I guess we could start with role.

I guess can I just call it based off of who's in the room or I'm just going to earn everybody's present.

Thank you.

So I guess we'll start with uh Ms.

Pathel.

Could you please uh feel free to start us off with our finance reports and different reports that we have?

Sure, absolutely.

Good evening, everyone.

Um so there's um I know um just want to walk you through that monthly finances are uh presented to council and the controller uh 15 days after the month is over, and uh um so every month you'll be presented with the monthly finances.

And I also today have uh quarterly capital report, which is um presented after each quarter and the same um concept that 15 days after the month is over, um the quarterly report is presented as well.

So in the quarter ended, uh so we are looking at today the December uh thirty-first, twenty twenty-five monthly and quarterly reforms.

I'll walk you through some of the numbers.

The reports were provided to you, and my memo that explains the numbers was also provided to you.

Um I'll walk you through uh the um journal fund numbers.

So general fund uh revenues were budgeted um at uh a hundred and forty-six million, they can they came in four percent better at 152 million, and uh what contribute the um revenues uh contributors were the earned income tax came in um stronger than uh what we had budgeted at.

Um business privilege tax also was a contributor uh along with uh permits and licenses.

Uh EMS transit fees uh came in much stronger as well, and uh investment income, the um uh uh financial markets were performing well, and uh our returns were higher than what we were we had budgeted.

So that's um what contributed to a higher revenue for the general fund.

Um I I have a breakdown for you on page two of the memo.

It walks you through the uh the percentage uh where uh do the what are the higher uh contributors for the general fund revenue.

Um so 70 percent of our revenues are generated from taxes, different various taxes, and that breakdown is that city real estate tax um for this version one report came in at 38.6 million.

Earned income tax is at 45 million, business privilege tax at twelve point seven million, and deed transfer tax at two point four million.

And the 14 percent, uh other 14 percent revenue came from intergovernmental sources like grants, state aid, uh casino fees, uh, fire and police training.

And I have a um pie graph there for um processing for you as well.

Next I have the general fund expenditures.

Uh they total at ninety-six percent or uh 146.8 million.

Uh we had budgeted net of vacancy factor 152 million.

Our um so if you look at the pie chart, you'll see that our highest expenditure is personnel.

It came in at 73%.

And you'll see that savings from the 96%, so savings of 4% is realized from services and charges and materials and supplies.

Public safety we budgeted one amount.

So public safe safety, police, fire, and EMS numbers are provided there for you.

Any specific details that department heads can expand on.

But the numbers came in at police was 118% of the budgeted amount, fire came in at 122%, and EMS at 143%.

Amongst all of them, my concern is the risk fund, which it came in expenditures are at 103% of budgeted amount.

Um had the first half year of increase in garbage fees.

So the new charges took effect from July.

So they are the revenues, year to date revenues are at 101% or 23.9 million, and the expenditures are reflecting savings of 10% or came in at 22.1 million.

Revenues came in still stronger.

They are a 6.2 million.

We had budgeted 6 million, and expenditures are much under.

We had budgeted 7.7 million, they came in at 6 million.

Gulf fund has been performing well since the COVID times.

Revenue came in on the target at 2.7 million is what was budgeted.

And expenditures are reflecting savings at 2.5 million.

That December, we uh generally close the year mid-February or third week of February.

So this is the first report for December.

We'll have two more iterations, and you'll see some of these numbers fluctuate depending on we might have vendor payments that have not gone through.

So the numbers will be updated every month.

So you'll see some updates coming as the bottom lines.

Um are coming in at 3.1 million or higher than budgeted.

Um for rental fund and building code fund, the billings are done at the end of the year or in October in the last quarter of the year.

So some of the revenues come in in the previous year, and the expenditures get paid in the following year.

So when you see that revenues are stronger than budgeted, is that because the billing was just done in the last quarter, so you'll see some of the inflow influx from that.

And the expenditures are at 96%, uh, reflecting savings of 4% at 2.9 million.

Now, building code again, it it uh is part of the CED department.

This is a new fund for 2025.

And again, the same concept when the billing is uh is done or when we receive the uh uh the permits and um uh other um requests.

So you'll see the revenues came in at 4.2.2 million, or uh it's much higher than what we have predicted.

So once we go through the cycle, it we'll have better understanding of uh of the budgeting process when the fund has we have some experience with the fund.

Okay, and the expenditures are uh showing uh savings and their total 88 percent, and all of this again with the expenditures, we'll see some more payments going through vendor payments and the numbers will be updated.

Next, I have for you the investment activities.

So we close the general fund um with a cash balance of 40.3 million, and that's on page five.

And uh I talked about uh the revenue coming in better than uh at budgeted amount, and I have the uh chart there reflecting the monthly investment um interest activity.

So we received in in total for the year 3.2 million from investment activity.

So majority of our funds are with the uh plight investment funds are uh plug it, which is a Pennsylvania local government investment trust.

And we invest uh in uh plug it and prime uh account, which is more like money market, and uh term investments to uh uh yield higher uh return on investments.

