Maybe the finance planning committee is called the order at 8 46 a.m.

on April 23rd.

I hope everyone had a nice earth day yesterday.

Um start off roll call Otter Roman O'Neill.

Are you with us?

Present.

We can hear Alderman Thorpe.

Present.

Alderman Huntley's here.

We also are joined today by Otto Roman Conti.

And uh is there a motion to approve the agenda as written?

So move.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes from yesterday's meeting?

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Mr.

Pellico, floor is yours.

We'll put 15 minutes on the clock.

You could just swap the mics, they move.

It might be easier to move the mics to move yourself.

Okay.

So don't count this on his time, Kaylin.

All right, good morning.

Um just wanted to quickly highlight Sean Doyle and Karen Ajay, who's sitting back behind me in uh support of the finance department, but I will uh get going through the presentation here.

Um, oh, and Darren, who's our wonderful budget analyst.

Uh and so want to just jump in, start with our fiscal year 26 accomplishments, a lot to be proud of here.

Uh we were able to get a clean audit opinion on both the ACFAR and the single audits.

We completed the fiscal year 2025 audits with within the extension timelines, uh despite multiple staff vacancies, as has been communicated.

Uh we delivered the 2027 proposed budget on time to the city council on April 13th.

Uh, and then while also maintaining and uh enhancing core delivery across the accounting team, payroll budgeting and treasury operations.

Uh we have since we arrived, also provided and worked with the team on building 50 standy 50 plus standard operating procedures for the finance department to start building that durability and resilience in the department going forward.

And uh we are really highly focused on the Annapolis Works initiative and uh increasing our customer service levels by staffing vacant positions to support residents and internal stakeholders.

Uh our team has been heavily involved in this budgeting process as we've discussed around some of this uh changes in centralization for ITS and central services, and so working closely with those teams and other departments to make that shift.

And then in preparation of our move to the Shaw Street office, we've uh really taken significant efforts in cleaning the office vault and moving out physical paperwork in accordance with regulations.

And so there's been a lot going on in these last few months and really proud of everything the team's been doing to uh move the needle forward.

Uh speaking to our performance measures, uh, these are performance measures that have been historically included with the budget process.

We submitted the same ones uh as last year to keep a consistent flow.

Uh won't necessarily go through all of them unless if you'd like me to, but they are here, they listen in the budget book, but really focused on a lot of transactional activity and just ensuring that the team is operating at a high level of issue efficiency with regards to processing transactions, uh evaluating spending, and then also um making sure that we're working towards a better future with electronic uh type payments versus physical payments.

Um budget enhancements, we really had only one significant one.

Uh as you all are aware, we've been making a transition here within our payroll process and HRS system from using the standard MUNIS payroll system to a NeoGov system.

And in doing that, we wanted to enhance our payroll centralization.

And so uh we've recently had brought on a uh employee in a contractor capacity.

Uh and we do feel it is very critical for the city of Annapolis to make that person a full-time employee as they are touching significant information for the city of Annapolis.

And so converting our existing contractor to a certified payroll manager to handle payroll compliance, support grant funded project reporting and reduced burden on the existing accounting staff.

Uh we actually did not add anything from personnel, non-personal enhancements.

Actually, we've been we were really focused in the process of uh achieving some of the reduction requi uh uh asks from the mayor's office, and we were able to successfully implement that into our budget.

In terms of budget trends, you're going to see that this salary and benefits line has increased over time.

Majority of that is tied to uh the payroll manager as well as just the pay and comp plan studies having uh right size some of the staffing uh expenses as well as just a large uh portion being tied to benefits having increased, people's elections changing and just increased um costs there in terms of contractual services.

Uh we are keeping a similar line item continuing to ensure that the finance department has the tools that it needs to uh continue moving forward and executing on the development in terms of supplies and other we've decreased uh we have a larger amount in the fiscal year 26 projected, but for proposed, we've been uh uh bringing it back down in line as we think that we can manage with uh the team and and identifying things such as free training and other types of opportunities.

And then this question will actually go back for capital outlay.

We'll actually go back to what Alderman O'Neil um had been asking about yesterday with the ITS move, but all 118,000 of what we had expensive, what we're expecting to spend in 2026 are all related to software such as like OpenGov and also some other capital outlays around laptop refreshments and everything else, which have now been centralized into ITS, and so that number uh shifts to zero on our side and can then be part of the increase on the ITS side.

Um in terms of additional information as we look forward into fiscal year 27.

Uh the hiring of deputy director a Jay uh has been really significant in the process of driving our audit timelines to achieve the December 2026 issuance for fiscal year 20 uh six audit, and also that will have a downstream effect of improving our fiscal year 2028 budgeting timelines.

Um there's been really significant efforts put here.

Uh, I know Alderman Thorpe can speak to it from the audit committee side and seeing the the enhancements that we're making within the team.

Uh we still continue to have key vacancies in our finance director position, budget manager, finance office manager, and some accounting associate positions.

We have filled uh a couple and continue to interview and try to fill more, but working towards that more full execution and full staffing model.

Uh in terms of the focus on training and documentation, uh, we're as noted earlier.

We've already created significant SOPs a lot more in work.

This is all in an effort to drive a department that gives people the ability to be independently working, feel as though they're armed with the right level of information and the resources to uh complete their work timely and execute along the mission of just serving the greater city of Annapolis.

And so we believe that we're driving the department to a lot of more sustainable and resilient operation.

Uh and then we've also started building and uh fostering our partnerships with some of the boards and commissions, including the Finance Committee, the Audit Committee, and the Financial Advisory Commission.

And so continuing to enhance and work on reporting for those groups as well as just delivering more timely and useful information so that those boards and be uh more um informed and empowered to be better advocates and support for the city.

And lastly, efficiency, Mr.

Palicall.

Way under your time for the mark.

Uh let me just start by saying how much I like your guys' performance metrics.

Uh I think there are some, maybe there are if I'm gonna offer criticism while saying how much I like them.

I think there's some additional things you guys do that we could reflect in performance measures, but the ones you have here are so clear, so understandable, so uh I think if you wanted to, you could probably tie them very directly to costs.

I just really like what I'm seeing on these.

So thank you very much for that.

Thank you for a clear presentation.

Uh with that, Aldo Roman O'Neil, do you have questions you want to ask?

Believe it or not, um, I do not have any questions at this time.

Hey, Alderman Thorpe, straight to you.

Just when you thought it might be easy.

Oh, I've got two of three.

That's good.

Um in all seriousness, I'd like to start by uh commending you and the team that's sitting around you.

I know you would say that if I didn't say that, which I haven't in the past, and you have quickly uh pushed the credit over, but um I think it's important to focus on the fact that uh I think three of the four of you were not here on one December.

Is that right?

You were so yep.

So you're the veteran on the team.

Correct.

Um and he and he is very, very helpful.

Yeah.

So three of the four weren't here.

New administration.

Um the work you have done in the last four or five months has just been eye watering.

Um the fact we work through the the uh audit expeditiously quickly was your and your team.

Um tremendous work.

The fact that we're here with a budget that is uh manageable, we can work through it, we're having serious fact-based discussions is absolutely tremendous.

And um sometimes when things go well, it's just an assumption that they are just going well.

And I I don't think that's the case in that in here.

I think it's because you all have run really hard.

I want to shift though to the fact that we need to keep running.

Um of the things that concerns me is um that the finance department of any organization is the backbone of everything else working well.

Um it has come to my attention that we don't close our books on a monthly basis.

Um, I'm fully aware that GAAP doesn't require that.

Uh generally accepted accounting principles don't uh I know you know that, but uh the acronym, but don't require it, but it's best practice.

Um I believe there's there's work going in the direction of doing that, which I think would make the city run so much more efficiently.

So my question is what are we doing in order to move in that direction?

And do you have the capacity and the tools to turn over to the permanent finance director when they come on board in order to move forward to doing a monthly close?

Yeah, and so I'll break this down in a couple of different components.

So, first of all, thank you very much for the acknowledgments of the team.

Uh I can't echo it enough, the work that's been done.

And it does extend way beyond just the folks sitting behind me and Darren here.

It's been everybody really rallying around the cry of getting back into good order and just working together.

And so uh to just share a little context.

I mean, what we've instituted since we've been here are these weekly meetings with each of the individual groups, including budget, payroll, uh accounting, billing, and AP.

That has really created a lot more efficiency within the team.

Your statement around month end close not being done uh monthly is an accurate statement.

It's something that's just been uh inherited over time, and I think just as a result of some of the turnover that has occurred.

Uh but in instituting some of these weekly meetings and also our departmental meeting, we've been able to really push the team into seeing the value and the understanding the effects of not making this process uh occur.

The effects uh it could have on downstream effects for different teams uh to the departments and all otherwise.

Uh I do want to be clear that our team is very focused on closing cash monthly.

Uh may not be the most timely, but we're working on enhancing that.

