Good morning and welcome to this meeting of Dent City Council.
It is Saturday, August 5th, 9 a.m.
We do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order just to go over the lay of the land.
We have two items and a closed session item looks like.
So the first is key focus area, council key focus areas.
Then we have the budget discussion.
And so I'm going to press for questions early on the budget thing.
We'll go through the strategic specific priorities, that sort of thing.
But we need to front load questions for specific department heads either immediately after
that because we're going to let that staff go.
So we're not going to keep them sitting in City Hall hoping or wondering or just in case
there's questions.
So formulate your questions over the next couple hours.
If you don't have them already, get them in before we break.
Those staff members that have to respond to that can then use that break to respond to
those.
But then after that, we're going to let staff go enjoy their Saturday and get through the
rest of the budget presentation, city's manager staff will answer what they need to.
Otherwise, you'll get your answer after that.
But the goal is not to keep city staff and department heads waiting for their entire
Saturday.
And so you've been warned.
So get those in.
All right.
So first item, item A, ID 231341, receive report, hold discussion regarding city council
focus areas and specific priorities for FY 2023, 2024.
Good morning, mayor and council.
I'm Amy Kaslik.
I'm the city's chief strategic officer.
And I'm here this morning to provide you with an overview and update on the city's strategic
plan as well as council priorities.
We will then be seeking input on council priorities for fiscal year 2024.
So as part of today's overview, I want to do a bit of a refresher on strategic planning
for the benefit of our newer council members.
So council created the current focus areas a little over a year ago, it was in July of
last year.
These focus areas really do set the foundation for the city's strategic plan and solidifies
council's vision of how we best meet the needs of the community.
So our key focus areas are pursue organizational excellence and collaborative and respectful
leadership, enhance infrastructure and mobility, strengthen community and quality of life, foster
economic opportunity and affordability, support healthy and safe communities, and promote
sustainability and the environment.
Along with these key focus areas, there are 16 strategic objectives, which you see here
on the city's organizational strategy map.
Updates that were provided to council on October 11th of 2022, and then January 24th and March
7th of this year.
We also provide quarterly updates of council's priorities in the Friday report.
So to talk a little bit about the benefits of strategic planning, the first is that it
helps set the city's direction and priorities.
So it really helps us to define where we want to be tomorrow and the steps that we need
to take to get there.
Having a strategic plan helps create focus.
It focuses the organization on getting results and what we need to do to meet the demands
of today as well as the next few years.
Another benefit of strategic planning is it helps the entire organization align around
common goals and in doing so can also help to break down silos.
One of the other things that's been said is that employees who understand how they contribute
to the strategic plan and how they contribute to the success of an organization are far
more satisfied and far more engaged in the work that they do.
Another benefit of strategic planning is that it simplifies the decision-making process
so that as new ideas, new initiatives are brought forward and we're not sure whether
or not we should implement those new ideas, we can look at our strategic plan for guidance.
Strategic planning helps inform the budget, so it helps us prioritize resource allocations
and how we budget our funds to make sure that we are budgeting in ways that help us move
our goals forward.
Strategic planning improves an organization's self-awareness.
As part of any strategic planning process, there's a lot of research, a lot of discussion
that goes into that.
There's an environmental scan, a SWOT analysis.
There's input from the community.
One of the things that you heard last year were the results of the community survey as
an input into the conversations that you had around strategic planning.
Lastly, and really at its core, it's an important management tool.
It helps to create a roadmap and create accountability across the organization in achieving our goals.
So when we look at the strategic plan as a process, it's typically the role of counsel
to set the goals and the objectives, and in our case, we call those key focus areas.
Key focus areas really need to be basically the broad outcomes that we're looking to achieve,
and then once those have been set, we create the objectives that help move those forward.
Then it is typically city management's job to begin creating initiatives along with aligned
milestones to help us achieve those goals that counsel has set.
And then lastly, we need to continue to monitor and report on the results of our strategic
plan.
So looking at our planning model, the comprehensive plan, which is Denton 2040, is the document
that really needs to be informing our strategic plan.
I was sharing this graphic with Gary Packen yesterday, and he said, "Oh, so the comprehensive
plan is the mothership of planning," and I thought, "That's a really great way to put
that, right?
That's a great way to see that."
So that's basically a 20-plus year plan that, again, informs the strategic plan, which is
seen as a mid-range plan that is three to five years.
And then from there, strategic plan both drives budget and is moderated by budget.
And all of this together helps us to enable strategic management.
There's a whole little graphic at the bottom of other planning considerations, and we'll
get to those later in the presentation.
So strategic management, that final piece of the puzzle to bring it all together, is
something that I've been working on since joining the organization 11 months ago today.
Yeah, 11 months ago today.
So in moving that forward, we worked to develop the strategy map that you saw earlier, and
then began identifying initiatives across the organization that support council's key
focus areas.
To date, we have 119 initiatives that are in support of moving those key focus areas
forward.
As part of that, we've created the dashboard to help track progress in achieving those
key focus areas.
Our public facing dashboard was launched on March 7th of this year, and again, for the
benefit of our newer council members, I'm going to go ahead and just jump into the dashboard
real quick and do a quick overview of that.
So this is the city's strategic plan dashboard, built not only to enhance accountability,
but really to offer greater transparency to the community.
So you'll see in this basically any device you look at this on, by the way, it'll resize
to fit your device.
I do like that feature.
It also is able through Google Translate to translate into 22 different languages.
So we start out with a brief description of the city of Denton of our strategic planning
process.
And then if you want to see any highlights from 2022, which is prior to this dashboard
being built, you can link to our 2022 highlights.
And then we go into each of the six key focus areas.
So what you see here is a progress bar that tells us the progress of that particular key
focus area.
And then we have these status bars.
So green is on track, yellow is a minor disruption, which means something has happened that may
or may not impact the timely completion of an initiative.
There's red, which red means that there has been a disruption that absolutely will impact
timely completion of the project.
Purple is upcoming.
So we've got a few in the system that are set to begin at a future date.
Blue is complete.
And then we don't have any with a status of pending, but sometimes you'll see gray there,
which just means we have a status update that's due.
Before I dive into any one of these, just want to show you again that legend.
And then very quickly share that actually since March 7th, we've launched a couple of
more dashboards.
So we have one that highlights the American Rescue Plan Act.
There's the Economic Development Strategic Plan, a link to the city's open data portal,
as well as the Library Strategic Plan.
Those dashboards, particularly ARPA, ED, and the Library Strategic Plan all function pretty
much in the same way as what I'm showing you here.
So we're going to take a closer look at Strengthen Community and Quality of Life.
So when we look at this particular key focus area, we've included some metrics that have
to do with the community survey results as they relate to strengthening community and
quality of life.
We then see that we have two strategic objectives that are aligned with this particular key
focus area, and so we see the progress and status again for each of these strategic objectives.
And then again, we can take another dive deeper and we see all of the initiatives that are
aligned with and support this particular key focus area.
If we want to take one more look, we can click on a specific project and we can see the latest
update on that project.
Another good thing about this dashboard, let's say you want to know about a very specific
project and you're not quite sure where it is, but you know it exists.
Let's say you want to look at an item on City Hall.
First I have to spell, right?
All right.
So then if we want to know what the latest is on renovating City Hall West or exploring
a plan for a new City Hall, you can click on either one of those.
And again, you get the latest update related to that particular initiative.
Any questions on this dashboard?
Any questions?
Nope.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Go back to the presentation.
Yes, ma'am.
Certainly.
I just, I have to say this and it's in public.
So we didn't have a chief strategy officer and I think several of you, particularly two
I know that really focus on data, well several of you do, knew that we were sorely missing
this.
We were.
To align a budget with those initiatives is one of the most important things a city can
do and then also to be able to show not only our council, but the public, the progress
that we're making.
I just want to say a big thank you to Christine because she hired Amy, but also to Amy.
We stole her from Irving where she did a tremendous job there and I'm just, it just pleases me
because she's really in 11 months done an amazing job, but that's also with the support
of the department heads who've entered this information and really stayed on top of it.
So you know, for me, I own as good as the people who work with me and I'm very proud
to have these people that are doing such a great job.
Excellent.
Well said.
I agree.
Okay.
All right.
So to continue our focus on our strategic plan where it is applicable, you'll now see
key focus areas referenced on agenda items to show where that alignment exists.
That report that you see in the middle, those are, that is a quarterly priority report.
You would have received one in the Friday report just a couple of weeks ago for this
last quarter.
And then the other thing that we're working on is creating data analytics dashboards for
every department in the organization.
So these dashboards are really helpful in telling our story, being better informed,
identifying opportunities, highlighting successes, and just in general, shining a light on performance
across the organization.
So these dashboards are the result of a series of workshops that each department participates
in that look at defining that overall purpose of the department, identifying key priority,
I'm sorry, core services, and then really looking at a family of metrics for each of
those core services, looking at inputs, outputs, outcomes, and efficiencies.
So we've published so far parks, marketing communications, and then solid waste and recycling.
We also have the airport animal services, capital projects, engineering, and public
works, customer service, environmental services and sustainability, finance, library, and
technology services under construction.
So there's been a bit of a delay.
It's taken a little bit longer than I'd hoped, but I also have been serving as interim finance
director, but we're getting quite a few of those now across the finish line.
Fortunately, I now have a graduate intern who's been helping out for the last couple
of months and is doing a really great job on helping us to move those other departments
forward.
But I want to take a quick look at one of those so just you can kind of get the sense
of the look and the feel of these dashboards.
So this is Parks and Recreation's dashboard, again we start out with that overall statement
about the department, make that a little bigger for everybody, we start out with an overall
description of the department and then we go into their core services.
So their first is provide recreational, educational, and wellness opportunities, give a brief description
of that, what that means, what the desired outcomes are for that core service, and then
we start looking at the actual performance metrics that they've identified.
So this first one is visitors at recreation centers.
So one of the things with this software, if we just want to look at, let's say we just
want to look at the Denton Civic Center, we can actually turn off all of the other data
points and then look at a single one of those.
We see that in October of 2022, there was basically what at that point in time I would
call an anomaly, so we're able to put in comments to explain why that anomaly exists and what's
kind of behind the numbers that we're seeing here.
We also have, and any time that we have survey data, whether that's from a point of service
survey or community survey, we always want to make sure that department dashboards include
the voice of the customer, and that voice of the customer is helping to be a part of
driving performance.
So again, we've got targets built into the system where applicable.
I always make sure to tell departments, not every metric has to have a target.
If you're a fire department, you're not looking to have a certain number of structure fires,
right?
But we want to talk about having targets where targets make sense and looking at benchmarks
and so forth.
So this is kind of, again, the overall look and feel of the dashboards that we are creating
for the departments.
Parks has a lot of data, but they use that data.
And then, again, we list out all of their core services.
Another thing that I like about this is that we're able to include some hyperlinks.
So if you're looking at this particular metric about the 10-minute walk and you want to know
what that means, why is a 10-minute walk important, we're able to provide users of the dashboard
additional information on the 10-minute walk program.
Any questions on these?
>> I'll hand it over to Councilman Meltzer.
>> Thank you.
And this is a question I always ask, Amy, so I'm just kind of catching up.
And I know right now that these dashboards are for your office in strategic planning
and finance and the department heads.
Can you update us when we're going to get Council love ability to play with dashboards
and then any estimates on ETAs when there's going to be a public-facing version?
>> So we actually talked about that this week, and I wanted to have departments have a little
bit of time in the dashboard to make sure we, you know, worked our way through it.
And I know that solid waste and recycling wants to go ahead and get theirs out.
Parks has expressed interest.
So the ones that we have already will be pushed out fairly soon.
And then ultimately, I want to have more of annualized dashboards that then become a part
of the budget document that in Irving we did a hyperlink in our budget document so that
the public has that access through those budget documents as well.
But, yes, the goal is to push these out publicly.
>> Sort of in the next quarter kind of thing?
>> I think with the ones that we already have in place, that's definitely doable.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Councilman Meltzer?
>> Yeah.
First, wow.
Bravo.
I mean, this is right on target for like best practices.
One way I've seen organizations fail is they're good on the monitoring, you know, the measuring,
maybe medium on the monitoring, but the missing piece is sometimes alerting.
So is there an automated path when things are nearing or exceeding target that there's
an auto-escalation to the right parties for visibility?
>> That's a great question.
There is that capability in the system to kind of turn metrics to certain color if you're
kind of hitting different thresholds.
It's certainly something to look at.
It's not something that we've implemented so far.
I do, as we get these built out across the organization, my goal is at that point to
put in a more formal process for performance review, whether that's part of CMO meetings
with directors or separate meetings where, you know, we at least have some members of
the executive team in those meetings and are reviewing that work.
That's really a standard practice in performance excellence is you have those types of reviews
around your performance data.
>> Yeah, you know, most of these aren't, like, time-sensitive like that, but just to underscore
the point, what you want to avoid is a situation where something's blowing up, and we look
at it and we go, huh, turns out everything was red, but nobody was looking at it.
Okay.
>> Any other questions?
Okay.
Thank you.
So now that you've had a kind of general overview of strategic planning and of the city's approach
to performance management, I want to take a closer look at each of the six key focus
areas and council priorities.
So attached to the agenda for today, there was also a report of the 119 initiatives aligned
with our key focus areas, sharing with you the status and the progress of each of those.
So you do have that to give you a bit more detail because 119 initiatives is not something
we probably want to line out and discuss every single one of those at today's meeting, but
I do want to cover the high points of each of the key focus areas.
So the first one is pursue organizational excellence, again, in collaborative and respectful
leadership.
So the overall progress for this particular key focus area, and as it relates to initiatives
that are currently in the system, we're at 51%.
Four of the 24 council priorities actually fall under this key focus area.
And I will say with the report that you have as well as this data, this is as of the updates
that were due July 15th.
So with the comp and classification study, as of July 28th, that is now complete.
So on that next update, it will then move to a status of complete.
Of the 30 initiatives that are aligned with this key focus area, six of those are complete,
and then five are substantially complete.
And again, we can move that class and comp one over to that complete portion of the presentation.
The initiatives in this particular category are really aimed at developing and retaining
talent and being the employer of choice.
The rollout of the new value statements also falls under this particular key focus area.
Any questions on this one?
>> Do you -- there are questions -- do you want to take them each?
I'll just -- everyone just be mindful, right?
Questions and answers.
>> Okay.
>> But Mayor Pro Tem.
>> Yeah, mine is short and generic.
>> I -- and it kind of relates to Counselor Meltzer's question.
For these ones where we've given them a status of track, upcoming, complete, disruption,
how -- or is that just a count?
What's the threshold for some of those?
I'm a little lost as to how we're following along the completion.
Anyway, I'll shut up and let you answer the question.
>> So it's a designation that the owner of the initiative provides as to whether or not
they're on track, whether or not there's been disruption.
If there's disruption, we do want them to include a reasoning behind that disruption
so that we understand that, you know, when we're looking at an update for the initiative,
what's going on.
But that is a designation that is assigned by the owner of the initiative.
>> And so it's not automatically updated, it's updated by the data owner?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
>> Yes.
>> Any other questions?
Thank you.
>> The next one is Enhanced Infrastructure and Mobility.
Overall, we are on track with this one with 63% progress.
There are 18 initiatives that fall under this particular key focus area and includes four
of Council's priorities.
They are improving capital project planning and communication, which is substantially complete,
renovating City Hall West, constructing public safety facilities, and then exploring a plan
for a new City Hall.
So when looking at the initiatives a little bit closer, there are three under this key
focus area that are now complete, 15 continue to be active initiatives, completed our developed
roadway funding strategy, review and update development criteria, manuals and specifications,
and develop a municipal utility district policy.
You'll also see three of your key focus areas listed under the substantially complete section
for this particular key focus area.
Next we look at foster economic opportunity and affordability.
There are 13 initiatives assigned to this particular key focus area and it houses seven
Council priorities.
Also listed here is the implementation of the economic development strategic plan that
was identified as a priority by Council last year.
Because it's kind of its own separate plan, we did give it a place to live in the dashboard
and you saw that earlier, but within the economic development strategic plan there are 121 separate
actions that that department is monitoring and reporting on as they move forward with
the economic development strategic plan.
The other -- another one on here I should note is the development of a public facility
corporation program.
That too was listed as a Council priority last year.
However, when it was brought forward on May 2nd of this year, that did -- was not chosen
to move forward at this time.
So completed initiatives include the implementation of a rental repair grant program -- again,
we say it's completed because the department did the work to get it to Council, but develop
a public facility corporation program just with the understanding that that particular
one is not moving forward.
I think one of the key accomplishments though under this particular key focus area is the
opening of the Loop 288 facility.
Again, there are four completed initiatives in this key focus area and then nine that
are active.
Next we have strengthen community and quality of life.
There are actually 32 initiatives that are assigned to this particular key focus area
including three Council priorities.
This includes the library's new strategic plan which is now complete.
You saw the dashboard of that.
Now it's a matter of implementing that strategic plan.
The story walk along Fred Moore -- Fred Moore walking path.
And then the expansion of the Hartley field mountain bike trail where we added nearly
a mile to that particular trail.
There are quite a few initiatives in this category that are substantially complete.
That includes the parks master plan creation and e-sports game room at the Denia recreation
center.
And then parks accreditation which we should hear more on that in October.
Next we have support healthy and safe communities.
It consists of ten initiatives and at this point progress is at 47% for this key focus
area.
The four Council priorities including conducting a citywide speed study which is now complete.
Continuing the fire department accreditation which is also complete.
Police department is pursuing reaccreditation and I believe that is a four-year process
in them achieving that reaccreditation.
And then lastly is enhance the police department's mental health division.
So in addition to the already completed Council priorities, DME has completed updating lighting
to LED.
This included upgrading over 9,000 lights.
And then technology services has completed an assessment of the CAD and police RMS which
is also part of the information technology strategic plan.
The last key focus area is promote sustainability and the environment and 16 aligned initiatives
as well as two Council priorities which are create a wildlife corridor map and expand
the EV fleet and infrastructure.
Key accomplishments is the city's tree line USA designation from the Arbor Day Foundation
which was achieved in February.
Also included in the list of completed initiatives is the planning of trees at dog parts and
the installation of LED dark sky compliant athletic field lighting.
There are three completed initiatives and 13 active initiatives under this key focus
area.
So in looking at the plan as a whole, approximately 64% of the initiatives within the city's strategic
plan have been identified as being on track, 16% have experienced some level of disruption
and then 19% are complete and then we've got one in there that's set to start at a future
date.
Overall, we are at 52% progress for the plan as a whole.
There are 23 completed initiatives but there are 96 remaining active initiatives and even
though we haven't officially done a call for new initiatives for next year, we've actually
already identified more than 30 initiatives coming forward from the departments for next
fiscal year.
These include the resident ambassador pilot program, phase two of ADA improvements, implementing
the roadway funding strategy, executing the FY 2023 bond program and then the development
of an airport master plan.
So earlier I gave you a glimpse of other plans that exist in the organization as part of
the overall planning process.
So when I first joined the organization last September, I set meetings with all the departments
just to really learn about their operations, their strengths, their opportunities, their
aspirations and one of the things that I asked for when meeting with the departments were
copies of any planning documents they had and at one point they were lined up across
the back of my desk but this isn't even all of what I found.
There is some crossover between all of these plans you see here, just a tiny bit of crossover
with the 119 initiatives that are being tracked in the strategic plan but at their lowest
level, so at the level at which departments would report on progress, status, results,
where they're at in terms of those initiatives, there are 616 initiatives, strategies, objectives
or actions, again that's the lowest level of planning.
Beyond that, in the parks master plan, not only are there 69 actions, there are 322 subactions,
many of which have their own set of milestones, yes, I know, I counted them.
That's how I felt too.
So there's a lot going on in the organization.
This doesn't even include the ADA action plan, a variety of master plans that are being worked
by the departments and I've shared this slide or a similar slide, this is the first time
I've actually put numbers to each of these plans but I've shared some of this in other
presentations and things that I've done, you know, just webinars and things like that.
And one of the things that I always say is that Denton is a very hard working organization,
very hard working and I think part of the proof of that is that not a single one of
these plans, not a single one is a plan that someone put together and stuck on a shelf
and never looked at again.
The departments are working these plans, they are putting these plans into action.
And that, if nothing else today displays the volume, the sheer volume of work being done
in this organization, I hope that this drives that point home.
It's a lot and it's all in action.
And then there's still more, right?
And then some, there's still more, this is not all of it, there's still more, right?
Very busy, very hard working organization, very dedicated to driving the plans that we
have forward.
So now that I've covered where we are with strategic planning, including council priorities,
all those other plans that I showed you and I promise you I'm trying to find the best
way to mesh those all together in a way that makes sense, we do want to now take the opportunity
to invite you to share your thoughts on the work being done and more importantly, I think
we want to hear what your priorities are for the organization as we move into the next
fiscal year.
>> Okay.
Questions, comments?
Anyone?
Mayor Percival.
>> So I'm going to lead with a question.
We had a lot of them in priorities, you alluded to 600 and change projects and initiatives,
and we were at 52% completed for the 119.
>> For the 52% progress.
>> Progress, for the 100.
>> Progress.
>> And some of these are multi-year projects, projects without really a defined end in some
cases.
>> Only two.
>> And so do we have a way of tracking the annualized year to year progress?
>> Yes.
Yes, we do.
We do.
And that is a function of the software.
So as we move into future years.
And I will say too, and I've seen it and I think it's going to take time and just really
for departments to acknowledge and understand that everything cannot happen in one year.
So really just working with people to understand like this is multiple years, it's not just
what can you accomplish in this one year, it's multiple years.
I always say if you give me dates that start October 1 in September 30, let's look at it
a little bit more.
And that's just something that's going to take time.
