All right, welcome to the October 25th, 2024 meeting of the Sustainability Framework Advisory
Committee.
The first thing that we'd like to do is welcome our new member, Dave Helm.
And the second thing we'd like to do is consider adoption of -- is that the right date?
August 23rd, 2024 minutes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
[ Inaudible ]
Do I have it?
Today's the --
Is that right?
Is that the correct date?
Today's the 24th.
For the previous meeting.
For the previous meeting, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
It's in August.
Yeah.
Oh, August.
Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
We never met.
So, do I have any motions?
So moved.
Any second?
Second.
All right, the minutes are adopted.
Our next agenda item is nominations to elect a chair and vice-chair.
And what is the proper step for this?
Do we draw straws again?
No.
We accept nominations.
Has anyone had any nominations today?
Yes.
I nominate Ed Sofe as chair.
Does that -- do I have any seconds?
Do we need a second on the nomination?
I'll second the nomination for Ed as chair.
Thank you.
I accept.
Anybody else want to get in?
No.
All right, okay.
Sorry, I assumed something.
Oh, yes, sorry.
So, may we have a vote?
All in favor?
Aye.
All opposed?
Thank you.
Vice-chair.
All right.
Any nominations for the vice-chair now?
A nomination for the vice-chair.
I nominate Brad for the vice-chair, please.
I'll second the nomination.
Any discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Passes anonymously.
I missed that.
We were talking about something else.
So, nomination was for?
For Brad.
By?
Me.
Adam.
Okay.
Seconded by Dr. Meier.
Okay, and then I think we need to go back and vote on the minutes.
I think we had a nomination, I mean a motion and a second, but we didn't do the vote.
So, if you don't mind voting on the minutes.
I move to approve Item A.
We have a motion to approve Item A, the adoption of the minutes.
All in favor?
Pardon me.
You need a second.
Sorry.
Do we have a second?
Thank you.
I'll second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Passes unanimously.
Okay.
Item C is to receive a report, hold a discussion, and provide staff direction regarding fiscal
year 2024-25 Green Center Program.
Good afternoon.
This is Catherine Barnett, Sustainability Manager, and I'm just going to, so I want
to wrap up some of the things that we talked about for the Green Center Center Program
moving forward, where we ended with the expenditures, which has been refined a little bit from our
previously scheduled meeting, and then talk to you about the next steps.
So, just some background, the Green Center Program began in 2009, and prior to fiscal
year '24, the program incentive levels have been static for about six years, since fiscal
year '18.
The program is administered by the Environmental Services and Sustainability Department, and
funded through DME, so only DME customers are eligible for the incentives.
It's energy efficiency-focused, building a whole other building systems being the primary
energy efficiency programs for fiscal year '24, and for the upcoming fiscal year, the
current fiscal year, we have funding of $1 million from the DME program.
Just a little highlight on the number of remates that were processed, we had 936 submitted,
720 accepted, 53 were still pending or in progress, and then we had 163 that were rejected.
We've talked about this a little bit in the past, the primary reasons for rejection are
usually that the equipment does not qualify, they aren't a dentin-useful electric customer,
we get remates from Frisco sometimes, so those are the primary reasons, it's just non-qualifying
equipment, or not a DME customer.
So we had a calculation that we should have been over the million dollar funding we thought
we were.
As we audited, we found out that we were about $14,000 short of the million mark, and we
had more than enough remates to cover that, but it was just some refinements that needed
to be made with our tracking, so we have done that going forward.
66% of the remates were focused on building systems, so the HVAC smart thermostat type
of remate, the building envelope was another 16%, insulation, weatherization, windows,
radiant barrier, transportation, the E5 and EV took 13% of the funding, and the fan giveaway
efficiency kits and audits were another 5%.
As we talked about previously, reducing the number of days to submit the application to
90 days instead of the 180 days that we had previously, just to make it easier to track
down the information, the further out the applications come in, the harder it is to
go back and get documentation from your installer and things like that, which tends to be a
little bit more difficult.
We had MiniSplits submitted this year, this previous year, for an HVAC remate, and they
were getting a substantial rebate for a one and a half ton MiniSplit unit, so we did go
in and add a MiniSplits rebate of $750, 30% of the employees up to $750, because this
year they were getting 90% of the cost paid, so it was a little flinch that we weren't
expecting.
We're going to add an option for landlords or folks that may get multiple rebates within
a year to have an EMT, so an electronic bus transfer, instead of having to kind of check
out to those people for the rebate.
We added a heat pump water heater for this year, and we have the solar hot water heater,
because we just added the same rebate but for a heat pump, the same dollar amount.
Then we're working with our installers, we're probably going to do a larger outreach effort
once we get the manual finalized, and can email that out and then try to bring them
in and get all of them filling out paperwork, completing invoices, in a way that makes it
easier for the customers and for us to verify the eligibility for the rebate.
And then, we talked about this, moving the e-bag and EV over to the sustainability fund
and where you get that for the energy efficiency programs.
Any questions?
Does this program only open to residential customers?
Residential and small commercial.
Something I've always wondered, can you talk a bit about the process, like for example
with the mini splits, you said you had to adjust the percentage with a cap up to $750.
Can you talk a bit about the process of how that's done for each thing?
Is it just a matter of judgment, or is there some formula that you're using where it's
like this percentage and this cap makes the most sense, or is it just you kind of learn
as you go?
It's a little bit learn as you go.
With PV, whenever we talked about, for instance, for fiscal '23, '24, we were looking at the
values and the question and the comment from the public utilities board was that's not
even going to cover the tax on an install, and so we kind of thought about that, we look
at average cost, and then the way costs are climbing, it's starting to level out, I think,
a little bit, and we're getting some better trends on the overall cost, but right now
it's kind of, it's all over the place a little bit, depending on the installer, so it's hard
to pin an exact percentage to it.
Right, but I imagine the guiding ideal, because it's an incentive program, the guiding ideal
is to try to set the figures at a place where it gets more people to buy or install these
things, right?
And with the data that we've gathered this year, as we start delving into that, I think
we can get to a better, more than this looks about right, you know?
I think we can get to actually the cost and what the average rebate is, it's percentage
of the invoice, what the average costs were with the program previously, we were at about
five percent, four percent total cost, so this is a big change for this year, and we
will be bringing the data back to do some labor jobs on that, we started that with the
audit, but we're also still processing rebates, we have new rebates coming in, so we'll get
that back, we'll come back with more data and talk about that for next year.
Okay, I was curious, because I was wondering if you could moneyball this whole thing, you
know, where there's like an algorithm to…
That would be fun, Brian loves that.
Take a lot of resources, I would imagine.
Yes.
Any other questions?
So I do, again, really like that we're pulling EV and e-bikes out of here, because I think
programmatically that makes a lot more sense to focus just energy stuff in the green sense
program.
Question on the mini-split though, and I like that we're starting to think about kind of
smaller scale air treatment units, is a mini-split compatible with say like a mobile home in that
size of project?
Generally, yes.
Okay, and then I'm curious too, I know that we are only eligible for DME customers, and
for these larger installs that are more structural, obviously that has to be owner-initiated,
that if say it's a rental and the landlord wants to do those programs, it would be landlord
initiated, but I am curious if there's an appetite to perhaps also add some sort of
like window heat pump for an air treatment unit that might be a little more renter-friendly,
that doesn't modify the structure in a way where we can allow a little bit bigger of
a pathway for people who might not be the owner-occupied homes to participate in these
programs, given they are the residential DME customers paying that utility bill in some
way to kind of broaden that equity factor a little bit more, just as a suggestion.