Uh we just continue to work towards that, marching towards that ultimate um North Star.

Uh I did want to add just one clarification piece.

It is my understanding though, within municipal governments and otherwise, that there is this difference between what it's called a soft close and a hard close.

The hard close would really be that you're shutting down your books every month, you're booking your accruals.

I'll use one that I think would resonate for all when you have a business that has uh people that accrue PTO, you would have to book what is like a liability on a monthly basis for that PTO.

That would require a lot of report gathering, a lot of information gathering, and then you're just booking this in and out reversal, accrual reversal, accrual reversal.

Uh, we're not aspiring to get to that place today.

What we're first focused on is getting to what was really impactful and really could be thought of as cash basis accounting to really inform the budget and provide the right level of information for department heads to be managing to their budgets.

Uh we continue to march towards that.

And so again, immense credit to the team sitting behind me and the folks downstairs in really recognizing what the key priorities are in uh closing out.

And so to answer your question in a roundabout way, I think we are moving in the right direction.

We do need to fill those vacancies.

Uh, but in order to really achieve an optimal and a strong closed process, there will be need to be evaluation of a couple different things.

And so uh I'm just throwing these out there without having built yet the project plan, but we have a roadmap to get to this end goal of strong closing.

Uh it'll include things such as like reviewing the chart of account structure.

It'll review things such as reviewing the team structure and ensuring that folks are sitting in the right seats doing the right type of work to be more expeditious and getting that stuff done.

Um but yes, to your question, we are building that plan and giving coming up the recommendations so that the next finance director can really carry that forward and continue driving the team forward.

And I have every confidence in deputy director Karen that she will be able to really drive that, continue driving that forward.

I think we are properly staffed to execute and achieve that in the you know next 12 months.

Thank you.

And I think we probably ought to throw some credit over to Miss Bucklin, who's um who's helping to herd the the uh the group, but and she's over here saying no, but I I would her shaking her head no is an absolute wrong head shake.

She should be shaking it up and down because she's been our number one advocate and our number one support through all of this.

So let's be clear.

My role is advocacy, and I have an appreciation for what that means and the value and the amount of work that goes into it.

And I'm happy to run interference and some things like that, but the actual work, and there's a lot of it that goes even into a soft close as and I agree that that's very important, but I'm doing none of that day in and day out work.

That is all them, right?

I I play an advocacy role and a support role, but the work is there, it's not here.

Okay.

Somewhere amongst all you there's the credit.

Um But let me let me drill one step deeper as to why what's the why, why this is important.

Is it fair to say that at the working level among the city staff, having better granularity on a monthly basis is useful to them?

And then all the way up through the staff through the mayor for your you to have the ability as uh the senior finance, this the finance director being the senior finance person to advise where there are potential problems, where there are potential uh uh resources that could be used somewhere else, God bless you.

Um and then at our level at the city council, what I've talked to you at during finance committee meetings is the idea of how we do it on a monthly basis.

I'm not looking for that quarterly report.

I'm looking for uh public works is uh way ahead, way behind, you know, the four projects, whether they're capital improvement, whatever, that what are the what are the highlights at the board level?

Um, is that estimate of why we're having this discussion and why you're putting all the effort?

Is that an accurate discussion?

Accurate point.

Yeah, I I think what I might need to rephrase what you're saying or have you re-stated, but I think ultimately what we're trying to talk about is information sharing and ensuring that the uh people who are executing against the budget or executing against the plan are armed with the right level of information to do the best that they can stay within budget and uh you know identify opportunities for changes, say for example, if budget is lagging because of delays here, perhaps if more timely information we could pivot and use uh think about moving budget to something else that could then be moving along, and then on the flip side, if we're burning hot and spending more than we have, where do we need to make cuts into other changes?

I 100% agree with you.

I think all of that is accurate, and I think you know, the budget team would welcome having more uh timely information to be able to better serve their constituents.

So I think I think it all goes back to what you said at the very beginning is everything kind of begins and ends in the finance department where we are the aggregators of information and then ultimately the disseminators of that information in a uh way that empowers folks to be able to make decisions.

So 100% in alignment.

Not sure if I answered your question.

Yep, nope, exactly.

And uh the one whipped cream I want to put on top.

Did you want to say something?

Uh I was just how you doing, Darren Johnson, uh budget analyst.

Um, sir, I think we have started creating uh workbooks, budget workbooks that we have for each of the departments.

So, in a sense of being able to track the budget against what's happening versus what's planned, we do have something that we've started working on.

Uh, this is like the first year of us implementing those um budget books.

So hopefully next year we'll be able to have something more grounded so that we can you can take a look at one to see if you think it gives you the information that you're looking for.

Working on to help track the budget process to do things like Joe's salary and benefits running over in one of those meetings.

We can say, hey, let's take a look at this, something's off versus what you planned, your actuals.

Let's look at it, see if we can make some changes.

So we do have some things that we're starting.

You answered my question.

Um thank you very much.

Because what I was gonna say, the whipped cream is is having this information, the staff having this information allows them to track the budget, which then allows them to budget more accurately next year.

Is that because if if they don't find out, if the if the staff doesn't know how we're doing when they're producing the budget, then how do you produce an accurate budget based on reality?

So thank you very, very much for that.

Um and I just I really applaud all the effort you are.

This is a significant level of improvement um that the team is doing.

So uh one last question on it.

Do you have the tools?

Do you need any more tools to do that?

Uh the I know Karen will tell me if I say yes to that question, that she'll jump over the table and say no.

We we definitely need more tools, but I don't know if we know exactly what the tools are.

So I think going back to it, we need to develop this roadmap to what is the ideal end state, really getting to what you're talking about.

And then we're gonna need to inform some of that.

Some of that's gonna be enhancements to the systems, right?

Whether it's a more efficient AP system versus what we're using today, whether that's bolting on modules to the existing accounting system, looking at an alternative solution, like we have to do that work.

Um, so I can't say today exactly what are the different types of resources we're gonna need, but I can in a very open and blanket way say there will certainly need to be more resources.

I can't tell you is it this much human capital?

Is it this much in IT?

Is it this much in uh contractor services in terms of third-party uh outsourcing?

Like we haven't figured all that out yet.

That's really the next phase.

Um, you know, just to kind of speak to what you've been talking to and alluding to.

Our primary focus was to first come in and stabilize.

We've achieved that.

We've now executed along a lot of our deliverables, and now we're really moving and shifting into that next phase, which is developing the transformation plan of the department.

And so I will be able to more appropriately come back with what resources are needed in some due time.

Well, I think I speak for my colleagues.

Um, but for you and the city manager and the mayor, please know that we stand ready to support you.

Come forward uh so we don't want to hold you up.

We've um, you know, and I know a lot of kudos have been shared across this side, but I do want to really recognize the uh the strong uh willingness from the finance committee, the audit committee, the financial advisory commission, and others that they've been very, very focused on getting to exactly the place that you're talking about, making it so that the organizations that are supporting the finance department are able to actually support the organization, and we're very um thrilled about that, and we really want to lean into that as well.

So we appreciate you hearing that, but we do want to send back just appreciation to all of you for everything that you've been doing to really help and uh put your money where your mouth is and in the words, right?

Like we're we're trying to really make changes here.

I commend your inability to take credit for success.

Um slide three, um, if you could uh um there is uh a line here that says uh percent of expenditure pay via electronic means versus check.

And this is something that you're all over.

So I'm so this also applies to yesterday's conversation with IT about about electronic uh payments coming in.

Um I use the word credit cards, I won't and then I backed off of that because that's a that's a uh solution, and I I want to turn it over to you, but it's gonna be all Venmo.

We're gonna have everything move to Venmo, no credit cards, way for the future.

So the the question for you really is a yes or no, unless you want to dive deeper.

But do you have in this budget what you need to be able to move to a more electronic payment system?

We did not include any enhancements because again, we haven't built the roadmap out.

To be my understanding is that Munis, the system that we use today has an AP module that we should be able to look at and develop and implement that would then allow us to shift to a lot more of that.

And so uh I don't believe at a significantly increased cost.

We just need to spend that time doing that strategic planning with ITS as well.

Finance team in general.

And and I can shed a little bit of additional light uh on that.

Um we're talking about electronic payments.

We're we're kind of talking about three different things lumped under one umbrella.

Um we're talking about both the ability of the city to send payments electronically, that has a couple of pieces to it, and then that question of can we receive payments electronically.

The city already does receive payments electronically for several things.

We just don't do it universally.

And so part of what you heard from IT yesterday was um some um work that they had have started but not yet brought to fruition for some of that with wreck and parks, for example.

Um, but we already accept electronic payments for like licenses and permits and some other things like that.

Um so it's really it's it's building building that out and completing it.

Um and depending upon how those electronic payments come in.

Um, you know, Alderman Huntley mentioned Venmo, but there, you know, Elevon, Stripe, there are a number of different vendors out there.

