Committee is called order at 2 18 p.m.

on May 11th, 2026.

Thanks everybody for being here with us today.

Yeah, we're what we're gonna do today is go through the finance committee report.

We've got it up on the screen and really we'll just walk through it.

Um I'm not gonna read every section by any means.

The point is to just kind of go section by section.

If one of my colleagues on the committee has something they feel like we need to further discuss, just jump in and raise it, and then we will vote on the recommendations for each section.

Um we can start right here in the top.

Uh maybe not right in the top unless any of you have an issue with my West Moore quote.

But uh I think making clear what the priorities that were most commonly mentioned were a really good way to start this off strong.

So um the we're we're working through exactly how to mention these, so transportation infrastructure, or perhaps just improved infrastructure, uh, which we have sidewalks, crosswalks, walkability, street lights, speed reduction, smart signals, and raise intersections.

I think that covers it.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Isn't there a part of this report that's in here?

Um you're saying report to the city council, like it should give it a breakdown.

I think the first thing should be the um the quote.

Oh, does it uh oh well oh I see what you're saying?

No, there was uh there was a graphic beforehand.

Uh Mitchell is updating that graphic.

Okay.

Yeah, all right.

Is there anything else we were missing?

Yes, because that was in there.

She actually had already updated it, but the one thing she didn't change was changing 26 to 27.

So she's just gotta fix that.

Okay.

Okay, so improved infrastructure.

I've just copied what was from that presentation.

So sidewalks, crosswalks, walkability, street lights, speed reduction, smart signals, raise, oh, intersections.

Yeah, I think that's yeah.

I think that just about gets at it.

And then with that, I'd be fine with deleting this better service delivery for residents.

Um yeah, I mean, yeah, the reason I think we could delete it is because you think community programs and environment and sustainability more or less cover it.

Um maybe the one thing that I'm seeing in here, or that I'm not seeing in here that was on my mind under service delivery is uh improved permitting times.

So maybe I could just lump that under environment and sustainability or service.

Well, no, I'm suggesting we delete service delivery because I think it's covered under other things.

Or if you think there's enough things that are not covered, we can put a parenthesis behind it and list a couple things.

Okay, so service delivery was not a term used in the brief.

Correct.

So that's why you're adding it there, because it was talked about.

So I wrote better service delivery.

And then you suggested later that we just use the terms for the brief, which I think is smart.

So service delivery is sort of a holdover, and I'm suggesting we either cut it or if there are parts of service delivery that are not in here currently that we put a parenthesis to say what we mean by service delivery.

How about I like your idea of service delivery and it I think karma had something, but you know, to your point, parent, permit, permits, parking, uh.

removal, snow and garbage removal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That works.

I think the residents are asking for better service.

Right.

Okay.

Um, unless there are any more comments on that section about top priorities.

I suggest we move on.

Alterman Thorpe had a great suggestion to swap out this Annapolis graphic for something that says Annapolis works.

I think that's really relevant to the new mayor.

Uh Ms.

Jackson, can you take care of checking in with either the PIO or somebody else in the mayor's office to get a pretty little Annapolis works graphic for us?

And I'm sure that Mitchell could do something like that.

This was created from a council retreat that we had three years ago.

So that was the priorities and the topics for conversation at the time.

So it's been used over and over because of that.

Yeah.

Because that was sort of the continuing theme through the last term.

So all the more reason it makes sense to update it.

And to be clear when I say that says Annapolis Works, a graphic that that says Annapolis works, which is I think which you were just Annapolis works, but a cool graphic that says Annapolis that that communicates the message, Annapolis works.

All of these little subs are what make Annapolis work, but I hear you.

These are important ones.

Okay.

So moving on to general fund revenue.

I think one thing that was a little bit surprising to me that I'll flag for you was um as far as the revenue increase of the general fund.

The uh most of it is due to property tax revenue, that's not surprising, but also an additional one point two million dollars in income tax growth, which uh I was a little bit surprised by.

So just flagging that for your awareness, and uh we don't have any recs in this section.

So anything you guys want to discuss.

So uh I give you two the license to say we're not gonna talk about this today.

