staff are here because they're some of the staff that will give you factual information history of something can't answer questions but they won't be leading discussions they will not be leading information they will only be here to answer questions. And I do want to thank all our staff and particularly our staff who spent hours putting the notebooks books together. But other than that this is yours. This is the community's process. This is the community's meaning and ultimately it will be the community's recommendations that go forward if any. Thank you. All right well good evening or good early evening I guess when you gather this time of the day. My name is Lizzie Johnson and I am your facilitator for this process. The first thing I want to do I'm going to introduce myself shortly is I want to go through our agenda because which is missing one thing on there but I'm going to get to that in just a minute. We have some presentations tonight. So we're here we're going to get started we're going to get to know each other a little bit at our tables. Please feel free to be happy at where you're sitting because that's where you're sitting for this whole process. Okay you have some new friends now and some new best friends I guess as we go through this. That is purposeful. I don't want you switching tables because I want you to get to know each other because I need you to be open and transparent in this room. And if you switch around every night it's a little bit more difficult to get to know someone and be able to be honest with your friends at the table. So you do have a lot of presentations that you are going to get through in this process. Tonight is a little light it's not heavy we just have a couple and we're going to learn more about city finance 101. Cassie Ogden is going to go through that one of your assistant city managers and then we are also going to have a presentation by another one of your assistant city managers Frank Dixon and he's going to update you on projects from the prior bond. So the city's been busy as you know living in this area there's a lot of growth and there's a lot of change and so we're going to go through a couple of those items tonight. Like I said it's a little light tonight. As we get through this process though we get a lot more presentations and it gets a little heavier each time because there's a lot to go through in the amount of meetings that we have. And so I'm really pleased that you were able to come tonight and that you've decided to dedicate yourself to this. We are going to be fast and furious as we are meeting pretty much every week until July. We have one week that we are not gathering and so I hope all you have all those dates on your calendar and that you're prepared to be here. So let me tell you a little bit about myself as we start going through all of this. I actually live in the area. I moved to Denton in 1996 and I was a teacher and I spent 25 years in public education. So that's why I don't have a problem standing in front of a bunch of people and talking. And so I started as a teacher. I moved into campus administration and then into central office administration. So as a citizen, a former citizen of Denton, I lived here and moved here in 1996 and I went to North Texas and earned a master's degree and I went to North Texas again. I'm a glutton for punishment and I earned a doctorate okay. So I left for about a year and a half and moved to West Texas and I quickly moved back. Let me tell you. And so in 2014 I moved to Corinth. So that is where I live now. I have a daughter who's finishing her junior year in high school this week and she's going to become a senior very soon. We're all very excited for her. And so my career led me into rooms where people needed facilitation, where people needed a process. And so throughout my career I found myself in rooms where decisions were being made that were very detrimental for students. And so as I've started working through that, I created a company five years ago, Transcend 4. And what we do now is go around the state helping organizations with processes such as this and other special projects. We do a lot of work in school districts but we do work in other types of organizations as well. And so I wanted you to know a little bit about me and the fact that I know this community very well. I'm very entrenched. My daughter is in the Denton ISD School District. So it's an honor and a privilege to be able to give back this way to the community in which you have been a part of for so very long. So tonight I would like for you to introduce yourself to the people at your table since you're going to get to know them very well. If you'll look around your table you have someone with a lovely blue shirt on and that is your table facilitator, okay? And this person is there as a resource and a support. They are not an expert in everything about the city and I've told them don't feel like you have to be. They're there to guide the table, keep the conversation going, to make sure that if you need something at the table they will get it handled for you. And so some of these people will flow in and out and change during some meetings and some may stay the entire time while we're going through this process. So tonight at your table I would like for you to introduce yourself with your name, your occupation, and something that you love about Denton. I'd like for you to share that. Everybody gets a couple of minutes to do so and your table facilitator is going to start off. They're going to be the first person to start and then they're going to send it either to the left or to the right so that the next person can introduce themselves. Everybody gets a couple of minutes and once we get through this we'll move on into our next part of the meeting. Go ahead and get started. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Okay, I'm going to bring us back to the large room. One of my favorite things during this process is to hear you introduce yourself because everyone says of something a little different and it says a lot about people because what you're sharing is personal and you're sharing it for a reason and so I love that and I'm glad that you're all here and you were able to meet your friends that you're going to get very used to and I heard some good campus names. I heard Strickland Middle School and Denton High School. I was a teacher at Strickland and an assistant principal there and I was also a teacher and a coach at DHS. Once a bronco, always a bronco. That's right. That's right and so it's great to hear those things and those names being dropped in this room. I love that. So I give you my information you have in your book. You have all the slides in your book too. It's I believe under tab three I think. This is my cell phone and my email address and I give this to you purposely because my job is to serve as your advocate for this committee and so I need to know a if you have concerns about something happening in this room and b if you have questions because we don't want to have our questions in a silo we need them where everybody hears them and so one of the things I like to do is when committee members contact me during the process and they have questions I go find the answer and then I send that email out to everyone in this room the question and the answer so we are all educated through this process so in between this meeting and next week quick turnaround right but if questions come up concerns come up I want you to call me it's not that any of those people in the back can't help you because I know they can but if you had one question and you called five of them you might get a different flavor of an answer within that one question but if you call me or you email me I'm going to get the best answer for you and that way everyone in the room shares that answer and is educated through that so you have my info now and I also do text messages if that's something you like okay so in your binder you also have your charter that the city council approved I would take time uh throughout this process and maybe when you go home tonight to read through that it has all of the ordinances in there that were passed by the city it's very much your instructions okay now that's a lot of high level language in that right now I'm going to tell you what your real job is your real job in this room is to make good decisions for the citizens of Denton that's why you're here and so as you work through this process and you learn more and more about these facilities and these projects your job is to build the best package that you can that is a good package for the citizens that will then be presented to the city council so as we go through this there's a lot of information that you're going to be given it's like getting information through a fire hose I say sometimes but hang in there with me because you're going to have time to go home and digest that you'll always get to take this binder home with you it is your playbook so I want you writing in it I want you to bring it back every time it's where all of your information will go okay housekeeping one thing I want to tell you before we get any further as you know these meetings are streamed so anyone can watch them but they're also audio means the audio is alive in this room and I have my friends in the back explain to me that the audio is very sensitive so even a whisper can be heard now we have a lot of smart people in this room a lot of decorum I just want to make you aware of that as we move through this process that if things you say are going to be heard by anyone watching or anyone who will go back and watch a recording of this so so here's a few housekeeping rules that I like to attend to first as we go through all of this everything you need will be at your place setting every time you come into this room so you'll take your uh your binder home but when you come back next week the slides will be printed and they will be sitting there for you to put into your binder this way all of the materials are just collected and you have this to use purposely I know it's a lot of paper trust me I get it I live with the millennial okay and I hear about paper and q-tips all the time okay and so what we have to do is we print it because it's a good note taking system for you and it helps you as the presenters present to write notes to write questions to write thoughts and then as we go through the process you'll understand why that's so important we will not have breaks we have a lot to get through now does that mean you can't take a break absolutely not there are some lovely restrooms out here in the hallway there's plenty of food and there's uh water and tea and all of the refreshments if you need to take a break get up and take a break no one is going to be upset with you for doing that if you need to go outside and take a call do it if I give you a five minute break you're going to take a 25 minute break okay I've been through this before and we don't have the time to do that and so your breaks are on your own right uh the city of Denton leadership team and a lot of content area experts are here in the room that are going to be helping us throughout this process you will see presentations from some of them and then they will also circulate during our table talk time to answer any sidebar questions your meet attendance here is the most important thing you being here is very important because if you miss too many meetings you miss the information and at the end of this there's going to be some big decisions being made and so if you do miss and you you just can't be here and I get it you got kids kids that are sick work that calls or family that needs you I get it I will always be here at five o'clock before every meeting you can come in and we can sit down and go over any slides that you missed the prior meeting I am happy to do that with you we will also have a place online uh Ryan where what's that website discussdenton.com discussdenton.com and that's where other people can ask questions and where materials will be housed from this committee now as you know Kevin read the formal statement at the beginning that's because it's likely that we may have some city council members attend some of these meetings and we may have a quorum at one point so we have to have that protocol if we have any public citizens attend they will have a seat in the back and they are they can ask questions through that portal through that website but they will not be asking questions when you all have the opportunity to to do so so this committee the questions the table talk the process all happens in this room and then if we have any public citizens they'll be in the back and they can do that online okay so y'all I was a middle school teacher and I know you can't have more than four rules right because after four forget it okay so in my in my meetings we have one speaker at a time and