Um Department of Finance gets involved in um having relationships with those vendors and having a multitude of those vendors can get complicated, which is why finance's input into all of that is important to help try to keep those uh operations from sprawling uh if we can.

On the other side of the fence of us giving making payments electronically, there are two parts of that.

One is the just the sheer electronic relationship with the bank of doing that transfer electronically.

That piece is essentially ready to go.

The second piece of that is us making sure that we have good banking information to use when making those payments.

So um we we have uh a bit of a plan for how to get there, where we're gonna start with that, and then um a more gradual process then of um building out that and ensuring we have good banking information for other vendors.

So that was a long answer, but there's several different pieces to that, and there is some movement along each of those lines.

Thank you.

And I think that answer indicates the amount of work that's already going into this, and I think what I'm trying to communicate too is the sense of the finance committee that whatever we need to do to support pushing that along will be.

Yeah, I I think that it would come as a surprise to absolutely no one that I've personally been um frustrated that some of this stuff hasn't come to fruition earlier.

It's um one of the things that I'll be spending more time on in another month.

Right.

Um and last but not least, again, thank you.

Thank you, thank you for all the work you're doing.

You guys are doing awesome.

So appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Awesome.

I got a bunch of very anodyne questions for you.

Uh I'm gonna start with maybe the most anodyne, and apologies if it's a bit of a a um gotcha.

So feel free to just tell me if you want to get back.

But I was it's you know, I like to dig into these pretty in-depth.

One thing jumped out to me was last year we were paying 30,000 dollars for brinks.

This year we're paying 40,000 for breaks.

What's uh what's the deal with that?

Uh how did it jump 33% in one year?

And I have to turn around and see if my folks have any knowledge on that because I don't have like details.

You know, so there's a um the Brinks increase uh includes a force a floor safe for Wrecks and Parks.

That's the note that I have.

Gotcha.

Uh-huh.

And because Brinks is is essentially they're transporting cash, right?

And so the floor safe for Wreck and Parks is now they have to go to an additional facility and get it from Wreck and Parks.

Yeah.

So we went from their picking up from two places or three places to now an additional fourth place.

Okay.

See, that's great.

What is well, I I kind of thought I was gonna stump you guys on that one.

Now that that was my goal.

My goal makes the dream work.

Uh thank you.

Way to go.

Um, all right.

Uh the other one I want to dig into here is the if you go back and look at last year's budget that we approved, finance has 23 positions.

And this in FY26 is showing it had 24 positions.

Now, I think uh the the distinction is it's finance advisor.

And I'm sorry, I don't have a great way of of saying all these different pieces together.

But what I'm trying to get at is it seems like we added the finance advisor, which is a consultant position.

We also have money in the FY26 budget for consultants, and then we're getting rid of this consultant contractual position, but we're adding we're still having $90,000 in money for consultants.

So I'm trying to understand that intersection of last year's consultant money, last year's finance advisor money, and this year's consultant money.

So the clarity there is that the finance advisor was that we held on to Jody Dickinson.

Right.

And then she fully finally retired in December.

But as I remember, that was paid for out of the consultant, the contractual services fee.

Darren will add a little bit of calling here.

Darren can add caller here.

So it initially started out in contract services, and then we move Jody to salaries and benefits.

So then it ended up getting covered out of salary and benefits.

So basically that funding got it.

So and that was intra year.

So that kind of it's it's a little hard to see in the specific numbers as well because of the shift in timing uh entry year.

So then what I'm getting at is if we were spending a hundred thousand dollars last year on essentially Jody under contract services, and this year we're spending ninety thousand dollars on contract services for consultant, what is that going to?

So the consultant can be it doesn't necessarily have to be just for Jody.

It could be if we need auditing assistance, anything the consultants is just for us to have a consulting's part of funding for anything that we need to have us for a consultant for, I should say.

So if we need any consultant work, we have the funding there.

We can reach back and say, hey, let's get this help.

Funding's already in the budget.

Got it.

And how did you guys come up with that $90,000 figure?

I think I think it's mostly been based on um just some just recent experience.

Um I don't think that there's a there's not a I'm not aware of a specific proposal that that is responsive to.

I think it's just based on recent experience.

So yeah, we had this kind of similar discussion with IT yesterday, and I'm wondering just is there a way that we could like clearly some departments it makes sense to have a pot of money reserve to go out and get some additional insight into something specific rather than try and have a generalist staffer.

But I'm trying to understand how we come up with those numbers and uh across departments, but then particular to this department, and it sounds like it's sort of a it's a best guess for now, rather than uh I think there's a standardized process.

Yeah, I think the term reserve is probably appropriate in the sense that we don't know what we don't know.

There's gonna be things coming up, and we want to be able to have some ability to manage to that, and so we can endeavor to try to give you a little bit more of a breakdown just so that we can be a little bit more clear.

But I do think that departments such as finance where you know you have changes that can occur at any time, or there could be initiatives that pop up, there's opportunities to just need some additional support to ensure you're doing the right thing.

For instance, we had to hire Harbor View.

We had to hire what'd you say?

Harbour view.

Oh, Joel, yes, and Sean.

Exactly.

But that I mean, but actually uh that's kind of my point because in that scenario, we have then additional money in salaries and benefits, right?

Because we we hired them because we didn't have enough staff, right?

So the proposed budget would assume 100% uh occupancy, which is not the case.

And so that's why you'll see the projected numbers coming in so much lower, right?

And so there's a trade-off there between the projected and the proposed.

So this was a question I I think I posed to you uh last Thursday about vacancy savings.

And so is it uh is it the case in finance that we don't have any assumption of vacancy savings within there isn't because we're aspiring to be fully staffed going into the new year.

So there wouldn't have been appropriate to take a vacancy savings uh considering that we're still uh a couple months out from the beginning of the year, and so the intention is that we've been making a really strong effort to get to that fully staffed position.

I do hope so.

Um looking at the salaries and benefits again.

We're jumping 12% from the uh FY26 budgeted figure.

And certainly makes sense that a good chunk of that is this new payroll manager, right?

That's uh I don't know, I mean it's a relatively high grade position, but if we're looking at this, it's about it's a little over $300,000 increase, close close to 400,000 almost.

And so certainly not all of that is accounted for by this one new position.

Totally.

Can you speak to what the rest of that increase is going to?

Yeah.

So I actually have let me see, I can have some numbers pulled up.

Uh the yeah, sorry, I don't want to like click and clack here.

But basically, the the payroll manager is a significant portion of it, but then outside of that, there was a lot of adjustments to people's uh benefits elections and other things otherwise, and so that increased the number pretty significantly, uh almost 50% of that number.

So 50% of it's really the kind of that payroll manager type, and then 50% is the benefits number and the jump there.

So um that's the that is really the breakdown.

I can give you a more position by position breakdown if you'd like I don't understand that.

Mr.

Looks like something to add just merit increases as well.

Yeah, yes, yeah, step increases, promotions, things like that.

So that's included.

Otherwith Thorpe, did you want to jump in?

No, I I did want to note that it's about 60 percent since fiscal year 23 that the budget for finance is increased.

Um it was gonna be my next question if I hadn't run out of time.

I mean, it it does seem uh that can you increase um the operating budget well ahead of other increases across the department.

Um's happened since 2023, but it is probably something that we'd be interested, or maybe maybe Ms.

Buckland could address as she lowers the microphone.

Um so that I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Yeah, the um there have been there have been a number of pizza several positions that have been added um to the Department of Finance over the last several years.

Um not in not in large chunks, it's been it's been pretty gradual, you know, one position here, one position there.

Um so for example, um uh it wasn't all that long ago that the city didn't really have a budget team at all.

So the entire budget team is essentially new.

Um and that was a really significant hole for the city, right?

Um, and there's been a lot of work over the years um to um to really look at the city's finances, make sure that they're being soundly accounted for, that we're budgeting, you know, using um best practices and stuff like that.

So there's been a a lot of investment in in time and expertise.

Um it's not just the budget team, but it's that's given our conversation today, that's a really visible part of what's been added over the years.

Um, and I think it's safe to say that the finance team in general um w certainly was very behind the eight ball in terms of their personnel complement and their overall skill set, um, just being able to focus on certain things.

That's part of frankly what this team is doing now is kind of continuing that work of assessment and alignment.

Um so but it's a it's a gradual process, and I and I do appreciate in some sense that that finance is not doing things in giant strokes.

They're doing it, okay.

We have a need here, we have a need here, and and allowing time for that to really sink in, and then okay, where's our next, where's our next thing?

So I think I know the answer to this question, but in your supplies and other line that went down significantly.

Is that just because we're putting stuff into central services, or is something else getting cut?

Yeah.

Okay.

So uh the you mentioned meeting the five percent reduction that the mayor's office had asked about, but then of course the budget is actually going up.

So can you help me understand what that five percent reduction was?

Yeah, so uh the way that we operated when we were developing this 5% reduction was we kind of got to the full board uh budget number, the base budget, and then we were able to make reductions from that.