So you see that 12.1 million is in uh plight prime yielding 3.9 uh 1% APY, and 35 million is in term investments uh yielding between 4.35% and 3.74% APY.

I have listed the different terms of investment on the following page and the maturities and the yields for each uh term is listed for your reference.

Now we also have a TD bank that's uh our um uh we keep our operating expenditure funds with TD Bank and uh our general funds 3.1 million is uh with TD bank uh to pay the uh liquid as liquid ass is to pay our vendors and our employees, and the yield they are providing us currently is 3.0% APY.

So that's the monthly finances.

Um I'll walk you through the capital report that was circulated um uh on during the third week uh in January on January 23rd.

So we had active projects from various departments, uh public works, police, parks and recreational and the total uh fourth quarter expenditures for capital were 2.4 million.

Okay, and year-to-date capital expenditures was 12.7 million, and we have additional 7.8 million encumbered for future expenditures.

So we we know what's uh what active projects we have, and we know what expenditures um for those projects uh uh the funding we need, so those who have been encumbered for uh future um uh future years.

Uh we also provided you with a capital project status update.

Uh those will be uh discussed with individual department, they can provide you with the status of uh where the project is at.

Is it in the inception stage or is it in the uh uh design state?

Is it in the uh um you know um uh um a final state?

So they'll provide all of the uh uh details to you during their meetings.

So that's my financial reports for you.

Do you have any questions uh for me at this point?

I do just have a couple.

Um if we wouldn't mind kind of going back to the different funds reports.

So the solid waste fund, uh you noted that expenditures were at 90 percent.

Is this another one of those where um it's based off of potentially the timing of the invoices?

Because uh as I'm aware, this is a contracted service, so I'm just curious on how much potential there is for savings on a rotating basis as opposed to just what the contract is.

Um I think the solid waste fund has um absolutely um some vendor payments are uh straggling, so they'll be coming through.

Um also has many personnel as part of that uh fund.

Um I don't know if this is the true savings currently since it's uh it's a uh first iteration.

Sure.

We'll see as the um uh more invoices are uh paid um uh through the uh next four or five weeks, and uh I'll have a better answer for you then.

Understood, absolutely appreciate that.

Um I guess the other question I had was for the building code fund.

Uh you know, we noted revenues are up 158% projected at least this point here today.

Um I guess I'm curious, is there any distinction or is this in the individual departments where we could maybe determine how much of that is commercial versus residential?

Um we can get that information for you from uh um CED um uh department and and uh we can email that to you.

Yeah, I was gonna say an absolute that's absolutely something I could bring up during CED as well.

So I was just curious if that was something that already existed.

And I guess my last question was for the term investments.

I see that several of them almost appeared almost quarterly but monthly for it depends.

I guess each term is different, but what's our average term for each one of these?

Is it an annual term or um it fluctuates?

So I have set up, I have this setup as mostly um a maturity coming every month, depending on our how our revenue comes in.

So January is a quiet month for us for revenues.

Until we um uh uh uh do the billings for property taxes, the city real estate tax, we don't see the revenues, we don't have um small revenue trickling in.

So um I had created the term investment that would mature in January to make the payment for payroll and uh uh vendor payments and that remain.

And then every um uh the investments are done as to any larger expenditure that's coming through.

So um we'll have MMO payments coming in, uh we'll have debt payment coming in, so then you'll see the maturity of the investment maturing during that time.

And um every month I have set it up because unanticipated where we were heading with the revenues, so um just to pay for those expenditures.

That's good.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um I guess I'll open it up for any questions from the diaspora committee members.

Anyone else from the dias?

Anyone from the public.

Um if not, I think we could kind of jump into the conversation on the budget process and uh kind of starting to embark on um potential next steps as far as doing an analysis of you know this past year and and what we what steps and things we can do in the future to mitigate that.

Uh but I guess Ms.

Patel, could you just walk us through the annual budget process and kind of what that looks like for you and then maybe you can talk about some conversations about what we can do to help that later.

But yeah.

Sure, absolutely.

Um thank you, Mike.

So I provided the um uh kind of flow chart for how the um the timeline for the budget.

So we generally uh begin budget um in June of the current year.

So for uh 2026 budget, we begin the process in June of 2025.

It takes about seven months to um um get us from the start to the finish line for the budget process.

So in the if I'm looking in the month of June, um the analysts are working on the position budgeting.

With the positions budgeting, um involves the um all the personnel cost.

Um in that model, uh, we budget for the permanent wages, the longevity, for uh healthcare opt-out, um, and for all of the full-time personnel that uh budgeting takes about three weeks to budget and then verify the data since uh position budgeting is our about 80 percent of our our budget um so to make sure the accuracy of um employees budget.

Um then from then during um uh during the time month of June um I end up sending it uh directional or guideline email to department heads.

Um based on my conversation with the mayor, what he would like for the um uh in in the um uh in the budget.

So would he uh what is he looking for in the following year?

What would he like the department directors to do?

Is he entertaining um uh in a new personnel?

Is he entertaining uh um what are his priorities that he would like the department heads to follow?