I think that's something that we can look at.
I know that there are some programs in some northern states where air conditioning may
not be standard where they can take it with them whenever they move, so I'd be somewhat
similar to that, and we can look into best practices and see what that might look like,
possibly even try pilot for next summer if we can get that sorted.
I know with those smaller scale units, I think I was just looking at the price points earlier,
a couple local bigger distributors, and it's like $200 to $350 for these smaller treatment space
units, but I just feel like that makes the approachability of this program a little bit easier
for people who might not be that owner-occupied situation that I'm sure most of our structural
stuff goes to.
Right, and the mini-slit is a heat pump is what I'm seeing most often, so they are getting
the heat as well as the AC, so I like those and we're seeing more of those installed.
I think that the room air conditioner is a great option for some folks too, where maybe
it's just that little piece that goes, if you have a little plastic piece that goes
on the window and a vent there, so it's really just sitting in the room, so I think I'm going
to have something outside of the window for the most part.
I think that's definitely something we can look into.
Second question, on the audit, is this purely a financial audit, or are we kind of looking
at the demographics of who's benefiting from this program at all?
We do have some of that, and we'll be presenting that in a few weeks, maybe.
Yes, we started that.
Anyone else?
I'd just say that it's encouraging to see such a robust program, and expanding as it
is and covering so many different aspects.
I would hope that when discussions come up for the next fiscal year that we can talk
about adding battery storage, as I've talked to some people who have existing solar units
who would like to be able to make it easier to get batteries, because of their obvious
benefits, so I hope that would be something that we could deal with in the future.
Thank you.
Okay, our next agenda item is to receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff
direction regarding the Sustainability Framework Fund, 2024-25 Work Plan Priorities.
Me again.
Kevin Barnett, Sustainability Manager.
Just a recap of the Sustainability Framework Fund, and we had done some brainstorming on
the options for this at the August meeting, I believe, and we put together a program for
the current fiscal year, sorry, we'll just walk through that.
So just a little bit on the background, the funding, we are providing estimates in the
actual that we received over the previous years, the Framework Fund projects, and then
the primary organization adjustments and some next steps.
The first year of the fund, we had the adopted budget of 500, and they did a transfer, because
that was before the revenue was realized, there was a transfer there, you know, we did
the big planning process for '22, '23 for the 4 million dollar estimate in the budget,
and we ended up with 1.2 being transferred in at the end of September of '23, so that
was the final number for that year.
750 was adopted budget for '23, '24, and the actual was 41, about 800,000 in the budget
this year.
And I think you all remember this, for a new member, we made a commitment to spend the
funds as they accrue, so as it's realized revenue, then we will program that.
Okay.
Just to recap on the projects that were completed, or some of them are still in progress, the
climate plan, the credit removal and restoration, air quality monitors, which we'll have a
update on that in the next meeting, the city fleet support, so we assisted some departments
with covering the additional cost that they may have for replacement of an ice engine
within the V. It could be as little as $2,000 to help them bridge that gap, or it could
be a larger ask, so we're just helping with those as they come through.
The electric fire engine and then the charging infrastructure for that engine, and I believe
that should still be here by the end of this calendar year.
Yes.
And then we'll also help the PD with some additional E-bikes.
I'd like to bring one of our officers in to talk to you all about how much they enjoy
using the E-bikes.
It's a different type of patrol, whatever their level, out of the car.
Can I ask a question?
Sure.
Is any of this money coming from outside grants, or is it strictly coming from city revenue?
These are just the framework fund projects.
Okay, but none of these are financed by outside grants, either from NETCOG, or from the IRA,
or any of that?
No, these were just the projects that were identified to use framework fund dollars for.
I see.
Now, if grants come through COG or other departments, they may be contributing to a part of this
through a grant, but this was what we had committed to helping with.
There are additional funding opportunities coming from COG and from the state.
Over the next year, January 25, we should see some more of those start coming through.
So, there is opportunity for splitting that between your grants.
Thank you.
Barbara, I need to confirm, just to add on to that, we are using IRA funding as rebates
on the back end of some of our electric vehicle purchases.
So, we are applying for those funds to get those to come in as well.
This just reflects what we've committed out of the framework fund towards these projects.
But there are other funds coming in to help offset the demand on the city.
Great, thank you.
Sorry, can I follow up on that?
The IRA funding, does that both sometimes come directly to the city through an application
you're putting in, but also through NETCOG?
How does that trickle down to communities, basically, is what I'm wondering.
Because you just mentioned that.
The EV tax credit.
Did you not say IRA?
I did say IRA.
We're getting a little off-posty on that one, so I don't want to go into that detail of the discussion.
The IRA funding I'm discussing is a we-making purchase.
There's things that we may be eligible for as a purchaser to apply for direct money to come to us
under the IRA.
Then there are funds through other mechanisms as well that are flowing out.
But we'd have to bring that back to the discussion if you want to hear that.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Great.
So we have the work plan discussion in August.
It talks about moving the EV and EBI to the framework fund.
It talks more about water conservation strategies and then the credit restoration projects.
Excuse me?
Any details about the water conservation strategies?
Not included.
Okay, just curious.
So the EV and the EBI rebates, we have proposed to reduce the EV rebate from $1,500 to $1,000
lease vehicles as an eligible category for EV, thinking that sometimes it's harder to get out of a lease than to sell a car.
And then EBI, we were looking to reduce that to 50% of the invoice up to $750 instead of the 50% to $1,000.
Lowliness does amount to purely to try to get more people to benefit from the dollars that we have.
So proposed projects, the EV rebate, $150,000 proposed for that.
The EBI rebates proposed $100,000.
Just the ongoing operation and maintenance, the data access for the air quality monitors is roughly $25,000 annually.
Please support the electric water equipment pilot that we would like to try to roll in in the spring and then continue to work on the credit restoration.
On the previous slide with the previous projects, it said FY24 and FY25 for the PD bike program?
Yes.
Does that show on our budget for this proposal?
Or is that coming out of the...
That's coming out of prior to the year.
Okay.
So not planned.
That was already committed funding for it.
And then water conservation programs, that was one that we talked about what we can add and we, I do recall Ed, we spoke about what the water utility was going to be doing and how we would be partnering with them.
But they did get approval for funding to do turf buyback and then some other incentives.
So we are working with them on that.
So it didn't have anything programmed in right now on water conservation for funding from this program this year.
This may, this is sort of a reality, but has there been any discussion of developing the usage of gray water for golf courses or industrial lawns and that sort of thing?
Is that too off?
Am I off?
I think that's off.
Okay.
I can say as a conservation measure, we do support the gray water.
We have purple pipe that extends to at least half a dozen that I can think of off the top of my head, large water users.
So that's how we can serve potable water.
Right.
Great.
Thank you.
Questions?
Yes.
Can you remind us or speak to how people apply to, what's the mechanism or process for obtaining these rebates?
Is this on the city's website?
People will know if you get an e-vite, you find a place to do it?
Yes.
So if we receive a direction to remove the rebates off of the green scents, then we will be creating a separate application for that so they don't go through the full green scents.