Um, but I don't know that we can really do anything about and and I know it's been a topic for a long time about about that almost two-thirds of our revenue comes from but they're really gonna are we really gonna put any effort to diversify that, or is that our revenue sources?

I mean I got yeah, it's a fair question.

It's it's actually arguably a good thing.

Um, we signed that resolution back in March that we wanted to be able to look at this what the state is doing with both sales tax and other issues.

So we did sign on saying we were interested in exploring other revenue opportunities for the city, um, and that's one of them.

And I believe that they mayors suggested um philanthropic consultants would be not revenue necessarily, but uh a counter against yeah, incoming funding that would counter against what we need for revenue for our expenses.

That's a great point.

If that makes sense, yeah.

But to your point, Alderman for Thorpe, I do think it's fair to point out like if we're gonna put this as a challenge, we're gonna put it as our number one challenge here, which they're not really in order, but it is the first one.

We should have a hearing on this.

This is something something we should talk about in the intervening year, and and I've, as I mentioned, I got a list.

I think we're up to eight or nine topics for us to have finance committee hearings about over the next year.

Um also just flag for you guys on your challenges that there was a worry in the last one about tightening of state and federal grant availability.

We have seen that borne out to some extent, but I think not as much as we were maybe worried about last year.

So this is uh that's why I wrote some.

I thought we were seeing more than we saw last year because, for instance, in OEM where they had three positions that have been grant funded, we're now funding them from the general fund.

Right.

I'm sorry, I maybe I misspoke.

I meant we have seen less than I think we were worried about happening, but we definitely have seen more than this time in 2025.

But as I remember, last year we were like, oh my god, we're gonna lose all of our federal money.

So that was how I I guess that was my baseline.

So you just said something I think I really like, which is kind of a criteria for challenges.

Fancy.

Um, which is the criteria as we go through this is does it kind of come to or get close to a the threshold to have a city council work session?

That's that would make sense as a good rough idea.

Not that we bond ourselves by it, but if it's a challenge, it's something we think is that significant.

Yeah, yeah, there were one or two places on here I have to say where it had been listed as a challenge in the previous year, and I looked at it again this year.

I was like, man, we should have done something to think a little harder about that in the past year.

That would be really actionable if we could turn that over to Neely and Yeah, I'd be happy to sort through that with you.

Um moving on, nothing terribly surprising in the expenditure column.

Um Ms.

Jackson, do you know whether this graphic has already, or maybe it's uh Capri, this graphic that we're looking at here has been updated or not?

Yes, it's updated.

Thank you.

Can I uh jump in any time?

It might be too late to do this, but would it have been a good idea to keep the 26 information in there?

Yeah.

This is our report on the 27 budget.

I think it could be confusing in this case.

I get what why you might want to.

I I get why there are definitely situations where we want to be able to look at the difference, but I don't think having two pie charts side by side would be the best way to do it.

It's just like in in open gov, I can look at the stacked bars if I want to look over time, or I can look at the pie graph for just one year.

But we could have the stacked bars.

I mean, it just would be r it would get really confusing for this where we have so many different categories.

In the past, the public has appreciated the pie graph because it's easier to follow with all of those.

All right.

But I appreciate you asking the question.

I mean, it's that's what we're trying to do here is make sure we have the best uh process.

Um it's not a huge deal, but Ms.

Turner, if there's a way to correct that, so city council's not at zero percent.

If we could be at point one or something, that would be wonderful.

I can see if it allows me to update it um to show a point.

If it doesn't, that's that's fine.

Don't worry about it too much.

Okay.

If anything, we can add a note underneath.

We'd appreciate the acknowledgement of just how cost effective we are.

Um moving along to the fund allocation of capital reserve and budget stabilization fund.

This is uh nothing terribly surprising.

Oh, I'm realizing I guess I didn't change the color when I did this.

Apologies, but these are all updated, and it's um it's it's a pretty darn simple formula.

But obviously, the thing anyone can notice is that we do have less one-time use money at the end of this than in previous years.

Moving on to debt capacity, uh, very similar that there is nothing terribly surprising in this.