And I think when we close out this first year and departments go back and look at those
kind of those schedules they set, Lisa's probably been through this with me before, yes, she
knows.
And then we get to the point where like you know what, I do need to be a little bit more
realistic about what we can accomplish because you can't do it all at once and you can't
do it all in a year.
You can't.
>> No, I specifically asked that question because again it goes to Councilor Meltzer's
question of how are we monitoring and if you throw it all in a big bucket it can be overwhelming.
And then you get executive dysfunction because you're like, ah.
>> Like I said I'm trying to like just bring it all together the best way possible.
But that's where it's just having more and more conversations about what is a realistic
timeline when we're looking at these different initiatives and setting realistic expectations.
And that's just something that's going to take a little bit of time.
But we do have those indicators that tell us where we're at and where we should be in terms
of progress on different initiatives.
>> And then I noticed in terms of the question about priorities, and I mentioned this the
other day in the bond committee discussions with P&C or the Northeast area plans with
P&C and then the bond as well.
We seem to have a through line of property acquisition and property management in almost
every project.
I mean I'm sort of looking at all the previous priorities and you know expected upcoming
ones that are mine and maybe other counselors and it seems like that -- I'll just say one
of my priorities is to really get in front of land acquisition, land management, land
control.
So I'll leave from there and then see the floor for other discussion.
>> Any other questions, comments?
>> I just want to understand, how do you want to work this next bit?
Is this where we're teeing up our individual priorities or do you have a different way
that they want to do?
>> Yes.
No, I think if you have stuff that you want to put forward for them to consider, great,
you heard kind of the list of things.
And so if you want to put forward things, but then also understand and that gives staff
time to again set whatever expectations they would put on those or if it's already covered
in stuff that we've not been presented, it's an opportunity to tell you it's already on
the list.
So yes, it's your thoughts and then those will be reviewed and you know feedback will
come on kind of where we are with that.
>> Okay.
I don't know if -- he's seated at the floor.
>> He's spoken three times so I'm going to try to move it around a little bit.
So go right ahead.
>> Well, okay.
So some of these -- I mean, the notion of priorities suggests that not every action
is the priority.
Right?
You've got, you know, hundreds of actions.
So it's kind of the short list.
And some are clearly on there.
It would just be sort of underscoring, you know, this would be on my short list, progress
on the affordable housing toolkit.
And if it's not going to be a PFC, and I remain -- I mean, I wasn't here when you all went
through that.
I mean, if it's -- that could come back, but if it's not a PFC, maybe it's closer coordination
with DHA and DAHC as part of our -- I forget which area had like relationships around the
community so that we're maybe aligning better on kind of goals and vision.
In the area of parks, I realize that some current members weren't here when council
adopted the Parks Master Plan.
So you may not be coming in with a view that there's a deficit, but the Parks Master Plan
that was adopted by council called for acquisition of 113 acres a year for 16 years, which was
heavily over-delivered last year, I acknowledge, but good to over-deliver in the early years
because there may not be anything to acquire in years seven, eight, nine, ten through 16.
So you know, I think whether it's through bond or some other way, you know, if you have
some point of view on how much we can acquire in the course of working with developers,
and then what's the deficit, and then how are we going to fund that?
You know, we should have some point of view.
I don't know that I specifically saw -- because you couldn't drill down into every single
thing in 10 minutes or whatever, within economic development, I think there needs to be some
urgency on downtown revitalization, particularly all the, you know, all the dark doorways around
the square and in the square area, you know, where are the partnerships or ways we can
facilitate, you know, not to let that great light blink out.
So thank you for saying that, I meant to point out that we, at this point, determined that
the parks -- sorry, downtown master plan is likely the next to be marked a priority.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's a perfect place to put that thought, great.
And kind of on that theme, to me, maybe not to everyone, I would like to see continuing
efforts to kind of further empower neighborhoods and inclusion of neighborhoods in guiding
debt and development.
So where we have -- I already identified that there's a path needed for SAPs, you know,
two years ago, I guess, we picked, you know, the ones -- the first three, but we need to
pick what the next ones are, and, you know, whether -- I know you all are investigating
whether -- how CBOs have worked elsewhere, whether that's a tool for us or not, we'll
see, but, you know, I think that would come under that heading of investigating how best
to engage neighborhoods to kind of end up with, you know, dentin -- dentin-y development.
Now, I'm going to get off in an area that I think is not exactly -- I think, believe
it or not, in any of what we've seen so far, maybe.
Our challenge in keeping up with hiring first responders has in part to do with the massive
call volume and the growth -- it goes with population, but it also has to do with estimates
I've heard, casually and formally, of 30 to 60 percent of the call volume being driven
by mental health considerations, and there being a corresponding just void or close to
a void in resources on mental health, which is beyond what probably one city can do, but
I would -- just because of the sheer impact on budget, if nothing else, I would be interested
in prioritizing intercity -- you know, an intercity approach to mental health and substance
abuse treatment, you know, by coordinating with our counterparts in other cities, ideally
with the county, but not waiting on the county.
I've got a couple more here, Mayor.
I hope I'm okay, steaming forward.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah, first I'll say, as in council previously, this clearly was not a priority of mine, but
it's the whole cannabis issue, but I felt that we productively addressed it with actions
that then police chief and the magistrate were able to take at that time, but the voters
have clearly said they want something, and I think Councilmember Watts was blazingly
accurate and helpful in our last deliberation saying, okay, you know, the voters were presented
one proposition that was problematic and unvetted, but it had a worthy goal, and that, you know,
that particularly helpful was the thought that we just got -- we got to get creative.
So I'd say just to be responsive to, you know, what the voters overwhelmingly indicated an
interest in, I would like us to put some attention to seeing what some of those creative approaches
might be that aren't problematic, that don't, you know, put police in a pickle and violate
state law or whatever, you know, the other concerns there may be, so some constructive
approach that we can all get behind, including law enforcement.
I'm almost through.
I would like to revive the process that was going on, I guess, in 2022 or 2021 of seeing
if we can support or enable collaboration among groups that want to do a tiny home project.
In that -- next topic -- in that, we are a, you know, very much a festival town.
It's part of our kind of creative identity.
It helps economic development.
I think if you talk to people who try to do those festivals here, they tell you it's kind
of a sequence of hurdles and I'd love to see if we can create a kind of more festival-in-a-box
approach to make it easier for people to do it and kind of enable rather than have the
stance of restricting.
So streamline event sponsorship, which I know is somewhere in there.
Two more, then I'm done.
When I looked at the slide about kind of partnerships across the community, it called to mind that
in a volunteer organization I'm involved with, we were looking at themes -- let me do this
more quickly.
We don't seem to have much concrete in the way of partnerships with the colleges and
universities.
It seems like a gap.
I don't even know what they should be.
We do.
Okay.
Great.
Terrific.
I didn't see it on the slide.
I'm like, wow, that's a gap.
It is there.
It's in --
Okay.
I believe it.
Totally believe it.
And just lastly, you know, ordinarily I'm very much interested in actionable policy
that turns into real things.
Very rarely do I want to do things that are sort of symbolic and just express values,
but I think in the current environment, you know, it wouldn't hurt to have some expression.
Maybe it's just a resolution, but to reaffirm our -- the value we put on diversity, equity,
inclusion, it's a bit under threat in this state, but, you know, it's built into our
values, I would argue, and I think some kind of, you know, affirmation of that to our diverse
community I think would be appropriate and, you know, important enough to bubble up to
the short list.
That's all I got for now.
All right.
Councilman Mahalo.
Thank you.
My priorities, my first three priorities are streets, streets, and streets.
I was pleased to have a meeting with the city manager earlier this week and the assistant
city managers, and we discussed what I think is a reasonable, sustainable idea to keep
our -- to build -- to get our streets up to snuff and to keep them there in the future.
The implementing roadway funding, slide number 22, I appreciate that.
That is clearly my priority.
I'd also like to see a lot of emphasis placed on economic development.
I think our police, fire, and emergency services is doing a fine job, but I always want to
keep that as a very, very important focus.
I appreciate it.
Okay.
Anyone else?
Councilman Byrd.
Good morning, everyone.
I have written down one thing that is sticking with me, and that is the family-oriented -- family-oriented
responsibility that we should have.
We are very proud of our education system, and we're very proud of our nightlife, and
we are proud of our trees, but somehow we're missing something in regards to our kids.
I know that our children do a lot of things with the ISDs, but whenever school is out
-- and I'm really focusing on maybe the middle school to high school kids that are out there
in the summertime.
So if we can find some kind of way to add that group into our growth pattern, then I
would appreciate that.
Then my other thing is, of course, DCTA and our travel.
I think we're missing a -- there's a big middle piece that's missing there to make sure that
everyone has an opportunity to travel throughout the city in the most -- in the easiest fashion
as possible.
If somebody is coming to our city council meetings and they're 90 years old and saying
that they have no good way of getting across town or they're being left, that bothers me.
So we want to make sure that we are connected with DCTA and put a little bit more pressure
on them to give us what we need.
And also downtown, downtown, not only economic development there, but downtown living and
downtown lifestyles should be on that track if we're doing that.
Thank you for the revitalization of downtown.
I was going to say that.
And also small business, I know that we talk small business, but I think there's still
a bit of red take there that's not allowing them to, you know, get up and get running
and get started.
And I think that if our city can be known as a group that will support small businesses
and because small businesses are so unique, they come with a lot of different vibes, and
we need to have places for everyone to appreciate.
Downtown, I did say downtown living.
So we also, I want to say something about a hotel boutique, you know, something about
that.
I think that may go into, that's for downtown, because we, all of our hotels are out on the
outskirts.
And then we're inviting people to come into our space and drink and be merry and have
fun.
And then we're expecting them to get back in their car and drive over to the hotels.
And I just don't think that's right.
I think we need to close that gap on that.
So hopefully, that'll be something as a priority for us to look at.
And those are my things there.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Anyone else?
Seeing, Councilmember McGee.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate what you all have, have listed as priorities without
rehashing a couple of those because obviously we know that there are some priorities in
on all of our lists.
Mine is a little more specific than Councilmember Hollins' thinking in the way of economic development
with respect specifically with respect to incentives for our economic development partner.
So Wayne can have more tools that he needs.
Okay.
Anyone up?
Councilmember Watts.
I think all my priorities could be surmised in the ones that have already been listed
in the presentation.
I mean, I don't know hundreds of them.
And I just want to address the one about the Prop B ordinance that Councilmember Meltzer
had mentioned.
I think that from what I've heard, and I could be wrong, that what's happening at the practical
level at the ground level on enforcement or when they get to a court proceeding or when
they get to court processes that right now doesn't mean it's always perfect, but it's
really exercising and trying to accomplish the goals that people, I think, the aspirations
that they had.
So I certainly continue, but I think in some ways that's already happening.
And look, and as far as the parkland, 100 acres per year, we're going to see a presentation
after this about money because everything we've asked for takes money.
And so I guess what we're deciding is what do we want to spend our money on?
Well, if that's what it comes down to, and I have to summarize it in two things.
For me, it's economic development.
We have very little economic development in this city right now of major jobs to come
in and bring forward opportunities for people not just to survive, but to thrive.
It's not happening.
And that's not a slam on staff.
That's not a slam on anybody.
It's just saying somehow we're either not getting the attention or there's something
big clouds surrounding us, and then it's affordable housing.
So when I hear these priorities and I hear what we all want, it eventually comes down
to we can have all the aspirations that we want.
Then it comes down to whoever's sitting in this seat pushing a button.
And on affordable housing, we had an opportunity to do that and we didn't do it.
And as far as working with the housing authority, we've tried to do that in the past and you
were here.
And one of the big controversies when you and I were serving together was an affordable
housing project because we couldn't do anything because we didn't have any leverage other
than an entitlement that they were seeking.
If they didn't weren't seeking entitlement, we couldn't do anything.
So make sure that we're providing opportunity for people to make a good living so they can
afford to live here.
Because if we don't bring in economic development, this is all just a waste of time, quite frankly.
And the reason I say that is this year we're going to see in the budget presentation a
billion dollars in new growth.
If I'm correct, if I read it correctly, a billion dollars and one of my questions I'm
going to send, pursuant to the mayor's instructions, is what's that breakdown?
That adds up to about 3.5 or something, three, four million dollars additional revenue.
So if we're doing things to stifle growth, we need to just know what that impact is.
Because what is that?
I think 40% of our new value, or I can't do the math that quickly, it's 2.5 is total,
a million, a billion, it's about probably 40% is new growth.
I'm hoping that we can continue to do something that provides new growth for good jobs that
continue to come in to the city.
So all the things I want, or I think there are priorities for the community, for people
to actually thrive here, they're already up there.
We got parkland we can buy, we got 10 minute walk plans, we got all these things.
But it boils down to do we have the revenue to meet the needs that we have as priorities?
And that's going to be a decision that each individual council makes every year.
So I appreciate, well, first of all, I can't imagine how much work went into this presentation.
A tremendous amount of work.
And I thank you for your effort.
Because I think this helps us see it.
And to see what's happening.
I think sometimes people don't think we're doing anything.
The staff's just, we're just fighting fires, we're trying to just make sure everything
runs day to day, but no, they have a concerted, intentional, committed effort to bring about
the things that are important to this community.
So these are great.
When it comes down to voting, then we just need to make sure we're consistent with what
we want in our plan.
So I don't really have anything to add to this list.
I think it's a very comprehensive and a very good list, an aspirational list to really
provide the kind of living space in our community that people are really -- and I want to say
something about small business.
And this just came up a couple weeks ago.
And here, I'll be through.
This was in the TURS board meeting.
Where a gentleman came to ask for an incentive to revitalize a building in the TURS area
for the grant.
Well, he expressed that he'd had one outside of the area that he couldn't get any help
on because it was -- it was outside the TURS area.
We can't do that.
And I've said that all along.
If we're -- I mean, if people have an opportunity to revitalize a small business building for
their small business outside of some area we've designated as this is the only place
we can do this, we've got to change that.
Because number one, it's not fair.
It's not equitable.
And it can help us with the properties around our community that need some new life.
And so I think if I had to have a priority, it would be to enlarge the -- what would we
call it?
>> The area.
>> Well, I'm saying it's the whole city.
I mean, you know, that if you got -- that you have an opportunity to put in a grant
towards some funding source that would allow you to have the same kind of opportunity that
we provide in the downtown TURS area, people, you know, what is it, downtown incentive grant
or downtown something grant, you'd think I'd know that.
The concept -- yeah, yeah, downtown reinvestment grant.
I think we need to have a dent in reinvestment grant.
So that would be the only thing.
And again, it takes money.
So that would be the only thing that I would have.
>> Maybe it would be like a hotel term.
They talk about compression.
Right?
So if you have a compression project in the city, ergo, you're saying you're going to
create a wave if you put this here, it will create a ripple effect and compress the market
or help the market or using music terms, maybe it's a sound wave or something.
>> Yeah, I think we just need to -- because when he was describing his -- the old Davis
bakery building is what he was in.
I remember going there to get donuts when I was in high school.
>> Those aren't healthy.
>> Well, I'm surprised we didn't have any out there.
I was disappointed.
But I'm just kidding.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
So that was one of the examples like he had to do all that rehab on his own.
And that just didn't seem equitable to me.
And it's not that anybody is being -- it's not intentional.
I think it's just an oversight.
So that's what I'd put it there as a price.
I'll be quiet.
Mayor, I'm repeating myself.
Thank you.
>> Before I ask my question, I want to ask the mayor and the city manager procedurally
and it goes along with what we see Amy doing up here on the board is do you -- and we did
a little bit in the conversation.
Do you want us repeating so you get a sense of support or do you want to distribute it
later and let us tell what we supported -- because, I mean, I don't want to be redundant and say
the same things that other people are saying.
>> So she's going to take all your feedback, get your items there.
She's doing it right now.
You can see how she's putting these together.
She's eliminating any duplication.
Then she's going to go around and ask so you can vote.
So we don't have to do sticky notes because I know some of you hate the sticky notes.
>> Thank you for that.
>> I mean, we are like X on the sticky notes so that we can just go through them and as
you do, you all need to be thinking because she's aligning them right now and then she'll
go around and say, okay, we've got this one.
What are your votes?
This one.
What are your votes?
>> I appreciate that, city manager, and Mr. Mayor, I might add then I'll eliminate any
duplicates that I had if I might add a couple because I only just said one in order to be
brief.
>> No, go ahead, right ahead, succinctly.
>> In order to give you a tone, I know you like to go last to get your thoughts.
I would like to offer you the opportunity to be in this mix first.
>> No, because I'm going to power through mine and nothing that I've -- mine is only
reactionary and new so there won't be any duplication for me.
It's just my insight on what we've heard so that I can get that out of the way and then
new stuff that I've reacted to based on just thoughts, listening to the discussion.
>> I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor.
Then I will add a couple things.
One thing that's come up in numerous discussions over the last little bit is I think we need
to -- it's already in our list but I think we need to raise the priority of some of the
sustainability and economic development D.C. code changes, specifically things that -- electric
vehicle ready, solar ready, some other things, you know, parking, some other things that
will incentivize economic development in this town and also sustainable economic development.
So I'd really like to work on code revisions and re-prioritize that up a little bit.
Then I think another area that we need to focus on is -- that's come up in a number
of conversations is it's been -- you generally do land management revisions about every -- you
know, starting every five years.
It's been about five years since we did our tree code.
So I'd like to re-prioritize our tree code to -- we haven't been talking about any revisions
on that and it's generally -- we focus on doing that every five years so I'm going to
put a pin in a 2024 tree code.
And then two more -- no, that's not going to happen if I'm missing anything about it.
And then one of the things I also know that's come up in the last few months across the
department is for our city employees, whether they -- the extent and the amount, particularly
for our public safety and employees of fire, police and animal services, whether the extent
to which they are providing -- and also probably in the utilities as well -- the extent to
which they're providing their own material, so I want to focus on sort of worker issues
or you can argue that, you know, we don't need to do that but if there's equipment needs
for our workers, they shouldn't be self-funding.
We shouldn't have teachers buy pencils.
We shouldn't have government employees buy their own materials.
And then the other thing I would like to put a little pin in that hasn't already been said
is, you know, work on -- in the light of changes to the PUCT and ERCOT, I'd like to work on
our large-scale energy policy for the city in terms of the kinds of things that -- and
the reason I specifically bring this up is not that we have a bad one, but we are about
to release our CAAP and those are robust goals and that we approved, what, six months ago
or so, and I think we need to make sure that our energy policies and our economic development
are in line with those CAAP goals that we've already approved.
So I'd like to add those into the mix for things to consider.
And I'm sorry, what did you call those goals?
CAAP, Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.
Okay.
Okay, anything else?
Okay.
Councilmember Maltzer.
Yeah, actually just a question or maybe potentially a clarification for Councilmember Watts.
When you talk about the sort of opening up the reinvestment idea, is what you're looking
for something that would particularly target renovating or revitalizing older structures
wherever they are, whether they're downtown.
I mean, maybe that's a way to define it, if that's what you're after, because the example
you gave was that.
Yeah, I mean, I think if we need to be that specific in the language, I think that's implied
or specific in our downtown language that, you know, there are certain things you need
to be doing or revitalizing.
So I'm open, I'm just saying we need to find a program that allows people who are taking
old structures and bringing them back to life with new uses and preserving them, find a
way to extend the funding potential opportunities to those individuals.
Okay, so I don't, this goes on the quality of life for me, but I would like to see a
goal or a priority of, and I think it aligns with our health components as well, to have
each city facility that has staff have a full kitchen, at least opportunity, right, we do
it in the fire stations, we do it in police stations, we have it in development services.
So I think a goal to extend that beyond those buildings and into other buildings would be,
and that's not to say it's specific, right, so for the new police station, it has that
capability, it could be connected to the 9-1-1 thing, so it's just in that vicinity, in that
facility somewhere, access to a full kitchen helps people prioritize their diets and that
sort of thing to have access.
Let's see, yep, and so my overarching thing is just, I think when you quantify things,
that tells me a lot, right, when you say there's this many activities, this many things, that,
because that's just what you're capturing, there's obviously things on the edges of that,
and so for me, just my personal takeaway that I hope to continue to convey, and I appreciate
these numbers because it helps me educate the city, is we have absolutely got to focus on
exactly what you outlined in your slides, the longer vision and objectives and create
efficiencies for the city manager and staff to do the work, right, we've got to get out
of the way and stop kind of yanking the steering wheel because big ships don't turn fast no
matter the size of the iceberg, right, that's in one of the Disney songs, and it's true,
right, I mean you can't do it, I forget, it's one of the newer movies, it's a great song,
but I forget which one, yeah, I'll figure it out, but that to me, that's what's critical,
that's the takeaway I get from this, so I'm going to be very intentional about that so
that things can get done.
The other, so for me, my overarching theme is education, and here's why, when you talk
about the conversations made about land banking, right, and my concern there is this council
in 2023, 2024, 2025 beyond can decide to bank land, but if you don't activate that land
and develop on it, council in 26, 27, 28 can sell it all and do everything that they counter
to what you hope to save that land for, right, if you don't put something in place, if you
don't activate it, just to hold it gives some future council the opportunity to sell it,
and so I don't want to be in that business of helping you do, right, to a degree, you
want to plan smartly, but you don't want to have the misgivings that some future council
can't unroll everything you just did and we do it to ourselves on a regular basis, give
the PFC example, right, we said, hey, work this up, and then we voted it down, so that's
the same council by and large, imagine a totally different council and what they're able to
do, so I just want to be mindful, and so the education component comes in, because I want
to have a liaison, my goal is to have a liaison for city management and for the legal department
to function in the political world to some degree, right, because they do not, and that's
a great thing, but they are affected because we have an election every year, so in that
education component, it's someone that has a pulse on those things, that reads those
things that kind of takes the city manager's message and informs it, takes the legal department's
message, informs it, and vice versa, where they kind of have a peek into that world because
it affects this very process, because a new council person rolls in, has new ideas, and
somehow they've got to plug in, well, then you've got to get relationship and they don't
know who this person is, and so it's just a lot that goes on every year, and so until
that's amended, maybe if the charter changes that, there's an election every year and it's
a problem when you're talking long-term planning, and you have someone comes on and says, "I
want to do this, and I ran on this, and I campaigned on this, and I want to do all these
things," and then they get in here and then you say, "Hey, there's 619 things in front
of you, but you're in queue, and please hold tight and listen to some soft music," right?