And so the base budget had just grown.

Um, and so we we did implement some level of reductions there uh to get from what would have been a what would have been an even higher number uh for this proposed versus what is presented here.

But admittedly, I can see why that would be confusing and why that would be hard to interpret.

So maybe maybe a statement I would walk back on a little bit, but just there was an exercise done instead of maybe trying to take credit for a reducing our budget year over year, rather say we would have actually been higher and we were able to go and look at it with a lens and bring it down to a different uh a number that really did uh not accelerate it as much as it could have otherwise.

So most of the rest of my questions are now about our non-allocated budget summary, so less you guys staff, and so I know this is probably stuff that's maybe a little bit less day-to-day familiar, but I'm hoping you can still help me understand.

Uh looking at our debt service, uh, we were just talking about this the other day that we ended up being significantly under uh what we expected at FY26, which is great.

But then we're jumping back up in FY27.

And I'm curious if you feel like that new number for FY27 is going to see a similar, actually it's lower, or if we don't have to, I'm gonna say worry, but it would actually be a good thing about that uh in this year.

Maybe a better way to put it is do we think that we're going to see the same difference between projected and or let's say between actuals and budgeted in FY27 for debt service as we did in FY26.

I'm looking at the team to see if anyone is is jump jumping up.

Um in the absence of seeing someone jump up, I'll say I'll get back to you.

I think that's a really good question.

Um, and I would like for us to delve into that a little bit more.

So I was asked by the TV studio to make our asks very explicit so today.

So I will and say a uh action item is for Ms.

Bucklin to get back to us on whether we can expect the FY27 debt service number to ultimately be significantly lower than we budget for in the same way that the FY26 one was.

Unless you've got an answer right now.

I do think we'll take a look back at it and come back to the table.

I think really um we have lots of different payment schedules with different time frames, and so I think it's just getting that master schedule really tightened up and make it to make sense.

So then I think your question is well heard and received, and so we'll come back with a better answer.

Yeah, it just seems like as you guys are looking to shrink that variance figure.

This is one that I think, and I could be wrong, I'm not the expert, but I think that we can get a really tight answer on it.

Because it's kind of it's just a bunch of math, right?

It's not like oh no, the fire department had their BGE bill go up.

Uh all right.

Moving on to interfund transfers.

Actually, this ended up not being a question.

I answered it myself, but it's just kind of shocking to me how much less pay-go we're doing this year for capital projects than we have in the past.

So to the tune of about three million dollars.

So like I said, not a question.

I I would want to clarify.

I think sure that's more about uh the capital reserve.

So in the city council working session that we talked earlier, uh there was a very significant amount moved for capital reserve in prior years because of that really uh larger fund balance as we ended every year.

We were able to increase the capital reserve number due to the excess reserves.

This is us working back down towards that smaller capital reserve number and moving that way.

So over time.

Yeah.

Okay, so that that's actually a very helpful distinction.

So I just want to make sure I'm totally clear.

When this says transfer to capital projects fund for pay-go, it's inclusive of both what's labeled in the capital projects as pay go and also what's labeled as capital reserve.

Okay, thank you.

Um last one along those lines is this year, last year we transferred 240,000 to parking.

I'm sorry, do uh transit, the transit fund, which makes sense to me, right?

We know our our transit fund is a public good.

I don't expect it to be self-sustaining.

I think people disagree on that, but that's my opinion.

This year we're not transferring to the transportation fund.

We are though putting some money in our off-street parking fund.

And so my question is twofold.

What impact will we see on the transportation fund from not giving that additional money to it, if any?

And why are we putting money in the off-street parking fund when that really can pay for itself?

Are that the off-street parking fund funds the transit fund and then refund the gap to the off-street parking fund out of general fund?

So it's um it's a little bit of a waterfall.

I can probably walk you through a little bit of that.

Uh how the flows work.

Um, I mean, that makes sense at a high level, but why is it different this year than last year?

I actually under budget analyst.

Um I believe that the 240,000 was one-time funds, which is why you see that transfer to directly to transportation.

The 38,000 that you see for off-street parking is one-time fund as well for FY27.

So it's one-time funds.

Um historically parking, the parking fund has always subsided to transportation to support it.

Okay, so I'm gonna say, can we get an action item on why is it different this year than last year?

Everything you guys are saying makes sense.

Yeah, I just don't understand why one year we were doing it one way and one year we were doing it the other.

If it's if it's one-time funds, the general fund is the one who's supplying that.

Well, we'll we'll get back to that.

Mr.

Chairman?

Well, hold on, I wanna just say Mr.

Johnson looked like he had something more to say.

Uh so I was uh so the one time the 240 was for special projects for like we're saying is just one-time thing, and then the 38,000 is to cover the one excess one-time funding to cover the 38,000 for that special project.

So each time it can change based upon what the needs are, what's being asked.

So it's not like there's a set budget or set something that we're covering.

It's all based upon the needs, and the funds come from the general fund for the transfer.

That makes sense.

Okay, thank you.

And so I'm sorry, you I know you have a question, but I'm gonna try and follow up if I just tell me if I'm getting too far off topic for what your question is.

Uh so what is that 38,000 funding then?

What's the special project?

On the uh all fund summary, you'd be able to see.

Oh, sure.

I could have looked that up.

Thank you.

It's for way signs, they're gonna be adding um additional signs um to sh to show where the parking garages like directional signs for constituents.

Got it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was I was looking at capital budget.

Thank you.

Alderman Thorpe.

So either in the extra time we have when we finish our briefings, if we have the time or some other time, I would like to dive deeper into your explanation, not about the numbers, but about the process.

So uh perhaps this is a new guy on the city council challenge for me.

Um, but to me, I feel like I'm trying to follow the beans underneath the shells right now.

Um, and I know that's not what you're trying to do.

It'll all make sense to me, but but uh I don't know if other new members of the council have that same challenge, but as we move as you do this, uh we don't have I'm I'm not we don't need to do it now, but maybe you know, it's basically uh the next version of the finance work session that you all led, which was tremendous, but now I think we need to go a little deeper into so that I could know the lexicon.

Well, uh, we'll make sure to touch on fund transfers in that session as well.

That'd be great.

Yeah, I actually need a touch space with the mayor on what we're gonna do in that.

But um, okay, I got two, maybe three more questions for you.

The health insurance fund, we consistently are saying it looks like in both 25 and in 26, we said, boy, we're gonna get all this money in and all this money's gonna go out.

And those two things matched, and then it was like we actually got way less money in and way less money out.

And so there's not a net problem, but how are we misestimating by a factor of like 30% on that?

I'm sorry, can you sure health insurance fund summary?

So this is down uh it's on the last page of finance book as I'm looking at it.

It's our FY26 budget was 14 million, and our FY26 projected is 9.5 million, and that's true for both revenue and expenses.

So it's not like it goes back to the vacancy discussion, so on a projected basis.

We assume that the sta the city's fully funding the health insurance for 100% of positions, and so as that doesn't matriculate out to being true because we have vacancies that just you'll see adjustments there that occur.

And so uh precision there would also be in bent enhanced by making changes for vacancy type uh changes.

And not everybody takes a hundred percent takes the highest level health insurance, right?

Yeah, that makes sense.

Also, it's kind of what we were talking about yesterday with the whatever it was 60 percent benefits for the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff position.

Uh okay, thank you.

Uh just a note that our budget highlights, and I think it's the same on OpenGov, but I haven't checked.

Say that we're adding an accountant two position, but we're not adding an accountant two position.

So that's good already in the workforce plan.

Cool.

Um, last thing I want to talk about is the self-insurance fund.

So we have an actuary go out and figure out how much we should be spending on this, and it seems to me like when we get hit with these particularly big lawsuits, we should see our self-insurance fund change more.

Uh, and yet it's pretty darn consistent.

So I'm wondering first of all, can we see we the finance committee, not necessarily the public, I would understand if it's somewhat confidential, that actuarial analysis, and then just generally why does it not vary more?

Um I will attempt to answer uh Capri, you want okay.

Um, so what you see in there is the expense for um a policy that we have.

Um, but the amount that the policy pays does not show in there.

So that it does vary if we do have a lawsuit or something that we need to pay out for, but it's covered by our policy at a certain amount.

If we think that if we anticipate that it's going to go over our policy, then additional fundings are added to um that fund.

That makes total sense for like how I pay for car insurance, but it feels like it doesn't make sense to me for the city being self-insured.

Isn't the whole point that we don't have a policy?

We are the ones paying it out, or am I I mean feel free to tell me if I'm just being hard-headed here?

It's a mixture.

Okay, okay.

That that kind of answers my question.

That of that smooth is smooths it out a little bit.

So we would I still think we would expect to see maybe a little bit more variation than we get, but it's by having a policy, we're smoothing it out.

Yes, yeah.

Um I still would like as an action item to see that actuarial report.