Um I think really the only difference is that in the previous budget cycle, we were talking about the FY26 debt service, and we saw that two years after that was when debt service cracked 10%.

So it was FY28 in that budget, and then it was above 10% for three additional years through FY31.

In this budget, we again see two years out is when we would crack the 10% debt uh service level in FY29, but slightly unlike last year's budget, we continue to exceed it through FY33.

Now, caveats that there's all these conservative um assumptions in this, etc.

etc.

But I do think, and this is a point Alderman Savage brought up, it's worth noting that we are seeing a year-over-year slight increase to how often we would be above that policy.

All right, here's the the fun sexy part, the capital improvements budget.

So I did take a little bit of a different tact on this than last year, in that I tried to um just put a little bit more detail about all the different capital projects.

So we have three categories the ones that were completed or removed, the ones that were added, and the ones that had significant changes in funding or scope.

So the ones that are added tend to be the ones that have the least information because we just don't know as much about them.

But um I feel like this covers what we need to know in this budget, and if anybody has anything before we get to the recommendation part of capital, if anyone has anything they'd like to edit within my description of the capital projects, now would be the time to speak up.

I think this is really well done.

I appreciate your effort.

Okay.

And then as far as recommendations, um, they're both somewhat general.

Well, one's kind of general and kind of specific, but it's literally about general.

Um and I just tried to capture the sort of mood that I heard from all three of us.

Obviously, each one of us are gonna have things that we want that might be specific to our wards, it might be specific uh to our priorities.

But as far as what is the the top-line understanding of the capital budget, there were really two things to me.

One was shifting from internal facing upgrades to city government towards external facing improvements for residents that they can actually see, and then to get maybe a little maybe it's sort of a subcategory or it's separate, but the slightly more specific of that was general roadways, general sidewalks, general sidewalks, brick, and general striping and marking were all areas that could be increased within that.

Are there any suggested changes to these recommendations?

Are there any additional recommendations that you guys suggest we include?

Are there any um any ones of these you should think we should take away?

Armin Thorpe, do you have any thoughts on we were talking about this uh fire station and your conversation with central services?

You think anything about that would be worth including here?

Um, maybe a little specific.

Um I have to tell you, I think these two bullets that you've drafted are the key part to this whole document.

Um weeks of staff briefs and discussions we've had.

It's these two.

That's why my reaction about the fire station, we really didn't talk about it, but we are now, but if we wanted to put it in, we could, but but these two I mean it, you know, debrief this tonight.

I mean, I think this is the major takeaway from everything we heard.

Yeah, um, and it it almost seems to me to kind of be my internal test as I have these discussions.

Um, and I think it's also a very clear message to the to the mayor of what the city council was looking for.

Um and what became really apparent from the city staff.

Yeah, and I think a lot of it you could sum up as we all agree on Annapolis works.

Part of that is Annapolis works for its employees if we want it to work for the residents, but I think what we saw in here was a need to shift it a little bit more towards Annapolis works for the residents directly.

Uh, so that that was the phrase I was gonna use tonight, but that's there's your spoiler.

That's the teaser.

Jared's gonna watch this later and know exactly what I'm gonna say.

Uh all right.

Do you want to talk about DPW enterprise accounts, Alderman Thorpe?

Sure.

Um, I don't think I need to go through the bullets.

What I did try to do under the good news is and and the challenges is when the increases were going uh staying the same or going down.

It was good news challenges when they were going the opposite direction.

Um, and I thought that would ended up to be pretty straightforward and and pretty informative.

I am concerned I think we're all concerned about the rate increases but when you compare them to what we've been doing.

Sound a little bit like spin but the good news is the increases aren't increases over last year you know in the previous year so the the second order derivative isn't is put is uh negative yeah boy that's uh I'll put that on a campaign poster it could be worse it's still increases but they're not higher than the increase was last year right I told you I said the second order derivative is negative but was I not clear um so that that makes perfect sense um as far as recommendations one thing that we had talked about that I don't see in here was whether it would be possible to smooth the stormwater increase somewhat if we're talking about doing 15% of this year and seven percent in the following years could we do 10% over every year and um do you have any thoughts on that do either of you have any thoughts on including as a recommendation trying to make them more stable maybe that's the right word more flat um I think that that's a good recommendation my other question is also when they were here presenting they talked about the new calculations for stormwater thought we all agreed that that is what we should be implementing so that should be one of the recommendations.