The green scents application, it gets a little tricky whenever you're talking about a bike or a car when they want to ask, you know, what's this for, but it's your home.
Right.
So we would give it to a more streamlined application process, and it would also be available on the website.
The green scents incentive program manual, the rebate application, the list of installers is all on our city website.
So we can direct folks there.
And for potential, you know, participants who might be listening in on this, is there a -- does this -- like the green scents fund kind of has an annual cycle where funds would kind of run out maybe.
Is it the same dynamic happening with this?
Would you anticipate that there's a time of year when there's more money and a time when there's less essentially?
With the green scents, we have that fixed amount, so we do track that. We report monthly the percent of the allocated budget that's remaining.
We could do something very similar on the e-bike EV.
So as folks are making a decision, we could come back and ask for additional funding if we saw that we were going to completely deplete the bike.
Okay.
And that's what we did. We earmarked it and watched it pretty closely on the EV and the e-bike.
And you'll probably remember last spring whenever we did curtail those and just focused on energy efficiency because they were double what we had earmarked.
And we talked too well about that too at the time, increasing the amount of that.
But four times as much as a little big of an ask.
Yep.
So again, I love that we're seeing that high dollar amount for the e-bike program.
I know that we kept having to bump it, having to bump it, having to bump it because there was so much program participation there.
And I do like that this has moved to here where there's a little bit more flexibility.
One thing, and I wasn't attending for the August meeting, so I wasn't able to participate in that discussion, but I was curious.
I like that we've shifted that base amount lower so that we can kind of widen that pool a little wider.
I am curious though because there's a wide spectrum of products available for e-bikes that go from entry level 250 to 350 from Walmart or something,
up to many thousands of dollars from some higher end luxury distributor that I almost wonder if there's a means to split those two.
It's not to say that we would love to support you getting an e-bike if you're looking to get one.
No matter where on that spectrum you're physically able to fall.
But it seems as though we could hit that wider pool by prioritizing that entry level product, the 350s to $400 category.
So I'm just curious if there's an interest in saying we'll cover 75% up to $400, 50% once we get past that cabinet, 750, is that a previously stated number?
Just so that we're really emphasizing, if you're looking to mode shift from a vehicle to an e-bike, here's this really easy, approachable,
and helps maximize your cost efficiency in the way that you're trying to calculate how you're going to go about that prioritizing those entry level products,
as opposed to more luxury level products, just as a suggestion.
But again, I wasn't here during that discussion, and from the August meeting, but I just think that that makes more sense for, again, looking at it from that
wide approachability for people that enter into this program.
It seems like that would be a larger market, and maybe you have more data from the applications you've received over the last year.
But I would think leaning that direction might be more helpful to get additional folks participating in the project.
That's a lot of math.
I'm sure.
I just threw a lot of math at me up here, Brandon.
It's not impossible.
I would need to do a deeper dive on, I can tell you that the average rebate was about $750 for all the bikes that were rebated last year.
I have to do a deeper dive to see how many were under that $500 level, and how many were $13,000.
What I guess I'm just curious, knowing that we kept hitting our ceiling, I know with programs like this, given it's a rebate,
we're not sending money on the front end, so people trying to make financial calculations for, you know,
am I going to have to sit on this for maybe two paychecks to pay it on the front end and wait for my rebate to hit,
versus now if it's in the fund to make the timeline look a little bit differently.
If we're looking more at entry-level products with a lower, call it risk volume, because it's a lower purchase point,
if that might incentivize additional people to make that financial calculus in their own sense for participating in this program,
as opposed to, oh gosh, I don't know what product I'm going to get, I don't know when I'm going to see this money back,
if I am going to get it, I can afford, you know, $300, but I can't afford $750 out of pocket.
You know, so I'm just wondering if we do really shift toward that lower, that entry-level side,
if we can kind of widen the pool of the number of participants we can get,
while not having to keep continually shifting money around into the program, if the average is a little bit more on that luxury.
And again, $750 alone is double what an entry-level bike might be.
I know that's a lot of math requests, but maybe that will help us over this next year kind of see how this project plays out
in the sustainability fund, as compared to the Greensense program,
from the application side and the typical participant that uses it.
And having that request gives me a little bit more of an idea of how to parse the data that we're receiving along with the e-bike,
and maybe refine a little bit of that on the application for next year, so that we can have a little bit more information,
whenever we come back to talk about that. I'm just thinking also the number of,
and this is just my memory, I can't, you know, this isn't hard data, this is the lower-end entry-level bikes,
I would say we're typically tenant, so that, you know, maybe it's a Palomino question, I don't know,
there's more data that we might want to ask if we have a tiered system. I don't know.
Yeah, I get that a lot. Maybe it's something we look at how this transitions this fiscal year and under this program,
and talk about modifying as we approach next fiscal. But I like that we're setting a really high ceiling for where we hit on there.
I do have more on this in the next button. Other questions?
We're posted to hold this discussion, so.
I love the spirit of this remark, this is really interesting, and you know way more than I do about this product that we're talking about,
but maybe also we have to then consider, and I'll defer again to your knowledge, are the lower-end ones perhaps,
do they have a shorter life cycle, maybe? And is that a trade-off perhaps of, again I don't know,
you've opened up a really interesting...
You're the philosopher.
Like could it be that if we throw a lot of money to a lower-end product, we end up putting a lot of things out there that have a shorter lifespan, maybe?
And then that creates more waste? And if we would have incentivized something that has a longer lifespan? Or am I just making that up?
My perspective on this, and the department might have a different perspective, I value this item on sustainability's funding
because I see it as a mode-shifting initiative, right?
We've had years of discussion about, you know, what are our climate risks, where are those emissions coming from,
why do we look to prioritize programs to have the most bang for our buck for the funding that we do have,
and we've learned time and time again it was emissions, emissions, emissions, emissions.
EVICES, NEBs, I think, help incentivize that mode-shifting, so then we're just talking about numbers.
I can drive my Honda, and you can drive whatever you drive.
We're both polluting in that sense.
It is easier for me to get over here, even to these meetings, on my little EVIC that I spent $300 on.
I've shifted away from that emission into our renewable grid, right?
So away from an internal combustion engine to whatever our grid portfolio looks like.
So I think allowing higher numbers of people to participate in this program by spreading the prioritization of that funding
on that lower end where it's the most approachable, the easiest to access,
the easiest for someone to approach from a financial risk perspective because it is a rebate.
You do have to put money down on the table first and then anticipate maybe getting that money back.
I just think that widens the pool a little bit more to where people can have a higher confidence they would see dollars back
because the money is looking at getting additional people funding for participating in this project.
Versus I think last year I think we just kept hitting the ceiling and hitting the ceiling and hitting the ceiling.
I heard anecdotally, of course, but a number of people that were really interested in participating in the EVIC program
but incredibly hesitant because it's real money on the back end.
I think if we do look at just that entry level stuff, increasing the percentage but lowering the max cap
I think just shifts the math of that formula a little bit away from those more luxury end models
which are better products but a higher threshold of adopting it, right?
The goal is just mode shifting. I think the numbers are really the math that we're looking at.
In that sense it's why I'm pushing this point hard is that I think that that gets us there better than having a high max rate
with a lower total percentage of coverage.
I also think that as you said previously that we probably need to look at the results of this program
and maybe have more discussion and more decision suggestion.