And if there's a reason why we can't see it, please let us know.

Mr.

Chairman.

Yeah, go ahead.

That's all I'm saying.

The mayor has asked the audit committee to on a continual basis take a look at the self self-insurance fund right from a policy level and things like that.

So as you know, we've talked about it.

We'll be diving into that at the at the city council level.

Right.

I think that's all I had.

Anything uh from you auto Roman Conte?

Got any questions?

No.

Uh Auto Roman O'Neal, you got any last things.

Yeah, well, thank you so much for the great presentation.

Yeah, okay.

I think if you had anything else you would have told me.

We're good.

All right, we're good.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you all.

And appreciate it.

We'll look forward to spending the rest of the budget season with you.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Uh at this time, uh, Director Simmons, I see you're here.

Are you okay to present in five minutes?

I am a few more.

Okay, great.

So at this time we'll uh recess for five minutes and resume at 9 45.

Thanks.

Over to you guys.

Uh thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Again, I'm Kevin Sims.

I'm the emergency manager for the city of Minnapolis.

And to my right, Dave Mandel, Deputy Director.

So let's get the show on the road.

So we were told that you wanted three accomplishments that we thought were our best.

So we took we put in the 35.5 million dollar FEMA grant.

Um coordinated the grant application and support with the mayor's office.

The application spanned over 500 pages.

Emergency management and the grants team responded to every FEMA request for additional information, conducted multiple meetings per month and held site visits and engaged stakeholders to achieve this major award.

So this is a this was a phenomenal feat, and I owe a lot of it to the gentleman on my right.

However, however, before we we received the grant about a couple of weeks ago, you all at the press conference.

Everybody's smiling.

I got a mailer yesterday with our faces on it.

I think you were on there too.

I was, I was, but we were due to have that grant way before that, way before that.

Because things got discombobulated in Homeland Security and FEMA.

Uh the issuance of the grant was delayed.

And I really appreciate the mayor and the Maryland delegation from getting it across the finish line.

Second accomplishment we want to talk about is um winter storm firm.

Is it too soon to talk about that?

I I still got the scars.

You and Director Vogel both.

It was a complex and high impact winter storm characterized by eight to ten inches of snow, sleet, and freezing rain, and that and dangerously low Arctic type temperatures.

The emergency operation center was open for six straight days, 24-7, and implemented uh coordinated response operations, uh operational priorities focused on life safety, maintaining essential services, situational awareness, and coordinating resources for six days 24-7.

Uh center, which I'm pretty really proud of, the folks that worked in the call center to include Office of Emergency Management and some other departments, they fielded 745 storm-related calls.

That's the most ever for a single incident in all.

Our goal is always is to get the city back as to normal as quickly as possible.

And our last accomplishment made it actually to the to mayor's state of the city address, and significant reduction in total overdoses.

Total overdoses decreased um from 198 in 2020 to 56, which is a 72 percent reduction.

Major decrease in fatal overdoses.

This is where folks died, drop from 28 in 2020 to 5 and 25 in 2025.

That's a um 82 percent.

Narcan was used in the majority of the overdose incidents this year.

So we had a very, very aggressive NARCAN program, and it caught on.

We're starting to see the fatal overdoses drop.

So positive look for 2026, only eight total overdoses from January to March this year.

So this projects a significantly lower annual total if this trend continues, you know.

Uh performance measures.

I am not going to hit that hard because uh that's gonna take up eat up some of my 15 minutes, but here's what I will tell you about the performance measures.

2025, um FY25, we did meet all of our performance measures goals.

I don't know what you all had in your in your budget book, but it it wasn't what our performance uh measures are.

So these are the true performance measures, 2020 uh FY25.

We met all of our goals.

FY26, we met most of our goals except for two of them, and I'll talk about that for the percentage of employees and partners with activation responsibilities.

Um we didn't quite meet that goal.

We wanted 75 percent of the red team and the blue team to be prepared for any eventuality and all, we got 70 percent.

We were very, very close, but not a cigar at this point.

And then if you go down to percentage of high priority plans are in progress, complete and up to date.

Our goal is to meet 75% of that.

And we met about 70% of that.

So these are two of them that we didn't quite meet.

We were kind of close as far as the plans is concerned.

About a year and a half, I lost half my staff.

So at some point for a long time, it was only three of us.

We're back up to a full strength of seven, and that had an impact on all of that.

And here's our performance measures, our new proposed performance measures here.

And they're going to focus on planning, they're going to focus on preparedness, they're going to focus on substance use disorder like we always do in all of the rest of the plans, the former plans, and they're going to focus on readiness.

Let's talk about some other statistics.

This is OEM's planning hours for special events.

FY26, year to date, 582.7 planning hours.

Annapolis is rivaling Baltimore City and Ocean City for events.

And the events take a lot more planning, a lot more security.

So it kind of thrust us into the middle of all this planning.

And FY27 predicted, we predict about 750 planning hours.

We were in our 16th year of winter relief.

We had 98 activations and 1,655 patrons visit.

FY 26, what we're in now, we had 108 activations with 1,868 patrons that visited.

And I do think we're over it.

It closes officially at April April 30th.

So I think these will be the numbers.

Food Friday statistics, boxes delivered, boxes delivered per year is 16,755 for FY25.

They actually impact 50,000 folks.

And that they're getting this is not 50,000 individual folks.

These are 50,000 patrons that we see over and over again.

FY26, I'm not too sure about this number.

I was looking at this number yesterday, but we have 18,200 with 55,068 service interactions.

I'm not too sure about that 18,000 number.

Predicted in FY27, 17,000 with 52,000 service interactions.

So we have a lot of folks with food deficit in the city of Annapolis.

This food only goes to Annapolis and it goes to all eight wards.

EOC activations, we had 19 activations in 25, um total of 45 days, 22 activations in 26, 46 days.

We predict in FY27, 20 activations, 45 total days.

Talked about the substance uses order stats.

Budget enhancement.

So we're in a predicament here in Office of Emergency Management.

You know, we're this we're the lowest funded of all the departments.

And that's not a it's not a bad thing.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing because the general fund supplements us.

We mostly depend on federal grants, and we have for the past 16 years.

This year, I'm coming to the finance committee.

I'm coming to the council in a difficult situation because of how things are so discombobulated with FEMA and Homeland Security that we are projected not to receive any grant funding at this point.

So we don't know if it's coming.

Um we can't we can't um bet on that.

So we fashioned our budget um in effect that this won't be here.

So with uncertainty in the federal funding and impacts on personnel funded by federal grants.

We have we fund three of our staff through these federal grants.

So we're asking for two emergency management planner one positions.

These are existing positions, we're not adding to anything.

We're trying to keep what we what we have, and that's the cost of um 224,000, and it was in our budget in our FY27 budget.

We have another position, which is the exercise training and outreach and P PIO again a existing position.

We're not adding anything.

We're trying not to lose everything.

Um 108,000, 974, and we did get that in our budget.

So non non-personnel enhancements, uh again, uncertainty with the federal funding, the hazard mitigation plan.

That's a plan that we have to have updated every five years.

It's an important plan.

If we don't have that plan in place, if FEMA does not approve our hazard mitigation plan, and then the count the um council does not adopt it, then we're not eligible for certain funding.

And if we didn't have an approved plan, we wouldn't have not have gotten the 35,000, uh 35 million for city doc.

So the cost of that for a vendor to do it is 60,000.

We've always used the vendor.

Most of the jurisdictions use the same vendor that we do.

So we did get that in our budget.

Again, uncertainty with federal funding.

Um we want to be able to do training and exercise.

This is important.

Many of you actually attended our citywide exercise last year, and you see how important that is to keep everybody prepared and everybody ready to respond and and help the city recover and get back to normal.

So we asked for 13,000, and we kind of sort of got it.

You won't see it in the budget.

I think we did some discussion afterwards, and it was agreed by finance that we do have the 13,000.

Any any other comment, uh, Joel on that?

The 13,000.

That was for the exercise, Drake.

Yeah, I think if we look at the budget, we actually uh had an allocation for that in the salaries line in the budget.

So I think we just need to have it shifted on something that we've discussed internally, but it was just in uh misplaced on our side.

Okay, so we have that.

So another one of our non-personnel enhancements was a maintenance program for our radios, and these are not fire and police radios, these are the radios that public works, wreck and parks, transportation, planning and zoning, OEM.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing somebody in there that they use these radios.

Now we have 130 radios.

These radios cost about 4,500 per unit a piece, and we have no maintenance plan for them.

So this is sort of a deal where you pay now or you pay later.

Um so we put in for the maintenance plan of 21,000, and we did not get that.

We did not get that one.

How am I doing on time, sir?

I think you're just about out.

Can you see all the important thoughts?

17 seconds.

I'm out.

17 seconds.

Really?

13 minutes.

So take a look at my budget, and pretty much everything's in your budget book.

However, look at the grants line here.

We have grants from 23 up until 26 with with no new allocations in 27.