So that that would be the guidelines along with the directions on um the budget entry into the ERP system.

So um so that email goes out with the directional to department heads and bureau and uh managers that work on the um budget.

And the budget is um in our ERP system is open for about four weeks.

Um so then all uh once that uh budget email is done, July uh is when the budget opens in Munis for departments to enter.

Many times I will have conversations with the controller.

And we also have conversations with the Berkheimer, who's our collector now for earned income tax to verify the budget and the trends where we are at it.

So now we are at the end of July when the budget module is closed.

The Municies closed for budget entries, and departments have enter all of their requests into the budget module.

In August, the budget team includes four analysts, the deputy and finance director.

And this is where we get the first glimpse of where we are with the revenues and expenditures, and we'll see the uh if there are gaps, and this year we started off our budget with $15 million in the general fund hole, and then we work through it to bring it to bring us to this balanced budget.

So in again in August, so we are analyzing the data, and once we have a budget team as an analyze the data, we will have meetings with the department heads and the managers who has prepared the budget to go over their budget priorities, any personnel changes they have requested, and any new fundings that they need for their initiatives based on their priorities for the year.

So all of that processing is happening during the month of August.

And now we're in month of September, where after having conversations with the directors and streamlining depending on where the revenues are and what the priorities are, we might have had a conversation with the department heads to reduce some of their expenditures.

So that's a finance director, department head, and the mayor reviewing what the department head would like to see in their budget, their priorities, and what what is possible with the revenues coming in.

So those are the conversations happening with the mayor in September.

And once we have aligned our priorities and seen where the revenues are and expenditures are, and the budget is pretty much balanced at that point.

And so the budget team, and this is mostly the analysts are working on the Excel worksheet summarizing the data, creating narratives.

So the narrative book, which we started with uh, I believe in 2023, that's excellent reference to the budget, which walks you through how we derived at the numbers, what do the numbers do, what do they mean, and how do we do the expenditure?

I know it's a pretty large book, but it's very detailed so you can see every line item and how we derived at those numbers.

Um actually the analysts are uh refining it and working on those, and so creating the proposed budget book uh at the end of September.

After that, in October, sometimes uh in early October, uh we provide the budget books to our print room, which reports under Jerry Anthony under IT.

Uh so they uh print the proposed budget book for us.

We propose that budget book, the mayor's uh proposed budget to city council.

The due date for proposed budget is October 15th.

We have done in the past proposed maybe a few days before that, uh, but by October 15th is presented to council.

After that, uh city clerk schedules a meetings with department heads, city council chairperson to review the department's budget and possibly any questions and answers on the proposed budget during that time.

Uh council and administration could introduce their amendments as well.

And many times we find something that we learned that we we could introduce new revenue or increase our revenue or we found maybe there is a clerical era that needs to be corrected.

After the budget is proposed.

Prior to that, though, on the due date was December 15th, budget due default due date was December 15th.

However, in 2019, the Allentown voters through referendum had changed the date to December 31st.

Once the budget is adopted, it takes approximately two weeks for our budget team to finalize budget amendments to incorporate what was introduced during the budget meetings or by council administration to finally council votes on those introduced amendments.

Takes my budget team approximately two weeks to incorporate the changes, the Excel worksheet updated to make sure the proper accounts have the budget and numbers that were introduced in the budget amendments, and creating the final budget book.

So budget gets committed in our ERP system.

So that's our budget cycle, takes about seven months to get from the start, take us from start to the finish line.

Thank you.

They would have, or is it purely based off of hey, this these are our goals for the year, and that's what we're projecting, like blind of the projected revenue for the year?

Um so those um that is the communication in the emails um uh that sent out uh by me.

It would uh based on the uh guidelines from the mayor.

Um so in the past it was um email communicated mostly keep the budget um to the same as what it was in the current year.

And any priorities or any changes um the departments were um requested to provide separately.

So when we met after the budget was entered, and when we met with the department heads, we would review the priorities beyond the current budget, what they would like to do in addition to the current uh year's budget.

Uh, those priorities were reviewed, and from the from what the revenues coming in, what we could possibly do is what uh the discuss discussions that are happening in in August.

Okay.

And um I guess my question here, so obviously you're you're doing this in tandem with the projected revenues.

Uh at what point, say if you know expenditures are beyond revenues, that could symbolize either a tax increase or some sort of you know need to determine new revenues.

At what point is that determined?

Is that prior to the budget or is that during the process?

It's during the process.

Is there any specific point?

Is that something that like you exhaust like all options through September and like right up until October?

Is that something that you kind of get an idea of early on?

Um so we have very limited uh source for revenues that the rate changes could happen in.

Um so we have very limited uh source for revenues that the rate changes could happen in our home rule charter limits us um on what we could increase except uh grants and uh our departments are uh department heads are doing an excellent job applying for various grants.

Um but so city real estate uh tax, earned income tax.

Uh recently we um uh changed a deed uh transfer tax, um local services tax.

So those are very limited um uh sources that we can tap uh to change the rate to increase the revenues.