If you do some demographics that we can look at.
Right. One thing that we have already redrafted at the invite NMVP application.
We're going to start capturing what trips are you going to shift to a bike
instead of a single occupancy vehicle by this engine. What does that look like?
As we gather that data this year, we can look at the first six months whenever we come back and start planning
for next year's program. That will give us time to research.
There's a lot of new e-bike programs out there. Let's see if anybody else is doing a tiered system with that.
I've seen income verification on some of them so that there's a lower income level that gets a higher rebate.
But I haven't seen it yet with an entry level price bike. I wasn't looking for it.
I can go out and search for that too and bring back any information that we can find on that to help us guide the program for the next year.
I think that would be really helpful.
There's so many different ways to go down for other trails with this. It's fun.
Any more discussion on e-bikes?
Sorry, we're still here. Discussion. I was also thinking, again, this is a new program.
Shifting it over here programmatically makes a ton of sense.
Also adding, say I'm going to a bike shop, say I'm ordering online or whatever, on my ticket, my receipt, this is my first new bike.
I need a helmet. I need a u-lock. That helps me, again, on that confidence that I'm going to use this equipment and feel safe about using it.
I just wonder if we can add those necessary safety elements as part of that program.
It's not like we're separating seat belts from our EV program. I think it just makes sense to incorporate a lock and a helmet at minimum
if it's requested under the rebate to help people feel confident that they can safely use the equipment we're helping centerize.
From looking at invoices, that's not something I'm seeing on most of them.
It could be they're making that as an Amazon purchase and they're purchasing a bike direct from a vendor.
I wouldn't even know where to go about setting a rebate or a reimbursement for that.
Perhaps that's something we also tack on later when we move to some critical markets.
I haven't thought about that yet. It's like seventh grade math that makes me think there would be like $25 plus,
and that's just for your safety equipment, plus X percent of the total cost of the bike. That's more math for it.
It's another vendor. It's another receipt, probably. Potentially. It's a neat idea.
Any more? Two more comments, so sorry. Again, I apologize for being here for the August discussion.
Thoughts about the water conservation program, since it's mission appropriate for where the sustainability fund is focused.
I see air quality and we're talking about land use stuff and things like that.
I was thinking about rainfall sensors and automatic irrigation timing and system programs that we could help people cut back those upfront costs,
especially if they're shifting from an existing manual system or just a time system that helps incorporate what's going on around environmentally that helps reduce that water usage.
Just thinking of my neighbor across the street that likes to water every other day and it rained that morning and we're going to water that afternoon.
Knowing that 75 percent of our water goes toward irrigating lawns, I think that would be a huge literal drop in the bucket to help reduce some of those residential usage.
We have had water conservation strategies in the previous work plans, working with water to see what could be funded through their incentives.
You just mentioned everything that we have been speaking about, smart controllers, moisture sensors, trying to move more to the moisture sensor instead of the rainfall sensor,
the programmable one where they're pulling the weather data.
We're also exploring the irrigation tune-up rebate that would be very similar to the AC tune-up so that they could choose their own company to come out and do it and then we could rebate that.
If there is a concern about any of that coming out of the water fund, then we will bring it back to you to see about funding it in this work plan.
I know that we're lowballing our proposed expenditure compared to our anticipated program revenue.
So I'm just wondering if there is opportunities for, you know, we have a little bit more in the fund than we anticipated.
Maybe that we could pull over to those new items if that is an opportunity to come up.
Absolutely, and that's why we did go ahead and list them as additional considerations here.
If we do have an increase or it looks like we're going to meet the budget this year or exceed it, then we will come back.
But rather than program up to the budget and get underperform as we've seen in previous years, we kind of left some of that to have some flexibility moving forward.
Final question, I promise. The private restoration project, are these new areas that parks have identified for this type of initiative or are we going back to Bowling Green and that strip along Colorado?
We are still going back to that. We have a big project with Bowling Green with the Parks Department to go in and do that restoration work.
So we will be back there and then seeing how that works and then moving forward from there.
Tying in with the water conservation, has there been any discussion of promotion of zero escaping?
Yes, we promote that every year. We have annual activities and classes. You'll hear about it in a current presentation today. I believe some of the more successful classes.
And one other question about the air monitors. How many air monitors are there?
There are a dozen.
And are they owned by the city?
Yes.
And is there some place where the results of the monitoring is available on the internet?
Not yet. The last four monitors were installed this week Tuesday and they are all up and reporting and we will be bringing that back.
We saw the siting plan in a previous presentation for last year. So we will bring it back and let you know exactly where they landed and the information that we are seeing.
So on the website then they could have a map showing where the monitors are?
We will have data that will be uploaded. We are planning on doing it monthly. So we will pull that in.
Thank you. Any other questions?
Was that something that was regulatory or was it just voluntary?
It was regulatory. Just neighborhood level monitors. Information only.
That's great. And there will be indications of what we are monitoring for?
Absolutely.
Any other discussion? Thanks Catherine.
Next item is to receive a report and hold a discussion regarding an annual summary of sustainability education, outreach, and social media metrics for fiscal year 2023-24.
So as we jump into this, you might notice we have a full contingent from the sustainability division over here today.
So if we are talking about all of the education outreach that we have done, we will just have everybody wave and say who they are as we go through this.
So you can put a name to the face. Go ahead.
Hi everyone. My name is Julissa Amador. I am the senior program coordinator in the sustainability department. It's good to meet everybody.
Hello, my name is Lily Garcia. I am one of the engagement coordinators.
My name is Kim Jennings. I am also an engagement coordinator, but I focus on the dense, stable streets program under sustainability. Very nice to meet you all.
Hi, I am Shelby Robertson. I am a conservation program coordinator. My focus is on water conservation and it's really nice to meet all of you.
Hi everyone. Nice to meet you guys. My name is Caitlin Davis. I am also a conservation program coordinator in the sustainability department.
I focus on energy conservation and air quality.
Meredith?
Meredith is in the new face as well, so go ahead.
Meredith Ellens and I am the administrative assistant.
So you will start seeing emails from Meredith coordinators. And Karen Berger.
Hi, I am Karen Berger.
Good to see you for the first time to you.
And I am the sustainability engagement coordinator. I am happy to meet with you.
I am a wrangler.
Tell everyone to go teach classes and things.
But yeah, this is just a recap of our education and outreach efforts for this past fiscal year.
We are going to cover a little bit of the background of our sustainability education, which includes recycling education, the Dent and Sustainable Schools Program, and our sustainability education, along with outreach and events, an overcap of our social media, and then some of our upcoming stuff.
So a very condensed background. Our recycling education really expanded in January of 2021, and it keeps expanding each year since then.
The Dent and Sustainable Schools Program was established in 2004 with a full program relaunch in fall of 2022, and we've had a full program in these school years since.
And then our sustainability education launched in 2007 with Dent and ISD field trips out at Clear Creek National Heritage Center and has evolved and expanded over the past 15 years.
So specifically for our recycling education, the focus of this education is on reducing contamination that comes into our material recovery facility, which is Pratt Recycling.
And to help with this education, we do tours. Tours are provided for residents, HOAs, businesses, schools, and community organizations.
And they actually go out to Pratt, which is what this picture is, and you can actually see the sorting floor where they have their big pile of recycling and then all the machines that kind of sort it.