Yeah and I set forward totally agree I think there's a a comment on that also in here.

Yeah because it literally says in the slide we need an amendment to that's an amendment we need to make well we're lucky we have Miss Guil there who would be the right person to ask about this right uh oh maybe maybe I'm putting you too much on the spot it struck me as an environmental thing right now tangently involved with it but that'd be actually public work so Betsy McEwen would be the appropriate person to ask.

So I think that's definitely a do out because is that an amendment so one of our recommendations is create an amendment to move forward with the plan set out by Stante.

Got it to alter the how did I write it it's the calculation of the um impervious surface thing thank you thank you that's exactly so what the slide says is recommend the staff recommends an amendment for adoption prior to start of FI27 with an alternative fee structure for non-residential projects.

Yeah.

So I just copied that I just copied the word for word there and put it down on the committee recommendations.

So would it make sense to take that action with the budget so these a lot of the recommendations are just going to be listed in the document they'll be tracked in the future this one we actually have to do before June 30th very bottom of this report is the recommended amendments so that will go into that one perfect okay but back to my point about flattening um I I don't I feel like I lean towards saying we should include that as a recommendation but that I don't have enough information to say with a lot of certainty that it is the right thing to do.

So if either of you feel like yes that's definitely the right thing to do I say we should stick it in there or maybe if both of you do and if you are in the same position as me of saying that sounded like a good idea but I'm not totally sure and maybe it has some kind of negative implications then I think we could just keep moving and not include it.

So I I would fully support asking Stantech to run those numbers.

The challenge is it may not it may not balance out.

In other words, it might become 148888 right rather than 1577.

But even that it might be even because when you do the 15, you do the 15, you get you get them all across the exactly.

That's a good point.

777.

But you're suggesting like for instance last year they suggested 15 and we did 12.

We voted for 12.

So if we were to vote for 12 but addressing plus the three from last year.

Yeah, perhaps we ask them to run that.

What if we did 12?

What if we did what if we did 14?

What if we did 13?

What if we did 12?

What would it do to the out years?

Yeah.

And I I think I did actually ask them to do that.

Um I don't think we got a response.

Uh which, you know, that's the difference between having public works so we can just pick up the phone and call and having an outside consultant.

But I'm seeing that as a follow-up.

Yeah.

I don't see an answer from Stan Tech on that yet.

So I think we should leave it out.

And if we can get well, maybe for recommendation, and then we can further the amendment once we have the data.

Yeah.

So let's uh just call it consider.

Consider um flattening fee increases.

Anybody got a better way?

Averaging.

Spreading.

Oh, Capri had a question.

Yeah, Mr.

Turner.

Um Capri and our budget analyst.

I wanted to clarify if your committee's recommendations are your amendments that you'll be putting forward.

I think they're a little broader than our amendments.

So there might be some where we say very specifically we want to remove a hundred thousand dollars from here and put it to here, and then there are other ones that are like, well, there are some that are broad, like we should fund more of general roadways, which that's not really fair to make you come up with an amendment where we're not saying how we're gonna fund it.

Now, I'll tell you right now, I submitted an amendment yesterday that said reduce this and split it exactly between these four things.

But so and what I'm getting at, uh Ms.

Turner is maybe just we can go through you and I the recommendations at the end, and any ones that need to become an amendment, but that for one reason or another nobody has submitted, we can just make sure those ones specifically get tracked.

Okay.

But yeah, something like consider well, actually maybe that's a bad example, but um like get more information on the wastewater treatment cost.

No, that's not an amendment.

Uh you want to finish your consideration.

Stormwater fee increases.

When he's writing might be an amendment if the data that Stan Tech comes through with makes supports it, but it might not be if it doesn't support it.

Excuse me.

Um, Jackie Gald, acting city manager.

So are you sending a request also to Director Vogel and or Betsy McKulen for it to run those scenarios with Stantech?