that's just out of respect for the person who's speaking and that was the rule number two see they go together and then the third is I'd love for you to listen with the desire not just to contribute but also to learn I think it's very important even if you've been through this process before if you've been in meetings like this where this kind of information has been discussed please come in here with a beginner's mindset because you are going to learn some new things it's all very updated information and engage in this entire meeting now these phones that we have they're awesome okay and I'm sure my child has already texted me she knows I'm here working but I'm sure she's already texting me about some frivolous thing that she wants me to attend to we have families we have work we have lives outside of this room if you can be here with me as much as possible be here but if you need to be on your phone to take a call or shoot a text or you know check an email that's fine I will never tell you to turn your phones off because that is an important part of life that you have to attend to just be here as much as possible as much as you can because I don't want you to miss anything that's super important that will be presented and one of the last norms that we use in this room as you noted we started right on time and we will start on time every time we're in this room 6 p.m and I'm going to make a commitment to you that we will end on time every night and there's some people in this room who've been in meetings with me before who know that happens so when eight o'clock rolls around we may be finished before then but at eight o'clock we will be walking to our cars I can promise you that but the way we do that is we don't have open forum questions because that would keep us here sometimes till 10 or 11 o'clock at night and y'all know what I'm talking about because you sat in meetings like that so the way we do table talk and Q&A is this a presenter will present just like tonight Cassie Ogden will present first when she finishes she will never say are there any questions she's going to walk away and I'm going to walk back up and we're going to have about 10 minutes to talk at our table about what the presentation included and that's an important thing because what I hear Kevin may have heard something a little different and so we want to be able to help each other go through the presentation and talk about the important facts each table will come up with one important question per presentation so we got six tables we're going to have six questions at the end of the night if your question that you posed or a question you had never got attended to you will write it on a sheet of paper there's some paper we've got post-it notes whatever works for you hand it to your table facilitator tomorrow you will be getting a summary email you'll get a summary email from me after every meeting so if you don't get it something's wrong I don't have your email correct or something is arise so make sure you check with me you'll get an email tomorrow that has you know just a brief little note in it but it's going to have an attachment that's called the parking lot that's what we call it the parking lot is where we put all the questions that didn't get answered in this room and they will have answers to them and so after every meeting we will have that and you'll be given that information and I'm telling you this because during a presenter while a presenter is up giving their presentation we don't stop them we let them get through their presentation one just out of respect two I've presented enough to know if I get interrupted it throws me off and I lose my train of thought and I can't get back to where I was so when we have our two presentations tonight we will let them go through the presentation that's what you're going to use your book for you're going to write your notes you're going to write your questions write your thoughts down and then when we have our table talk we'll come up with our question and anything lingering will be given to me at the end of the meeting okay awesome so in your book you also have your agenda for all of the meetings we we got a lot to do in a short amount of time but we're going to get through all of this tonight like I said is city finance 101 and a review of projects since the prior bond the next few meetings are a lot about facility assessments so the next one we're going to get a brief demographic report of the city and what the growth looks like and the citizens and all of those numbers and then we'll start in our facility assessments we'll do that also at meeting three and then we are going to go on a saturday morning and take a tour of the facilities that we are going to talk about in this room now many of you have probably been in these facilities at some point in your life but I really encourage you to be here on that saturday it is very eye opening to see certain things in these buildings that you may not see as a citizen who just walks in to use a facility so please make sure you have that on your calendar cassie remind me june 10th june 10th and we're going to have a quick morning uh talk and we're going to get on a bus and go do all of this and go um see all these facilities and meeting four is more of continued facility assessments we're going to have a worksheet that night that's going to have all the projects on it and the cost okay now this is where I give my lizzie speech across our nation construction costs are high that is just the bottom line it's everywhere you go it's not just unique to our area not just unique to texas but we are in a time where construction is different than it used to be labor shortages supply chains just you name it and i see this in my work all over the state when i work with the groups that are putting bonds together and so you will get those costs that night but i need you to put yourself in a frame of mind that these buildings are buildings where a door may be opened 400 times a day or a toilet may be flushed 100 to 200 times a day and so it's very different from your home where maybe five to eight people live and are using that that place it's just different so i need you to start thinking in those terms as we start moving on to these projects so at meeting four you will be given a worksheet and that night i'm going to send you home with that worksheet and you're going to put your first bond together by yourself at home and you're going