They also do education and outreach, which we'll touch on a little more in the next slide, but these are like tabling events, going out to schools and holding discussions at HOAs about how to properly recycle, things like that.
And then also their market strategy, which, again, I'll explain a little more in another slide.
These are some pictures of our recycling education. This first one is Recycling Bingo, which is a new education tool that we've utilized a lot this past year.
We go to multi-family complexes and do a little bingo game by holding up an item and say, "Is this recycled or not?" And they try to get a bingo, we give them a prize.
And what's really cool about this specific picture is this is actually a leasing agent at this complex running it for us.
So a lot of these agents are invested in their residents recycling, right, even if we aren't the ones coming out and providing that education.
And then this other picture is from a Pratt tour with members from the UNT Zero Waste Textile Initiative, and we collaborated with them during UNT Move Out this last school year.
We set up dumpsters for people to drop off their textiles that they don't want anymore, so clothing donations basically.
And then we had a sort-a-thon at our office to sort out all the clothes so that they can be taken by this Zero Waste Textile Initiative out to be reused and repurposed and whatever else they did with those.
So the market strategy for our recycling, some really big things they did this year was they filmed an advertisement in collaboration with Denton Television, Denton Police Department, Engar High School to create an ad that goes out when they broadcast the high school football games.
So all the DISD football games will have this ad, and we'll see that in just a second.
They also set up a Golden Triangle mall ad, and this can be changed out quarterly to meet any other sustainability or recycling education goals that you'd like to meet.
They recorded an ad for the Spanish radio station, which is a demographic that we are looking to advertise to more.
There is also a collaboration with UNT and Denton Television to film an ad for Halftime to Play on the big screen at all UNT football games about recycling correctly.
And one future initiative that they were looking for is putting ads on shopping carts for things like not bagging recyclables and what to put in our recycling program.
And this is that DISD ad.
And here comes the kicker, ready to make the play.
He just missed it, and it looks like there's a flag on the play.
The kicker didn't properly prepare his recycling. Remember folks, bagged recyclables can't be processed correctly.
The kicker will now reset for another attempt, showing the correct way to recycle in Denton.
And it's good!
Perfect execution.
Great job team, let's keep you recycling empty, clean, dry, and unbagged.
Yeah, so these ads are meant to be kind of fun and eye-catching, and it plays during football games, so it is a football themed ad.
We do have one coming up for UNT's basketball season that we're filming a new one that is basketball themed, so it kind of relates.
So our Denton Sustainable Schools program, this is where we go out to all the schools in Denton.
It is focused a lot on Denton ISD, but we do also do other private schools, we do early education schools, things like that as well.
They run a lot of tours, so these schools have the option to go to the Pratt Recycling Center, the water treatment plant, beneficial reuse, and home chemical collection, and the landfill for tours.
So these are things that if a teacher has a certain teak's point that they want to get out that could be helped by a field trip, they can get in contact and we can provide that for free for them.
They provide a ton of different educations, teachers can request a speaker on any sort of sustainability topic, so we do recycling, local food, air quality, climate, environmental stewardship, wildlife.
And we even say, like, if you have another topic that is about sustainability, let us know and we'll come up with something for you.
So again, it can work into their lessons plans.
May I interrupt and ask a question?
Yes.
What sort of presentations do you give if somebody asks for something on climate?
So we've actually only, last year we only had one request for a climate talk and it was actually from a Girl Scout troop, so it wasn't at any of our schools, but they specifically requested a climate change talk and how it's affecting our current world.
I was the one who gave that and I developed it, so I basically explained what climate change is, explained, you know, the different levels of our atmosphere and what happens when the gas gets trapped in, and then how that affects our planet.
And then did, like, a little activity with them about that.
That's great. Thank you.
So, like I said, they can request any sort of education and we will do our best to provide it.
Most of our things are taught by speakers, us, everyone here who has their main focus matter, and then I kind of do everything, a little bit of everything with their input as well.
This past year we had 17 schools participate in this program, and one way that we keep them participating and not just signed up and not doing anything is through school challenges.
So we have the recycling audit challenge where students are trained to go out and look in their recycling bins and make sure that it's recyclable materials in there.
They basically report the percentage of contamination they see, and they submit it as just like a form that gets them back to us, and then it's checked off that, you know, they have an audit, and whoever has the most audits that year wins that challenge.
And then we also have the sustainability activity challenge, and this can be if they go on a tour, if they request a speaker, those count.
If they borrow some of our STEM kits, we have STEM kits that teachers can rent out, and they can keep as long as they need to, and then they return it to us when they're done.
That can count, or working in their school garden, or if they have a recycling event at the school, those can all count.
And at the end of the year it's separated into elementary school, middle school, high school, and other, that's like early education or private schools and things like that.
And the top three winners of each of those categories get prizes.
These can include STEM kits that they own and keep at their school, it can be garden supplies, it can be other reasonable requests that revolve around sustainability, and we try to get them what they might need to keep teaching sustainable topics in the school.
So the pictures on here are some of the winners from this past year, and they all got STEM kits for, they chose STEM kits for their reward, so that's what those pictures are.
These are some pictures from sustainable schools, this one on your left is a career day, we go out to a bunch of career days at schools and provide recycling education.
Most of the time we do sometimes do sustainable education too, and a lot of the times we have one of our truck driver and operators come out and teach the kids how their trash is actually picked up at the curb and then explain where it goes afterwards, and they also talk about safety around these cars and carts when they're out.
Then on the far side that's an after school program, we have a big parachute because hands on games are the best way for kids to learn.
So this is just one of the games we play, we'll throw a certain material on it, ask if it's recyclable, and if it's not we try to get them to bounce it off, so just a fun way for them to be engaged.
So sustainability education, we do, we cover a whole bunch of topics, these are kind of, some of our more popular ones are water and energy conservation, wildlife and wildfire, which includes native landscaping, zero scaping, things like that.
Air quality, local food, we do climate as well, so pretty much anything sustainable we're going to try to talk about.
And then our outreach, we do pop up events at popular places, this just includes setting up a table at a place and interacting with anyone that comes by.
So in the past this has been a lot at city facilities like libraries and our rec centers, but we're trying to branch out more to non-city places so that we can reach kind of a wider audience to people who might not visit libraries and things like that.
We have a table at universities, that's that picture here, we're at UNT talking to Scrappy.
And then we do a lot of community events, so these are city led events as well as outside organizations, like we'll be at Day of the Dead tomorrow.
Here's some of our tables from these, this first one shows our big prize wheel, which is a big hit for a lot of the kids, the middle one's at Redbud and then the last one over there is one of our tables at UNT.
One of our highlights, we did get two awards this year from the Texas Environmental Leadership Award.
So the SysMirror Sustainability Leadership Award was for our Recycling Education Program and the Environmental Awareness Education Award was for the Dentons Sustainable Schools Program.
They also gave two presentations, one at STAR, which is the Texas State of Alliance for Recycling, which was a panel that Kim sat on to talk about Dentons Sustainable Schools.
And then at Texelana, it was a presentation over our Recycling Market Strategy.
This is a bit of a breakdown of our community outreach, we have just under 11,000 total attendance for all of our events and tabling.
You can see a little over half of that attendance comes from tabling, because those are bigger events where people just come by and talk and can go.
But our presentations, which is 34, those are our informational classes, so that's when we stand up and give a little PowerPoint to people to educate them about whatever topic it is, like wildlife or native planting or composting, whatever.