I can go on if you want.

Yeah, yeah, please keep going.

Sorry.

Okay, I know I've hit my 15 minutes.

So I'll just keep going.

So uh opioid restitution fund budget.

Um we get that from the opioid restitution funds, and we also get a grant from the health department of about 31,000 dollars.

It takes about 150,000 to run the four programs from police from fire from the mayor's office from OEM to run that.

And uh in our discussions, I can give you a breakdown on who gets what.

But um we're good there.

This is not coming from the general fund.

This opior restitution funds and a grant from the health department.

And last but not least, just for effect, just to see what we were dealing with and what we're not dealing with now is that back in FY23, we had 624,000 in federal grants, and in FY24, we have 583,000 in federal grants.

Not all of it comes to the city of Annapolis.

I mean, I'm sorry, to OEM, but it goes out to fire, it goes out to police, it goes out to planning and zoning for code books, it goes out to ITS and other different um different departments.

We get some uh for our day-to-day activities, we get a lot for our staffing.

So you can see FY25, which we're in in buzz it budget season, FY25.

We have nothing at this point.

Typically, when we get our funds, our funds come in October, and it is April, and we have zero.

Thank you very much.

Honor Roman O'Neill, I know you gotta stop.

So you want to go first?

Yes, thank you.

I appreciate that.

You always go first, but I appreciate that.

Um Director Simmons, thank you so much for all of those um explanations and numbers.

I know that in past um budget hearings, we've often talked about the fact that so much of your budget was grant funded, and um the worry has always been that this exact case scenario was going to take place.

Um I think that this question got answered um during our work session a week or two ago.

But how are we doing this year without the grants that you did not receive?

Normally you receive them in October, we didn't receive them.

And are we okay in FY26 to continue as is?

And um I fully support the moving of the three positions into um the actual operating budget.

Um, but how are we doing for the remainder of FY26?

So we really do well in our budgeting.

We do no frivolous spending.

We we um have our anything that we need, we have funding earmarked for it, and we we we spend very very carefully.

So I think that we're good getting out of FY 26.

I think we're good to go there.

Again, we have salaries for the three um positions up until we think October.

We know the fall, we think until October.

If you're asking me how much that is, I I would have to use my lifeline and call a friend.

But um, but we uh we think that we'll get to to October at this point.

Okay, that's great.

Um in regards to the warming center, um, one of the discussions that we've had since the warming center was moved from the Sant Center to Pitmoir.

Um, there was a lot of discussion around actually transportation of folks that were trying to get to Pitmoir and transporting throughout the day.

Um can we talk a little bit about what it would add if we were to add bus vouchers for those folks to ride city buses now that they're a little bit farther from when they were at Staten Center, they had some resources, they were close enough to um places to walk to, you know, to get additional helps either 7-Eleven or restaurants downtown, things like that.

Um has there been any discussion on your end as to increasing the allocation for the warming center.

We didn't ask for an increase.

Um we did need some extra assistance this year because of uh winter storm fern and the fact that we had eight straight days, 24 hours and all, but we didn't feel the need that we had to ask for more.

When you when you're dealing with the unhoused, the homeless, um, routine is important for them.

They go by routine.

So once we move from the Stanton Center to Pitt Moore, you messed up their routine.

So it took them a long time to get acclimated.

Once they got acclimated, I think they were pretty good.

They have uh a lot of good sources in that.

I think that uh director Moore supplies the lighthouse shelter with bus passes, and then the lighthouse shelter uh gives them gives our homeless, the folks that are using um our warming center bus passes.

So I didn't think we had a big problem there, and it sometimes when I would go visit the warming shelter in the morning, I would see a go time bus, which is relatively cheap.

Um, come pick a few of them up.

Um, how I got paid for, I don't know, maybe um some of the attendees paid for that.

But they seemed like they were they were moving in a good direction there.

Um I I need to let you know that we were in talks with um HACA about using Robinwood and and their gym space down there.

Um, and I went to the board at HACA and they agreed to do this.

You know, they voted in their firm and an affirmative that we can use their facility there next season.

So um the fire marshal has done an inspection.

Uh I think it came back okay.

I gotta get with Chief Romaly on that.

Um if everything goes through, we will we will be using that area next year.

So it'll be in Robinwood and their gym.

Thank you.

That was gonna be my next question.

So I appreciate the uh heads up on that one.

Um I will go ahead and uh release my time um because I know there's a lot of other questions coming, but thank you very much.

Okay, thank you, Alderman O'Neill.

Alderman Thorpe, you're up.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I don't I'm not sure where to begin other than just to say thank you.

Um I I had the opportunity to watch you close close up um during the snowstorm, and um you all do is amazing.

The other thing I'd like to highlight that people don't see is grants.

Um if I had a criticism for OEM is you make grants sound too easy.

Um and you know, your highlighting of the FEMA grant, um having done a couple grant applications in in my life, um, super effort for the city that the residents probably as they walk down the street have no idea um how they can sleep better at night because of the grant work that you all do.

Well, I know that uh you feel our pain because you sent us a grant uh a grant the other day that that we could apply for, so we appreciate that.

Yeah, well, thank you.

I only did that because I know that it matters to you.

So um let me go through the slides a little bit.

If I could ask you to go to slide eight, um and if I could ask to drill down a little bit, you you touched on these numbers, and I'd I'd like to to just better understand uh the predictions.

Um and I I think the the fundamental part of my question is um what drives up or down on the predictions?

Is it what you anticipate, which in some cases is higher or lower?

Is it budget constrained?

Um what drives the number?

So you touched on the additional planning hours, um, which I that's one that you have total control of.

Um my specific question to that one uh for special events is are you confident in your prediction and do you have the tools you need uh to staff those special events?

So let me talk about let me talk about the nature of special events.

So we we talk I talked a little bit about it before.

Baltimore City and Ocean City are the event capitals of in Maryland, but we're we're closely behind them.

So here's what we do in in um emergency management.

We do a lot of planning, we do operations on a day of the event.

We're we're operating the mobile command or the EOC.

We do site visits leading up.

We meet with the organizers, we draft maps, we draft traffic plans, we have the PowerPoint presentations for the planning meetings with the departments and the partn partners, we do logistics.

If we need any resources that are not in the city, like mobile cameras that we have to set up so we can have eyes on everything, we have to get those.

We do all that.

We mediate problems game day.

And uh if we have to cancel the events, they look for OEM to give them.

So um, so yeah, so each year it's been growing a little more and a little more and taking away from our time from other things.

So in the FY27 predicted, um, we have the 250 coming up.

So not only do we have do we have the 4th of July, but we have all the activities with the 250.

So we started meeting with those organizers and trying to get get a handle on what that would look like.

So between some of the metrics there and just 40 years of my gut, I come up with that prediction.

You have the tool, do you have what you need in the budget to be able to do that?

We we can get it done.

We can get it done.

But here's what happens, and here's how it affects my performance measures, right?

So when you see these type of hours that we're doing, right, it takes away from especially updating my plans, and we have some important plans that we need to update.

I think I just had that discussion with uh deputy director Mandel, he was telling me that this is going to take away if you want me to do this, this is going to take away from us doing these other things that you want.

So we're we're at the point that we need to start looking at whether we do need another person.

And um our responsibilities are growing.

Our expectations are growing, but our capacity is still the same.

Our capacity is still the same.

So at some point we need to have a discussion.

And and the impact of this havoc.

I was gonna ask this last director, but um you've got in this budget uh planning for not getting grants.

Um and my question was gonna be um if you do get the grants, I was kind of gonna look at the city manager and say, what's the process for the city council to look at that?

I presume it'll be fund transfers and all that.

And what I would ask the city manager and you is as you get grants uh to come to the city council with uh this is what we need in emergency management before we start looking at other things that Alderman Thorpe wants to spend money on.

So um move moving on, uh the next three, um, and you touched on them a little bit, and you touched on the Food Friday being uh questionable number, which I appreciate your honesty.

Um, but all of them go down, and um they're predictions, I get it, but what if they don't go down?

They don't go down, I guess I'll be coming before the council.

And that that has been done before.

Um we've had some unusual circumstances with rental winter relief uh some years back.

I don't I don't know if you remember it, it was in 2016 where we uh overshot the budget because we had a bad winter storm.

Uh winter storm was so bad in 2016, I think it was called Jonas, um, that we got um FEMA reimbursement for recovery.

So we did over over uh run our budget that year, and then we we overrun our budget this year because of unforeseen circumstances.

These storms were were um above and beyond.

But on a normal winter, we can make it on the 38,000 that we get for these programs.

Okay, and and I haven't seen this, so I'm not worried about it.

Umservative budgeting.

Um I just want to make sure that you we don't ever convey to you that we're looking for the emergency operations center to be activated less because of budget constraints.

No, we that's our number one priority.

Uh response is our number one priority.