to think about all of the presentations you've heard all of the things about finance and growth and about the facility assessments and you're going to bring that worksheet back to meeting five it's kind of like your homework okay and meeting five our financial advisor is going to present the tax implications for the citizens of a certain amount of bonds so they're going to show different levels what that means to the tax rate things of that nature because as you know all of you are going to put this together but you're not the only ones who are going to go vote right and so we have to think about what the people outside of this room and what they will accept and what they will go and support and so that night we'll do a vote at our table so you'll pull your worksheet out we're going to talk to our friends and we're going to put a bond together at our table that's the second time you've put a bond together you see where i'm going with this and the third night or the sixth night you will come back meeting six and we will put a bond package together in this room as a whole unit and so not just one time not just twice but three times you get to think about what you would put in this package that will be presented to city council and then ultimately presented to the voters of denton it's a system it's a process it works really well and i just tell you to trust the process okay that's the best advice i can give you and if you want to sidebar and talk about our successes in the state of texas i'd be more than happy to share that with you because it does work and it gets to the heart of the matter and we all get a place at the table when we start putting this package together and so a lot of us in our daily lives we work in silos um that's just that's just normal that's the way work is sometimes but in this room we have to work together and we have to come together and find gradients of agreement and so you'll look at this chart you have this in your slides too i use this when explaining to people that just because they don't like something doesn't mean they have to block it immediately right it's a give and take situation there is going to be collaboration in this room and i will say this once and i will say it over and over again not everybody in this room is going to get everything they want but everybody in this room is going to get something they want and that has got to be our philosophy as we move forward understanding that we are working together and not in silos now when you do group decision making anytime a new topic is introduced we all pick a side that's human nature right i'm going to tell you what side i'm on you're going to tell me what side you're on and we diverge and we decide where we land in that that thing that we're talking about and then we go to the groan zone and that's why i leave you at the same table because i need you to get comfortable with each other and open and honest there's some people in this room i don't think you'll have that problem okay and that's good i like that right i that's what i want i never want to leave the committee and have anybody tell me oh this was decided before i walked in that's not what we're doing in here so there's going to be discussions there's going to be contentious times there's going to be times when you look across the table and basically tell your friend i don't agree with you and that's okay i wouldn't want it any other way but eventually we have to converge to a decision and that's when we will leave this room that last night and have a decision made for a presentation to the city council notice the one thing on this slide that does not wait for us it does not wait for our decisions and that's time and that's why every time you come in this room we are going to have a very prescriptive agenda that's timed and we have a purpose and we move forward that's because we have a lot to get through all right and then as you walked into this room tonight you walked in alone maybe you found an elbow partner someone you know someone you met then you sat down at that table and you met all of your new friends and that is how we are going to flow into the consensus model as we move forward in this work okay so at this time i am going to invite cassie up and i believe ryan is going to come up and change out our slides i want to remind you that in your book in your book is the slides for the presentation we are moving into city finance 101 so if you want to find that in your slides finance 101 is the title of it and as a reminder we are not going to stop our presenter we are going to let her get through the entire presentation and we are going to write our questions and our comments down and then we're going to have that time to have that discussion at our table so at this time i'd like to turn it over to one of your assistant city managers good evening and hello i'm cassie ogden i'm an assistant city manager for the city of denton also cfo for the city oh i'm sorry kevin you have to call the item okay next we're moving on to agenda item b cbac 23.003 receiver report and hold a discussion regarding the scope insurance is the right one scope in charge of the special citizens bond advisory committee as prescribed by the city of denton ordinance 23-71 including processes and goals of the committee and we're going to also call cbac 23-004 receiver report and hold a discussion regarding an overview of city finances related to the tax rate assessed values and on ratings got it thank you all right so we are going to go over finance 101 for the city of denton so ryan a few are you going next slide i do but i can't do two things at once so the city's tax rate is made up of two different components so one is that we call it the mno rate it's the maintenance and operations rate this is the part of the tax rate that funds our general fund operations so that is the fire police parks library staff that you see this is mostly made up of personnel costs so for fy23 budget personnel is 62 percent of our general fund budget so it's people that you are you're paying for for that mno rate on your tax rate it also includes all of the operating costs within the general fund so insurance some of our contracted services training utilities supplies maintenance materials those types of things as well as internal service costs so this is general fund pays a portion of our internal funds so fleet we have a fleet fund technology services fund facilities fund procurement and