You know, I campaigned actively in 2016 on quiet zones, and they're coming, it's that
type thing, right?
So just, and so to that end, I think it would be fantastic to have your office do a report
every year in a February timeframe because that's before things heat up, and this is
strictly political, not your world, but I'm just saying kind of a report of what's going
on in informing the community, informing groups, informing those that want to run, "Hey, here's
what's in the queue, here's what's happening, here's our priorities, here's the data that
supports that," then hopefully that will by proxy guide those conversations and they will
be, it'll be a seamless integration because there's an annual report that everyone knows
about and everyone's informed on what's kind of key priorities and what's going on, and
if you're not in line with that, you're saying maybe it's a subtle adjustment versus this
wholesale change.
So there's an edge account, and then I think that position, hopefully in the next 10, 20
years, the City of Denton's grown to a level where a, whoever sits in this mayor seat won't
be me, will have a kind of that position rose into the kind of like an executive assistant,
and then it's the same thing though, it's from the mayor to this assistant in connection
to the city, it's seamless.
And so that's my vision for that education component for newly elected people.
Then I think it's important because you talk about education again, but this in the context
of streets, it's the highest priority we have, mobility.
And what you have is, matter of fact, if you watch it and I forget when he said it, I listened
to him, but I forget what meeting they all run together.
But Trevor mentioned the 2019 bond where they had to slow down there how fast they were
doing the streets because the city was experiencing construction fatigue.
So it's an education component to say all these different pieces that have to happen
to complete a road.
And so it's just kind of a priority on education on what goes into.
So it's utilities, it's Atmos, there's another project pending, it's a tech stop road, there's
another project pending in a year and a half, we're not going to finish, we're not going
to tear up the road twice.
So that informs and helps people see this and kind of guides that, why is this not moving
faster?
Let me dig down into these data points and understand those things.
So I think that from an education component and I think those steps go into everything
when you're talking about a lot of major projects we have and kind of what are those components
that move there, what are the material issues or it's advantageous to sell bonds at this
time, just kind of some of those moving parts that go into that.
And this is just an aside comment, right?
Because it's important to note and I don't see how we capture it in the priorities, but
to move faster also means to move people out of there, potentially, if their house is there.
So we're saying move the streets faster, like Bonnie Brady had a tough conversation because
that means we needed to foreclose or not foreclose whatever the term is, eminent domain, someone's
house, faster, we need the eminent domain, somebody's business, faster.
And so I think just, again, education component to say here's why this homeowner is 90 and
we're being delicate about this or this tax dot funding is timed so we have to move it.
So I think that just that education component into what we do would be helpful.
We talked about that.
And then I think just akin to the distance to parks, I think there's a parallel across
the board when it comes to an opportunity to identify regional gaps.
We hear about food deserts, one, but like grocery stores, medical facilities, et cetera,
et cetera.
It's a priority to say here's a region of the city because that's where people are traveling
more within their region.
You don't see this, I'm going to take 45 minutes and drive across Denton anymore, right?
It used to be 10 minutes or five minutes.
I operate in this general area and don't leave it often.
What's missing in those areas?
So I don't know.
So a priority on identifying this area and we should have a grocery store every X amount
of miles because that's how people travel and so when you pull up a map, you can say
here's this region and it's missing these things and then to Councilmember Watts' point,
maybe you look at that region and you say, okay, someone's bringing this and we're going
to participate in that because that's the last component missing in this particular
region.
We're taking a regional approach to libraries.
We're just having to expand just due to growth our viewpoint of segments of the city and
I think that is missing is kind of a regional gap analysis and what are best practices for
that and then going back to the education component, I just would like to and the city
manager is already working on this so I just want to support what she's saying as far as
a communications department goal and what I'd like to see is more of a bringing more people
to the table having their voices heard early and often earlier in processes and that is
in place in its infrastructure kind of the e-comments on our agendas but I think an expansion
of that or just a priority of that outreach to the entirety of the consultant that we
talked about in the retreat talked about focusing on 151,000 people.
If we hear from 300 that's a fraction of the 151,000 let's see it as such.
Let's increase that number and we have to be purposeful about that and connect with
people.
Parks is good about that.
Every event you see parks with their dots and this sort of thing, hey, let us hear from
you and that's evident in the data you're able to capture because they're intentional
about that so let's be intentional about hearing from people on everyday issues that we deal
with and I think the bones are in place but I think it needs to be a higher priority to
hear from people and what their priorities are and I think that is the bulk of what jumps
out of me.
That's a question.
Council Member McGee.
To touch on what you're saying Mr. Mayor, the regional approach is that different than
the small area plans?
To me it is yes.
Is it larger?
It's smaller.
Smaller.
Yes, because you have people that live, like that northeast plan is huge, I mean it's a
bunch of acres that's not developed.
What I see is for example, what is that, Luke 28 and McKinney area around Ryan High School,
you have high school students that have the option to go across the street to Dollar General
and get something that will kill them soon that's very unhealthy versus focusing on putting
the grocery store on the corner of Luke 28 and McKinney that would allow them to have
at least access to better foods and you have that entire neighborhood going in out there
and so there's a lot of development around Ryan High and to the east so those houses
are coming in and so now those houses have to drive all the way to Kroger on the loop
and that causes traffic congestion, that sort of thing.
So what I'm seeing is it's almost like it's not a, it is truly a individual neighborhood
type or I say regional kind of that approach.
Southeast Denton goes where?
Southridge goes where?
North Lakes goes where?
You know, Sundown Ranch, where are they going?
You know, so it's these kind of neighborhoods or pockets of a larger plan and just like
parks we should have this much, you should be able to get to the grocery store in this
much time.
That's, I hope I understand.
You know, I know that staff has a list of the different, of the city broken down neighborhood
by neighborhood.
It might be helpful to go through that approach, neighborhood by neighborhood, what you're
talking about.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I can see that.
I don't know how best to identify those things.
I just know, I'm certain there's studies out there on how far people travel traditionally
but it is, it's the eye-opening thing just to kind of give you the people to pull the
curtain back.
I was talking to a friend that used to work downtown and would go to a coffee shop downtown
four days a week and then they moved out on the loop and hadn't been back since.
So it's a person that wants to go but just because it's out of their kind of normal path
just has not made it back.
And so I think that's, that's the travel patterns of people, especially when you're working
from home.
You're just, I'm not going in these same areas shopping the same ways.
And so we got to kind of adjust to that.
Any other questions, comments before turning back over Councilman Burke?
So while you were speaking it brought up to mind that I was thinking about an arts district
like different districts to do different things in where people are enticed to go to a museum
or to the farmers market.
And so what I'm recognizing is that we've kind of made our whole city a district in
itself.
There's a lot of things that are going on here, but it's not in a certain location.
For instance, if we have a museum, I think we had a little museum around the square,
and then there is another kind of activity that is in another section of town.
So I'm wondering if we can get to a point, I guess that'll come with growth, that we
can have these various districts music, you know, this is where we're going to find a
lot of music.
This is where we're going to find a lot of art.
This is where our farmers market is going to be.
What is the entertainment for the kids?
Do we have a skating rink?
Do we have somewhere, you know, where our kids could be entertained?
So those are the kind of things, and I guess I lean more towards the quality of life because
I'm a family-oriented individual that looks more to that side.
I'd like us to also put that in the mix.
Okay.
Anyone else?
Okay.
Turn it back over to you.
Can I have five minutes?
Sure.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Well, and let's do that.
Yes.
Can we?
Yeah.
Thank you.
So we'll take, let's be back at 10.30.
Is that enough time?
That's good.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you, sir.
We'll be back at 10.30.
Be back until then.
Thank you.
All right.
Welcome back to this meeting of Denton City Council.
We've had that break to give some time to process through the information provided,
and now we'll get an overview.
We're not scheduled to take a, or posted to take a vote.
So we're going to just give general insight or make sure everything's captured, and staff
will come back to us.
But the exercise now is to kind of react to what's captured, fine tune what's captured.
And I do want to call back to, if you're looking at your presentation, slide five on the strategic
planning role.
So our focus is the focus areas and objectives.
Then the city manager takes the initiatives, milestones, and comes back with those sort
of things with what they'll do.
So again, focus areas, objectives, make sure everything's captured.
If it's not, let's make sure that's captured.
That's kind of, so I'll give you, turn it over to you, you do your summary over you,
and then we'll give you feedback.
Okay.
So took a break just to kind of start coordinating these, and then identifying ones where work
was already underway and addressing some of these issues.
So we have one category that is public safety that clearly aligns with healthy and safe communities
as a key focus area.
There is some significant work being done in the police department around their mental
health division.
We, in a follow-up, we'll circle back and make sure you have all the information about
that work being done and where they're going next with that.
Looking at housing, as we move the affordable housing toolkit forward, that is one of those
strategic plans that we've identified and how we track and report on that.
So bringing back some information on that one as well, and that goes into fostering
economic opportunity and affordability, and sorry, I'm going to move around a lot on this
one.
Then we've got downtown, so we currently have the downtown master plan.
We are focusing on that second component, which is downtown economic development, living
and lifestyle, so we'll take a closer look at that one.
And then our downtown incentive grants, these are all things that are a piece of the plans
that we are currently moving forward.
That economic development strategic plan, which is fairly expansive, again, with those
121 tracked initiatives that fall under that specific plan.
So we'll bring you back information on incentives that are included in that plan and the work
being done with that ED strategic plan.
Then kind of this area here is a little bit of mix of everything, but a lot of that falls
into, quite a few of these fall into organizational excellence in terms of what the city is doing
with its DEI initiatives, how we are focusing on our workforce, and the things that we are
doing to be that employer of choice as a city.
I feel like with what we are moving towards with marketing and communication, I feel like
we're going to hear more and more about that voice of the customer and about how we are
engaging our residents in our community earlier and in a more proactive way.
Danny Shaw was telling me about the work that they are doing in the GIS mapping that can
help us with that identification of those regional gaps and how the work she's doing
is going to help with that priority that council has identified.
And then quite a lot going on in the area of environment and sustainability.
The EV solar and parking, that is actually one of the initiatives that we have currently
marked in the strategic plan.
So we're going to come back with a follow up with where and how this currently fits
in and then some of those future plans are and then what considerations we have for any
remaining items and then identifying those priorities for the next year.
Okay.
Questions?
Comments?
Councilman Meltzer?
My first point, I think I spoke too long and wasn't clear enough.
Okay.
It's the checked one on public safety?
Yes.
I'm very aware of the mental health division.
The point is the nugget, like in a little square, would be intercity approach to mental
health and substance abuse resources.
If it's 30 to 60% of calls, there may be, I don't know the exact number, but something
like 10 beds, places to bring people and the need might be more like 100, which is beyond
what a city can do.
That's why the nugget is intercity approach.
And yes, it will ultimately address our ability to keep up with public safety hiring because
if you're putting 30 to 60% of your resources on something that makes up half your budget,
you know, to something because you're not addressing it, it's a problem.
Thank you for that point of clarification.
Were there any other items that you wanted to add some clarification?
Amy, I just want to make sure council can give their, I mean, I know we didn't post
it to just take votes, but I do think we need to know from council sort of, okay, this one
and this one and this one or whatever.
So we, because otherwise I think we, what I don't want is to take every one of these
and have staff try to report out on this.
We need to know from council more of a consensus so that we're not just coming back and someone's
like, well, I wasn't really interested in that.
Well then, I would be interested to hear from someone on staff how to accomplish that because
that conversation never ends.
If we start that on each thing that someone touched about, we will be here for a very
long time.
I guess what I'm saying is as we go through them, Amy's putting a check mark by things
that we are already doing and maybe we just need to give you a better update.
Number one, two, there's quite a few here.
Is this the whole list or is there more up or down?
This is it.
No, this is it.
I guess if Mayor, you just say, okay, public safety, and I can't read what's there.
Well, my question is, if these are initiatives, correct, that are listed here, that falls
on your side of the ledger.
Our side of the ledger are objectives and focus areas and so she overviewed those focus
areas and objectives in there, the actionable things, kind of that initiative side is where
we hand off and so to go and I take your point, I just don't know if, I see you, I just don't
know if this is the...
I guess I'll just use Prop B as an example.
What do I do with that?
Because I don't know that there's an agreement here on this board, this body.
I don't think there is either, there hadn't been a...
One council member spoke on it, another one spoke on it, no one else spoke on it, and
you've spoke on it.
You said, we're doing everything we can because we're doing everything we can because it's
the right thing to do.
Either people are gonna accept you at your word or they're not, but that doesn't mean
you continue to say the same thing.
I think that's my, I think that's that point where it never ends if we...
And I'm trying to...
No, I appreciate what you're trying to do, I do.
Sure up that we object this focus area, larger council driven things and leave the initiatives
for you to report back, that sort of thing.
So Mayor Pro Tem.
Thanks, Mr. Mayor.
I think two questions I have for you and for City Manager, and that is, it seems like there's
two different things.
There's adding priorities versus reprioritization, an emphasis that may need, that this particular
makeup of council may want to emphasize certain elements more than others in the way they
were in the past.
So I think those are two different...
For the ones that you've been doing already and that can be organized in already, where
is the consensus of council in terms of the priority that we would love to see you focus
on?
And in addition, I take your point about there are new items on this list.
And I think that we established at the beginning that we didn't want people to reiterate what
other people had said.
So I don't know that we can use the counts of the people that spoke as an estimation
of emphasis because we purposely limited ourselves on what we were saying so that it wouldn't
be redundant.
So if you could help me through those conundrums, I would appreciate it.
Well, if you're specifically talking about Prop B, we've talked about that for over,
I don't know the math, but a year or two, right?
So if you tell them, if that specifically, if you're saying that we hadn't been heard
on that, I disagree.
If it's...
I meant generically, sir.
Okay, got it.
Then I don't know that there's...
These are initiatives, and that's where I'm trying to not drive us down into that component.
And then the other thing that's a struggle for me is if we're going to, at this point,
say, re-prioritize, what about the 119 other initiatives that we didn't talk about that
are already there?
Where do you go?
And then how do we, and this is for the entire body I'm saying, every year you go back and
you...
So there's 619 things that we didn't talk about, is that right, 616 things we didn't
talk about, strategies we didn't talk about.
There's 119 initiatives that were touched on, then there's an overview provided.
And then as a matter of practice, every year this council is going to revisit thousands
of initiatives, and I just don't know that that's...
And what does that put it if staff worked on it for a year, and then a year it changes,
this makeup changes, and we say we revisit that.
So I'm just...
I'm asking for insight on how that's not, to me, sustainable, nor a wise use of resources
to turn the boat every year.
I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor, it's just that that is sort of the nature of the political
beast when people elect new politicians.
They've said either the makeup of the city has changed, the makeup of the politicians
have changed, they've elected priorities, people who have expressed certain priorities
and vision, and those people get to set the new rules.
And I know that's unfortunate and ugly and hard in a bureaucracy, I myself am staff in
a bureaucracy for the state of Texas.
But it is what it is, I don't think we take left turns all the time, but you staff needs
to understand that.
So let me ask you that, how do you then prioritize...
So I got more votes than you did, so do I have more say than you?
We have a one seventh council, that's how this works.
So, but I'm just asking you, in your example...
We reach consensus.
I'm just...
We're just having a conversation.
So in that, if we go into that political world, and we do those things that way, do you see
how that can be...
I can then say, well, the majority of the city of Denton asked me to serve in this capacity
and a fraction of the city, a quarter of the city asked you to serve in that capacity,
ergo, I have a larger voice than you?
No, that's normalized through this process.
And so I take your point that there are elections and there are results, and that's going to
happen every year until that changes.
What I am saying though is, and that's exactly what my point is, and that we have to separate
this process from, you should represent 151,000 people, I should represent 151,000 people
in everything we do here, and on top of that, we have 2000 employees that we don't want
to have them work on because half of these things can't be accomplished in one year.
And so if you just work towards something for a year and then something changes and
you say, "Don't work on that," then you'll never get anything done because I've been
trying to get quiet zones for a number of years and everyone's on board and everyone
agrees and we still don't have them.
So it's just not realistic in my mind.
Now, if others want to do it that way, then that's okay.
Then again, I am one voice, but I'm just saying what you've just outlined is not steeped in
reality.
I understand it's not the way a business operates because governments aren't business.
That just isn't how it works.
Okay.
I need to hear from other people.
I mean, if that's the consensus, we'll move on.
We're not going to beat this.
And I don't know what that means for staff, but we will hash it out.
You look like you have something to say.
Yeah.
Well, then Council Member Melton.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I don't think this has to be that complicated.
For sure, we've been shown there is a massive amount of stuff that's already in the works.
And if council members already had a desire to take something off the list, I mean, they
could have said so, or they could still, I think more likely from the pruning point of
view, if we're hearing from -- I would be perfectly open to hearing in a future session
from staff, like here's a raft of stuff we just don't think we can realistically accomplish
while doing everything else and bring that for consideration.
But today is about us talking about what we want to be priorities on the list.
That's the whole point of priorities.
Some things are higher than others, and these are things that aren't addressed, and that
for whatever reason, it's urgency or importance or new voices that haven't been heard, whatever.
We get to have input on what should be priorities.
And as far as how many people you represent, well, that's actually all laid out in the
charter, you know, that we each get one vote.
One thing we might add to the list, I'd be very interested in hearing whether this body
feels that there ought to be a charter review committee if you don't think we're sort of
set up equitably, if it ought to be a 6-1 council or whatever.
I'm open to the idea that I think there are enough things that I've seen bottling around
from staff, from the community that maybe there ought to be a charter review to vet
some of that.
But on the stuff before us now, what I would suggest is we go one by one, show of hands,
the first slice is very easy.
If there aren't at least four people interested, it's not on the list.
Now, if there are at least four people on every single thing, it's probably still too
long of a list.
We could talk about how to call it further, like, you know, maybe everybody gets to say
what their top three are, and you go with the ones that have the most -- that are on
the top three list for everyone.
But I think a first cut would be simply, are there four -- are there at least four for
each item?
Right, I know you don't want to do red dots or stickies, but it amounts to the same thing.
But it truly does.
And I take your point, but here's the problem.
It all started with, we're not posted to take a vote.
You can say, take a vote.
You can say, raise your hands.
You can say, wink twice.
It's direction.
We do it all the time, Mayor.
I mean, you know that.
Well, I'm just -- I mean, I'm talking to the City Attorney, so I'll have him say it.
Maybe it'll sound different.
Go ahead.
We're just letting the Mayor know we're not posted for direction, which historically has
meant for us, at least in this working session, we're not posted for direction.
So we're posted for discussion and receive the report.
Wait, so -- but I don't -- there's an overarching -- so I take your point, Council Member Meldlund,
and those are all good points, but what the -- what you didn't -- what I do need to hear
from the body is, because I am in direct opposition of what Mayor Pro Tem is just proposed, is
that every year we revisit every priority based on election.
That's what he laid out.
Am I wrong?
That is what --
Okay.
I'm saying that every year new priorities are introduced, and we have to figure out
how those are integrated.
But then, yes, how do you -- how do you then integrate those to an existing --
It is an ongoing conundrum, and that's why every year we've done stickies or direction
or -- we've come up with a mechanism to give staff a clue of things to, you know, instead
of a one-year project, this is going to be two, or maybe it falls off the list.
So --
Or, you know, this is -- this one is -- you know, we -- that is a juggling act that goes
on all the time.
But if it's --
It is why one of the things that might be beneficial, say, in a charter revision is
three-year terms or something to where it's -- the things are less flexible.
But if it's -- if it's a two-year project, and you're saying it's revisited every year,
how do you reconcile that in your mind?
I think we -- it is incumbent on us -- I take your point -- is incumbent on us to look at
the resources that have been spent and the time that has been spent and say, in our individual
priorities, when we are providing consensus to council, do those still match?
Are we still in alignment with where we've done?
And you can't discount -- you can't just constantly add and discount.
But it is essentially a pruning mechanism, as Councillor Meltzer said.
And if we no longer -- I mean, I'm just going to pick on quiet zones since you mentioned
it.
If there's no longer a consensus from the current policy that we need to be working
on quiet zones, then they can fall by the wayside.
And I don't think that's actually where it is.
But I'm just giving that as an example.
Okay.
Councillor McBurke.
What I'm thinking is that since we have all of these different subject matters that are
laid out for us right now, if we can come to some kind of consensus as to what -- you
know, public safety is at first, is housing second, is land, what are we -- instead of
going through each and every one of these boxes to debate over, why don't we just take
each one of these different ones and put those in order first?
For instance, of course, I'm a quality of life individual.
I'm going to ask that our housing, you know, and then let's talk about public safety, then
economic strategic plan.
Why don't we look at it on a large scale like that first and start prioritizing there?
Point of order.
Yes.
We need some direction on the leality of what we're talking about.
If this is not posted for discussion and we've given our direction as far as what we want
on the list, we've just -- we each had an opportunity to say something.
But if this is not posted for direction, whether it should have or should not have been, it
doesn't really even matter, then I think we're really wading in some waters right now that
are not good.