And we we were conservative this year, uh, because we knew that the predicament that we were in not getting any federal grant money at three salaries and the general fund.

And then just a clarification for me on substance use disorder stats.

15 a month, 180 per year, and then but the numbers are 46, 35, and 30.

I I'm not understanding the numbers, I don't think.

Okay, these numbers were were yearly numbers, right?

46 46 and 25, 35 in 26.

Yes.

So I think your question is that your question is that we're our goal is to be under 180 overdoses a year.

Is that is that your question?

Yeah, yes.

Okay, so so here's my answer to that.

We are doing good, we're bringing the numbers down.

I'm very, very happy.

Um it's a whole community thing.

We're doing good.

But what happened last July 2025 is you remember that bad bash that that was happening in Baltimore City.

Yeah.

Do you know where all our drugs come from?

It comes from Baltimore City.

And so that kind of jolted me a little bit, because we had that bad batch.

I was scrambling, talking with the police department, talking with the health department, wondering if that uh path was going to lead here to Annapolis.

Um I'm not ready to say that I can reduce it lower than 15 overdoses per month, especially this is not in my control, right?

Right.

So um it was 25 in my performance measure, but we went down to 15, and we'll see how it goes.

And I have to take it down to 10.

But a lot of times stuff is not beyond my control.

And if we get a bad batch in Annapolis, we could see they saw 27 overdoses in one day, in one day.

And that could happen here.

So I'm very kind of conservative with that number.

Thank you.

If I could go to slide 10.

Um, and this this is my question, and and uh unless you have anything else to add, uh to it from what you previously said, um we haven't we don't know that we're not gonna get these grants, but you're planning on not getting them because of the discombobulation uh what that's going on in the federal government.

But I I'd be very interested in tracking it if if we do get these grants to track what we do with those resources.

Um slide and uh I mean it looks like maybe Mr.

Palicolo is going to say something, but uh I think what we need a fund transfer, right?

It wouldn't be just well, you you go ahead rather than me speculate.

Yeah, our our view on this is we took a conservative approach here to have the general fund uh bring on the employees just to add some security and just reduce kind of concern around people's uh employment security.

And so the intention would a hundred percent be that if the grants come back online, we would issue funds transfers and then reduce budget and then increase the grants amounts.

That's uh absolutely the plan as things come and move and shift.

So we would adjust accordingly.

Yeah, I think my point is is I just would from my one-ninth of the city council viewpoint like to see that money stay in OB OEM as a because of other things we're not doing rather than pay for my favorite topic, whatever that be.

And I'm just pointing at myself.

I think I would then just go through the fund transfer process and we whatever city council ultimately approves and deliberates on.

And so let me just jump in here to make sure I understand frequently when we get a grant that we're not expecting to, like we just did this yesterday, we have to have a supplemental appropriation for this.

So this budget, tell me if I'm wrong.

This budget is set up such that those grants are not in it.

And so if we get those grants, before we even talk about moving the money around to some maybe some do something else, we'd have to have a supplemental appropriation just to accept those grants, right?

Okay, you're all nodding yes.

Yes, that's beautiful.

So we would know is what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But you get what I'm saying.

I just I hear what you're saying.

I'm not sure I 100% agree, but I hear you.

So slide just take us to slide 11, and then I'll come to you, Director to because this applies.

My question is, are you comfortable with not funding the radios?

Um in other words, to your point, the the fear of communication, and I'm gonna quasi give you my answer to the question, which is I used to say if there's an extra dollar in the budget, I want to spend it on sidewalks.

I think the chairman and I stand together on that.

Um I think I'm gonna change that statement to say if I have an extra dollar, I want to spend it on the OEM radios because if we can't communicate in a crisis, it'll it it's not the radio that's not needed that stops working, it's the radio that you know that's the most needed person in the most secluded area.

So uh I'd like to get your thoughts on that, and then I think the city manager wants to talk.

So story, quick story.

I first got here, we had Hurricane Irene, right?

And Bob Coconaro, as we all know, um in public works, he was out working it, and Storm was really battering the city of Annapolis, and I needed to call him on his radio, and he wouldn't answer.

He couldn't answer.

Uh the radios, we had poor quality radios when we got here.

So eventually we got Bob and pulled his crew in, got them to the shelter and safety.

So I was committed that day to replace the radios, the fire and police, they have good radios, but public works, wreck and parks, uh ADOT, um uh planning and zoning, they all had poor radios.

So we we got grant money over a hundred thousand dollars at the time, radios were cheaper, and just outfitted everybody with with new radios.

Everybody had new radios, and the world was all right with everyone.

So over time, radios break, they become less efficient, they get upgraded.

All of these things happen, right?

But we had no mechanism, uh, no maintenance plan to deal with radios.

They would come to our office and say this radio doesn't work anymore.

These batteries don't charge again.

So we don't have a maintenance plan.

So um, I don't even know if this is the best place for it to be in my department.

I don't even know if that's the best place for it.

Um, I don't know if central services might be better with this.

But the point is that something needs to be done.

We need to have, we pay a lot of money for these radios, 4,500 per radio, and we got 130 of them.

I mean, why don't we treat them good?

I mean, your car, right?

You do maintenance on your car, so it'll last longer, right?

You can maximize its use, and we need to do the same thing with these radios.

And um, I understand we didn't get it, but it's something that we need to think about.

We need to think about.

The director, I'm only gonna say this because I think you're already thinking the same way.

I don't do maintenance on my car so it lasts longer.

I I do maintenance on my car, so when I start when I try to start it, it starts.

You know, and that's what I'm looking for is your radio to work.

And even more so that when you're driving down the road, but they're already started, it doesn't stop right.

Yeah, so it's the same thing with the radios.

You know, we if we don't take care of them right now, when you call in somebody to say, hey, bring me something and all, but when you call in somebody in an emergency, a disaster or crisis, it it has a different feel, and you want to make sure that when you press that radio, that you're gonna get a response and what you need.

So I were you gonna say something?

I also saw Ms.

Turner.

Yes, I just wanted to clarify that the enhancement was um for a maintenance plan for all city radios, um, for it to be more like centralized, but there's actually funding in each department's budget that uses radio for maintenance.

Um I'm not for sure if OEM has funding um to maintenance their radios, but in the other departments, they have funding within their department that maintenance it for maintenance in the radios.

So could we get a readout or a do out or an action item or whatever I'm calling it to optimize it in our our notes of the cumulative amount of money getting spent across departments on radio maintenance, and then what it would cost to if we were going to have a centralized program either in OEM or OCS to centralize that.

Is that what you're looking for?

Exactly.

Okay.

That would alleviate one that would alleviate the director's challenge, and it would also I believe they all use the same vendor.

Yeah, but I can get that information.

Yeah.

And it and I think it's in his best, he's probably the director of OEM is probably the person who cares the most before the crisis that the radios work.

So I'd love the him, the OEM to have their fingers on that.

Whatever that is, well, just to push back on that just a little bit.

The public works, police, fire, they use those radios all the time.

So like they have a very vested interest in that stuff functioning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and I'm I it's up to you where the money goes.

I'm not saying Kevin doesn't have a business interest, but they do too.

Right.

Got it.

Got it.

So if you could get back, that's as the chairman said.

The bottom line is is the funding somewhere else in the budget, which would uh relieve the direct.

I would like to see clarification on that as well, because it's our understanding.

And we just went through a round of upgrades for all 130 radios, OEM did.

So I just want to make sure that if they have radio maintenance and all, then it's a moot point.

Not too sure that that's happening.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think uh a big theme throughout this budget is centralization.

So uh regardless of where it gets centralized, if we have an opportunity to bring forward an amendment to do that, that'd be great.

Um I have two questions, but let me hit one and then I'll go back to you if I have time for the second after we're you're finished.

Yeah, I don't have time.

Uh slide 15.

And I think older woman O'Neill touched on this, but I I I kind of missed the answer.

Um this is 2025 money that we don't have.

Um and if we don't get it, if we get it, we're good to go.

If we don't get it, what happens?

If we don't get the funds and I don't get what I've asked for in the general fund, I'm automatically laying off three people.

Um I can't meet the city code requirements because it requires for me to do an exercise every year like I did last year.

I won't have the funding for that.

Right.

So there I'm sorry to interrupt you, but they're you funded this is a slide that represents what you funded for in case you don't get this money, or or was that 26 grants or 27 grants.

I want to make sure I I understand the question.

So you're you're saying if I don't get FY25, right, which is zero, which we've been talking about, um, then I'm heavily dependent on a general fund and what I what I propose, which is kind of conservative, and you can see from my presentation, I could use a lot more, but kind of conservative.

I know that there's the situation that the city is in.

But if I don't get that, then you know, where do I start?

I mean, it's gonna have a cascading negative effect on OEM, which is going to have a negative effect on community preparedness, it's gonna have a negative effect on how we respond, and it's gonna have a negative um effect on how we recover from an emergency, a disaster, or crisis.