Um so that that becomes a challenge for us.

And uh so we will tried and I I have tried and we a suggestion was made during um the past um um budget season to have a committee to maybe set up a committee and and have conversations on what we could do, maybe change the legislation to bring in revenues from entertainment or various other um uh opportunities that we can explore.

But um to answer your question, I think very limited sources, and um I have tried I I have tried done RFPs, um, you know, uh talked to different vendors, um very challenging for us to come up with uh revenue number that I can say yes, uh revenue is gonna come in at much higher uh than what we are at, and we can um the priorities you are focusing on, um we can say yes, you can move forward with it.

It becomes challenging.

I hope did I answer your question?

Um kind of.

I think the the biggest thing is I just want to make sure, you know, if there's any opportunity before the budget process gets too far along that you know we can all be collaborative and and make sure if there's anything that could potentially be a blockbuster decision.

We're all working together and we're not working towards a budget that's you know, for some reason a straight no out of the gate from the council, but um so uh so what I would like to say is I I do have meetings with um um council persons um throughout the year, but uh definitely um during the budget uh uh process time and once a budget is completed as well.

Um what I would like to see is that collaboration with uh council that when uh I started off at the 15 million dollars gap between revenue and expenditure, I would have liked the support from council uh at that point, having meetings with them to say what what we can do instead of the mayor coming in saying we'll do property tax increase at 3.96%.

We would have appreciated working with council on uh coming to that conclusion.

So I look forward to that if possible for this coming budget season.

Thank you.

Um I guess I'll open it up to the to any committee members on the dice if there's any comments, any thoughts?

Yes, just um picking up on the um I definitely would like to see.

I don't know if it would be a committee or what it would look like, but some sort of focused approach on um at least exploring different revenue sources.

I know that a couple years ago you looked into like the entertainment fees and um, but maybe going even beyond that, um, is there a different like like can you differentiate between an amusement tax versus an entr and an entertainment tax?

Would using one term versus another term open us up to the ability to uh to tax?

Um it wouldn't really necessarily take a committee, it would really take the executive of the city sitting down with folks to renegotiate contracts um um in terms of what's in there specifically iron pigs, um having the mayor and um other folks of influence uh specifically sit down with state legislators and we've amended they've amended the NIS legislation time and time again, perhaps it could be amended again.

Um and then um from what I've found there are 60 municipalities that have impact fees um uh and it's an and the and and it's allowable through the municipal planning code.

Would becoming a second class city open us up to more opportunities.

And I think also exploring how we can pursue more of a cost savings when taxes are increased and fees are increased for trash and anything else, how we can continue to pursue more of a tax savings for those who are paying more of their share towards that.

I understand that you know someone that's working class might only pay three bucks more, and then someone who has a little bit more income is paying 10, but that three bucks is more of a share of their limited income than that ten dollars.

So it's um you know, kind of like a false equivalency.

But um, so um if if there was a way to you know explore what would it look like to provide rebates, not just for seniors, but for all folks that meet a certain income bracket.

Um, and if we could do it like before the budget season, um, like so that we're not having to navigate the budget and all of that.

Um that would be cool.

Um I think I think that's it, but really just in summary, just really digging in and seeing if there are other ways to raise revenue that might require some tough conversations and you know um maybe political conversations.

I understand what you're saying.

I do have um some data for you.

Um when we increase the uh garbage fees, uh we also the same year introduced a legislation um uh through uh ordinance number 1608 seven, in which we said that we would um so if property taxes are not uh paid on time, 10% penalty gets assessed to property owners.

So we reduce that 10% penalty down to 5% for everyone, not only certain um uh certain age, certain salaries.

It's it was for um anyone that fell behind in making that payment on time.

So we uh that helped 2800 uh property owners.

And the uh so the savings or cost to the city and savings to the um property owners was 95,500.

So it was a it is uh from what you are saying, it's a start.

We started exploring that, we provided this benefit.

We do understand some of the cost affects um residents, property owners, uh taxpayers.

So this was our way of proactively taking that under our belt and working on that.

We also I think after having conversations during the council meeting, increase the threshold for the rebate program.

Though, however, it does have that age or disability stipulation in that to qualify for that, but that um has increased so the rebate uh people that apply for rebate has increased from uh 24 to 2025 by 125 percent.

So the more we talk about it, the more um taxpayers and residents are aware of it, they are taking opportunity and and um applying for that.

Um, and they well we are um working at actively, we are hearing you and working actively to provide the benefit that we get.

So and so you said from 2024 to 2025, the number of folks increased 125 percent.

Okay.

Do you have like the numbers at the actual sure?

So and the claims in 2024 were 36 um taxpayers um apply for the rebate program in 2025, it's 81%.

Um people 81 claims.

80 81 claims.

81 claims.

So 36 claims and 81 claims.

Is there a goal for 20 for this?

I I think what we can do is communicate more so taxpayers can apply and necessarily don't have a goal that we want to provide this rebates to 200 taxpayers, but we would like anyone that could take advantage of this, uh apply for it.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, yeah.

Any more sorry, any more questions from committee members?