Well, what what I did when we had the Stantec folks here was said very clearly to them, can you please run this scenario for me and get back to us?

And as far as I know, they have not gotten back to us.

So yeah, I guess I would go to Betsy and make sure that they actually do.

Okay.

I can follow up on it.

I can actually follow up on it to make sure um that it's done.

The only issue is that the deadlines to submit the amendments is today.

So if we received it after, if we don't get it today, it would have to come um after the budget is passed.

Let's submit it as an amendment and we can always pull it later, sure.

Correct.

Um I'll put that on me.

I will make sure that it gets submitted.

Let me just oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll just talk with Cabri.

Yes, thank you.

She's she's long as we tell her that's what we want is the amendment.

Okay.

Uh I want to move on to fees and fines, and they're this is a funny one because there are frequently some things in other departments that really were recommending fees and fines changes.

But um so like the stormwater fee one.

But I tried to limit this to only things outside of those four enterprise fund fees.

So this isn't talking about uh trash or water or wastewater or stormwater.

Um but note that there is this commercial recycling annual fee and refuse all our permit fee, those are permits rather than what we residents are paying for trash, so I did include those.

Um think there is anything terribly surprising here that we hadn't heard about before.

This house barges violation fine jumping from 500 to a thousand.

It's interesting.

I think that's on marinas, not on individuals.

Uh is that right, Alderman Thorpe?

Do you know?

Oh, Miss Galile, do you want to weigh in?

No, I don't know.

This is the first I've heard of those, so I'm very interested.

Uh well, it increases the fine from 500 to $1,000.

That's what the proposed budget does on house barges.

That's not our amendment.

Correct.

Did that come from the Harbor Master's office?

But it comes from the budget.

Okay.

Well, and it I it comes from the fines resolution, right?

Okay.

Yeah.

I'll check in with the Harbor Master.

But I assume what that's copy on that.

I assume what that is for is we have regulations already about house barges.

If a marina has more than they're allowed to, then they can get a fine.

Right.

There's a there's uh a fine of two fifty and they can go up to five hundred um per citation.

So this is just increasing that it so I'm I need to f follow up the heartmaster though to make sure I don't know where this came from, actually.

I don't remember discussing this with them.

Um, so whether that's that should be imposed in the same way that's being posed right now.

Enforced, I'm sorry, in the way on the operator of the house barge, the owner of the house barge.

There have been just some discussion at some point that where whether the marina owners should also be cited, but it's right now it's you cite the owner of the house barge.

Good to know.

That seems like something maybe we should change, but we would have to change it in code rather than here.

Huntley, uh the I just noticed this and I apologize for the question before.

It was there only one fine change in the budget.

I thought there was more than uh you know, I feel like that doesn't seem right to me either, and yet I went through it and could have sworn that I double check that.

Um, that's fee.

Well, that's a great segue into one of our recommendations, which is increasing fines for unlicensed short-term rentals.

Um Alderman Thorpe, you had a a suggestion down here for how to phrase that.

Um I wrote a different way in my amendments.

I think I just hadn't read yours yet, maybe.

Five hundred dollars per advertisement per paper for each ad placement of unlicensed short term rental.

I wrote it as uh, see what's it, $200 now?

I increased it to $500, or the amount per uh the amount how did I phrase it?

The highest uh advertised nightly rate on the place.

Meaning if you're renting a place for a thousand dollars a night, you could actually get charged a thousand dollars rather than just five hundred and who's the enforcer on that uh planning zoning.

So I talked to Director Zukovia about this, and uh I don't want to speak for them, but it it made sense.

Uh the um the only point I would say to you is I think it needs to be a cost, and the way you just described it would be break-even.

I'd lose nothing.

So if so I don't have any problem.

I like I like your idea because I think what you're concerned about is the person renting their basement for 300 compared to their 16-bed house for $1,000 or whatever.

Um, but I would say two times that two times, whatever the if they advertise it for $300, $600 fines.

They advertise it for $1,000, $2,000 fine.

Yeah, uh I mean I think if you're advertising something for a thousand dollars and you can find a thousand dollars, you're losing money on it.

But yeah, sure.

Not if you rent it out.