Our tours make up about 3%, activity is basically any hands-on event that we do, so these include most of our kids' classes, because most of them are hands-on.
As well as big events like World Migratory Bird Day, Christmas Bird Count, things like that, and then meetings tend to be the meetings we have with multi-family complexes about their recycling.
This is a breakdown of the location and attendance, so we try to get as much of Denton as possible so that people have the opportunity to come learn about sustainability and recycling as much as possible.
We did a pretty good job about hitting most of the city this past year, but we want to branch out even more this upcoming year.
And now for our social media. This is a big part of our outreach, because even people who don't come to our events still see our social media.
There's also people outside of Denton that follow our social media. There's people outside of the United States that follow our social media, for whatever reason.
But we have two social medias that we run. We have Sustainable Denton, and then we have the Solid Waste and Recycling pages as well.
So on Sustainable Denton, we do things that help us with our certification. So earlier this year, we applied for Bird City, Texas. We're still waiting to see if we are awarded that.
But this was one point they like us to help with the Lights Out initiative for migratory birds, so that's what we use our social media to help with that, spread that message, what peak migration is, things like that.
We also do general sustainability tips, so that's kind of on the end there. That sustainable tip of the week is about energy conservation.
And in the middle is from our Solid Waste Recycling page. We don't only want to tell people where to throw things away. We want to reduce waste.
So things like using, this is at the Forge at the North Branch Library, so using city resources to repair your shirt with the sewing machine they have there. We want people to have less waste in general.
We also use it to advertise for our events. So this is an event brochure that we're now putting out quarterly with everything that we have scheduled.
This was one of our first ones, so this is August/September, but they will be in three or four month increments as we go. The one down at the end there is the fan pickup, so big events we also advertise so that more people in the community know about them.
And then of course our wildlife stewardship. It's something that we offer to help with our community wildlife habitat certification. So it's just some information on that.
These are some of our upcoming outreach events. Like I said, we're at Day of the Dead tomorrow. We have a Landfill and Recycling Tour for the UNT. We have Gardening with Pitch and Scrafts and Denton's Wildlife Habitat Program, which are two informational classes.
Texas Recycle Day is November 16th, which is a large-scale drop-up event for Denton residents. We have Stream Clean December 7th, which is an annual event that our department puts on every single year. And then starting in January with another class, Beginner Conference.
That's it. Any questions?
Thank you for the presentation. That's great. I really like the tours. I think it's important for people to see, you know, the kids especially to see where the trash goes. Don't give up perception that we live on. It disappears.
And when you go do those tours and you see those piles, you know, it's really impactful. So it's great work that we do.
Yeah, just congrats on the awards and also thank you. Your whole team is awesome. Everything you're doing. One quick question, but I don't know if it's allowable, but you mentioned a big part of education is on recycling and using contamination.
And we've had discussions in the past about that. I just wondered if you had an update on how we're doing. Are you seeing, I thought we were seeing continued improvements through the education. Yes, yeah. I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head. That's also not my exact area, but we have been seeing continual improvements with our target strategy.
We can ask our subways director what the contamination percentage is right now. For the month of September, we're at 28% citywide. Remember four years ago, we were above 70%.
Yeah, we're sort of, I don't want to say we're reaching dead pan, but we're reaching those asymptotic areas that significantly, you know, significantly more effort has to go into it. We started our commercial diversion article, so we're requiring all commercial multifamily to recycle.
So we're seeing some improvements there also, but we're collecting less tonnage curbside, but the march is accepting more tonnage. So at the end of the day, we're net positive on the tons that are actually going back for beneficial reuse. Very little is coming out the back door right now.
I'm slightly connected to Brian's statement. I saw all your metrics about your touch points in the engagement that you have just by total people. Is there any other metric that we use to gauge what is the impact of our education and outreach programs relating to these higher level citywide contamination rates?
How else do you measure your program besides the touch points? Yeah, so we do touch points, we do attendance on classes, and then for our recycling education, we do have the luxury of having contamination rates for, we can pinpoint specific routes, we can pinpoint specific multifamily complexes, so we can target ads out to high, you know, contamination areas.
We are looking at how to do that on a sustainable side. It's a little bit harder since we don't have the direct route to route that the recycling does have.
Yes, so very nice presentation. Indeed, you're a wonderful group, and you do a good job in sustainability. What I've noticed is that most of your outreach and sustainability education is on recycling. You touched a little bit on reusing, but I would suggest to increase education on reuse and reduce.
So let's cover all three R's. We do have outreach related to that. I will say recycling is a big one because we're trying to reduce the contamination of the recycling coming in, but especially with our sustainable schools program and with our other just sustainable education, we do reduce and reuse as well.
We can make bingos for those. And I would like to invite you to TWU with a table for our Earth Day and also Texas Wildflower Day, which was initiated on TWU campus, and we revived it last year and we continue. So that will be in August, in April, sorry.
Anybody else? Yeah, this is another robust program. It's really great. We have so much happening. I am curious about the fact that only one request was received for a discussion on climate change, and that's nothing on you folks, it's just how the system works.
And I wondered, knowing that, well there was this recent study that the Yale Climate Science people did on how climate change affects young people and how concerned they are, and it was remarkable from grade school up to, especially high school, there's a great deal of anxiety amongst young people.
And I think that an outreach that would help educate these people so that the kids, so that they won't be stressed, so that they know what's happening and what can be done to stop it, would be something of great value.
And I wondered if, maybe you've already done it, I'm not aware of it, but any sort of outreach programs strictly for explaining climate change, like Climate Change 101, rather than waiting for someone to request it, if it could become more a part of your curriculum.
So we, in the past, have had Air Quality 101, which is not exactly the same, but close. And it was, at the time, not a super popular class, so we've actually been having a total revamp of our class offerings, starting in this, the end of this year and the coming end of the new year has been our kind of total revamp, where we've offered some new classes and we're trying to get what people want out there.
And air quality and climate is certainly a topic that we want to touch on again. Our recent ones have been focused on water conservation, we had a Terp alternatives class earlier this month that has been our most popular class by far in a long time.
So we're kind of trying to make sure we build up appropriate programming that gives good education, so we can kind of, you know, ease that anxiety. But climate and air quality is one that we are going to revamp coming in this year.
Great. At this point, do you have any, like when you go out to the park, do you have any handouts about climate change?
Not climate change specifically, we do have air quality, we follow Air North Texas, we have a lot of their promotional material, but nothing specific on climate right now.
Oh, I hope that maybe in the future something like that could be generated. It's the big thing on the horizon.
Yes.
Alright, this is great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Any other comments? Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Alright, next is receive a report and hold a discussion regarding the internal revenue service clean energy and vehicle credits.
You'll like this because it's got lots of numbers in it.
And Michael's going to give them this one. Thank you.
Chair and members of the committee, Michael Gagne, Director of Environmental Services and Sustainability, glad to be here. I'm actually going to go to slide two, just have it up there just for clarity.
The city is not a tax expert, we're not providing legal advice, we're not providing tax advice.
The goal here is to raise awareness on what programs the IRS have and then the qualified individuals or entities could then claim.
So this is just an awareness. I'm by no means an expert. I got volunteered into it, so I'm here.
But it's very important to go over because I want to make sure the community and everyone knows what is or what may be available to them.