I'm sorry.

No, you're your friend.

I apologize.

No, all right.

Go ahead.

Uh I think we brought this up before, Ms.

Garlock, and I uh I think we need to look more into how to make money, more revenue.

And I know that Easton and Bethlehem, they have entertainment taxes and uh and different taxes that um and and and I agree.

Why can't we look at a new contract with the with the PPL?

There's also pigs of PPL.

So many of these revenues that we could make uh a lot of money on on the um on entertainment tax.

And uh I I don't know what she says something about a committee or how can we go about investigating making money more revenue rather than always always talking about taxes, real taxes, real taxes.

We need the thing is we need a lot more revenue in here, and we have the capability of doing it.

We have a very large city, we have a lot of entertainment here, a lot of places.

There's theaters and and uh the pigs and then not and all of it.

I know there's contracts and so on and so forth, but I agree with Ms.

Gurlock.

Can we somehow uh get a committee together or work on this with uh different state representatives or however we have to do it to get this is a lot of income that could be generated from a lot of the entertainment and uh that that we have.

So I think that's something that we really should look into.

Well somehow, I don't know how exactly, but um but she brings up a good point.

This is where um getting more rent of you uh revenue into uh our city is is uh a large a good way of lowering our taxes, and uh other cities do it, and I can't understand why we can't, and I think our city has more of entertainment than uh Easton and Bethlehem have.

So I just uh I'm agreeing with her that you know you're shaking your head no.

If I may first of all, thank you, ma'am.

I I think the idea of a committee to explore additional sources of income for the city is a great idea.

Um I don't think personally any of them would be a home run, but if you broaden the base, it's certainly a good thing.

Um, regarding Easton and um and Bethlehem, you know, if they have an entertainment tax, you know, Easton is the state theater which may do 100 shows a year.

There's nothing like that in Allen Town.

Bethlehem has not only music fest, but you have the casino there.

Maybe they're doing 150 shows a year, and these are big, these are decent dollar shows.

Once again, there's nothing like that here.

You have the Allentown Fair, which does six shows and a demolition derby.

We have the PPL Center.

PPL centers in the NIS.

That is, and I've said this before.

First of all, the as far as I know, contrary to what Ms.

Girl Act is has said, the legislation's really never been amended.

Um maybe once.

You're allowed to change the boundaries of the NIS, but that was that's enshrined in the legislation, and that's a local decision.

Um I think my advice to council some months ago was I don't think you want to poke that bear.

There are a lot of people that would like to take this away from Allown in its totality, which would leave us with nothing.

Um at least no room to grow.

You know, there's probably another um that 18 years on the NIS.

There's plenty of time to get more projects done.

You don't want to lose that opportunity.

But part of the news is that you really you can't you can't tax these events.

That that's in there.

There might be what did you say?

You you can't you can't add a tax to the event tickets.

Why not?

Because that's the way the legislators wrote it.

Part of the quid pro quo for all this is that we gave up some things, you know, maybe like an entertainment tax on establishments within the NIS, uh, the business privilege tax.

But on the other hand, what you got is the property tax.

So you would take a parcel that might have been paying a thousand dollars a year, and now you've got a parcel that's paying forty thousand dollars a year.

That was the benefit to the city.

Um, you know, I've kept track of some of this stuff, some of the parcels on on 7th Street, or if you look at like old Tucker's Yarn on Hamilton Street, that property was paying next to nothing in property taxes.

But now you've got an apartment building there.

Uh and I don't know what it's assessed at.

Here, let me give you a better idea, counsel.

Um, where the Moxie is.

Um a couple of parcels there might have been paying four thousand dollars a year in property taxes.

With the Moxie there, it's assessed it.

Five million dollars in change, pays $33,000 a year in property taxes now.

That's the benefit.

That's what the city got, but you ended up giving up some things.

You ended up giving up your EIT for the NIS, you ended up not being able to tax events like at PPL Center or at the Archer.

Um, and not only did the city gain significant property tax revenue, but the school district did.

Now, once again, a property that was paying a thousand bucks, it's been redeveloped, now is paying some significantly more.

Um I mean, I I don't think taxing the pigs or um PPL centers is an answer that we're gonna get, but I think an intelligently assembled committee of council working with administration may find some opportunities to broaden the amount of revenues that we can collect and help us in the long run.

I don't think anything's gonna be a home run, but you know, the dollars and cents add up over time, and um I I think it's absolutely a worthy goal to pursue.

So what I would hear excuse me if if I don't quite understand by getting an entertainment tax, putting them on these businesses, we could lose businesses.

Is that what you're saying?

Well, no, I'm not saying that.

Um what I'm saying is certain business, certain businesses, if they're in the NIS are off limits.

Beyond that, I don't know what the opportunities are in Allentown for businesses or events that would pay a you know an entertainment tax.

What else is there?

I'm just looking at all the entered places that can pay entertainment taxes, and I see a lot.

And I if they have to raise uh a dollar more for an event, it's not gonna kill them, it's not gonna kill the the customers either.

But it will certainly help the city.