We have a -- we have the rule of law and a process, and if we need to bring this back,
we can bring it back with direction, but otherwise, if we start doing all these informal votes
and all these kinds of things, I just feel real uncomfortable with that.
Rightfully so.
Especially since we've known that the city attorney has told us this is where we are,
so --
Rightfully so.
No, and I didn't suggest that.
No, no, I know you did.
So here's what it reads, and you all have it in front of you.
Receive report, hold discussion regarding City Council key focus areas and specific priorities.
That's what it -- so the discussion of key focus areas, priorities were good.
We just can't -- there's not direction requested.
And so by discussion, there is inevitably direction, but to have a straw vote or some
sort of tallying is not what we're -- and then I just candidly have a problem with us
getting into the initiatives versus -- and that's key focus areas, objectives.
And so I think Amy's done a good job of tying things to these key focus areas, and basically
I don't see a bucket of anything that's missing.
All the -- I'm looking for, is there a square in there that you think deserves its own bucket?
And let's inform that, but if all the little buckets -- I mean, all the squares fit into
the prescribed overarching buckets, then we're in good shape, I believe, and staff can come
back and report on those things.
Ms. City Manager?
I have a suggestion that maybe will work.
If you see the check marks there, those check marks are things that we're currently working
on.
Am I right, Amy?
That's correct.
So if -- we are working on DEI values.
We have a staff member that's working on that, training, the whole nine yards.
We have the process we're going through right now with TWU, UNT, and NCTC.
As a matter of fact, I have a meet with Brent next week, and some things that are really
exciting that we're working on.
We have a downtown master plan that's coming forward.
They'll be coming to you.
We've been working with Wayne on economic opportunities and incentives that you all
can address if you want to put more money into the budget.
We are working on our affordable housing kit and some of the others.
So if you will allow us then to give you an update on all those things, I mean, if you
ask Gary today, he'll tell you where his priorities are on parkland acquisition.
He can tell you he's got it.
Tony's working on solar.
It's a constant battle.
We're working on that with solar.
We've worked with Scott McDonald and facilities on solar and parking.
Tree code may be something you all may want to have as something extra.
Streets roadway funding.
We've made a suggestion that will come up in the budget.
Festivals.
We have a form.
If we can make that better or come back with something, I guess what I'm saying is we can
come back with something to counsel on all the check marks of things we're doing.
Then if there are other things here, which I see there are, then those are the things
that -- I mean, with DCTA, I talk to Paul Christina every week.
But if there's other things we need to do, to be honest with you, you have a representative
called Allison McGuire that really needs to represent the city, and that's a discussion
you need to have with Allison.
So there are some things here that I think we can come back and give you an update on
where we are.
So that narrows that list down to a very, very small amount of what would be helpful
for me to know.
>> All right.
Anyone else before we go back to the usual suspects?
>> Can we just take off the -- I'm trying to talk to you about it.
>> Can we just take off the ones that are checkmarked and let us see what we have left?
>> No.
I think that's her working document.
>> Is that impossible or irresponsible to do?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
Well, I mean, you know, give us a better -- yeah, just pull the other ones out that we --
>> Separate.
>> Yeah.
I mean, we need to see what we have and what we don't have.
>> Well, I just don't know that -- I don't know that it's fair, and staff can correct
me if I'm wrong.
It's -- do you not need time to work on it to get it right?
>> Well, all things with checkmarks, honestly, we're already working on.
>> Okay.
>> And we just need to give you an update.
I'm concerned.
I want to know more about the other ones so I know kind of where we're headed because
those are the ones.
>> Okay.
>> Gary can shoot you a list.
>> Well, let's just zoom in on -- yeah, just zoom in on it, but --
Mayor Pro Tem is in queue, so Mayor Pro Tem, I think you got rid of one that didn't have
a check there.
This is -- I mean, it's just -- go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem, you have the floor.
>> I was just going to concur with the city manager that let -- give her an opportunity
to give us a report or a presentation of, you know, the ones where we are and what we
think we're doing, and are we matching your priorities cool?
And then if we're not posted to make -- to give additional direction, then I think Councilor
Watts makes an excellent point.
We probably shouldn't be trying to give direction, so that's -- I'll keep it simple.
>> Well, but these are -- if -- correct me again if I'm wrong, what you've identified
here are initiatives.
These aren't priorities.
>> Correct.
That's right.
>> And we don't give -- if we're following the outline that we were provided on slide
five, we don't -- management-led is initiatives.
So the objectives are public safety, is that right in this example?
Or no?
>> You mean here, at this level?
>> No, even in where you were, just -- where is the -- so in public -- so in public safety,
what is the -- if that's the initiative, what's the objective?
>> Well, this is -- this ties with our key focus area of safe and healthy community.
And then from there, it would tie to enhance -- or build public safety capacity.
>> Okay.
So I'm just trying to -- I'm trying to stay within the confines you provided us, right?
And so I need your help on that.
So you talked about council-driven focus areas and objectives.
>> Correct.
>> So what we have here in the squares are initiatives, which is management-led, based
on the slide you provided, is that right?
>> Yes.
But we do also consider your priorities in that.
>> Okay.
Well, all right.
Then let's just -- we'll just go through the -- is there -- so the question before us is
to discuss what doesn't have a checkmark in front of us.
That's -- that's -- >> I mean, I don't want to pull a point of
order, but I really do think Council Watch's point is really germane.
Can we give direction or not?
>> I'm not asking for direction.
I said discussion.
>> Okay.
>> And we are posted to discuss.
Yes.
Again, I have never asked for direction.
That question was asked.
I said no.
It was proposed a different way than the -- so I just -- I'm trying to -- we are -- we can't
-- we have to discuss it.
That's -- I think that's what we've been doing the whole time until we hit this hiccup.
>> Can someone provide direction on then what the limits are, because if we are -- we sort
of did discussion on said what it was and why, so I -- I don't want to get us in trouble
or anything.
I -- >> Sure.
Let's just -- let's just be -- is there anything that -- let's do this.
Is there -- if there's anything that someone has an idea that's not captured here, if no
-- if yes, then let's put that forward.
If not, we'll wrap up.
So anything missing from this list?
The other checkmarks are on the other page.
This is just stuff that's not already in process.
Is there anything missing?
Seeing none, oh, Councilmember Meltzer?
>> Yeah, two things missing.
There it's there, and I'm not saying it was charter review.
And the other thing missing is just the piece -- process piece to say, can we agree?
They will put giving direction after our discussion today on the agenda for the 15th, just so
we can do that piece, see if you've got, you know, four more or, you know, however you
want to give direction on these items at a future meeting, and the next one's August
15th.
>> Yeah.
So this isn't where -- she's not going to type in the latter part.
The former part, is that captured, the charter review?
>> No, not yet.
>> Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Anything else?
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
That concludes item A. Let's take a quick break.
We'll be back, 1130.
Good morning.
It's 1131.
We're back, and we're set for our next item B, but I -- I know staff has a presentation
-- let me see, trying to see how best -- is it best to do the presentation?
And then gather questions, then is that -- or do you have milestones along the way to ask
questions per department?
>> I have milestones, yes.
>> Okay.
Great.
Let's do that.
And so it is -- let me get back to that.
Item B, which is ID 23272, receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding
the FY 2023-24 city manager's proposed budget capital improvements program and five-year
financial forecast.
>> Good morning, Mayor, City Council, Cassie Ogden, Assistant City Manager, here to present
the city manager's proposed budget for FY24.
So just a few things we're going to go over today.
So just budget overview, we'll go over general fund, all of the enterprise funds, we'll have
an update of the capital improvement program, the debt tax rate, internal service funds,
revenue funds, we'll give you an update of the ARPA funds, and then go over next steps
for the budget.
Just a reminder, our budget really is an all-year effort.
So we kicked off the CIP budget efforts in December.
We started reviewing all of the projects in January.
We have reviewed the projects since January, February, March, and then April we started
presenting our budget to city manager's office.
And then June we went through and presented the utility budgets to PUB and to City Council.
And then we are here in August for the budget workshop.
And September 26 we're scheduled or City Council is scheduled to adopt the CIP and the operating
budget along with the tax rate and the utility rates.
So we wanted to provide some economic indicators and some growth that we are seeing as we continue
to see strong growth in the city.
Just a reminder about the population estimates.
We are projecting to be a little over 300,000 people in population by the year 2040.
So really we're trying to focus on building the future, planning for that growth, and
making sure that we have adequate infrastructure and resources to meet the demand.
You can see on the right the building permits.
We continue to see strong building permit being issued for commercial and residential
throughout the city.
So some of the basis for the general fund operating budget, you can see some of our
assumptions in the salary adjustments.
We just completed the compensation study so that will be fully implemented in 2024 budget.
So employees just received their first increase in their checks on July 28th, but those costs
are included in the 2024 budget along with a 2% average merit increase for employees.
And then we've programmed in 3% in the future years, so 25 through 27.
The employer contribution, so with the city's portion of health insurance is increasing
about 10% from the previous year.
And then our employee contribution are only based on voluntary benefits, so those things
that the employees could elect, those are seeing some increases.
And then our TMRS rate increased from 18.15% to 18.94%, but that's not effective until
January so it's not the full fiscal year.
Fire pension contribution remains at 18.5% with their fund being pretty healthy.
It's estimated to be 100% funded within nine years.
And then the other item that's not on the slide but I wanted to mention is we are going
through meet and confer negotiations with fire and so we do have a placeholder item
in the budget for those contract negotiations.
So with that, the assumptions for general fund, the assessed values we received, the
certified values on July 24th, we are seeing a 15% increase from the previous year.
You'll see in the general fund forecast that we're assuming the M&O tax rate to decrease
in the future years as the AVs continue to increase or we're projecting to continue to
increase and then for property taxes we're assuming a 99.5% collection rate based on
the current year collection rate.
The city manager's proposed budget includes a total proposed tax rate of 56 cents which
is the same as the current fiscal year.
Sales tax, the current year we're seeing our sales tax come in right at our current budget
so we're only proposing a 1.5% forecast of increase in sales tax over next year.
And then in the future years we're estimating 3% increase.
The 6% ROI is maintained for the electric fund in FY24 and then we are proposing to
increase the amount of franchise fees that goes to street fund by $600,000 for a total
of $15.7 million to street improvement fund.
So I wanted to show you the tax rate kind of options that council could decide to go
with.
The proposed tax rate obviously is the current year's tax rate so FY23, no change from current
year to next year is what we're proposing.
That allows us to fund about $4.9 million in supplementals and you'll see those in
a future slide how those are broken out.
If council chooses to reduce the tax rate by half a cent, so 55 cents for the tax rate,
the general fund could fund about $2.9 million in supplementals and if we went all the way
to the no new revenue rate, which I'll show you that it's about 49 cents, we would have
a deficit of $5.7 million in the general fund operating budget.
And then on the other side of the screen, the half cent increase, we would be able to
fund or have a net income of $1.2 above the $4.9 of supplementals that is already proposed.
And then wanted to show you the sales tax revenue.
You can see in our budget, we're keeping our sales tax estimate for next year relatively
flat based on the current sales tax collection, but we have seen strong sales tax collections
over the last couple of years.
And then the appraised values, so you can see the percent increase overall, 15% increase
from 2022.
You can see the $1 billion in new value, which is substantial.
It's large increase from last year and then $1.5 billion change in existing properties.
As of the July 24th, when we received the certified values, there were still 1.3% under
review by the appraisal district.
And then excluding the frozen values, it was about 8.8% increase.
The average residential home value did increase about $37,000.
So went from $307,283 to $344,731.
So substantial increase from last year on the average residential home value.
As you know, the appraisal growth, we forecast very conservatively for appraisal growth.
Generally about 5% is what we forecast every year, just because we never know how the conditions
in the marketplace.
So you can see over the last couple of years, we've had a really high growth trend.
However, several years before that, we actually had negative.
So that's one of the reasons we are very conservative in our growth forecast.
If it comes in higher than what we budgeted, obviously, then we have a surplus.
But generally, we have a good indicator as the appraisal district starts sending us the
reports in late May from when we received certified values in July.
But over the 10 years, we've had about 9% is the average growth in appraised assessed
value.
So I know most of you know these definitions, but just wanted to give you a reminder.
So when we talk about the tax rate, the no new revenue rate is the calculated rate that
it would bring in about the same amount of revenue on the existing properties from both
years.
So same properties on the roll last year that are on this year, that's how much we would
need to collect the same amount of revenue.
The voter approval rate is the maximum allowed by law without having going to the voters
to approve a tax rate increase.
There are two parts to our tax rate.
So the M&O rate is maintenance and operations.
And that's really the portion that funds our general fund operations.
So all those police fire services, parks, our administration functions, HR, all of those
things are funded through just the M&O portion of the tax rate.
The INS tax portion is just the debt service.
So all of the debt that's sold on the general government side, we calculate what we need
to pay that debt service every year, and that's the portion of the INS rate.
So the proposed tax rate, this is how it breaks down to 35 and a half cents going to fund
general fund operations, and the debt service is 20.5 cents going -- needed to pay just
the debt service for the general fund.
So the general fund portion of the debt, not including the utilities.
The no new revenue rate this year is calculated at 49 cents.
And then the voter approval rate is 63 cents.
So we're falling right in the middle there at the proposed tax rate of 56 cents.
And that's per $100 valuation.
So I wanted to provide a comparison of how we compare to some other surrounding cities
in the Metroplex.
And you can see this is total tax rate.
So that M&O rate plus our INS rate or debt service rate is our total tax rate.
So we're right at 56 cents, which is kind of comparable to Richardson.
Plano is a little lower.
They don't have as much debt as part of their tax rate.
But you can see Dallas is almost 75 cents, Garland 71 cents.
So we're on the lower end of these specific cities.
Here's a comparison of prior years, so that average taxable value we showed earlier.
You can see because we're not proposing a total tax rate increase, but the average taxable
home value did increase.
It is translating into an increase in the average tax bill.
So that's about $209 a year or $17.41 a month.
I think the thing to keep in mind on this slide that is important is this operations
rate.
This is the general fund portion, this is what's going to fund those general fund operations.
This portion of the tax rate has decreased 7 cents since 2018.
So what we've needed to fund general fund operations is actually decrease 7 cents while
keeping the debt rate relatively flat during that same time.
The thing that's important about that is we had a 2019 bond program that was expected
to increase our debt portion of our tax rate about 3.5 cents.
We didn't see that happen because those assessed values came in really strong.
So while we're trying to keep our debt low, at the same time we're trying to keep our
operating expenses low and manageable.
And so we've actually decreased the tax rate 7 cents since 2018.
Assemblymember Meltzer specifically requested a comparison to CPI.
So we showed a 7 year average tax bill and how it compares to CPI.
So this year we are outpacing CPI.
There's been a couple of years we've outpaced CPI.
It's not a flat line.
But again, I want to reiterate that growth.
One of the reasons we're proposing to keep the same tax rate even though the assessed
value is increasing is because of one, the council priorities.
The things that you all have said are priorities in the budget that we want to fund.
Like public safety.
Those things increase our costs.
Personnel, equipment, things like that.
And so that's one of the reasons you're seeing that average tax bill increase from 23 to
24.
New value.
So we saw a substantial increase in our new value this year compared to previous years.
So I wanted to highlight that for council.
I know I received a question about what's in this new value.
Is it residential versus commercial?
What's the mix?
I don't have that information yet.
I have to ask the appraisal district to give me more information on what that mix is in
the new value.
So I'll follow up with council on that.
But that's approximately 3.6 million in revenue to the general fund based on that new value.
So I know this is what everyone's been waiting on, that general fund forecast.
So you can see a couple of things I wanted to point out.
Our general fund forecast this year includes the rec fund revenue and expenses coming into
general fund.
That was previously a separate fund.
However, because that fund was substantially funded by general fund transfers, we felt
like it was more transparent to dissolve the fund and show it all in general fund.
So you're seeing some increases in service fees.
That includes that rec fund fees.
And then also the personnel expenses increase.
It's about $4 million that we brought in from the rec fund expenses.
And then other revenue, you see the $38.9 million in the FY24 proposed.
That includes ROI, franchise fee, and the transfers from other internal service funds
and utility funds.
So their portion to pay HR, CMO, tech services, those types of transfers, those are included
in that $38.9 million.
On the flip side of those are the revenues, the transfers out, so our portion to pay those
other internal service funds is included in the $22.6 million in transfers.
So we have a cost allocation model that we updated last year.
We keep that model updated and make sure we're paying our proportionate share of each of
the internal service funds.
You'll see the personnel services, that's a substantial increase from the prior year.
That does include the fully loaded comp and class increases.
So that was about almost $9 million for the entire city of increasing those personnel
costs.
But that's fully loaded.
And it does include a 2% average merit increase for '24 for our personnel.
So this is a balanced budget.
Net income is zero.
We are drawing down the '23 fund balance.
That is based on council's direction to fund the one-time Bezos Academy funding out of
current year fund balance.
So that's included in the FY '23 estimate.
Other notable items, we are keeping our fund balance above that fund balance target of
20 to 25% fund balance.
In FY '28, that's expected to be 26%, which is a good thing when we go to get rated by
our rating agencies for our bond rating.
That decreases our interest rate costs if we can maintain our high credit rating -- bond
rating, excuse me.
And then may I have a couple more slides until a break and then we can have questions.
So I already mentioned these proposed supplementals of 4.9 million.
So here's a list of the individual supplementals that the city manager is proposing funding
for next year.
I've already mentioned the merit increase.
That's a 2% average for employees.
Fire is requesting six additional FTEs.
That's mainly for fire station number 9.
And then police is requesting three additional FTEs.
Streets -- we brought counsel the presentation in January on roadway funding strategies.
So how do we start funding more roadways with cash or revenue funding versus relying on
debt funding?
So the presentation proposed $5 million a year in revenue funding, additional revenue
funding needed for street reconstructions, we're proposing $1 million to start based
on, you know, the current budget, but again, this is a counsel decision point as to whether
you want to continue -- or propose to fund $1 million or change that amount.
Community services, we're requesting one additional FTE that's a community improvement officer
for solid waste that is actually funded from the solid waste fund, so there's a transfer
coming back to general fund to pay for that FTE, but wanted to show you that.
And then also the ambassador program, which you've already, you know, seen and given direction
to proceed with that two-year pilot program.
Animal services is requesting additional FTE for an animal services technician.
Development services is requesting two FTEs.
These are covered, though, through their fees, so this is not an additional expense to general
fund because it is covered by their revenue that they're bringing in.
Library is requesting a part-time FTE.
HR is requesting one FTE plus some money to do a reorganization of their group.
And then Parks and Rec is requesting one and a half FTEs.
They're proposing to bring the Parks Foundation position in-house and make that a city FTE,
so that's one and a half of that FTE.
And then internal audit is requesting a compliance specialist.
Economic development is requesting one FTE along with a contract increase for the EDP.
They're proposing to bring the Main Street position in-house.
That's currently a contracted position.
They're requesting to bring that FTE into the general fund.
And then the city manager's office is requesting one FTE as a senior management analyst.
That's to handle engaged dentin requests and assist our upcoming communications officer.
So total of 19 new FTEs proposed with $4.9 million.
And then one-time expenses in the current year, I already mentioned the Bezos Academy,
the $1.5 million.
Police is requesting additional funding for body armor.
That's a one-time expense of $196,000.
Legal is requesting a couple of items, so security system, case management software,
conference room, furniture.
Library is asking for a move of their municipal archives, so some funding to allow them to
do that.
And then additional library improvements, so building improvements for the libraries
of $1.7 million, and that was included in the '23 estimate.
And with that, I'll take any questions.
>> Okay.
And so this would be questions.
So after we get the questions out, we'll touch on those.
Lunch is here, but I want to get through the questions, make sure we can cut the directors
loose after this.
So if there's any department-specific questions while the director's here, and they need to
speak to those and get those in, and then we'll break, let them break and go from there.
Okay?
Questions?
Councilman Watts.
>> Let me make sure I understand what you just said.
So my questions are basically based on her presentation, some very quick questions.
Are you saying that if there's questions for these enterprise funds coming up, those need
to be asked at this time as well?
>> Yes.
Yes.
Because with that, I would think with the overview, that would guide potentially for
some of the enterprise or transfers, that sort of thing, questions.
But yes, trying to pool all those there.
>> Sure.
Okay.
All right.
Just a couple.
On slide nine, just for clarification, you talk about the net between the different tax
rate proposals, the 5.725198, that is if -- discussion purposes, we went down to the .494865.
The net includes the supplementals that are being requested at this time?
Is that right?
>> I believe so.
Yes.
>> All right.
So then if we got 5.7, I think the supplementals were 4.9.
>> Well, actually, I'd take that back.
The supplementals are showing zero.
So it would be -- >> So we're behind from where -- so we're
spending 5.7 more in the expense side.
>> Right.
>> Then we -- okay.
Got you.
And then on the no new revenue rate, do you break -- is that broken down into M&O and
debt service?
For the no new revenue rate?
I know you broke down the proposal.
>> So the no new revenue rate is for the total tax rate.
>> Right.
>> So it would be the 49 -- we would -- the debt service doesn't change.
So -- >> Okay.
>> So it would be the 20 cents minus -- so it would be 39 something -- or 29 something.
>> 20.
>> Okay.
All right.
And then let's see here.
Going to the -- the supplementals, I guess.
The street -- the roadway funding strategy, I know we talked about that.
And so we're trying to do less debt funding and more cash -- is that right?
>> Yes.
>> Which means we're trying to reduce the amount of the debt service rate.
Because if you're reducing debt, if you're not having as much debt, you're not raising
the rate to -- and you're shifting it.
You're shifting it from cash, which would go to the M&O rate, and taking it out of the
debt service rate.