then customer service as well so those those costs are part of the mno rates the second component of the tax rate is the interest in sinking rate so the only thing that is paid from the ins rate is the payment and interest on bonds sold for general government bonds so this is general government meaning parks facilities libraries things like that utilities is separate they pay for their own bonds so they make their own bond payments but those are the two components of the city's tax rate so the the current tax rate is shown on the right hand of the slide so 2023 we're currently a little over 56 cents for our total tax rate so you can see the black is the ins rate so what we are paying for debt and then the blue is the operation so mno rate that's what pays or what goes to the general fund operating expenses and so over the period from 2017 to now we have the city's tax rate has decreased a little over 12 cents so we have been overall total tax rate decreasing most of that's come from the mno rate so the general fund operating side because you can see the the ins rate has stayed relatively flat over that that same time period and this does include some of the increases for the 2019 bond program so we did issue well we the voters authorized 220 million dollars in 2019 we still have two years left to issue like that we have been able to keep that tax rate relatively flat since 2019 including the the bonds so the reason we've been able to do that is because the assessed values have increased substantially over this time i'm sure everyone got their property tax notice in the mail so the city's obviously we've seen a huge increase last year 19 percent increase in assessed values so 17.3 billion dollars assessed values not what you pay but the value but we have continued to see increases i think we will continue to see increases in the future but you can see we have obviously you can look around you see the growth see the property tax bill things things are increasing so i wanted to show you a comparison of just some surrounding cities we we showed city council this during our budget discussions last year i believe so our 2022 average taxable home value a little over 300 000 so 307 673 000 and so you can see how our tax rate compares to some other surrounding cities so we're kind of right in the middle the table is sorted on the total tax rate column so it goes from smallest to largest dallas being the highest but the taxes due to the city are calculated based on that average taxable home value so you can see the portion that goes to the mno rate again the general fund operating budget and then the ins rate which is the debt debt payments and so i'm going to show you a quick video and then we're going to talk about what the value that you receive for the taxes that you pay so so so thanks ryan um so again just to reiterate where your tax money goes so mno rate that's the general fund operating budget again just like the video discussed police public safety dispatch fire and ems services parks and rec staff library services and their programming community improvement services animal services municipal court traffic operations all of these departments and staff are paid out of the general fund so out of that mno rate the 35 cents ins rate is just the payment on the principal and interest on our bonds so our debt payment and so because we do issue bonds just like you receive you have a probably a personal credit rating the city has a credit rating so i wanted to show you our credit rating the city's current bond rating is double a plus from both s&p and fitch you can see on the right hand side the the scale so we are not prime grade but we are high grade which is which is very good this is one of the reasons this helps us is it it reduces our interest rate that we receive on our bonds so the higher the grade the lower your interest rate so we have done you can see one of the rating agencies this has came out of our last credit report ratings report that they sent us so we have tried to maintain strong financial reserves we we budget very conservatively and we have tend to come in under budget reserves are higher than what we usually anticipate so that is we're trying to get to that prime grade but we haven't made it yet so that's one of my goals but with that i think that's the last slide i have all right and then do you want to go to the next slide yeah so i'm going to give y'all about 10 minutes at your tables to talk we are going to roam the room if you have sidebar questions you want to talk about and ask but come up with those important questions that you have and make sure your table selects the best one that you want to ask as a group so go ahead and get started is how do you how do you make that how do we make that jump in okay you my question so yeah like yeah same yeah my right so the first one yeah so so make sure you get your question decided thank you i think you can then you can right now right is so i'm gonna bring us back to the large room we've had about 11 minutes so good amount of time we're gonna start here in the back and start with table five and then i'm gonna hand the table facilitator the mic so everyone can hear the question and cassie is going to stand in the front with the other mic so she can answer so we're going to start back here with table five uh right now what is the current debt for the city of denton and how does it relate to other cities in the area i do not have the total number off the top of my head i'm looking at randy back there maybe she can maybe she has a current debt is approximately 1.3 billion dollars 1.3 billion dollars um another 200 million in july yeah well that's actually bond proceeds so we will we will receive another 200 million but most of that is utilities right randy yes yes okay good question all right table six okay our question is um what kind of flexibility do we have um moving forward looking at fixed assets looking at fixed assets flexibility as in uh an asset 10 years from now uh say a building 10 years from now um will that be a remodeled building a repurposed building um things of that nature i'm gonna let christine taylor one of our other assistant city managers answer that one hello uh so your next week presentation we're gonna run through the condition assessment that we do on all of our buildings so what does that look like structurally but we definitely have that flexibility so we've got scores assessed a building with buildings