So I'm 90% sure I think of I think of what you just said.

I just want to make sure for me, this isn't me doubting you, this is me asking that because I'm confused on the fiscal year uh challenge.

So you're this is fiscal year 25 federal grant money, but it's gonna pay for fiscal year 27 employees, and you have it in the fiscal, you have less money, but you have money to maintain those three employees in the fiscal year 27 operating budget.

So we're talking about the same people and different fiscal year, but the same but funding for fiscal year 27.

Is that right?

So Alderman, um, your predecessor, Ross Arnett, had a name for the deputy here.

He called him a grant ninja, right?

Grant writing ninja.

So I'm gonna let him explain this to you, and he probably can explain it a lot clearer than I can.

Thanks, Director.

Dave Mandel, Deputy Director OEM.

So there's different labels the federal government uses versus city government.

Um the federal grants that we have not received were FY25, the federal fiscal year, FY25 that ended last September.

What Congress typically does is on the waning days of the fiscal year, they'll send out all the money, September 1st, October 1st, whatever it is.

And that comes our way shortly thereafter.

So we haven't gotten that, as the director mentioned.

And here we are six months later.

So when we say we haven't gotten F we tw FY25, that's that would have been newly received federal government funding under the federal fiscal year.

Right.

So these federal grants are multi-year grants.

There's it's not one fiscal year.

It's not that it expires this year.

They're they they're generally three year, two to three years.

Three years officially, sometimes the state wants to give us less time to make sure we spend it all.

Um so right now we're working through the end of our F our federal fiscal uh year FY24 grants.

Those expire about a year from now because they're multi-year grants.

So we think we have enough to get through some point in the fall as it stands now.

So if so if the FY25 comes through, and I hope it does, you know, obviously that'll put us back to sort of where we've been, you know, in the last few years.

But given that it's been six months and we haven't gotten anything, we can't count on it.

So we have enough money for the for the moment, um, given those grants are multi-year grants from the federal side.

And so they're working through FY25.

And should the the schedule write itself this fall, there would be FY26, but we who knows what we don't know what's gonna happen with FY25 but all on FY26.

Does that answer the question?

Yes.

Thank you.

Um chairman, that concludes my question.

So thank you very much for what you do.

By the way, I'm sorry, your budget does not include a line item that should be in there, which I lived with for 28 years and you live by, which is and other duties as assigned.

So too late to put it in.

Well, I'm gonna ask you a question that I would expect Alderman Thorpe to have asked.

And and by the way, I'm not gonna give you the main one that I was gonna ask you edge because you have so many more performance measures, I think it's not helpful.

Um, but Alderman Thorpe has been really focused on this budget on overtime.

And for a department that is working, well, sometimes 24-7.

I'm sure during those storms, it seemed like you guys were on 100% of the time.

You don't have a lot allocated towards overtime.

Can you just explain to me why that is?

So we have an over we used to have an overtime budget uh from a general fund, and then we had an overtime budget from grants.

Okay.

So I think what happened is we took an average over the last couple of years and we came up with a with an overtime budget of 25.

It's about 15.

15.8.

So if I can just supplement the answer on this one.

Um our our overtime budget has risen over the years from the city.

It started something like 2000, and I think this current year we're at 8200.

This is off the top of my head.

Yep.

Now, in formulating our budget, knowing that's a portion of it comes from grants, we went to the finance team and said, how how do we treat this?

And the response was tell us what your overtime costs actually are every year.

Grants plus general funds, so we can account for that if you don't get any grants this year.

So we took an average for the last few years, and we got about 15,000 in change.

So that was included again under finance directive in the open gov process, not as an enhancement, but as a reflection of actual costs that were already incurring.

They just wouldn't be covered by grants potentially next year.

Yeah, I'm not asking you why your overtime costs are so high.

I'm asking you why they're so low.

Well, only um four or so of our staff are eligible for overtime.

Got it.

That's one one thing to know.

I figured that was probably part of the answer.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we have a total of what 15,800.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Uh you have a 20,000 addition of supplies.

Is that also just related to this transition from grants to okay, yeah.

And then the last thing I've got is a question for you.

I told you it wouldn't be much.

Maybe we'll go back to Alderman Thorpe, is just um, I think I asked you something like this last year, but uh nationally we're seeing a trend where overdose deaths from opioids are going down, and that's wonderful, and it's thanks to the kind of work you guys are doing.

But at the same time, we're starting to see increases in stimulant death overdoses, stimulant overdose deaths, which are harder to combat in a lot of ways.

We don't have an arcan for stimulant.

So, what if anything is your department currently doing to start planning ahead for what appears to be a trend?

And is there anything additional you would need for that?

So a lot of people are talking about opioids.

Um you're in an urban situation like us, county being suburban, Baltimore City being urban, as well as DC, you know, we have to think of things that they don't think about, like PCP, like what you're talking about.

So what we have done is um we actually have the use the opioid money.

We go into our highest overdosing wards.

I'm gonna use ward four as an example in the past.

I'm gonna use ward six as an example as well.

I went into those communities and I found a person that actually knows the communities.

I know them, but I don't really know them.

And so I did find a person that's right over here to my right, uh, way before this person was an older person, and I said, Hey, can you help me?

Can you help me?

I want to bring the overdoses down a community.

So I employed um the all the woman Contee.

And together we we got the um the well mobile, we we did op opio um yes.

Um what do you call them?

The sticks.

Like oh, opioid training and narcane training.

Fentanyl strips, and and we we were heavy duty into that.

And with our work, we were able to install the first harm reduction vending machine residential in the county and in Eastport.

We were able to do that.

So I did the same thing in Ward Ward 4.

So it it takes non-traditional methods to meet what what you're talking about.

And I had I went in ward four, I hired a person, same thing.

We went and did different things now.

Now we have a harm reduction vending machine at uh American Legion.

And then we have the uh what do you call that thing the big big bus?

Oh, the well move in the Wellmobile, thank you.

And we have the well mobile in Ward 4 as well.

So we're always thinking out of the box, and again, you need to get in with somebody who actually knows those wards and knows the nooks and crannies and knows what's happening and knows the people, and then we go from there.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just I I wanted to use my 15 minutes of fame, as it were, to spotlight this is something that I think we need to be looking on the horizon for and using a lot of those same kinds of tools you guys have been using.

But some of them, some of them don't work, and so we need to come up with some new ones.

Some of them will work, and we can keep using it just in a different capacity.

Alder Rowland County, do you have any questions?

Anything you want to add?

Okay.

Uh Alderman Thorpe, you want me to want to go back?

We got five more minutes.

Sure.

Um I'm I'm gonna ask arguably a very difficult question and a very philosophical question.

Um I've I've been asking everybody if you had another five percent, what what would you use the funds for?

I want to reword it for you because you are so your department is so can do.

What keeps you up at night when it comes to what the city council could do for you?

Um you know, what you know, uh thinking out of the box is as you said, um a lot of what you do is quite frankly uh not the traditional sidewalks, roads, potholes, planning and zoning, et cetera.

So what keeps you up at night?

What what are you gonna wish in three years that you'd have funded in fiscal year 27?

That's a couple of questions there.

Up at night, I can't really talk about it right now.

But then again, you've in another department who said the same thing, so I think you know what I'm talking about.

Hurricanes, I do your tornadoes, I do your snowstorms, I do your terrorism, I'll do all of that stuff every day of the week, 24-7, 365.

But the one thing that keeps me up at night, it really makes me nervous, and so what was the other question?

Was it all part of that question?

Well, I I think Director Simmons you just asked it, which I think puts a action on us, and maybe Mr.

Chairman, over to you to talk to the mayor.

Maybe we need a closed session on hearing what Director Simmons is saying, um, and making sure that it's uh supported appropriately by the city.

I think that might be a good idea.

Maybe it's something we want to loop in to this meeting on Monday, and just say, all right, we're gonna we're gonna take 30 minutes here.

Anything in the budget that we can't be talking about in open session to make sure everybody gets a good briefing on that.

Uh because there certainly are some things that uh yeah, make sense.

Okay.

Um I think I could ask you five different iterations of that question, but uh I'll I'll say it publicly what I've said to you privately, and and uh the the big question that is unanswerable is what are you gonna wish you'd done two or three years from now?

But I think you're already thinking that and you're already working it.

So I just want to make sure that that for anybody listening.

I have seen the command center operate uh for a parade.

Um I have watched your operation, and uh you are the single person for the city in the lead to to predict the unap unpredictable.

So uh I would encourage you to push the city council.

Well, with that, it's just shy of 1045.

So I'll unless you got anything any last thing you feel like we need to add, Director Simmons.

I do not.

Okay.

Anyone else got any last thing they need to add?

Honor Roman O'Neill.

Nope.

I'm not sure if she's with us or not.

Uh frozen in time.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, we'll we'll take it as she's good then.

Uh if not, she'll let us know.

Uh but with that, I'll look for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.

Second speaker.