That's conceptually -- this is so de minimis, it doesn't really even make a difference.
But okay.
And then the one-time service, the one-time fees, are those coming out of the general
fund balance?
I mean, where does this fit into the budget?
>> So the general fund, it's only drawing down -- because of our current estimates for
how we're going to end the year --
>> Right.
>> -- we're estimating to be a little higher on revenues than what we originally proposed
in the budget.
So we're only drawing down the fund balance by $666,000 to fund all of those one-time
expenses.
>> Those one-time expenses, okay.
So those are separate from the 4.9 supplemental and the tax rate, the proposed tax rate?
>> Correct.
>> So if you wanted either a tax rate decrease or increase, those supplementals would shift
accordingly?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
I think -- let me go to the mayor real quick.
I sent you some questions that I think you answered.
Just as a heads-up to the -- not heads-up, but information to the council, because I
think that the $1 billion new value is quite remarkable, and that -- at least from what
I've got from the 2022 certified and 2023 certified rolls from the county -- that's
about a 72% increase, or plus or minus, over last year.
And a lot of that is -- of course, you've got your single-family residential, your multifamily,
but also in commercial, the item called commercial real property, it went from -- I think it
was 97 -- yeah, $97 million to $298 million.
>> That was for the total certified.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> Yes.
Yeah.
Well, that shows under new value.
>> Oh, okay.
>> So it was 97 new value, and this year it was 298 new value.
>> Right.
>> They're separate.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
Okay.
And then let me think.
Let me just make sure I got all this -- okay.
Something might pop up, but that's helpful.
Thank you.
>> Okay, any other questions?
Councilmember Magee, Mayor Partem.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I obviously have some questions for Cassie.
With your permission, may I ask Councilmember Meltzer a question to lead with?
>> Sure.
>> So I remember hearing you talk about this, and Cassie noted in her presentation.
So we got information about what the tax bill is.
So given that information, what does that say to you about the tax bill increasing?
>> Yeah.
Well, you know, what I'm -- what I want to do is just be as transparent with the public
as possible about whether we're voting to increase their taxes or not.
When you talk about the tax rate, I mean --
>> Okay.
>> You know, pay the tax rate, already check for the tax rate, you write a bill.
So now I specifically -- I actually asked for the wage inflation rate, not the CPI,
but amounts to the same thing right now, it's about four, four and a half percent.
You know, whether your home goes up in value if you're a homeowner doesn't necessarily
affect your ability to pay more taxes, right, until you sell it.
But wage inflation rate could give some indication of whether people are able to pay more.
So you know, I'd be interested in if it's four, four and a half percent more is what
people are able to pay, what would that translate to budget-wise?
What would the gap be?
And then, you know, what would -- what would staff prioritize as urgent and important?
You know, I'm perfectly willing to go to the taxpayers and say we want to go beyond
your increased ability to pay, you know, do a 12 percent increase in your taxes because
there are things that are urgent and important and we don't have things that are less urgent
and less important that we could cut at this time.
You know, I mean, that's -- but I just want to be transparent about it.
So at least as like a gut check, I'd be interested to see where would increasing with the wage
inflation rate put us and what would -- what would kind of be on the bubble if we took
that approach.
And then, like I said, if there's things we say -- that we want to say, hey, those are
urgent and important, taxpayers, we need you to pay more to fund them, you know, then that's
-- that's an option.
Thank you. For Madam City Manager, I didn't see an external comms person in there. A comms
person?
There -- I'm taking an existing vacancy.
Oh, okay. Okay. I appreciate that. So Cassie, going back to slide six, you talked about
the fire pension fund. How does that compare with areas around us?
I believe, and I can go back and look at some of the areas, but --
Yeah, just -- just -- I mean, no need to go in research.
We're -- we're in a good place with our fire pension fund. It's -- it's funded adequately,
so.
Okay.
Councilmember, just so you know, we're way ahead, I mean, considering other cities who
are struggling to fund their fire pension.
Okay. That's what I was asking.
We're doing really well.
Okay. Great. Well, thank you.
And Council has made that a priority in recent years.
Okay. Thank you for that. Jumping ahead to eight, in '24-'25, we think there's going
to be a 3% increase on the sales tax. Can you say more about that?
So last year, I actually had the future years at 5%. Based on the current year collection,
I've brought that down to about 3%. We are right at our budget, collections-wise, this
year.
This year?
So I don't -- it's relatively flat, is what I'm proposing.
Okay.
For the out years.
And jumping ahead to slide 15, Councilmember Holland and I both appreciated this. Whenever
I'm seeing comparative charts, I like to put -- compare Denton to McKinney. He mentioned
Louisville. Any idea kind of where -- what McKinney's rate is?
I don't know. I'll see if I have that.
Okay. Or Louisville's. It's just helpful to me thinking about the size difference there.
And last one with the roadway fees. What have y'all done in the past in terms of how you
funded this? I remember when we had this discussion earlier this year, we needed $5 million. We
talked about a tax on utility bills and whatnot. What has been done under previous Councils
going way back, perhaps, when Burroughs or Mr. Watts was in the Cabinet?
Previous Councils, they started increasing it based on the franchise fee revenue. So
the revenue that the City collects for those utilities using our right-of-way or the franchise
fee, they were increasing about $600,000 a year, which is what we've done. We also -- that's
one of the reasons that the utilities sell COs. They issue COs now instead of revenue
bonds is because the difference in the interest rates between the City's credit rating and
the utilities system credit bond rating, that difference goes to fund a portion of the streets
improvement fund also. And quite honestly, previous Councils were relying on -- we were
relying on debt. That's one of the reasons you saw the numbers from the 2019 bond program.
The majority of that was the roadway improvements. Same with 2014. 2012 was only debt for roadways.
We have been very reliant on debt to fund our infrastructure. And so the point of the
roadway funding strategy discussion is, how do we maintain our roads but also get away
from that heavy debt reliance? Because what happens is, like in 2019, we issue a large
amount of debt, and so our tax rate creeps up for several years, and then we kind of
normalize, but then we have this whole amount of roadway that needs to be redone. So for
instance, 2026, we're going to come and need a significant amount of roadway redone, and
the only way to pay for that all at once is through debt. So this was saying over a 40-year
window, how do we reduce that reliance on debt funding? And so it's not going to fix
the problem in the short term, but you're going to see in that 40-year window, you're
going to see less reliance on debt. So to your point, Councilmember Watts, it won't
decrease it because you still have that backlog that you're trying to make up for, but over
the 40-year, you should see a decrease in your overall debt tax rate.
And last question, Mr. Mayor, for you or for staff. So specifically with this discussion,
roadway funding strategies, is this going to be brought back to us again in work session
form? We're going to have to have some more discussion about this, whether we like that
one million amount or whatnot. So how's that going to work?
I would like direction today on how Council feels about the one million. And then we do
have follow-up budget discussions scheduled from now until budget adoption on the 26th
of September. But the more direction I can get today, the more I can make some different
decisions or make the changes to the budget and then bring that back to show you what
it looks like. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Mayor Proctor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So two quick questions,
and I think I understand, but I just want to be clear to make sure. Of the supplementals,
the total is $4.9. We're proposing $3.1 in essentially FTEs and $1.8 in one-times, is
that correct? No.
So the $1.8 in one-time expenditures is in the $4.9 total?
Are you talking about the one-time expenses, this $1.8, $1.7?
Yes. That is not included in the $4.9 million.
So it's $5 million in an additional $1.8 million.
Correct. Okay. All right. All right. I did have it screwed
up. Thank you for clarifying that. And then my other question picks up from Councilman
Lee. I do think we need to have a robust discussion about that. This is the streets, sorry. If
we have $1 million in streets, but we are proposing that we need $5 million, what is
the delay in getting to the desired funding street level?
So essentially, it's a kicking the can mechanism and using time to leverage instead of money.
So is that all the way out to 40 years before we can compensate? Or how soon, if we start
at one, will that be enough? And if it's not, then how fast will we have to ramp up? And
over what time period will it kick in? That may be out of scope for this conversation,
so I'd be willing to let it be at another. But I'm concerned that if we have a need
for five and we're proposing one, what does that do to us?
I think a couple of things. So I think it depends on how quickly Council is willing
to commit the rest. So we're proposing one this year. If I come back next year with only
$1 million proposed, that's going to extend that 40 year into longer. But if Council decides
this year is $1 million, maybe we want to increase it by $1 million next year, so that
gets you to $2 million. I think that's a different conversation. So I really think it's up to
Council as to that funding, but we can model out what that looks like as far as what it
does for the street condition over that time period.
Yeah, I'd be particularly interested in the effect of different growth rates over time
and the delay. Okay, any other questions? Councilman Holler.
Thank you. What other funding opportunities are available for streets?
So one of the things that I think Council could decide to do is look at the revenue
we receive from Core Scientific so that ROI and franchise fee money coming into general
fund. More of that could be allocated to roadway funding. It's already revenue coming into
the general fund. We could allocate more of that.
What kind of number would you guess that is?
There's about an additional $4.6 million, I believe, coming from a dedicated ROI and
franchise fee amount coming to general fund. And I would say that's an amount that Council
could direct to use more or less of that to this roadway funding strategy.
Excellent. Thank you. I just want to point out we're in a really, really high inflation
period right now. Were that to get under control and lacking a crystal ball, but were that
to get harnessed a little bit? What would happen to these numbers?
Well, I think we're in an interesting position in the city. So we have an older city who
has a heavy need for infrastructure replacement, but we're also growing, which means we're
adding more staff at the same time. So it really is a balance of what does Council
expect your level of service to be for these operations?
We are proposing what we feel is a balanced budget, but also giving you the service level
that we feel like Council has expected of us in the past. Council could opt to change
that service level. If you say you don't want high response time in fire, that we wouldn't
need as many firefighters. I would not recommend that. But those are the tradeoffs that Council
can-- Recommending that. May I be clear?
Those are the tradeoffs that Council can opt to make.
Okay. Thank you. Parks, the Parks Foundation position and the Economic Development position,
how have those been, have they been volunteer positions prior to now?
They've been contracted positions. I can have Christine Taylor come up and give you a little
bit more information about those specific positions.
If you don't mind. Both of those positions have funding in
the operating budget for Parks and Economic Development, where we paid the Park Foundation
$125,000 a year, maybe a little less than that. And then they went out and hired the
employee. Same thing on the Main Street Association. It was a contract where we funded them $125,000
approximately, and they had a full-time employee. So with the Main Street Association, Christine
Gossett left that. It became vacant. They had conversations with the board who was in
agreeance that that would be a great position to bring back in-house. On the Park Foundation
side, they've had that position vacant for six months or longer. And same conversation
with their board that they were interested in the city bringing that back in as an operation.
With a net savings? Correct. So we would reduce that operating cost.
Both of those would be a net zero. We'd reduce that operating expense, add the position,
and there's no additional cost in the supplemental. Okay. Very good. Very good. Thank you. That's
all I got. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay. Councilmember McGee.
Madam City Manager, can I just ask you if you don't mind to explain your idea on funding
roadways strategy? No, I mean, it's not really. I don't want
to take, not like it's credit, but correct me if I'm wrong. I think you might want to
explain to them where you showed 15 point something million in streets. Okay. So show
them that. This is important because it's, you got so much money you're putting into
streets. I know. I know. There it is. Transfer a 15.7 million to streets improvement fund.
Now streets improvement fund is to improve our streets, correct?
Yes. Then you're going back and you're saying add a million to roadways based on roadway
impact fees. No, not impact fees.
Or impact fees. I mean impact fees, not roadway impact fees, but impact fees. So technically,
if you, can you not add 15 with plus one? Correct.
Okay. So if they wanted to do more with streets, they could next year issue bond, they could
do a bond program for streets and increase through the general fund, increase it and
say right here today, this is fine for this year, but next year we want you to put 2 million
in there and we want you to increase the streets improvement fund by a million, not 600,000.
So you have that ability to do that. Okay. Any other questions? Councilman Melton.
Thank you. First, if we, you know, are going to look at comparing the 12% proposed increase
to a 4 point something. I think it's 4.74. Yeah, I can believe that because I thought
wages are finally outpacing price inflation. But are the supplementals in, from staff point
of view, in priority order in terms of what's urgent and important? And I realize, you know,
obviously you're going to look for our input on that. So, I mean, obviously that's why
you've shown fire police. You've already proved a merit. So fire police, we believe, adding
money to keep our streets going. But if you look at this, I just want to be, you look
at the priorities you all set, community services, that's a priority. Council set. I don't question
that every single thing is good and a priority. No, I know that. I'm just telling you, our
justification is going by your priority areas. That's why we looked at roadways, community
services, animal services. There's an article that came out today that all the animal services
across the state are struggling with more animals and not enough staff. I mean, I know
you know that. But yes, they're in order. Honestly, they're all a priority because if
you look at... Yes. Nobody knows proposing anything evil. I know you're not. But yes,
I can't, other than police and fire, and they're all in priority order. I mean, they're all
priorities, but they're in order based on priority. Urgent and important. Okay. And
then just more narrowly, I didn't look and see. I could, but this is what's coming up.
Is the Park Master Plan pace of acquisition funded in this budget? So the land acquisition,
we don't have a placeholder in the CIP budget for land acquisition. Council could give that
direction and say we want to fund, you know, we want $2 million a year, for instance, for
park acquisition funding. We can add that to the CIP if you give us direction today
to do that. But currently we don't have a placeholder. And what would the number be
that would keep us on pace with the master plan? I don't know that off the top of my...
Okay. I'll make sure to get that. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Councilman Watts.
Just for clarification, especially from what the comments were from the city manager, on
this roadway funding strategy, look, we tried to do this with vehicle replacement, and it
didn't work. I mean, me personally, you know, debt is not an enemy when it's used appropriately
and when it's used because it's all about cash flow and it's about priorities. And plus,
until now, interest rates have been such we should have financed everything we could get,
but that's a different story. But what I'm hearing is on the roadway funding strategy,
if we wanted to allocate more money to the street maintenance fund, because that's really
what that is. The street maintenance fund is for road and even $5 million a year to
reconstruct a road. I mean, it's not going to... So I really think there's a different
way to do that without it quote unquote being added as a supplemental. And then I have a
question on these positions that have been being brought in house, which means we've
already got in the budget, prior year budgets, money to pay for those contracts or for those
contractors. So if we're just switching, and this may be the delta of the cost, but if
we're switching from independent contractor to person, the funding mechanism hasn't necessarily
changed. We still have money. And so I don't know why it would be a supplemental unless
we were paying 50,000 to the contractor and now we're paying 100. Well, then that would
be an additional supplemental. But if we're just changing out titles without any increase
in the cost, I don't think that should be under supplemental. Am I wrong?
It's for the addition of the FTE because since it was contracted, we had it just part of
their operating budget, we didn't need to have an actual full-time equivalent as part
of the budget. So they're essentially asking you, asking council to add the FTE. While
you're seeing some of those costs, it's the other supplemental. So the $50,000 on there,
it is zero for the Main Street position. Because like you said, we've got the funding, we're
just bringing it in the house. All we're asking with that request is for one full-time equivalent,
no additional dollars. The $50,000 is to increase economic development contract, economic development
partnership contract increase. And then on parks, that cost is primarily is the field
service worker. Okay. So then the 50,000 on the economic development
label is for the EDP contract increase. Yes.
Whereas the Main Street position is a net zero. Correct.
And that's just, okay, I got you. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Any other questions? Councilman McGee, then Mayor Patu.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So a question right here on supplementals. With community services,
I'm just, I'm just, I'm just matching one for one here. I remember the contract that
we looked at for the ambassador's program was going to be $7,700 and $8,000.
Right. This has it starting in January. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that.
And library. So help me. I remember last year we were looking at this and we looked at those
tiers and we decided to fund four tiers instead of five tiers. I believe that fifth tier called
for like one and a half positions for libraries and now we didn't fund it. But now I'm seeing
we're only asking for a part timer. And I might be wrong on what that fifth tier asked
for last year. Can you just help me? I know that while we're waiting on Christine,
I know that there were, I don't, I think if I remember, Jennifer asked for several part
time, part time positions and we only gave her one or two. This is filling another, actually
filling a part time library specialist position. I may be wrong.
We did fund positions last year for the library. This year when they brought forth budget supplementals,
we had internal conversations with the departments on that increasing that merit and pay was
going to be the first priority. So supplemental requests were scaled back and then you're
only seeing the request that city management is recommending.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate it. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem.
Mine's real brief. Could, if we could know some of the things that you just said with
counselor Watts and get us a new table of the things that are, you know, already paid
for not already paid for some, some of the discussion you just had, I just love to see
that because I, I didn't catch it from my notes. So that, that'd just be really helpful.
Thank you.
Okay.
Okay. Any other questions? Cassie, can you forgive me for not having it right in front
of me. The sales tax number for this year is what?
For this year, we're estimating $56.7 million to collect in sales tax.
And that means DCTA gets a half cent of that times 0.05 or 0.05.
0.05, I believe. No, 0.5. Sorry, 0.5. Cause ours is 1.5. 0.05.
A half cent, yeah.
Half percent.
Half percent. Okay. Can somebody do that math for me in the end? Cause I'm, I'm, it's,
it's, it's, it's counselor Watts.
Yeah. Well, just for clarification, this sales tax number represents our collection, which
is 1.5 cents or 1.5 percent. DCTA is 0.5 percent.
Correct.
So correct me if I'm wrong, then basically DTA is getting a third of what we're collecting
because a third of 1.5 is 0.5. So you could divide that by three and that gives you a
very good indication, you know, a good estimate of what our contribute, which in this case
it'd be what, 17 or I can't read it. What's the amount of sales tax we're looking at?
56.7 for this year. Yeah. So divide that by three. That's a little, that's about 18, 18
million. Yeah.
So we need to draft something to them about that TRIPS grant amount and, and, and coordinate
with Louisville and the other member cities or whatever. But, but that's just, that's
significant because it's, it's not anything against them. But when I hear in the newspaper
that they have a $90 million bank account, basically, before they have too many plans
for that, I don't want to continue to add $18 million on top of that unchecked, right?
Especially when we're talking about infrastructure, we're talking about cycling needs. We're talking
about last mile components because, and everything they do, it's not door to door. It's, it's
regional drop-offs or area drop-offs. So, so some sort of connectivity with our infrastructure
with getting people that last mile and the fact that we continue to perform well to our
credit on sales tax doesn't mean that, that that should just go and sit in a bank account
somewhere. So whatever, I'll take staff's direction on what form that takes, but that's,
that's my request. Then, are there, I would like to know, are there positions open that
we've not been able to fill that are on the supplemental list? So for example, if police
department, and I'm just using an example, I doubt this is the case, but if police department,
hey, we have an opening we hadn't been able to fill and we have these new fields, like
anywhere in that supplemental is everything, all those departments are accounted for and
we're adding or there's vacancies and we're adding, trying to hire more.
I can answer that. And, and Frank shaking his head no in police because they just did
an academy and same thing with fire. The community services, they need that position. And then
one is just to reclass animal services. Absolutely. There's no vacancies other than Tiffany. And
then the library specialists know they're, I'll tell you, seriously, we've been able
to fill more jobs because of the, what the great work you did in the merit increase.
So and, and then of course, Madison is asking for a compliant special specialist, which
she needs. She has no vacancies. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Then just
in this not today, but for future, I would like to have a maybe top three list of city
revenue producing being that the, you know, all our departments are great work and I want
to make a plug for our record and recreation centers, birthday parties. They're fantastic.
You know, so if you're looking for a place to host your birthday party, call your Denton
Parks and Rec Department and we'll hook you right up. So that means you can't beat the
indoor bounce house. You know, you beat the heat, you have fun. It's all good things.
But I would like to know kind of what, what, what programs are generating just so I can,
you know, have that in the back of my mind. So if you could help me with that, that'd
be great. And just over the, you know, fiscal year. And then I want to confirm e-bikes that's
in the budget. I believe that's included. Okay. It's in the current fiscal year. Great.
Perfect. Thank you. And then traditionally in the past, you've given us a slide of those
that have received tax abatements that are rolling off or whatever phase is there. And
can you bring that back? Sure. I'd love to see that because I think for example, embassy
should be there in the nineties. They were 100%. I would think that that's tiered. So
I just don't know where they are in that, but I'd like to see that just kind of an update.
And I think, cause we're best by is that crossing. I think that rolled off, but just want to
understand where we are. Yeah. And because it also features the ROI, which is a great,
great point. So we'd like to see that. Um, then I'm going to, uh, last thing is I, I'm
just going to make a push for one additional supplemental. And that is the $25,000 to brand
the trash cans. Uh, and that it would just say simply kids at play on new trash cans.
When people get their Ben replaced, it just serves as a great reminder to me, easy messaging.
Everyone in the neighborhood would roll out their trash cans and on the side of it, at
some point, uh, taking a stash point that it would be above the arm. So it's not beat
up, but kind of across the top, or just say kids at play and just kind of a gentle reminder
that would circulate throughout the entire city to run remind people to be mindful of
how they're driving. And each, each neighborhood, a resident has asked me about her or talk
to me about it regularly. So it's kind of a way to equally serve everyone in that way,
or at least, uh, kind of keep that top of mind. So that purse staffs last Friday report,
I think the numbers around 25,000 for, for new. And so I'd ask to add that. And if it
gets support, it does, but, uh, if it doesn't, it doesn't, but that's, that's important
to me. So thank you very much. Um, lunch is here. And if I'd ask the directors and the
general fund to come have lunch, at least with the council members. And then unless
any council member, other than enterprise enterprise or, um, other funds need to stay,
but the other general fund department heads, uh, can go, uh, but you need, but please come
eat because otherwise we're going to have so much food. We're going to be, I don't
know what we'll do. Okay. So, um, any other questions before we break for lunch? Anything
else? Councilor Watts, uh, just for options, I would like to see, uh, on the $1 million
for street funding. I mean, I think that's going to fall the wayside of the vehicle cash
funding that we tried for many years. And it just, so I would like to see what it would
be like if that were excluded, how we add that somewhere with some other revenue that
we've already got in the fund. And then what's that take the tax rate down to? If we just
take that out, that's it. Or is there something that management thinks just missed the cut
that, that, you know, might assist with some of that, whether it's another animal services
officer, I, I don't know what it is. So I don't know, but I'm just saying, I think that
million dollars, I hear, I hear the aspiration, but over time and the way we've looked at
it and the cost of these street reconstructions and the for it, it's just going to sit in
a fund somewhere. It's going to just, it's going to get used somewhere. It's just fungible.