which help us with the planning so we're always option looking at you know how could we repurpose a building how could we use the space better could it be used for another purpose or do we need the asset anymore could we sell it and potentially purchase something else so we will bring that back next week on all of our building assets that you'll be discussing in the bond program and that'll be multiple presentations throughout the the next few weeks and and so this table gets the first gt award because they are ready to move forward and that's good i like that that's good thinking okay there's nothing wrong with that okay i'm gonna throw it over here to table three um our table thought there might be different types of bonds that we can sell so they're asking what's the difference between geo and co bonds are yes geo bonds are voter approved so those are approved by the voters co's certificates of obligation are not approved by voters so those are issued for very specific purposes there is there are some statutes that dictate what those can be issued for primarily we issue co's for the utility funds okay um how does the city get from a high grade rating to a premium grade rating and what are your personal steps or goals that are getting get there but the concern is the group's concern is is them making a decision that will have a negative impact on that through this process a really good question um now i feel like i'm in a job interview um so how to get to premium grade that is that is one of our goals uh several both of the rating agencies that we use so s&p and fitch have said main thing to do is issue less debt um which i did i know does not bode well for our 2023 bond program but trying to be honest with you that's what they say um one of the things though that they do look at is our our growth projections we have always come in higher than what we've projected growth at which means our revenues have come in higher as well and so also one of the larger focuses is the financial management financial policies that we have so as long as we continue to conservatively budget manage our financial situation well that can lead to a higher bond rating what was the second part of the question did i miss it it was the concern was the decision they make could it have a negative impact on this process right so that's where the the growth forecast would come in so how we are projecting we're going to talk about that at the next meeting what kind of growth we're projected to have in denton and you saw the assessed values we've already seen growth in our assessed values and with some of our new developments coming in we're continuing to see that growth okay um our question is why is the ins rate higher than comparable cities and does that tie into historical issues such as road repair really good question um so one of the interesting challenges we in denton face that some of our surrounding communities do not is that we are an older city so we are constantly replacing older infrastructure while at the same time growing so we have obviously everyone probably has been to the square that's some of our oldest infrastructure around the square has to be replaced regularly but at the same time the city is growing you saw assessed values 19 percent increased last year we have continued to see growth in our building permits developments coming online rooftops being added so it is an interesting challenge so i think i heard flower mound as an example they're one kind of landlocked they don't have a lot of room to grow but they're also a newer city right so they don't have some of the challenges that we have like our roads being older and our utility infrastructure being older so that group stole our question so we'll roll to our second one uh there is a question about whether or not there is any correlation between the ins rate and average home values or is yeah is there any correlation there so the ins rate is completely separate from the average home value the average home value is calculated from the denton county or i'm sorry denton central appraisal district we receive that information from them we use that to calculate the ins rate but we actually don't calculate the rate by ourselves we have denton county help us calculate that rate so we don't make a mistake but they're the ins rate is really reflective of our debt level and so as the property values increase that average taxable value increases which means you pay more property taxes which means we can afford more hey great good questions now if for some reason a question at your table was not put forward or asked that you had make sure it gets on a sticky note or a piece of paper and handed to your facilitator i'm going to ask kevin he's going to have to read our next agenda item but before he does that i want to say something as you watch that wouldn't that video great you're going to see a lot of videos in this room and those are things you can go back and look at and also share with others and so that is a good example of some of the content you're going to be getting as you go forward here and on a side note i love that video because it has the civic center pool in it and in 1996 i was the manager of the civic center i'm going to tell you right now it was one of the greatest gigs of my life okay all right kevin take it away we're calling agenda item d cbac 23-002 receive a report and hold a discussion regarding an update on the 2014 and 2019 bond programs thank you sir okay frank take it away all right good evening and welcome we're going to go through the previous bonds that we've run through bond programs and give you kind of an update on the status of where they're at so you guys get kind of a picture of the the position we're in for this bond program so as you look back in 2014 our bond program had a lot of street improvements water wastewater stuff and then some park system improvements which you can see is over time total spent up to date is about 84 which is a good thing about seven percent encumbered and about eight percent remaining in that so just over 12 million dollars remaining for that program the bulk of that surprise and street improvements so as you can tell as you drive around town there's a lot of street projects that are going on right now which is great yes yeah so there's a lot of really good work going on that's really a testament to becky and her team in the streets department getting that stuff going out another project