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]
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 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]
let's go pick up the family desk
[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.