So that's my only thought on that. Yeah. Well, and, and that's a, that gives me a thought
and a follow up to that. How long did you, when did that take place? That, when did we
start that? The final presentation was made in January of this year, but we worked on
that project for about a year before we brought it to council. Okay. Yeah. I know I was just,
and how does that sync up with the timing? Cause where I'm going was I take his point
and, but at some point we pivoted to where we're going to do all the infrastructure.
So I wonder if it was, I don't know how that timing worked where we initially we were just
doing the roads and then we're saying we're doing all the infrastructure. And so obviously
there's a bigger cost now when we're doing roads versus the previous mentality where
we were just doing the surface. I just wasn't sure the time into those. Right. I think the
comprehensive approach was before we started on the roadway funding strategy project, but
this would be specific for the roadway cost. The other costs are run by other funds. Right.
Okay. All right. Any other questions? So water and wastewater infrastructure pay for their
portion. Same with drainage is included in the road sometimes, but the roadway is paid
by the streets fund. Water utilities is paid by their portion of the fund. And, and one
other thing that I've asked for before that I don't know that I've seen and forgive me
if it came out in a Friday report and I missed it. It wouldn't be much information percentage
of our city that's tax exempt federal. So FEMA has one, two, three, four sites to universities.
So I just, that, that matters because when we're doing the comps to Louisville doesn't
have the same challenge as McKinney. And then there's, just so you know, the tax rates around
44 cents, 45. I could be off. Yes. Yeah. It's I could be off a little bit, but it's, it's
in the forties. Um, I, I could be wrong, but I think that's right. I was, I was looking,
yeah, I was looking as earlier. Yeah. Yeah. But, but so I just would like to know the
percentage of, so 100 square miles. What percentage of that is tax exempt? Okay. Because I don't
know that they're not like the, they're famous over other building. If you don't know it's
there, I mean, you know, it's, it's sitting there. I didn't, I had no idea what it was
until, you know, so it's, that's right. That's how I figured it out. I had to look it up.
Okay. So it, uh, I tried to walk in and ask for order of pizza. So it's, uh, 1230. We'll
take a lunch break. We'll be back at what 12. We'll eat here at the desk, right. Yeah.
So like 1245 and welcome back to this meeting in Denton city council. It is 1253. We had,
we are now to the enterprise portion of the budget discussion, or if there's anything
else, we need to go back and caption and come back. So turn it over to you, Amy. All right.
Uh, good afternoon, Amy Castlick. I'm now speaking to you as interim finance director.
Um, I'm going to be presenting the enterprise funds, which includes the airport electric
solid waste, uh, water and wastewater funds. The major source of revenue for each of these
funds is generated from the customers receiving services. Um, you've previously received presentations
on DME solid waste and recycling water and wastewater on July 18th, uh, airport revenues
are derived primarily from land and hanger leases, as well as gas well, uh, royalties,
um, all of which remain fairly flat for fiscal year 2024. Um, expenditures have increased
slightly, um, due to increases in personnel costs. Um, the airport fund, uh, as you'll
see is programmed to draw down reserves over the next few years. Uh, however, the airport
master plan is expected to provide, um, additional insights into future use and services at the
airport. Uh, in addition, the department is collaborating with the FAA and text dot to
secure, um, grant funding to reconstruct the primary runway. Uh, next up is, uh, the electric
fund DME. Um, it assumes, um, a two and a half percent load growth in purchase power
and moderate increases in personnel and operating costs. Uh, funded supplemental requests include
the 2% merit increase, a SCADA network assessment, an outage coordinator, relay technician, um,
and then storage for equipment, um, and construction standards for voltage conversions. Uh, in
addition, three vehicles are proposed to be purchased from existing vehicle replacement
funds. Uh, note rate increase has been included for fiscal year 2024. Um, however, we are
anticipating 3% rate increases from, uh, 2025 through 2028. Um, there is also, um, an alternative
option that you, uh, heard about on July 18th that would look at doing a one time increase
of 12 and a half percent in 2025. Um, these increases support the fund and help to maintain
required, uh, cash balance reserves. So, um, solid waste proposed, uh, expenditure budget
is in line with last year's adopted budget. Uh, increases exist in personnel costs related
to the, uh, comp and class study, um, cost of service transfers related to personnel,
uh, and contracts that are being moved over to, um, environmental services, uh, as well
as debt service. Uh, so these are offset by reductions in revenue funded capital and in
vehicle replacements. Uh, funded supplemental requests again include that 2% merit increase
as well as a cart washing truck set to be funded from capital. Uh, we are not contemplating
a rate increase, uh, until fiscal year 2026. However, um, there is a cost of service study
that will be brought forward, uh, soon that could, um, change up the, the way that we're
projecting, uh, rate increases in the future. Uh, in the water fund, we're projected to
use more impact fees to fund capital and debt service beginning in fiscal year 2024. Uh,
proposed expenditures include, uh, moderate increases in personnel and operating costs.
And again, it includes that 2% merit increase. There are also six additional positions, uh,
proposed for water utilities. And, um, a bit of an offset to that is that there's a shift
of personnel from water, again, to the new environmental services fund. Uh, no rate increases
are proposed for 2024. However, we are anticipating, uh, rate increases in the four years following
that. And that is in order to meet, um, coverage requirements and reserve balance targets.
Next is the wastewater fund. So when looking at the wastewater fund, which also includes
drainage, proposed revenues and expenditures are just below, uh, last year's adopted budget.
Uh, this is due to revenue that was associated with cost participation, um, being delayed
until future years and then less revenue funded capital. Um, in addition, there are, um, some
changes in personnel and operating expenditures that are again, due to positions being moved
over to the environmental services fund funded supplemental. In addition to the 2% merit
increase, uh, there are four water reclamation operators for pecan Creek, a project manager
and inspector, uh, one service truck and a hydro excavation truck. Um, so in this fund,
we are proposing an 11% rate increase in 2024 with similar increases in the subsequent
years. Um, based on anticipated rate increases, we are projected to meet, uh, cash balance
requirements in all of the years shown and debt coverage in two of the five years. Um,
I want to share with you then also our rate comparisons when looking at, uh, the wastewater
residential rates. Um, so this is based on an AWWA standard, um, where we're comparing
apples to apples with other utilities, uh, looking at a three quarter inch, um, on the
base rate and then 8,000 gallons of consumption, uh, for wastewater. So, um, you'll see in
this Louisville is proposing, um, a rate increase of 4.3% for wastewater and then Irving, um,
Irving has a planned 4% rate increase as part of a five year, um, strategy that council
has approved there. Um, it gives them the opportunity to raise that, but then they can
go up or down based on the needs of what they're seeing in the utility. So this year they are
actually anticipating increasing wastewater anywhere from five to 6%. So this is projected
out at five and a half percent to show you that comparison data. Um, when looking at
specifically at the city of Denton, um, our residential customers usage is about 5,040
gallons. So it's a $30 average bill under the current rate. And so with the proposed
rate increase, that would go up to $33 and 30 cents, um, a month on the customer bill.
So we wanted to share a history of rate changes across all the utilities. Um, we haven't had
a rate increase since fiscal year 2017. And in fact, we reduce the rates every year from
2018 to 2021. Um, and these reductions were all while experiencing overall cost increases
and the demands for services growing, um, is one of the factors that have led to, um,
this 11% needed increase in wastewater. And with that, if anyone has any questions, questions
for staff, Councilmember McGee. Thank you Mr. Mayor. So it looks like whatever, whatever
department we're looking at some potential substantial rate increases over the course
of five years, what's the general ideology behind, except before wastewater, not increasing
the rates this year, but then taking significantly significant jumps next year? Why not even
them out and tear them all in over the course of five years? Just what's the ideology there?
Go ahead. Yeah. Well, primarily this year, the need is in wastewater. Wastewater absolutely
needs that rate increase this year. So it's a matter of kind of softening out the overall
rate impact on our, um, customers and really with the goal of overall avoiding great shock
and making those as even as we possibly can, but knowing this year that, that the greatest
need was for wastewater. But, but I will say your point is very, very valid. I asked the
same question, uh, when we were reviewing the budgets millions of times. I mean, if
you look at the picture, it's great news because look at all the reductions and we've kept
the fee the same way. The problem is, is everything has cost us more and more staffing, everything
else. We're at a pitch point right now, but all the other funds, including electric are
going to have to go up in the future. And that's including solid waste as well. I guess, um,
let me look at electro electric, for example, nothing this year, but we've got 3% for four
consecutive years. Why not just take that 12 and divided by five and just start next
year or I'm sorry, start this year. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm just, I'm just
asking about the line of thinking. It doesn't, you know, council, it's coming anyway. Absolutely.
Council can do that. We were, as Amy said, 11% increase is a shock for some people, uh,
and it's based on how much wastewater, you know, how, how many flush toilets and all
that stuff. But at the end of the day, we were trying to be careful about that big sticker
shock says 11%, 3% here, 3% here, but it is coming. Yeah, it is coming. So it's really
a council decision. And I guess the last thing I'll say is the reason why I'm thinking is
because if we know it's coming and we phase it in a little bit slower and longer, it's
less of a shock to customers. But also I'm thinking in case something catastrophic happens,
we've already increased the rates a little bit slower. So we have a little bit extra
in the tank. That's just my general line of thinking, but I'm, I'm obviously not necessarily
advocating for anything at this point. So I appreciate the presentation. Thank you Mr.
Mayor.
Any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem and then, oh, Mayor Pro Tem and then councilman Harlan.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, so just to the point of the conversation, can it continue a little
further? Um, you know, for, for property taxes and everything we show and sales tax, we,
we divided per capita per mean household per, for her, you know, was it $307,000 household
or whatever. Certainly I know all the, the enterprise funds have their, their mean citizen.
And so if you, if you had a purely mean average citizen with the average electric, average
wastewater, average, uh, waters and solid waste, what would that average citizen be
looking at in terms of a combined rate with the various proposals?
We can absolutely get you that information for what we're proposing in 2024. It would
be on average to $3 and 30 cents for, for, for nothing. And then water is 12 or sorry,
wastewater is 11. It would be $3 and 30 cents. So in general, it, it crossed the board that
otherwise you'd just be splitting it out. Is that what you're saying? I mean, $3 and
30 cents. I mean, anyway, yes, for, for some future table, I would, I would love to see
how that average person works out. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Oh good. Thank you. I knew we had it. You'll see it at the end. Thank you. I know we've
calculated it. So yes.
Councilman Holland. Thank you. Um, council member McGee and I were, were, were talking
about comparing Denton to Lewisville and McKinney. Mayor made an excellent, excellent point about
the, the, the difference in, in those communities. And I'm wondering if, if water and wastewater
rates at, uh, North Texas or TWU or at the fed, uh, are, do they get, do they get a better,
a better price than a John Q. Citizen?
I know EDME would negotiate a rate, but water, no, it's all the same. All the same. Thank
you. Okay. Um, that's been better. Councilor Watts. Well, I was just wanted to piggyback
on, um, council member McGee's interest in us being more mindful to stagger out, you
know, what we need. Um, in my head, I'm thinking conservatively, you know, there are some folks
that are very conservative and they want to run on politically. Oh, we're not increasing
your rates. Um, but in reality that does set us back when we are not being mindful to keep
putting something in the, in the jar. So here we are and it's clearly evident that it's
caught up with us. So I would, uh, definitely stand on the fact that, uh, we should pursue,
I don't know how the, how I need to say it, but I think that we should pursue, um, staggering
out and being mindful and having, you know, additional funding, uh, for catastrophic events
or something like that. So that's what I just wanted to add to the, to this conversation.
Okay. Councilman Watts. Thank you mayor. Uh, could, um, let's just go back to the wastewater
specific slide if you could, please. Okay. Yeah. Uh, first of all, I guess, and this
is more of a, I don't know if it's an accounting question or presentation question, but when
I see net income or loss and I see it in brackets means that there's a loss, but yet when I
look at total resources and I know we've got reserves in there and I look at total resources
and total expenditures, they're equal. So I know that that's, but it sort of gives like
a, um, anyway, so the reserve is the net loss basically in each one of these slides. Yes.
Okay. Um, all right. It's just, I guess, personal preference. So, but that raises the point of,
cause several of them had use of reserves. So what, what's the line of debarkation where
you're going to use reserves from the fund balance in lieu of a rate increase? In other
words, you're using, of course, wastewater, you got, uh, 11%, 11%, 11% and you've got
net income loss. You've got using the, the, the fund balance, but in some of the other
ones like the water and some of the other ones, you use the reserve funds to make up
a deficit, uh, with no rate increase. So what's the, what's the thought process on that?
So I'm gonna let Cassie answer some of it, but I can tell you on one of them, particularly
the airport, we shouldn't be using our reserves and we are, that's why we're doing a master
plan to look at other, uh, points of revenue. Um, you really don't want to dip down into
your reserves unless your reserves start getting to a point where you, you have more money
than you really need to based on whether it's, um, by ordinance or whatever. So, um, I know
we're getting to the end of this one. I don't know where she is. She's kinda, Matt's giving
her some information, but for some, we don't even want to be dipping into our reserves,
but we're having to. And I think for some of these funds, um, in the previous presentation
that we showed, um, in July, we have a target fund balance that each of the utilities is
trying to reach. And so when we are over those target fund balances, it's a question of do
we utilize that fund balance to pay down some of those rate increases in that year or do
we pay for one-time capital needs or do we raise the rates? And so what you're seeing
is those are some of the trade-offs that we've made in some of these funds. Um, for electric,
they were over the fund balance targets, so we're bringing that, we're using those fund
balances to bring that fund balance within the target range. Wastewater was below, so
that's why you're seeing the rate increase, um, of 11% in '24.
So that's, the 11% is reflected in the 43.796, the revenue, 43.796. Um, okay.
Some of the 12.8, I don't know if you remember, we had, we talked about that, um, developer
contribution money. That's, that's part of what that was showing in the current year.
We had a developer that was contributing about eight and a half million dollars to a specific
project and that's what we were showing. Okay, all right. And then refresh my memory
on the electric 12% rate increase for either, or 3% for four years or one, one-time 12%.
Was that taking into consideration the possibility of the new campus or that's, that's excluding
the new campus? That was including the new campus.
So that, would you say that's pretty much the? I don't think it's all of the drive-through.
It's not all of it, but it may be some of it. Yeah, no, we, we address that at the,
well, are we going to talk about that? Is that a close, is that a close session item?
Okay. All right. All right. Nevermind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, all right.
Thank you. Okay. I guess this is more reactive. I think it's more reactive. I think it's more
reaction than the question. I kind of got it for a minute that you were doing zeros
on the other, uh, utilities because we're doing 11 on, uh, on wastewater because that
had to be, and so it's just total pocketbook impact until I look and I see it's still going
to be 10, 11, 12 for multiple years out. So I, I iterate back to saying, let's smooth
it out. And no reason to just, you know, if instead of a bunch of sevens and eights, maybe
we can do sixes, you know, across and get a little bit ahead. Okay. Any other questions?
Councilor McGee. Thank you Mr. Mayor. So if there is consensus among us, I wouldn't mind
hearing if it's helpful from the departments to see how, how this will affect them. If
we, if we extended this out over, over five years rather than just some of these just
hidden in four years. Councilor McGee, I can tell you that, uh, I don't want to speak for
Tony, but you know, he, if we had her driven, we probably would go ahead and start increasing.
So we get people in the queue doing a 3%, 3%. So it's consistent. Again, it was just the
shock of, because if you look at that chart, we have not done anything. I mean, literally
since 2021 we reduced, we reduced, 2020 we reduced, we reduced, 2019 reduced, 18, and
the only time we raised was 2017. So when you think about it, if you're a taxpayer for
all these many years and all of a sudden, wow, 11%. So we were trying to be, okay, 11%
this year, but as eloquently as council member Meltzer mentioned, it's another 11 on, on
that and then 10 and then 10 because the, all the other factors, cost of, the cost of
doing business, the equipment, the supplies of things and everything.
Okay. So I guess my plug is just to, to extend it and let's go ahead and get started then.
However, I need to, to do that. Okay. Are we posting for direction on this particular
part? Yeah. Are you ready for that, Mr. Mayor? Yeah, she's, yes. Okay. Well, I guess you've
already got mine. So thank you. And that's for all departments if, you know, thank you,
ma'am.
Mayor, can I get just real quick? So for electric and water, right now we're in the heaviest
usage periods. So that's one of the reasons we usually kind of wait because they'll bring
in the most money during the hottest part of the year. So electric generally, we can
forecast all we want, but it's still a prediction. Just like last year we predicted to have a
rate increase this year. It came in much higher than what we, we anticipated. So that's why
we're not bringing you a rate increase this, for FY24. I think based on the current weather,
we will be okay in electric for next year without a rate increase based on the current
year usage. Same with water. Wastewater is really driven by the capital plan right now.
We are having to expand our wastewater infrastructure. That is expensive. The wastewater portion
of your bill is a lot smaller, but that's the, that's the current need. We can definitely
bring you back as we get further into the budget of how we're, how the revenues are
coming in. But I, I really, I really think electric and water are probably going to be
fine. They won't need the rate increase next year based on the weather right now.
Well, I think what Cassie, what I'm going to ask is we do some trends analysis as we
give them what, where are we on current revenues for both of those funds and then trends analysis
of what we see coming so that council can look at that whole picture to see what they
want to do. But the other thing is for wastewater and solid waste, those are both going to have
to go up. So even then we'll come back with a recommendation on that.
Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. Yeah, that's part of the reason I was
asking for what is the mean. I mean, because to the extent that y'all just said, it's,
you know, most of these bills are, or some of the bills are much lower. So, you know,
if you've got a $400 electrical bill, then 11% is, you know, less larger than a hundred
dollar wastewater bill. So I would, I'm interested in what, what is the average detonite looking
at in these different models in terms of, okay, overall, you're looking at a hundred
dollars a year increase or $50 a year increase or $200 a year increase, because that'll give
us some perspective on how, what we're comfortable with. And then also some perspective to take
back to the taxpayers, like, you know, that sounds huge, but it's, it's really not, you
know, if for this fund, then, you know, and short of jumping to the end, you will see
that at the end of the presentation. And, and Steven, would you say this time of the
year, the last three months, you get your, your, the vast majority? Yeah. And as someone
who used to work for directly for water utility, I loved a hot, dry summer. Loved it.
Okay. And I had a question, I didn't write it down though. Okay. So do you have, I, I'm
not in that number that wants to accelerate the, the rate for the reason you, that Cassie
touched on, it's just, I want to allow for the seasons to play out those sort of things
and, and see where we are and if we can avoid it, great. Because it's, it is a challenge
when you, and I thank Cassie for that example, because once you straddle that line of, our
recommendation says this balance and we get above that balance by a significant amount,
you, do you give it back? Do you continue to grow your balance? You know, there's just,
it's, it's, it's difficult to kind of level set that. And so such that we don't have to
take it and we can function and, and obviously wastewater is different than I'm willing to
take staff's guidance. Because remind me, we've talked about it in the past. So projections
one, two years out, I mean, none of it's spot on, but fair and then you get two years out
and it's, it's kind of harder. It's based on assumptions. It's based on usage assumptions.
It's based on population growth assumptions. There's a lot of factors that go into it.
Right. Yeah. So, so that's a challenge for me. And so I would just take staff's recommendation
that, because, and then the other thing for people tracking along, that's what I was going
to say, wastewater, what is that? So if I'm the lay, if I'm the lay person just kind of,
I don't understand what wastewater, what calculates wastewater. Can you help me understand that
from a residential, from a commercial? Yeah. Every time you flush your toilet. Okay. Got
it. So if you have a leaky toilet or you're flushing your toilet or all those things,
that water, water down the drain, the hand sink or no? Yes. It's anything that goes into
the, into the wastewater system. Anything that leaves your house. Okay. Anything that
leaves. Got it. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Councilman Watts. And, and I think an additional
note on that, if I'm not mistaken, wastewater rates are determined on usage between certain
months of water usage, which are the sort of off months. Is it December, January? Is
it December? It's your winter months. I'm sure there's, there's dates specific within
those winter months, but it's when, it's when you are not, you know, you're not irrigating.
You're not using any, any, you assume to not be using any excess water. It's all in all
household related at that point. Okay. I guess my question on that is because I know, I think
the practice is still there, that if you have a leak that's underground or cannot be seen,
it's not, if your toilet's running or you got a dripping faucet that you see every day,
but if you've got a sprinkler line, if you've got something that's water line busted, that
you can get a, a credit based upon your average usage from the utilities, if you show that
it's been fixed by a plumber, if it required a permit. And if that occurs in those months,
those winter months, is that taken into consideration when they do the calculation for the wastewater?
In other words, if you, if you got a leak in November that generates 30,000 gallons
of waste, of water, which then goes to your wastewater, is that, is that taken into consideration
if you show that it's? Good, because I can only answer from my experience
with a yes, but we also now have a confirmed yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So that is, that is calculated.