that uh have been completed fire station number four if you look we have taken a good investment in replacing some of the older infrastructure one of those being some of our fire stations the waterworks wave pool we added a burn tower and training facility which is one of the best training facilities in north texas for fire departments other fire departments around north texas is coming over to use that facility so that's great to see and then you see some drainage one of the things that we talked about earlier is the pack three and four you see that there's a pack two on this one and then the villa soccer complex which has had a lot of business very active area over there again the various public art projects the two over 290 roadway projects going on and then gary pack and his team have acquired over 79 acres of parkland as we said we still have about 113 segments roadway segments left to do and then we have a great new tennis center that should be coming online here about august of this year the 2019 bond program again had a lot of street improvements in it had three police facilities had a new firing range a new substation and then a complete renovation of the downtown headquarters out of that project there is only nine thousand dollars left in that yeah so there's a lot of work that's been going on with that the substation and range are open for business and the renovation downtown will hopefully be done by quarter three of this year and then again more land for parks because we're not going to make more land and as we go through our master plan for the city and then our parts master plan and how all those things tie together with the downtown master plan really forward thinking and getting the land now so we can as those plans come together we can go out and start building and bring those online so there's about 40 percent of that bond packet still remaining and again the bulk of it in streets because those are the most expensive and they're probably the slowest to roll out because as you're doing those you can only do them in segments you can't really take up too much at one time right and then as i talked about the completed projects the substation or firing range 14 roadway projects and then 77 acres of parkland then outstanding as i said the downtown police headquarters should be coming on uh bonnie bray phase six there's been a lot of work on bonnie bray as you guys can probably tell driving around just a fantastic project as that gets out towards phase seven coming up next then hickory creek road has been a huge project hopefully that'll be a completion of quarter four in 2024 and then ryan road will begin soon after that hickory creek is finished and that's it pretty short and sweet so take some time at your table eight to ten minutes have some thoughtful conversations and come up with your questions go ahead and get started [inaudible] there are some segments [inaudible] [inaudible] let's go pick up the family desk [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] and putting that on a website, but it's not just like information. It's a strategic dashboard so you can go in there you can see actual real-time progress of what the key focus areas are for the city. So I imagine that as we roll out this bond package we can talk about how we can leverage that and leverage other technology to have those real-time updates on there. So if you know any citizen can go on there and see what that looks like. At the end of our process, the final night, we will do a SWOT analysis where we talk about the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and the threats of this potential package. And that will give you an opportunity to give feedback about messaging and things of that nature to how we reach all of the citizens. Okay, what would the 2014 bond package cost today if it were passed by the voters today? It would be over 200 million. Yeah we looked at that and that would be over 200 million dollars now. So our table had seen that there was a lot of remaining on the 2014 bond program and the question is related to timing for these projects and is there a specific time limit on those that are still outstanding and then how do we anticipate timing and future construction costs for this bond program? I felt like that was more than one question. One long question. Okay okay. So the 2014 bond program, I know you probably saw the voter approval amount of 98.1 million, but the total bond program was 144 million. We had to issue additional COs to complete the projects because some of the projects came in higher than what we anticipated. And so that is one of the reasons that you're seeing a lot of the total remaining is because we were actually just talking about the parks projects. The remaining dollar amount are COs. We've already spent all of the GO funded portion of the bonds but we still have some COs remaining. I think the other thing to keep in mind for 2014, we did not do a great job of getting our crews rolling on the street projects in a timely manner. And so with the 2019 bond program, we've taken a completely different approach. We have looked at complete neighborhoods so that we are coming in one time, we're mobilizing our crews, we are contracting out as much as we possibly can, and we're doing the water, wastewater, drainage, roadway, all at one time. We did not do that in the 2014 bond program, and so that's why you're still seeing some of the remaining amounts in the street improvements proposition. Okay thanks. The question is, is it important for us to know what was cut from the previous bond packages and are some of those items on future agendas or do they have to be voted back on in a setting like this? The only thing that I know from 2019 that didn't get approved, and some of you may know because you were on the committee then, was the public art. I believe that was proposed in 2019 but not approved when it went to voters. But as far as I know, the 2014 bond program did include some quiet zones. We were not able to do those because of the lack of funding and so the bond oversight committee requested that we include the quiet zone projects in this bond program that you're reviewing now. What are the different bond packages and the categories of them and how will we prioritize those? How will they be prioritized? You mean propositions or packets? The propositions. So this room, your job is to put a package together. Now in the state of Texas there are different