So is that enough of a disclaimer? I believe so.
So to get into it, I'm going to go over five main topics today. We're going to touch on clean vehicles, home energy, how builders can do energy efficient homes, energy efficiency in commercial buildings, as well as alternative fuel vehicle refueling property.
So in other words, how you can fuel alternative fuel vehicles.
First, on the clean vehicle credit, there's multiple categories here. Let's see things, there's different levels for different types of vehicles. It's both new, used, and commercial. So everything is covered.
For new vehicles that were bought in 2023 or after, so if they were bought, say, this year, they potentially, depending on the taxpayer status, are eligible for a credit up to $7,500 off that purchase price.
There's some details on here that talk back through some things in the past, breaking out if it was bought in early part of '23, if it was bought after that, different things. I want to make sure it's clear not everyone qualifies.
So there's at least six primary criteria as shown on the side here. There's taxpayer income, there's vehicle type, purchase price, there's actually a cap on what the vehicle can be priced at to be eligible.
But all that's in there, the reference, the links in the presentation should be working, I didn't confirm it, should be working out of the PDF on the website as well that will help the public jump straight over to that.
And also throughout the presentation there are direct URLs as well. So that's for new vehicles.
Then if they were bought in the past, it's similar up to the $7,500, but it was credited based on the kilowatt hours or the capacity of the vehicle.
Just wanted to put that out there. Again, they have to meet that same qualification criteria as on the prior slide.
Used vehicles, so this is things that are bought after January 1st of 2023, this is shown that they can qualify for a credit of 30% of the sale price, up to a maximum of $4,000.
So it's similar, but different. And again, it has to be purchased from a licensed dealer, unfortunately, the way I read the law.
If you buy from your neighbor, you may not qualify. You may not, I'm not going to say it away, but may not.
Commercial clean vehicles, again, it can be a tax credit up to $40,000, depending on what they're buying and how they're buying that.
So that's a large amount of money to help offset that purchase as well.
Moving into home energy tax credits, which kind of tie into some of what you heard earlier on the Green Sense program. So these are things that are eligible for a lot of things we locally incentivize or rebate to help move along.
This category covers that as well. They have to claim them, or they're claimed in the year they actually are made.
So if you make it during a tax year, you claim it against the income for that tax year.
It's available for primary residences. Renters may also be able to claim. There are some caveats in the code that if you are a renter and do certain improvements, there are ways to qualify.
Second homes that are actually used as a residence also have limited qualifications as well.
So for people who are lucky enough or scary enough to have dual properties, possibly can claim it on both properties.
You can never do it on homes that you don't use as a residence. So let's say you own a home and you're using that home as a barbershop.
That barbershop wouldn't qualify for this part of the tax credit. Does that make sense?
Again, energy.gov is a great resource to redo all this.
Under the energy efficiency home improvements, you can do things like doors, windows, insulation, air conditioners, water heaters, furnaces.
All different things. Basically, back in the tax year 2022, it was 30% up to a lifetime max of $500.
However, purchases made from 2023 through 2032, it's 30% up to a maximum of $1,200.
And if you're doing heat pumps or some other qualified, the annual credit could be up to $2,000.
So that's a little bit different, and there's no lifetime limit during the period from 2023 through 2032.
And again, I'll answer as best I can.
Can, if you apply for the green sense program, can you also take advantage of these?
There is nothing that our rebus of the green sense program prohibits this or restricts this usage.
There are ways that the rebate would lower the purchase price, which may then lower the eligibility claimed here.
So in other words, if we rebated from $10,000 to $7,500, they may only be able to claim the $7,500 to calculate their tax credit.
Does that make sense? Yeah.
And again here, the whole URL is at the bottom for more details for anybody listening, watching, whatever.
The whole URL is there, and thanks to Chair Sote saying it did actually work on the PDF as well.
So we tried to make sure that worked, but every once in a while, technology breaks.
Then there's the residential clean energy credit.
The residential clean energy credit looks at things like solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cells, and they added battery storage beginning in 2023.
So it covers all of those type of issues.
There's different levels of possible credit.
You'll notice that primarily it's the same all the way out through 2032, that it tears down, and right now it would fall off the books in 2034.
That's the program as by the IRS at this point, but that's looking outwardly for basically 10 years from now to be able to claim expenses during the years those improvements are made.
And again, the URL is at the bottom, which will give you much more details on how you can do that.
Now we're moving over to builders.
So we have a lot of building going on in debt, as we know, new construction, everything else.
So builders actually have ways that they may qualify as well as they're doing construction to where they can reduce the cost being passed on to hopefully the consumer.
Again, they have to meet some really strict requirements under the Internal Revenue Code, specifically Section 45L.
Homes acquired or touched between 2023 and 2032.
If they're meeting Energy Star or zero energy rated home, they could qualify up to $5,000 per home.
Homes acquired after 2023, depending on requirements, they could rate between $1,000 and $2,000.
So every little bit helps because if we're spending an extra $1,500 or $2,000 to have more insulation or a higher rating factor on the HVAC system,
this credit could help those builders then reduce that burden to that buyer.
Because the ultimate goal is to hopefully have as lowest energy demand on the new construction as we can.
Now we get into actual commercial buildings.
And so we have acronyms on here.
My brain just went dead on the DRP.
The Energy Efficiency Commercial Building Program is the EECB.
The Energy Efficiency Building Rehab Program, Rehabilitation Program, came to me.
It is the RBP that didn't fit on the slide, so I had to use acronyms, I apologize.
So this is when you go into a commercial building and you're going to upgrade it, do some changes,
whether you're rehabbing it or improving it, there's different things that can qualify.
The primary focus is on lighting, of course heating and cooling, and the building envelope.
So it's basically the three primary areas to look at for overall energy efficiency.
A lot of commercial buildings lighting can be a very large demand, we're seeing some good savings in the city
for going to LED, probably even from high-end fluorescent.
Heating and cooling is probably their largest domain, depending on how the building is occupied.
And then the building envelope is always tough to change once you construct it,
so some people don't want to spend the money on it because it's not fancy to look at.
So the deduction, and I'm not going to do the math here, so if you all want to do math, you can.
So it's the cost of the actual install property or the savings calculated per square foot.
So they want you to look at both of those things.
So if your savings are exceeding the install cost, then you get the install cost.
If your install cost is greater than what you're going to see on savings,
you can write off the savings the way I understand this.
So it's kind of a two-tiered look, but that's how they're balancing it.
And that might tie back to some discussions earlier on other things within the GreenSense program.
This may be another way for us to look at things on how we maybe want to change our readings.
But I won't do that math, but that's where it is.
Now we get into alternative fuel vehicle refueling.
So if we're starting to think about either hydrogen, different things, even EV qualifies.
So businesses or individuals, both that either dispense clean burning fuel
or to recharge electric vehicles, have possible tax credits.
Now there are specific census tracts that apply to certain properties on this.
There are parts of debt that aren't covered in that on the map.
Not all of debt is covered, if I remember correctly.
But if you click the link under eligible census tracts,
it jumps you right to that interactive map and you can see where your property is located and see how that fits.
Everything else in there is similar to what we've already talked about.
Basically it has to be in-server. You get to take the rebate during the tax year.
They have to begin by the original use by the actual taxpayer.
So they want that it's a business. The way I understand it, the business installs it.