It's not part of that calculation. Yes, that would be part of the leak adjustment
if the leak occurs during your winter months averaging period.
Thank you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. People want to hear us talk about
their drip. Yeah. Mayor and council, Krista Foster.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. You see that? Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor.
I didn't catch you. Can you explain that for council member Watson
or council member Holland, what the drip is? Yeah, drip your clothes. Everyone, you know,
like your clothes is your drip. So, so people want to hear you when you talk about the drip
was the line. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. I still, I still not sure.
So when you apply for a leak adjustment, if it covered one of the winter months, then
yes, we are going to adjust that as part of the average. If you have a leak that maybe
it didn't qualify, you had already had two leak adjustments in a year, whatever, we will
still adjust your wastewater. Okay. Good.
Yeah. So we will definitely work with you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Okay. Anyone else? Any other questions, comments? Okay. So do you have -- I know there's more.
Do you have what you need for this segment of things?
Yes. Okay. Mayor, we'll -- we will look at just sort
of kind of that trends and then as we get closer to the end of the year, you know, when
you all have to vote, we'll be able to give you information about where we are on revenues
for water, DME, and those kinds of things. So you can make an informed decision.
So on the -- on wind arrays, that sort of thing, that will come back to us?
That's correct. Okay. Great. Mayor Proctor.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No, I'm just confused. So we're not providing
direction now or you want direction now or not?
You can, but I'm getting a little bit of -- I don't support it. And so I said we'd come
back looking at the two funds that we know won't have, like solid waste will not have
a big boatload of revenue coming in that could make a difference. And then you have wastewater.
So the water and the DME is the one that we'll know our numbers, because I will tell you,
we made $800,000 in one day off of DME. I'm not making it, but we generated $800,000 worth.
So you're going to see the true numbers from water and water usage a little further down
the line, so you can make a more informed decision about what you want to do. Wastewater,
I don't know how we sell out or smooth out 11% when it's 11, 11, 10, 10, 10. And then
solid waste, now that's one I think you're going to hear about and you can definitely
tell us what you want to do there. Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm not going to
provide direction for me until I get more information. Okay, good.
All right. Well, good afternoon. My name's Matt Hamilton, interim budget manager, here
to present the fiscal year 2024 capital improvement program and capital budget. So just to tell
you a little bit about our capital budget process, every year in October and November,
we do some pre-kickoff planning this year. We got together with the capital projects
group and determined what information it was that we wanted departments to submit and how
they were to submit for those projects. And then in December, we held a CIP kickoff city
wide where departments were able to submit any projects that they had, both for this
upcoming year as well as the four years thereafter. And so what we provided to them was just some
historical capital improvement project information as a starting point. From there, the capital
projects group sat down with the various departments to work through scopes and schedules and costs
associated with each of these projects. And then from there, that data was put together
just in an internal mapping system so that we could see where all the various departments'
projects overlapped and could be better coordinated. And all that data was then given to finance
for us to review for financial feasibility. And here we are today reviewing the projects
that we'd like to propose to move forward with.
So I know that you've seen this table probably many times, but this is the 2019 bond program
issue and schedule. So we are in the fifth year of that program and are expected to issue
35.6 million. That will cover street reconstruction, the neighborhood street reconstruction program,
Creek Creek, sidewalks, street lighting, and also funding for Ryan Road. This was, I'll
note, just originally a seven-year program, but we do intend to wrap it up next year,
which would be the sixth year, so a year ahead of originally planned. This is the five-year
CIP funding plan for the general government. And so this is going to include facilities,
parks, traffic, fleet, drainage, as well as streets. So in total, what we are proposing
is 126 million in next year's CIP. The primary driver of that number is the facility improvements
that are needed, technology services improvements, as well as roadway improvements. And there's
some specific projects and items on some upcoming slides.
So of the 126 million, we anticipate 6.8 million will be revenue funded. That's money, operating
dollars that are collected in that current year, impact fees of 3.6 million, the 35.6
million from the 2019 bond election, and then 80 million in certificates of obligation.
So this is a five-year overview of the utilities. And so in total, this is showing 200 million.
What is not here is the wastewater line, which is 62 million. So in the presentation that
you saw on July 18th with utilities, that 62 million was included. And it is included
in the annual program of services book that you have there in the electronic copy. So
I apologize if it's left off here. So in total, it would be 262 million.
So getting into the specific departments, electric, we anticipate $93 million in new
expenditure next year for CIP. Of that, 82 million would be debt issued, 69 million from
operating, and 3.7 million in cost participation. These project categories and amounts for this
slide in particular is just for next year that they intend to use for these. The total
building construction, however, is about 75 million. So next year would be 5 million for
the design. But I think if there's any questions on that specific project, we can discuss that
in a closed session. So for water, new capital appropriations
of 96 million. We do anticipate 82 million of that to be debt funded. 7.9 million coming
from operating revenues and 5 million in cost participation. Some of the major projects
and what you'll see on this slide and the subsequent slides are the fiscal years in
which these projects will take place. So the 14 million for the automated meter reading
replacement, that 14 million is the total cost of the project over these fiscal years.
So meter reading is one of the larger projects. Elm and Locust Phase 2 replacing the water
lines there. Lake Louisville raw water treatment transmission line. The Ray Roberts plant capacity
rerate and performance upgrades. The plant disinfection conversion as well as 27.2 million
in total to supplement the 2019 bond election projects to replace the water lines associated
with those street projects. So wastewater, new appropriations of 61.3 million. 55.9 is
anticipated to be issued in new debt with -- excuse me, 2.8 million from operating revenues
and 2.5 million from a dedicated vehicle fund. So the largest project from now through fiscal
year 2028 is the concrete plant expansion. They also have the concrete plant headworks,
the oversized participation and, again, supplement to the 2019 bond election in the amount of
22 million. For solid waste, we anticipate 10.6 million in new appropriation. Of that,
7.8 would be debt issuance and 3.5 million from operating revenues. The major projects
include cell 5 and 6 construction, expansion of the home chemical collection storage capacity,
as well as vehicles and additions to their solid waste fleet. Facilities, we do anticipate
24.8 million in new appropriations this year or upcoming year. And of that amount, all
of it would be debt funded. The major projects over the next five years include the facility
condition deferred maintenance, which are maintenance items that were identified in
the facility condition assessment. Facility capital maintenance, which are current maintenance
items and items that we know are coming up on their end of life. 4.8 million in facility
ADA upgrades and 27 million for the service center renovation, which is just the general
fund portion of that project. The total project is approximately 40 million, so 7 million
would come from both the water and wastewater departments each, and those have been budgeted
in their respective budgets. Technology services, we anticipate 17.5 million. New capital appropriations
next year, all of that would be debt funded. The major projects include citywide fiber
replacement, asset management software, CAD, RMS replacement, infrastructure replacement,
and new land management software. For fleet, we're proposing 9.68 million in
new capital appropriations. All of that would also be CEO debt issuance. The major projects
include the addition of equipment and furnishings for the new fleet expansion, 22.1 million
in vehicle replacements, and 1.5 million, which is just for this upcoming year in vehicle
additions. Parks and recreation, new capital appropriations
next year of 7.56 million, 2 million of which would be debt issuance, 1.1 from operating,
4.3 million from other dedicated funding sources such as grants, donations, or our internal
land development funds that we have for parks. So the major projects over the next five years
include some arts and culture. Quite a bit of that is hot funded and funded from some
other sources. Aquatic improvements of 15.9 million, which are some improvements, especially
to the Waterworks Park in years four and five that we know are upcoming. Playground improvements
of 2.7 million, and we replace about three playgrounds a year. And then park development
and land acquisition for 5.2 million, and I'll just note in this category, the 5.2 million
is primarily park development, so land that we've already acquired, but it's the master
plans to develop those parks. Public works, we're anticipating 26.1 million
in new capital appropriations. The full amount would be debt issued. These are the major
projects that are driving this number. So Bonnie Bray, both phases 4B and 5, we did
add 5.5 million for the McKinney sidewalk project. This is the only addition to the
CIP from when you saw it on June 27th. And then traffic improvements for 2.3 million
and drainage improvements of 1.3 million. Any questions on the capital improvement program?
Yeah, I just -- going back to the last slide, help me understand -- I know we talked about
it, but what's the direction going forward on the McKinney sidewalks? Because when I
looked at the map after our conversation, you drop down a block going towards downtown,
you can walk up -- you can walk Hickory, I think that's right, sidewalks all the way.
And then going the other way towards the loop, if that's the concern, because the loop already
has sidewalk, then you can drop down to potentially Dutchess if we punch that through, and that
takes you to the loop, to sidewalk to go north-south on the loop. And there's not as busy road
as trying to acquire it right away and all of the things that the challenges with McKinney.
So what is that identified to do? Sure. So Trevor Crane, director of capital
projects. So we still have the opportunity to look at all those options that you're talking
about. This 5.5 is really specific to buying that right-of-way and completing those sections
of sidewalk along McKinney that aren't currently there. It's going to have to be done one way
or the other. We're looking at putting that McKinney full right-of-way street project
into the next bond coming up. And so these sidewalks are going to have to either be done
now or included in that project moving forward. And so we still have every opportunity to
kind of look through those other options that you're talking about. But we wanted to go
ahead and put this into capital projects to start looking at acquiring that right-of-way
and completing that full width sidewalks that is going to be needed at some point moving
forward. Okay. So and what's the -- remind me, range
of sidewalk -- because I just don't know that there's -- I just didn't do the math in my
head to say $5 million worth of sidewalk going from where to where.
Sure. So we looked at a map. There's probably about -- if we include both sides of the sidewalk
or both sides of the street between Woodrow to Loop 28, there's about 13 properties where
there's gaps in that sidewalk. So there's a lot of places where the developers have
already come in. They put in sidewalk at the correct spot. So we would just need to connect
those pieces. The majority of that 5.5 is going to be right-of-way acquisition to fill
in those gaps. So like I mentioned, you know, that right-of-way is going to have to be acquired
one way or the other. Either we're going to buy it when we come in and do the ultimate
street section or we can start looking at it now to get that property and fill in those
sidewalk sections. Okay. And that's everything on the street
portion. Then on the parks portion, just a note on the aquatics improvements. Are we
capturing more from Denton ISD or are we in discussions with them? Because that seems
to be the usage or calibration thereof and recoup. There's -- you know, I'm always sensitive
when other governmental entities generate more emails from me. I'm just selfish that way.
Like I'm not excited about that at all. Right? Like I don't go to your meetings, don't come
to my meetings. Right? I mean, you with me? So I just want to understand. We have a plan
going forward. Yes. Okay. And that is we do have line items
in the budget where we anticipate that partnership and relationship and revenue for these aquatic
improvements and so it has been factored in. This is above and beyond what I think that
that would contribute. Certainly. Yes. Just want to make sure those
conversations are ongoing and that we're right sizing that to -- yes.
Yep. Perfect. Okay. Any other questions?
Councilman Watts. A couple of questions. I'm going to start
backwards so I can remember. So on the aquatics, I did remember getting some correspondence
about some concerns about ISD, practice schedules, school -- and that's all great. I just want
to make sure that we're not having to spend all this money so that we can give our citizens
an opportunity to have the same access to these water facilities and that if we are
improving access for our partners and capacity, is that reflected somewhere in a contribution
not just of, you know -- because I know the contract says for the -- an editorial that
we split costs. I know for the water park we split costs and we split the revenue, which
is really -- so on the -- on the natatorium, our current contract is I think we split it
all 50/50. Is that right? That's right.
With this new -- with these new improvements that do improve -- I think it's called flat
water. Do you guys call it flat water? Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Is there a similar
opportunity for that? Because that will expand opportunity even if we said we're going to
move a lot of our citizen programs over to the new flat water. It opens up more programming
for our partners in the current natatorium. Is that factored in here anyway?
Yeah. I would try to answer your question a few different times, different ways. Gary
Pack and Director of Parks and Recreation. So keep in mind the natatorium was built for
Denton when we had two high schools. So we're fitting more students into the same building
and we've added water polo to it. So now everyone's trying to get including our residents those
sweet time -- sweet pinpoint times in regards to before work, after work, after dinner type
thing. Everyone's trying to get the same time. So we do not have enough flat water to satisfy
a lot of our programs. So that's the first challenge. Recently what's occurred is we've
had some infrastructure failure that we're dealing with that's created that pinch point
even more. Because we're only be able to open up in the mornings because of the high temperatures
we have to close the other day when I'm not air circulation. So that's another challenge
that we're working through and hopefully that gets resolved next week. But truthfully we
need another facility, indoor facility, to really satisfy the entire community, both
schools and the students, from an indoor perspective. Now on the bond program we have some outdoor
improvements that are much needed as well considering that whole facility was built
the same time. There is some flat water, outdoor flat water that's a component to that, that
will give us additional flat water space for programming so we can kind of alleviate some
of that pressure in the short term as well as it provides some swimming on the shoulder
seasons of the summer that we could use for programming as well.
Sure, and I appreciate that answer and so my question boils down to I understand that
our community has grown and the school district has exploded. So I just would, to be quite
candid, I'm not sure why the school district doesn't look at building its own facility
and why we're talking about if we're adding flat water at our expense, are they participating
in this at all?
Yeah, so those conversations are ongoing with both DISD and UNT to try to figure out how
we can, we all have challenges that we need for space and how we could accomplish those
throughout teamwork in cooperation.
So not to discourage participation and partnerships. I don't want to run in, I won't be answering
the question. Twenty years from now somebody's going to be sitting in this seat wondering
oh, we built this together with somebody else. Well, now we're out of space and time and
why aren't these, I just think sometimes partnerships are great, but also we need to make sure that
number one, it's equitable and number two, that everybody's bearing the same cost. It's
just been a very difficult stretch and I didn't know we had the contract with an auditorium
for 50 years. I thought it was like, I thought it expired in the '20s. I thought it expired
in this decade. So I just want to make sure that the city taxpayers aren't going to necessarily
be covering a lot of the additional expense for flat water so we can get access to facilities
that we're in partnership with because our partner has a greater need for that programming
space. That's all I'm saying.
So I will say this, I'm going to have a meeting with Jamie, I meet with him on a regular basis.
It's true, if we're going to add flat water and they've added water polo, so it's taking
up more time in that facility that should be for citizens. I'm going to ask him to meet
me at the table to look at how they can provide funding to pay for some of the flat water,
but also we've got to look at this together about the future of aquatics. If they're going
to keep, they're adding high schools and middle schools, we're going to have to either jointly
pay for an addition or another facility or something, but there comes a point when it's
fine for the agreement you have now with two high schools, but when you start adding more
high schools and more sports, then it negates what that agreement is. So I'm going to have
that conversation. And we get along great, we'll work it out.
So I've just got a couple more questions, Mayor. So if we can go back to the slide that
shows all the street projects, what slide is that? I think it's slide 33. And I only
use this as an illustration, don't really have a specific question about this. I only
use this as an illustration on my comments earlier about a $1 million street fund, that
even if you were adding $5 million a year to a street fund, look at the totals down
there. I mean, so anyway, then the next one, the last one is help me understand because
I've never quite got this. I'm looking in our program services manual or worksheet booklet,
page 49. And it's the FY '24 proposed annual program service. It's the big, it's the big
thing. It's the all comprehensive both for resources and expenditures. So we always talk
about how big our budget is 1.8 billion. So I'm looking at capital improvement program,
which is a lion's share of a lot of that. Yes. So for instance, in this particular these
slides, we show a five year CIP expenditure and funding. And this is I guess general government
general fund, so forth and so on of 126 million is proposed for 2024. And then the five year
utility CIP expenditure on slide 35 of the presentation is 200 million 323. And those
are two separate, you got the 126 and the 2 million 323. Correct. So that those those
numbers are reflected in that capital improvement program figure of 926 million. Is that correct?
Correct. So now give me the relationship between that number and the FY 2023 adopted number
of seven because those two don't add. I mean, if I just add 303 million or 300 million to
738, that doesn't get me 926. So apparently somebody gets paid off. I just need to understand
the relationship on how all this works from a capital improvement program because we're
not spending $920 million in 2024. That's correct. So from a budget process perspective,
we have to budget as if every dollar would be expended. And in that 930 I'm sorry, $929
million number, two thirds of that is existing funding. Right. So we have to appropriate
for those dollars. Okay. So as dollars are spent throughout the year, and depending on
how much is spent, then that number plus what we are proposing here would get us to 920.
So that number represents last year's number less any payoffs and anything that we still
have budgeted to spend, in essence. Correct. If you turn to page 111, don't tell me I didn't
read all the way through or that, you know, you make me look bad. I just missed it. You
didn't give Matt any of the tough questions. So you saved them all for me. Page 111 outlines
all the different funding sources and the difference between what's already been appropriated
versus new appropriations. Fantastic. You know what, that's on me and that's good. I
appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank
you, Cassie. Okay. Any other questions? Mayor Pro Tem? And then Councilman McGee. I thought
I understood the aquatics funding, but let me just real briefly, because I'm not sure
I do anymore after all the conversation. The $16 million in the budget is our projected
expenditures over the next year, but there's additional projected expenditures from DISD.
So let me go back to the parks. Or is that the total projected expenditures? This is
the total expenditure over the period 2024 through 2020. So it is not just next year.
Okay. And yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, but does this include the DISD part? No. Okay.
So over that same four-year period, there would be some additional contribution from
the school district. There would be. So what's reflected here in the expenditure budget is
our ability to expend those dollars. It's not a net number. So we don't take the DISD
portion and then our portion and net them together. This is just what we would need
to expend in our budget. So it is not in the capital budget. Yes. And again, getting back
to some of the other questions, are the open public times and the program times for school
districts, is that ratio reflected in the total? So the operations, that's a scheduling
question, correct? Essentially, yes. Yeah. So we're trying to shoehorn as much time as
we can. I'll have to follow up with you and give you an exact breakdown of hours and lanes
in regards to how much is being used for both the public and the schools. I don't have that
off the top of my head. But we're trying to balance it. At certain times of the year,
it's heavier on the schools and as a community. But it's an ongoing challenge. Okay. All right.
Some of the lines of questioning just got, I thought I had it. So thank you for that
clarification. I appreciate it. A lot of the numbers that are shown here also are the water
park side of improvements as well with renovations to that facility. And this is over a four
or five year period too. So it's not just next year. When we get, and I know we always
get to the more granular budgeting further on in the process. But if we could put into
perspective the total scheduling and operating budget, our portions, their portions, the
water park, the auditoriums, just so that we can kind of get a feel for those various
ratios, even if the numbers are going to change during negotiations, even if we're going to
charge them programming rates for water polar or whatever it is y'all end up doing. Just
so that we understand, you know, and it very well could be that we're like, you know what,
this is a community good. We'll eat this portion of the cost in order to have something for
the community. But I think we still need to put that into perspective.
Yeah. DISD for instance, they make certain improvements to the facility that is quote
unquote their half that they contribute when that was originally built. So there's kind
of an outline of how those improvements are made to the facility itself.
I appreciate it. That's all my questions, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.
Okay. Councilman McGee.
Wait, Gary, before you leave, I haven't heard anyone just talk about the raw numbers of
DISD students versus residents.
Yeah. I'll have to get an answer to that. How many?
Okay. I heard you talk about land usage and times. I'm just talking about bodies. So,
okay.
Yeah.
Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I just have a quick question for Stephen, if you don't mind. Looking
at some of the major projects, with respect to those that are multi-year, are you going
to be breaking those down evenly among the years or are some years going to hit us a
little harder, a little less, like, you know, for example, is that going to be seven and
seven or 10 and four? Just generally.
I would say that-
Waste water too, of course.
On the wastewater side, when we get into construction, that's when we're going to see a lot of dollars
spent. The lighter years are when we're in the design phase, if that answers your question.
So the upfront or the initial phases of the project, it's a lower spend, but as you launch
into construction, your spend goes up significantly.
And that's true with all of them?
Yes, sir.
Okay. So, basically, they're all going to be backloaded?
Okay.
Essentially.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Any other, Steve, why are you there? I have a question. Why are you there? And this has,
it's budget related, but not directly numbers. So how much wastewater are we talking about
in the city? And then how much of that is able to be re-reused?
That's a complicated question.
Right now, the plant capacity is roughly 21 million gallons a day. Our average flows are
right around 17 million gallons a day. We have an authorization. It's what we call a
210 authorization through TCEQ. We can reuse up to 6 million gallons a day. We're currently
only reusing about one-tenth of that through, I believe, Oakmont is our largest user. And
if you recall, we talked about having our, doing our long-term strategic plans, doing
our master plans. One of those master plans is a reclaimed water master plan. And what
that's going to do, it's going to look at our existing reclaimed water system, our potential
to connect to that system and more fully leverage that resource. Did that answer your question?
It does. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none.
Okay. One second. Council Member McGee.
Perhaps you don't need to get up, but is it fair to say that by 2028, we'll be fully using
as much reclaimed water as possible, just generally, after these improvements are made?
It depends. Steven Gade, Director of Water Utilities. It really does depend because with
this plant expansion that we're going through right now, adding that 5 million gallons,
we have every intention of approaching TCEQ for what they call bed and banks permit. So
what that allows us to do is take the discharge from that plant and put it into a bank, so
a waterway, and we'll go into Lake Louisville, and then we can reclaim that as potable water.
So we'll retreat it, and that's what happens with all the wastewater facilities along in
Texas. That's what they do. They discharge to a waterway. It blends with surface water,
and then it's treated for drinking water. So that's part of the strategy. Reusing the
water from like indirect and for irrigation uses is part of the strategy, but when we
get that additional 5 million, we'll also petition to increase our allocation for that
indirect. So we have 6 million right now. We're going to ask for another 5 million,
but that wastewater or the reclaimed water master plan is actually going to inform all
of that. So it's going to look for those opportunities to see if we can actually leverage all of
that. It's our hope. It's our intent to use every single drop of reclaimed water we can
possibly use.