laws that exist for cities and for school districts of how they have to put projects on a ballot. They have to be in certain propositions. Now that is not our focus because we wouldn't know what the propositions are at this point since you haven't put a package together yet. Once the package is decided and presented to city council and they decide to call a bond, they will meet with their bond council or bond attorneys, however you want to term it, and city council will work with these experts who do that all over the state to decide what has to be propositioned out and how it has to look on the ballot. So at this time we can't answer that because we don't know what you're going to put in the package yet but as time increases and we get closer to that things will probably come to light more and we'll probably have a better understanding but it will not be official until bond council and the city council work on that together. But that's a great question and we anticipated it. Once again the GT table is coming out and y'all over there. That's good. I like it. Okay great. Make sure that your table facilitator has your unanswered questions and those will be passed to me before the end of the night so we can ensure that they get on your summary email. So this is a gift because I'm going to tell you you're not going to leave this room early again okay. The good thing is the first meeting we try to keep it light and not very heavy because this is a new environment. We want you to get used to it and understand the process and how we do things in here but before we close I have a couple of things that we want to get through. One is we've put together this montage of pictures up here of different areas of the city. We've got some young citizens, some four-legged citizens, some people enjoying our parks and libraries and our trails and the point of this slide is this. This building or this room we're in has four walls right. Outside of this room there's a lot of people that live in the city of Denton and they may not know what's happening in this room right and sometimes when people don't know what's happening in a room they make up a false narrative of what they think is happening in that room. This is everywhere. I find this in everywhere I go. So how do we combat that? We have to go outside of this room and tell people what we're doing in here and that is definitely a charge I'm giving to you because the first thing they're going to say is well they're in there raising my taxes right because that's where people always go when you start talking about bonds and money and city finance. So I encourage you to leave this room and go tell a few people that you know in your circles maybe it's your neighbors maybe it's where you go to church maybe it's in your rotary club or wherever it is go and tell some people what you learned tonight and some things that you didn't know before you walked in this room and I tell you to do that because I think that's a good way to get feedback from people that aren't in this room. You are representing a cross-section of the city of Denton as a member of this committee. You were asked to be a member of this committee specifically for a variety of reasons so I need you to go out and talk to other people and get their feedback because when you sit at these tables and discuss it's going to be very powerful for you to bring those voices into the room with you. So at the end of each meeting I'd just like to know what you liked about tonight. Just popcorn it out. Anything you liked about tonight's meeting that we did well? The dinner. The dinner. Diabruzzo, right? Oh so good. I love it. Anything else? Yes ma'am. I like the format. I like that you take each section and then we discuss it and then share what I just I like all of that. Great. Thank you so much. Yes ma'am. What's the knowledge we all bring in? Yes. From all different perspectives. Different perspectives. So true. Anything else? A lot of good people in this room. Yeah I got you Kevin. You're right. That's so true. There's a lot of people that have been in Denton for quite a while and then there's some new faces in the room and I think that's very important because it shows that we are a growing community and we have a good bedrock foundation here but we also have new people that have come in that are pushing the change that we're all experiencing in this city. Absolutely. Is there anything that we can do better next time that you did not experience? Notice I did not say what didn't you like. Okay? Wishes. Yes ma'am. Is it possible on the timing that rather than just one question per table have two? Quite possibly. Yes ma'am. Depending on how many presentations we have in the next meeting. Absolutely. We will work on that. Yes ma'am. I would like maybe during the dinner portion to have an opportunity to have an introduction with the other groups as well. I would like to know the people that are engaging with the other groups. Okay. Good feedback. Thank you. And just so you know when we get to meeting five and you build your package at your table you're actually going to get to go and interact with other tables after your table is finished. So you'll get to share your table's work that night. Yes. I'd like to have like an undirected question time because asking questions on the material is great but if there's material that we'd like to see. Yes and so email me if those questions come up and then we also have the website that you can put questions on. Tell us what it is again Ryan. Discussdenton.com. Discussdenton.com and you can put anything there as well and then we can make sure everybody gets it. Okay. Awesome. And notice the snacks. I'm noticing y'all didn't eat a lot of snacks tonight but the snacks will be there every time. Okay. Yes. Get your chocolate. It's important. All right. So as we close out tonight we do we are going to gather again next week. Next Thursday night. Not it will not be on Tuesday. It will be on Thursday. Same time. Five thirty dinner. Six to eight meeting. This room. Make sure you take your binder home and that you bring it back. Make sure that if you have questions or concerns outside of here you contact me email phone and you can also use that website for questions. Leave your name plate. We don't need to take those and other than that I hope you have a wonderful and safe trip home tonight. Thank you again so much and we'll and we'll see you next week. - Thank you all, have a good night.