And I I don't see people not wanting to develop here or whatever because we have a now we have an entertainment tax.

And that's what I'm hearing from you.

I may be wrong.

I I hear what you're saying, Ms.

Atha, outside of the NIS.

I don't think there's a whole lot of that stuff going on.

No, unless you want to tax karaoke nights at the corner bar.

They did, I did.

I did.

Uh that's what the problem is.

Um ringers and those people they are being taxed for you know what's interesting.

But but uh PPL isn't, and uh Archer isn't, and a lot of them aren't.

But uh the small places we are being taxed for.

I had an entertainment tax.

But what you're getting from the Archer, and it's similar to the Moxie, is why you're not getting an entertainment tax or business privilege tax.

You have a property that was paying only a couple of thousand dollars a year in property taxes, and now you have one that's paying 35, 36, 37,000 a year in property taxes.

That's that has been the benefit of the NIS to the city, the school district, the tax yield is even greater because their millage is much higher.

Development of these properties is has paid off in property tax revenue.

But you know, once again, I I think and however you guys constitute it, uh a committee to look at alternative sources is a great idea.

You might be disappointed, you might find something that'll work.

Um you might have to um go to go to referendum if it requires a change in in the city charter.

But you know um you're in a position now where you've got some lead time, and to do something, I mean you're doing something with the budget process, you can certainly do something with this.

And you know, if it takes a year or two to get to the end, you've certainly started the ball rolling now, and you'd be in a good position.

Well, I I think this is great conversations like this, and your opinion.

And I think what Ms.

Garlark was saying, if we got a committee or whatever got together to figure this out and possibly find a way that we can generate a lot more revenue rather than always taxpayers, taxpayers, taxpayers.

And um, and and I think this conversation we're having right now is is uh important.

And I think if we had some kind of committee and we looked into this, we might come up with a gem somewhere, somehow.

Okay.

Thank you for your opinion, Mr.

Glazer.

Appreciate it.

I thank you for giving you the opportunity.

I agree that we do have to think outside of the box.

But um also recycling, you know, the garbage.

I know that you know, we recently did a contract uh with the recycling, and we'll still have what three to four more years.

But what about um instead of us paying someone to take the recycling?

Why not, you know, um paying us to take our recycling?

I mean, other municipalities, other um states are doing that.

So we do, you know, there's there's uh a way to do it here.

Um so that can be a way to generate more revenue instead of uh taxing the you know, the people from the city.

Yeah, and if and if I can add, I think the the biggest thing right now, you know, based off of the you know resolution we did at the last council meeting, we're investigating the whole budget process.

And I think part of that we can you know make it either a committee session, we can we can I think right now Ms.

Patel has given us the opportunity to kind of go through the process, and I think really the onus is on us to say how do we get involved with this process.

I think we need to sit down and talk about what are our main revenue sources for the city, what can we do to potentially get more out of some of those, but also you know, sometimes it's also not just about creating more revenue, sometimes it's about how do we cut spending.

Sometimes it is.

And then see, hey, how can we get creative?

And again, thinking outside of the box, because the reality is there's money recycling.

And and I think so.

Today's committee meeting as it related to the investigation in the budget process was primarily to look at how the budget process has worked, and so you know, I think our next meeting, the goal was to specifically look at how other municipalities uh do their budget process, but maybe we also allot some time to think about what that committee could look like and at what point in the process it it works here.

I think you know, Mrs.

Patel, you talked about wanting more input from council, and you know, what could that look like?

Is it you know, meetings that happen in the end of August or in September where we talk about some of council's priorities and things that they'd like to see spent on, and versus what maybe the administration's priorities are and just the a review of the different revenue sources that we have and and where we can maybe grow.

Absolutely, and I I agree with Ms.

Model, so I think we can explore uh even the current processes and and uh how we can maybe change and come up with a better solution.

Um I think working with council, I think administration and council share our goals, and I think just working together maybe uh before we end up with a proposed budget uh during the budget process or even before that communicating and meeting, and I think uh um Mike and Genesis might already uh uh planning something to meet with the um with the budget team to discuss the process and um uh seeing what we can do together.

I am super excited this year to working with you all to see how we can do this better.

Um I um it was very challenging budget season the past season, so I look forward to changes, and I'm open to having a committee that would um you know explore the revenue sources.

I understand we are limited with the legislation, but as uh our controller said, maybe with we can change the legislation, but we can sit down and talk about these things and see what we can do or change the processes that we have current.

So I look forward to that.

Additional comments?

Yeah, uh thank you, Chair Pungo.

So I've I have three questions.

Some of them you've addressed in aspects of tonight's meeting, but I'm just gonna go through them and if you can elaborate on anything.

So, first and foremost, thank you so much for putting this together.

Um, as a newcomer to this, it's an IOM button experience to how many how many months of information has to get processed in order for us to get to the point of actually um displaying a budget.

Um so I think you're for your efforts in 2025.

Um, knowing that we still got to the the position that we were in, um, can you think of anything that the administration could have done differently in the process to get us to maybe a different outcome?