Thank you, Mr. Merritt. Thank you, Stephen. I'm done. I promise.
That's good. I beat up on Denton High a little bit, but I should celebrate them playing Marco
Polo in high school. That's good. I was really good at that game, but I'd always say every
now and again, it's going to call for fish out of water. Is that what they're playing,
Marco Polo?
I don't know. Water polo.
Oh, water polo. Never mind. Never mind. Different game. Okay.
Before we move on, I just want to recognize that was Matt's first presentation to council,
and he did a great job.
Yes, he did great.
He did leave me with the bad news because I get stuck showing you the debt tax break.
We talked about this in June, but since we finalized our debt sale numbers in July, the
tax rate portion or the debt tax portion, we finalized it slightly higher than what
I showed in June, so 20.5 cents and still increasing in 25, about two and a half cents
based on the projected debt sale in the capital program. If you don't have any questions about
the debt portion of the tax rate, we'll move on to internal service funds.
I do have one thing I want to talk about because your note was interesting in discussing the
pending bond program, but I don't know how much predictability, obviously very little,
but if there are any indicators we can leverage, from memory I think you said $17 million over
the some time period, I think since the 2014 bond maybe, of refinancing debt, we were able
to realize the savings of $17 million in just restructuring debt or something like that.
Are there any indicators or are those just opportunities that when they show up they
show up and there's no real way to account for opportunities to refinance? For example,
over 10 years we're going to have an opportunity to refinance once and we should save X amount?
Is that a real formula? We look at it annually, because our bonds are
I think it's nine year callable, so we look at it every year, we go to our financial advisors
and look at the marketplace, what does the interest rate look like, what were we paying
on the interest rate, is it going to be beneficial for us to refinance those or refund the bonds?
But as far as projecting forward, like looking at this like a debt budget perspective, is
there a way to say, okay well every X amount of years this should be able to be refinanced
and reduced to some degree? We know what is able to be refunded, what we
don't know is that interest rate, so what the market conditions are going to look like,
so it would be very difficult for me to say we could see a savings of X dollar amount,
just because I don't know what the market conditions are going to be, but we do look
at it every year, so if it's favorable we will refund, if it's not then we won't,
but it has been favorable the last five years. Okay, so it's just one of those things if
it shows up you take advantage of it but it's not a good financial practice to count on
that. Right, we show the tax rate is fully loaded without any of the refundings that
already haven't occurred just to account for all scenarios.
Got it, okay. Okay, thank you. All right, so moving on to internal service
funds, so these funds they provide services to the government organization, the budget
is based on reimbursement of actual cost and then those costs are allocated out to the
different funds. We do have eight internal service funds at the city, so we have several
supplemental requests for internal service funds amounting to 2.6 million dollars, so
I'll go through those supplemental requests. We have a total of 18 and a half FTEs, so
position requests in internal service funds. Two in fleet management, you may recall we
are expanding the fleet, the number of bays we have at fleet, and so these two technicians
are, we added two last year, so this is the final two that needed for the expansion. And
then data center co-location, we talked about this last year, council directed us to bring
this back and look at some different options, so we've brought it back this year. I believe
this is a contracted service now in conjunction with the utilities. And then for tech services
they're requesting three FTEs, so Alicia's gone through and looked at a five-year kind
of position planning, so she's been requesting a few positions every year to right-size her,
the organization's needs for tech services, as well as some additional software for police.
And then engineering services, as you know we're cranking out those capital projects
we saw the capital budget, all of those projects are managed by our capital project team, and
so they are requesting two FTEs, so a program manager and another project manager to be
able to manage those capital projects. Customer service, you saw this budget earlier in July
I believe, they're requesting six FTEs in customer service, and those are primarily
funded through the utilities, and then facilities management is requesting three FTEs, and then
environmental services you saw this budget in July also asking for two and a half FTEs
as well as some software for a total of 2.6 million.
Cassie, will you just give a brief overview so the public hears it too about what does
that mean when you say internal services, where does that money coming from to fund
those positions? So the internal services are funded by all
of the other funds, so general fund and the utilities all pay into internal service funds,
and we do what we call a true up at the end of the year, so for instance customer service
because it's funded primarily from the utilities, if they don't spend all of their money in
a given year, then we only take what they expense and then we allocate back the rest
to whoever paid into that fund, so electric, water, waste water, solid waste, same with
the other way if they spent more than what we budgeted, we bring a budget amendment to
council and then we would reallocate those expenses back to the utilities.
So just a quick overview, because I'm only showing the expenses only because the revenues
are the exact same as the expenses, so it's the same amount that you see in the FY24 proposed,
but all of these are based on cost allocation, so we have a model that we go through and
we say what portion of the fund is providing services to general fund, utilities, and then
we allocate those costs accordingly, so facilities, $6.8 million proposed in FY24, you can see
fleet management, materials management is primarily driven by the cost of goods in the
warehouse, so we do have a warehouse function that the majority of that cost is coming from
our increased cost of just goods in the warehouse, and then engineering $12.1 million, customer
service $9.8 million, technology services $21.9 million, risk $7.9 million, and that
is the decrease from the estimate to the proposed is based on our safety, we're bringing those
positions back in house, we had a contracted safety service, but that's coming back in
house and we're hiring those positions, and then health, we are seeing substantial increases
in our health fund, and so that's the driver of that increase that you're seeing, the $36.4
million in the health fund, we're budgeting about 10 to 12% increases in health fund expenses
for the city.
>> Okay, internal service fund questions, Councilman Watts.
>> Just for clarification, so when we see those internal service funds, I'm looking
at slide, which one, it's the five year forecast, and I'm looking at those, so where is that,
I see transfers in the expenditures, but where does this show up here?
>> So the transfers are in other revenues, so it's revenue coming back, right, so utilities,
and then also the internal service funds, and then also transfers out is going to internal
service funds.
>> So then the list of the internal service funds that you had in all those expenditures,
that, could you able to switch to that real quick?
>> Sure.
>> I still have to ask every year, but so propose, so if you added up all of those,
those are the internal service funds, I mean, that's going to be what, a lot of money.
>> Right, but it's not all funded by general fund.
>> Right, no, no, I understand that.
>> Right, so that portion, whatever that general fund portion is, that's the $22.6 million
that you saw in the five year forecast.
>> All those would have the same kind of configuration of transfers in, or transfers out, and those
all should add up to what these all add up to.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Councilman McGee.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
On the supplemental packages slide, so looking at the Smart Force software, is that something
we're contracting with an outside company, or is that something we are purchasing and
going to run in-house?
>> I'm going to ask Frank to come up and answer that question.
>> Good afternoon, Frank Dixon, Assistant City Manager.
That's going to be a program that's connected with Axon Equipment.
So the same company that does our tasers and body cameras, cameras inside the vehicles
and cameras inside the interview rooms.
This is going to be another component that goes into Axon.
It's like a tracking software for internal investigations.
>> So that means this is going to be yearly cost then, too?
>> Well, it's going to be added to the contract.
So the next time we go into the contract with Axon, I'll be built into the overall cost.
>> Okay.
>> This is to add it.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Frank.
>> Any other questions?
Okay.
>> Special revenue funds.
So special revenue funds are a little different than internal service funds.
These revenue sources are restricted for specific use based on the creation of the funds.
So whatever the ordinance that created the funds said, they are restricted.
So we have 22 special revenue funds.
We'll go through a quick high-level overview of each of these funds.
So the downtown TERS, you can see the revenues and expenses.
So we had a certified estimate of $261 million, estimated revenue of a little over a million.
The incremental value did decrease from 95 to 90%.
And then we do have a downtown reimbursement grant program, and we're expected those expenses
to be a little over a million dollars in FY24.
Here's the appraised value history of the downtown TERS.
So only saw a slight -- or 4.19% increase this year compared to 7.8 last year.
West Park TERS, so our -- you can see the beginning fund balance of 1.5.
We are expecting to deplete the fund balance this next year just based on incentive payment.
And so estimated revenue of 1.3 million for this fund, incremental value is at 40%.
And you can see the incentive payments of $715,000 next year.
The REC fund, I said earlier, we're proposing to dissolve the REC fund, mostly because the
transfers -- General Fund was transferring quite a bit of money back into the REC fund,
because obviously the fees do not cover the full expense.
So these are merged into the General Fund in FY24.
The Sustainability Framework Fund, this is a recently created fund.
We're proposing to -- the revenue is to be $2 million.
We'll talk more about this revenue source in closed session.
And then the Catalyst Fund, we are proposing $150,000 of revenue in '24.
However, this is a council kind of decision as to where you want to allocate the funding
from Catalyst Fund, because it doesn't have a specific revenue source.
The current fund balance of this fund is about -- is $3.4 million right now.
So they've received $3.4 million.
We do not currently have any projects identified for expenses out of this fund, but another
council decision point.
Because I know that council talked about quite a lot during their strategy session about
prioritizing economic development.
So this fund is for that purpose, but it does not have a specific revenue source.
So Street Improvement Fund, you can see the $15.7 million that we talked about earlier
coming from franchise fees, so that's an increase of $600,000 in FY24.
You can see the use of reserves of $5.9 million.
That is proposing to use the fund balance.
Since this is a special revenue fund, we don't have a fund balance requirement for this fund.
And so we're proposing to use that $5.9 million to fund some roadway projects next year.
So that's really what's driving the increase in this fund.
But you can see the transfer to capital, that's where the money goes out to the capital accounts
to pay for those reconstruction projects.
And then the Tourist and Convention Fund, this is the fund that we generate a hot occupancy
tax revenue from.
So our FY24 estimate is $3.8 million.
And these funds go to support local organizations that promote tourism and the hotel industry.
The Community Partnership Committee met on June 20th and made the funding allocation
recommendations to council.
They are proposing to use $578,000 of fund balance in this fund in FY24.
And I'll go to the expenditure summary.
So based on the applications and their review of the applications, these are the proposed
allocation amounts for each organization.
So slightly more than last year based on our revenue projections of bringing a little bit
more revenue in and then utilizing that fund balance in this fund.
And then we have several other special revenue funds and you can see the total expenditures
for each fund, Tree Mitigation Fund is proposing to use increased amount of expenses in this
next year.
Roadway Impact Fee Fund, this goes to supplement some of our capital projects based on the
impact fees collected.
Parkland Dedication Fund, Parkland Development Fund, Donation Funds, PEG Fund.
If you have any more questions about this, we can certainly answer them before we get
into ARPA funding.
I have, bear with me.
So my notes that you pointed out, we need to discuss at some point or give you direction
on the Catalyst Fund and Sustainability Framework Fund which will be enclosed.
But then the Catalyst Fund at some point is now kind of that or in future weeks?
Closed also.
Okay, got it.
And then I'll tell you, is there a concern, there's a concern for me, I'm asking is there
a concern on, should I be concerned about the Hot Fund's fund balance?
And because there are some significant increases, I'll look at the applications.
Are those posted somewhere where I can kind of, I mean, because for example, they seem
to be held pretty steady.
So bouncing back from a pandemic in '22 to '23, if there was going to be a jump, kind
of like, hey, let's jumpstart you back and get you back up and running, but you don't
see that.
And so to go from like a steady 40,000 to like a 60,000, just grabbing the top one,
I just need to understand what would, because that's always a contentious thing, right?
You have to put heads and beds and how is that evaluated and that sort of thing.
So I just want to dig into that a little deeper.
Where do I find that information?
There's no fund balance requirement of this fund.
The committee has historically tried to keep about a million dollars in fund balance.
The state is making us, we're going to be reporting the fund balance this year.
So my kind of recommendation to the committee when we went through the allocation was, it's
going to be better if you show utilization in the fund balance, so you're slowly bringing
that fund balance down since the state's wanting us to report it.
But other than that, I mean, again, revenues are based on our best guess, it's a projection.
So if the revenues don't come in, we may not, you know, we may be using more of that fund
balance, but just on the flip side, we could see higher revenues and then have more of
a fund balance utilized.
The applications are available.
We posted them as part of our agenda packet when the community partnership committee met
on June 20th, so we can give you a link to those applications.
I'm sure I have it.
You said June 20th?
Yes.
Okay.
I'll take a look.
And then the ambassador program, what portion, because I thought we were funding that all
another way.
There's a portion being requested from the hot buns.
I'll let Christine come up and answer that.
This portion is to extend the hours at Discover Denton.
We talked about Discover Denton on the square being kind of a touch point for the ambassador
program.
So for that to be a location where if someone has a question, that's kind of where they
can go to find them.
So it will extend the hours, opening those restrooms up a little longer.
So those costs are primarily related to making sure that we can do building access changes
so that the ambassador employees can get in and out of that facility.
Got it.
Just full disclosure, no direction or kind of, I hadn't fully baked that, but I don't
know that I'm comfortable with coming out of these dollars, but I understand why it's
coming out of these dollars initially.
I just need to, and then I don't know if $30,000 just under is enough to really spend much
time on the grand scheme of things, $30,000 and $1.9 billion.
I get it.
All right, let me just, I'll just process through that.
So any other questions on the special revenue fund?
Councilman Roegge.
That's a 28-4 for the downtown ambassadors.
Does that also include like the security keypad for those folks to get in and out?
Will that be wrapped up into that too?
Right.
Is that the line shared at cost?
Correct.
They broke it out separately from their main allocation that we typically provide to Discover
Denton.
That is only associated with those costs to extend the operating hours to kind of align
with our ambassador program.
Not the complete hours, but expand their hours and then the security access into the building.
Okay.
Councilman Nelson.
Yeah, I'm sorry if you said it and I missed it, but I don't see it on the slide.
What is the reserve, you know, the fund balance for hot funds that you're, that you've dipped
into, you know, or project to dip into, like what's out of how much?
Utilizing 578,000.
Out of how much?
What's that?
I believe it was a little over a million in fund balance.
I'll have to double-check.
So, I mean, is there 578,000 projected to, you know, left there to dip into?
Yes.
You saw where I was going.
Okay.
What do we, what do we do the Denton Breakfast quantities for?
I know we fund the 4th of July.
Is that what that is?
No, it's a turkey roll.
Yes, that's correct.
Denton Breakfast quantities, this is a group you should join.
Oh, the bike rally, I'm sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
So, turkey roll is, yeah, sorry.
Any other questions?
That's a great point.
Thank you.
It's almost, that's a very coming to America, taste the soup, where's the spoon type event
there?
Yeah, they don't know what the turkey roll is.
You're like, hey, where's the soup, taste the soup, where's the spoon, aha, sorry.
American Rescue Plan.
American Rescue Plan Act.
So, you may recall the ARPA or American Rescue Plan Act was enacted March 11th, 2021.
So, it was 1.9 trillion in pandemic relief and 350 billion was authorized in state and
local government assistance.
These are the four kind of areas that the ARPA funds focused on.
So, respond to COVID and public health, premium pay for workers, invest in water and wastewater
infrastructure and replace revenue lost due to COVID.
And so, we went, we had several work sessions with council where we tried to establish the
City of Denton's kind of goals in utilizing our ARPA funds.
These were the goals that the city council directed, so create sustainable solutions,
address immediate needs and then we were trying to achieve long-term benefits.
We received two tranches of the funding, so 23.29 million altogether.
We received the first part in June 2021 and then the second half in June 2022.
So, year one, city council authorized 11.6 million in allocations to the specific projects.
So far, we're estimating to spend 10.6 in these specific projects.
You can see the project status there in the last column.
Still, a lot of these are in progress, so these are estimated as of the final allocations.
And then year two, all of the projects are still in progress, but city council allocated
originally 11.6.
We've issued a couple of informal staff reports to give council an update on kind of reallocating
some of the dollars based on where the need is, so you can see public safety equipment.
We reallocated some funding from year one to year two for public safety purchases.
So, you can see there the estimated expense for total, 23.29.
The funding has to be encumbered by the end of 2024 and then all the funds have to be
expensed by December 31st, 2026.
Any questions on ARPA?
>> Questions for Seth.
Councilman Harlan.
>> Please.
I had to look up tranches.
I've just never seen that word.
It's spot on, especially money, it says.
How was the American rescue plan, how was that publicized?
How did people know that was a thing?
>> We did a couple of social media pushes, I believe, and then we also have a website
and then you saw the dashboard earlier.
So we relied on our internal communications to kind of let the public know what was going
on because we did have a couple of grant opportunities and then we partnered with, on our arts and
culture grant, we partnered with the greater Denton arts council to kind of publicize those
grant opportunities.
>> But private businesses were apprised of that on the website or a public meeting or
something?
>> Yes.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay.
Any other questions for staff?
Okay.
And this, just to confirm, these are the funds we're using for the hotel expenses, right?
And so we're covered.
>> Yes.
>> So you expect those to stretch until 26, 25?
>> Until 2025, well, we have until 2026 to utilize them, but we expect to use them before
then.
>> Oh, so you don't, how long do we think?
>> 25.
>> That's what I thought.
Okay.
Got it.
Just make sure.
Great.
Any other questions?
Oh, Councilman McGee.
>> Yeah, this is just a small question about one thing I saw.
I noticed that it says the city's facilities COVID update, that's still in progress.
What's still happening?
>> You're talking about some of the things we're doing in the city facilities, like here
we did a different filtration system, things like that.
Yes.
Some of that's continuing.
We've completed a lot of it.
>> And we did have some supply chain issues.
We ordered the supplies and then during COVID weren't able to receive some of them, so we
had to change vendors that it's been taking a lot longer than anticipated to get the facility
changes made.
>> All right.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Great.
>> Okay.
Final summary.
So total budget, you can see the general fund is requesting 19 positions, internal service
positions, a request of 18 and a half FTEs, with utility requesting to add 14 positions,
$1.9 billion revenue budget, $1.9 billion expenditure budget.
The proposed budget includes no change to the overall tax rate.
And then includes $4.9 million for supplementals request for general fund, $2.6 million for
internal service funds, and then $1.7 million of one-time expenses from general fund for
the current year.
And so the average residential tax bill impact, I know we alluded to this earlier.
Here's the increases shown, including the utility impact.
So you can see the total on the bottom, $251 annual increase for tax bill and that 11% increase
in the wastewater.
And then we still have many more community engagement opportunities before the budget
is scheduled for adoption.
We have follow-up meetings scheduled in August.
We have a website specifically to get citizen feedback on our budget.
We also have a balancing act, which is a budget simulation tool where you can go and create
your own budget and give feedback based on what you want to fund or don't want to fund.
And then we have a public hearing on the tax rate and the budget scheduled for September
19th.
And this is just a quick snapshot of our balancing act.
This will go live this week.
And so the public has an opportunity to say whether or not they would fund the supplemental
packages as we've ranked them or reduce the tax rate.
And we can send this out once it goes live so council can have the exact website.
And then I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.
Okay.
Any additional questions from staff?
Mayor Pro Tem?
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
I think something in the last year's budget, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm misremembering,
but in which case I'll just request it out of hand.
Do we have the sort of population growth versus FTEs?
I thought I remembered that from last year.
Because I think it's a question I ask all the time, you know, if we're growing at whatever
it is, 30 a day, then at some point, you trip over to another FTE to match the service load
of that.
Do you have a preference on general fund or all funds?
I mean, obviously general summary is as a base graph, but if we could have one related
to the various funds, that would be great.
Because I think it makes it really clear that by and large, most of these requests are growth.
And it's useful for me in determining, you know, when I feel comfortable supporting,
you know, if we've grown, we've grown and we need to, we're just taking base level versus
an actual supplement.
I actually really don't like, and I said this last year, I really don't like calling your
growth expansion supplements because they're not.
They're growth expansions.
And I keep trying to get us to break those out into, you know, what's growth versus what
is an actual new item that you've never seen before.
And those are different decision processes.
So if we could do something like that as we go forward in the budget process, I would
really appreciate it.
- Okay, any other, Council Member Meltzer?
- Just a comment in support.
A supplemental would be adding a capacity or an activity that you don't currently have.
Right?
I mean, that would be truly supplemental.
- Okay, any other questions?
Send none.
Okay.
Let's take, let staff kind of discuss before we, the close component and make sure we need
to do that.
So we'll give like a little quick 10 minute break.
So 10.
30.
Yeah.
So it's 30 now around numbers.
240.
We'll be back and take it back up.
Thanks.
Oh, and when we come back, well, is Billy still there?
Has anybody can check with, I mean, is he, can he put us back on really quick?
Is that, how does that work?
Brian, yeah, just give me one second.
Hey, if you, Matt, meet me at the front here.
So you can bring your plate.
So we'll wait until we get back on, but we have a, we have a, a gift for you for being
your first time.
We have a little element.
So you always remember your first presentation.
Oh, we are.
Okay.
Thanks.
So all those hot mics, yeah.
You got it.
Yeah.
No worries.
Okay.
So what we do is, uh, yeah.
First presentation.
So, uh, the city manager and council, uh, give you this elephant to kind of remember your
first time kind of presenting and welcome.
So where's where you come here from?
I've been with the city for three years, right?
And prior to that, I was with the Boy Scouts of America and, uh, came from private industry
before that.
Got it.
Okay.
Got it.
So we'll, thank you very much.
Appreciate your work and efforts and great job today.
And so I wanted to give you that.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So at, uh, two 30, we'll be back at two 40.
Uh, the city council will now at two 43 PM convened and closed meeting to deliberate
the closed meeting items set forth on the agenda, which includes the following item
a ID two three one four five, let's see one five four five deliberations regarding certain
public power utilities, competitive matters on the Texas government code section five
five one dot zero eight six consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section
five five one dot zero seven one deliberations regarding real property under Texas government
and real property under government code section five five one dot zero seven two.