They want them to use it first before they transfer it to something else, kind of things like that.
Kind of without said, it's supposed to be primarily used in the U.S. and U.S. territories.
That seems to be a little unnecessary, but it's there.
The amount of credit, and again this is more math for people who love math and a very busy slide.
I just threw out the summary statements off the IRS website.
As you can read, as you go down through it, a lot of them are limited out at roughly $100,000 for each single piece.
Other ones have a lower, select consumers who do an EV charging that were done back between 2022
or basically during calendar year 2012, 2022 through 2030.
They'll be eligible for 30% of the cost with a maximum of $1,000.
So if they're spending $1,500 to do that, if it's 30%, that's $450. Does that make sense?
With a max of $1,000. I don't want to mistake there, but I think when I was looking at that $1,000,
you could do, if you have a two-bay garage, you charge in each bay, you can charge both,
and that's where that max would come in. So in other words, how that works.
And the last part's a little bit tricky, but there are credits for things that were done before 2023
and how that can work back through the tax law as well.
So, same caveat I started with, with the overall URL here, taking you back over to the IRS website.
It's a lot of great information there. I've built slides just trying to simplify it a little bit.
There are PDFs there, one, two, three, four-page flyers that help walk you through it.
There's even a decision-maker, if you're looking at, say, solar, there's a way to work through it,
look at the investment, what your cost return may be, and how you want to make those choices.
There's a lot of different things out there through their website that also jumps you over to the Department of Energy.
So with that, again, I'll stand for any questions. Questions?
Go back to the commercial builders, because that's obviously happening a lot,
and I feel like outside of the transportation sector, one of the big areas was buildings.
Can you help us think about how does a commercial builder think?
Are they looking for these kinds of incentives because it saves them money, or not,
because they want to build cheaply, and then the energy cost for that existing home goes on to where it inhabits it.
If they're not thinking about it, does a city have a plan to, I mean, we're doing it right now, getting this information out.
Are there other ways where you try to connect with commercial builders to make sure...
Let me make sure I'm hearing you. Are you saying commercial buildings or commercial builders?
Builders.
I want to go back to when they were doing it for builders of energy efficiency.
Yes.
Okay. I can't speak to how they're really doing that.
I know anecdotally that there are things that go, that there are builders claiming it.
I'm trying to find out, there's ways for us to find out who, where, when, how that's being done to get us to understand,
is it out there a lot? Do people even know about it? Back to your point.
This is, I won't say step one, but this is one of our steps to make sure we start raising awareness on that.
We're also building an interactive website to do that, different things,
because we want to make sure as much of the community can be aware of everything that can help them with those expenses.
These are tax credits, not tax deductions.
So the way the credit works, it comes off your actual tax burden, not your taxable income.
So if you owed $20,000 and you're eligible for a $2,000 credit, you then would pay $18,000.
Okay.
So this is really a dollar for now.
Good. I'm glad that you're doing this because it seems like we could get more energy efficient homes built if there's awareness of this sort of thing.
Correct.
And control that cost, because a lot of our focus is to ensure we also maintain affordability while also being resilient for the future.
And I think that's the best way to do it, too, is to use the builders to encourage especially young home buyers,
you know, to make them aware of what's available and why it's them,
because they may not be thinking about that and they've got so many other decisions to make.
Mr. Chair, it's Barak with the PBS, I'll take it right now.
When you say "we" are pushing this, who within the city is that team?
It's our department, environmental sustainability.
And now we are going to tie back through development services, other aspects, economic development.
We're working with the Economic Development Partnership Board on some things.
I wasn't going wrong, EDP.
There's different avenues, and we're going to try to touch on those in different aspects,
make sure they're aware of it, because you don't know what you don't know, and that happens way too often.
So in my world, the more people we can touch, the more people we get by word of mouth, the better off it is.
It seems like ED is a great place to go, and then two, if it's the reconstruction and things like that,
maybe building inspections as well.
It might be nice to know, since they touch so much more of that community than we do.
As an example, we have screenings running in the development services building and different things on there.
We're going to look at doing different messaging to help that screen through as well,
while we have customers sitting there, waiting to be seen to make sure we're capturing the investment.
That's a free, no-cost solution.
So especially the information related to residential, is this on the city website someplace?
The link out through the IRS, yes, is there.
We're being careful not to rephrase what was on there.
These slides are almost direct excerpts on what's out there, because we're not a tax professional or anyone.
So we have to be careful.
But yes, we're doing that, and we're working to do a revamp on that to touch on all different things related to energy efficiency.
Great. Thank you.
And I can add, under the rebates and resources, on the city website,
there is a link to the state energy conservation office, the castle of that information.
That way, if there's a change, we're not trying to update a link, it'll link to theirs, which will be updated.
Great. And I'll just add on to that, also the North Central Texas Council of Governments has their website with different things.
We're getting better across the metroplex.
We're trying to get some continuity to make sure we're driving things, whether it's state or federal,
to make sure we're all sending the same message.
Yeah, Netcar probably has more connection with folks like Builders, I believe.
Possibly. Our development services department might differ, but yes.
Thanks.
Yes?
My last question, the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property.
Can you help us imagine what that looks like here in Dent?
Because we are trying to incentivize EVs.
One of the constraints we know is charging stations.
Here it looks like some sort of way to get money to build or incentivize more building of them.
What kind of person or property or business would take advantage of this?
It could be anything. The way I understand it, it could be a grocery store. It could be a restaurant.
Right. If you have space, you can put a truck in it.
It could actually be an employer doing it for their workers as well, possibly.
There's caveats within this, but basically the way I understand it, it could be done basically by everybody.
So it's open to all. It's not limited.
I don't want to mention names.
The homeowner credit, as I mentioned, is limited, but they could do it.
They have limited if it's only for their personal use.
That's where it was 30% of the install value up to a maximum of $1,000, the way I read the code.
That seems like another important reason to do this.
The third point.
Yeah, this awareness raising, because I imagine all of these places, you said it could almost be anybody.
And to your point, if you radio lately different things on the EV side, I'm still on posted,
but some of the dealers now as an incentive are tying in, providing a certain amount of money towards installing EV charging at value as part of the purchase of the vehicle.
There's lots of different avenues trying to encourage that.
And we're doing, if you look at nationwide numbers, we're doing pretty well in Denton.
We might not think we see it all the time, but if you look at the number of chargers, we're doing very well. Public chargers.
That'd be a difficult discussion.
Any more discussion?
Thanks very much.
Thank you all. Sorry, I'm not a tax professional. I did the best I could.
Did you do my taxes?
I've done it for too many in my family. Thank you.
Okay, final agenda item. Symmetrics.
And you have a copy in your backup.
And if we have anything to add to the matrix or any questions about anything on the matrix today.
Any questions or additions?
I'm really interested to know how you recycle plastic.
Because you probably know the California lawsuit against Exxon Valdez and others.
So I'm really interested to know that we recycle and we do not burn them or throw them away.
Okay, so the end uses.
Yes.
Anybody else?
I have an item. I would like to have a mutual meeting with the city council environmental committee.
To discuss the possibility of the city at some point declaring a climate emergency.
Any other questions or comments?
Nothing. Okay, well then at approximately 2.30. Oh, concluding items. Are there any concluding items? No. Good to go? Okay, so we're closing the meeting at approximately 2.30.
Wishing everybody a happy Halloween.