Um so um I think we we had meetings with council, we had um uh been transparent and talked about numbers and where we were with revenue and expenditures.

Um we had done that every year.

However, I I believe what we I would like to see that we can improve on, is to have that dialogue with council um prior to coming to the end of the budget prior to the budget being proposed.

Have those conversations, have the meetings with council in our uh shared goals.

What is council like to see change in in the following year in the budget year that we are proposing the budget for?

Uh I would like to see that conversation happening um during or before the a budget is proposed.

Um I think we uh again I'm going to say we shared administration and council would like to see the safer, the cleaner, and affordable city for our residents and taxpayers.

And I think if we work together, we can we can get there.

And I think it working together and and meeting and having open dialogue.

Um some of the things I think you could, which you already did, and I'm appreciative of you sending questions beforehand.

So I had time to process what was being asked and and provide um a response and some of the response um that I provided with part of my um analyst who had a say in in their responses.

So giving us time to process the questions, I think communication and uh um if you ask me data questions while we are now at in at this platform, it's challenging for us to respond to that data question.

So when that question is asked, I provide the response to um city clerk.

However, if there's a public here, they never get to hear or see that response.

Um, for example, what was the cost for our encampment?

So response was provided from gathering data from all different department heads that took some time.

We had to process our payroll costs, all of the vendor costs, the contract services, everything provided the data.

I don't think the public got to hear that.

So I would like that uh processing time uh that we can um I think we can work together on on that as well.

Okay, and um I think I know that when we you were speaking at some point about maybe we might come up with a different process for being able to have some um of the responses that Mr.

Hanlin gets actually read back in.

So that might be something worth looking to in the future um to uh not ask uh data questions immediately, but as any questions come up that they can be re-read back into Pete for the public.

So I think that's a good thing.

Um the one of the questions I'd had based on the timeline when you were reading it.

So in in September, when you um do the the budget presentation, I think I was reading this correctly.

Do you think in when you're looking when you reference the collaboration with council?

Is there any advantage to having um the budget and finance chair per perhaps be present at that meeting at that phase?

Is that a better phase versus down the road since or are you looking more for uh that that committee that we're talking about or council members to be part of that?

Like I guess trying to get into where's the optimal point where you're getting information and feedback from various council members because it feels like October is probably late in the in the game on that.

Um I believe um sometime in mid-August is is um mid-August to early September if we can have that conversation because then we need the time to um administratively do the uh uh work to put the budget book together.

So if um, for example, if we know that we would like to spend money on uh providing additional services to our unhoused um uh uh taxpayers, um, then we could have had that conversation earlier and made that uh part of our budget rather than providing that as an amendment.

Okay.

So August, late mid to late August, early September at the latest.

Okay.

Um my second question, um, based on your experience through the process here with the city.

Um what steps would you recommend council take to ensure that there's a fair process in place for both parties so that we can come up with a solution and a balanced budget that balances the expenses for the city against um the burden to Allentown residents for taxes?

Um I believe we um I think on understanding um the legislation, right?

So we I think in the past year when we uh incre we had to uh increase uh uh contract cost due to the uh providing the service cost increase.

Um we introduced the um ordinance to provide that relief of the percentage uh of the penalty being assessed.

I think that was working together with council, and if we can continue doing that, increasing the threshold for rebate, I think that uh was collaboration with council as well.

Um I would like to see that being continued.

Okay.

Um one specific question to the rebate, just because it came up when uh uh Councilman Gerlach brought it up.

Is there has there been an evaluation?

And you don't need to answer this right now, um, but has there been an evaluation on what it would look like to lift the uh age requirement for that and make it only based on um on the income structure that's in place?

Um we explored that at uh certain degree verifying it so the um the catching phrase was uh the household income.

Very difficult to um verify the household income.

Um with a deeded, so a property um could have a only one person on a deed.

However, there there could be two wage earners living in that property.

So to verify the household income became challenging for us to uh to expand that to any um without the age limit.

So the age limit came into play is many times when you were um on a fixed income and and filing a tax return.

If you're not filing a tax return, we had a source of social security statement that taxpayers provide, um, and it's same thing with disabilities, so made a little bit process-wise less challenging for us to verify the income sources.

So verifying the income source is the key, is it becomes very challenging.

Okay.

Um last question, I was gonna say, could I just comment onto that a little bit?

I think I had seen something similar from Easton, they saw like the administration cost to do a program like that outweighed the essentially the financial benefit for the folks that were getting that rebate.

But I'm curious, maybe there's potential for, I mean, I've been through the process growing up low income, you're filling out the same forms, you know what the AGI is for certain programs, you know that if you make more than 35,000 a year, you're not gonna qualify.

Um, but I'm curious if there's any way we could partner with like a community organization that you know does that kind of casework management to identify specific cases so that way it kind of eases the burden from the city on an administrative level.

And and maybe that's not an answer you can, you know, a question you can answer now, but I think so many people go through this process time and time again, whether it's for their energy bill, for the gas bill, for you know, any county assistance you get, um, and if there's a way we can collaborate, you know, with the county or with other organizations, maybe it helps us implement a program like that without us having to do the heavy lifting of the administration of it.

Um absolutely so we had reached out to county when uh we were exploring this increasing the threshold.

Um we didn't get the uh responses we were looking for, but we'll continue exploring it.

That's an excellent suggestion, and I'm open to exploring uh maybe different sources that can provide us the same information.

Thank you.

And uh my final question, I know you addressed it in saying uh collaboration, one of the key things, but is there anything else that you would like to see from city council um going forward with the budgeting process?

Um yes, thank you.

Um so when the when we have um proposed a budget and when we are having the um uh budget meetings and conversations in this platform, I think our if we could I I would like to see our focus on um not limited to certain line items in the budget.

Um so for example, our um of course the personnel budget is uh is a significant part of the budget being presented, and we get uh many times focused on the positions being introduced and um or reclassifying.

But there's other aspect to the budget that I think we at in the times that I have done the budget or has have been part of the budget, have never come up is the contract services.

Is the other non-personnel cost uh that comes up um that's part of the budget?

So during the uh our contract approval process, if you see um and during the council meetings, uh almost every council meeting has a contract um contracts that are here for contract um council's approval.

At that point during those approval process, council, um what council should what we are trying to say is council should is be approving on that the administration has followed the appropriate steps to uh to for award this contract to a vendor, not to discuss the cost of the contract or is this a right vendor?

Those conversations should be had during the budget process, when we are proposing the budget, the contract services is the account 46.

That's a significant cost in our our budget.

So can't so council should be reviewing that uh I think during the budget time.

I've never seen that, and I would uh uh I would be happy if council uh you know looks at the contract services when the budget is being proposed, not during when the count contract is coming up for contract approval.

Again, I'll repeat that.

When we present the contract during the uh council meeting, that what you should be voting on is that we the administration have followed the appropriate process to bring um uh to award that um contract to a vendor.

And that ordinance change happened a couple administrations ago, if I'm correct, right?

That we that process started that we that council had to do that.

The contract approval.

I I believe so.

I I don't have the exact timing, but I believe so.

So as a result of loss.

Okay.

Is it 2015?

I I believe.

Okay.

And are we still and I'm just asking, are we is it is there value?

I don't know if you ask this too.

Is there value in this process or is it worth evaluating whether or not this is actually an effective process at this point?

Maybe that's a question internally here.

I don't know.

For transparency reasons, I don't see why not.

Yeah, I'd like to keep doing it.

Okay, all right.

I mean it's important to know who we give in the contract, you know.

And if I mean there's so many information happening uh during the budget process that um sometimes we have to ask because sometimes we forget, you know, so why not?

Yeah, I think I was asking more from Director Patels.

What I'm what I'm hearing is that our requirement is to do that when we're approving the budget.

And what I'm asking is the process we're going through week over week, at least what I'm observing is simply to say that an RFP was open publicly and this is the process they took.

I'm just trying to understand maybe that process a little bit more, but I can I can read up on that, so you know, dwell on it.

And so and I mean, some some there's there's uh you know, when people come to the meeting, sometimes they want to know who are we giving this contract to?

Even if we have discussed it before, people want to know.

Okay.

Thank you.

And thank you again for the information.

Looking forward to um working with council and and you to come up with a good process.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any comments from the public or in the audience?

I guess just kind of jumping back uh to the controller, Mr.

Glazer.

Uh if Glazer, if you have any comments either on the budget process or and I apologize, I don't think specifically ask for any of the reports.

Um I think the council is headed in a great direction in exploring um the budget process and a better way if there's better way to do it, and certainly to um be able to land the budget process in in December, you know, without without crashing.

I think those are good things.

Um, to the extent that count that I'm involved, I'll certainly give you my best.

Thank you.

Um I guess just the last item here would be um any um administrative priorities that the administration sees and has it identified.

Um I'm focused on um as um uh HR director and IT director mentioned that um uh looking forward to find the uh implementation of the final module, which is HR and payroll in Munis system, and we are looking at uh July as the go live date for that, and that would be in uh during the budget uh process when we have begun the personnel um uh budgeting, so we might be doing um personnel budgeting for this year in Eden as well as as Muniz.

But that's uh our priority to uh make that happen in sometime during the summer.

And optimal time is June and July.

Um other uh goal I have is to um explore the healthcare cost, and I'll be working with the HR director to see how we can curtail our um health care cost.

Um they are rising significantly, and um uh we can work together to uh maybe bring some changes uh to that.

So that's um my second priority.

I'm also looking at uh major capital projects um being underway.

Um we are expecting police headquarters groundbreaking maybe sometime in March.

And so the bond issue is another um uh general obligation bond uh issue is um my other priority.

Thank you.

I'll open up to any comments from the day.

Anyone not on the committee?

anybody else?

Uh I believe that's that.

Thank you, Mrs.

Patel.

Um, I guess I believe if I'm correct, that's it for our light of time and what we had on the agenda.

So that was it.

Yeah.

So I guess we're free to adjourn.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Thank you.

Okay, so