No, no, you I mean, I think you are because you have costs, right?

You're paying the cleaning service, you're paying the restock toilet, whatever.

I'm not trying to quibble too much on it.

Ultimately, um I asked Ms.

Letter to come up to um opine on whether we can actually do that or not, treat in the fine schedule, do that variable fine.

Did you come up to tell me we can't do it, Miss Leonard?

It's not a hard note, but generally, generally the legal advice for when you're doing fines is there has to be a rational basis for why you're charging one versus the other.

And usually it has to deal with staff time, recouping costs.

So you would have to, if you're going to implement this, you would have to indicate why one set that's getting the larger fine, what the basis, what you're basing that larger amount in.

And it can't just be on like what they're doing, it has to sort of tie back to like how we're operating, generally speaking.

But what you're saying makes perfect sense for fees.

But for fines, how do we we charge $70 for a speed camera violation where you're going much faster and less if you're not going as fast.

But that's because the rational basis is much faster as a higher safety risk.

So would you you have to tie it to some sort of either governmental costs, governmental staff, or public safety.

There has to be sort of some sort of rationale because otherwise you're treating essentially two people that are essentially doing the same thing in a different way without sort of a basis for it.

Let me can I walk down that path a bit to use a $300 and a thousand dollar comparison?

The impact of an unlicensed $300, $300 basement compared to the impact of a thousand dollar sixteen-bed house.

That could be valid, but you just we need to have sort of that sort of documented on the backside so we know so that when staff is sort of applying it, they know how to sort of judicially apply it.

And I think that's what Alderman Huntley was going at earlier, was it was it's different, the size magnitude of the unlicensed short-term rental.

Yeah, so I mean that if you're tying it with the it's a much bigger rental and it's going to have different impacts, we just that just sort of needs to be sort of specified somewhere, um, perhaps in the code section, not necessarily in the fee schedule, but in the code section saying that like the fines will be based on X, Y, and Z, sort of just to help one people understand why they're getting a bigger fine, and two, help with enforcement.

So enforcement knows how to sort of apply it.

Otherwise, it may be looked at as vague, you know, ambiguous, uh unfrivolous or you know, unsubstantiated type of fine.

So we just that would you would just that example you gave is a perfect example of the why.

So do we want to maybe I think what we can do here is just put in two options and say we're our overarching recommendation is increase fine for unlicensed short-term rentals, and then we could copy and paste your suggestion of $500 per advertisement, and we can put in my suggestion of uh minimum fine being the nightly the highest advertised nightly rental rate.

I I'm okay with that, but my I think we just got to a good solution.

So we could do both, or just do one.

I got you.

Do you do you?

I would do the advertised nightly rate.

Yeah.

Two times the the average.

Two times the average nightly rate.

Okay.

I would do because otherwise you're spinning your wheels trying to find all of the publications that somebody is advertising on.

And what if there's a brand new one?

What if there's a secret newsletter that they're advertising on to get there, you know, they're not going through Airbnb or VRBO.

They're going through neighborhood rentals ABC.

Yeah, I guess I guess my, and I haven't really thought about this, so this is brainstorming.

But if I'm gonna game it, then I'm gonna advertise this ten times for ten dollars and one time for the real fee.

And so I'd like to think that if and as we work the short-term rental legislation, if they advertise it ten times at different rates, then if I I plan it on it should use the most logical rate, which probably is the highest, but um, but if we go to average, that kind of violates the KISS keep it simple sailor process because then the reclam is, wait a minute, you're finding me four hundred dollars, but I advertised it three times in these other publications for two fifty, so I'm you know, so I I would just keep it my thought is keep everything as simple as we can from an enforcement standpoint.

But we're having a hard time right now.

Right.

I've got two in my board that have been a problem for at least a year, and they're still renting.

So I think our recommendation here is increase baseline fines for unlicensed short-term rentals to five hundred dollars per night, and set minimum fine equal to highest to twice to twice the highest advertised nightly rate.

That works for you guys.

Is it clear enough?

It's good.

Can you just add a sentence that includes like your your thing that you're basing it on the nightly rental because you're because it's a bigger property that could have more impact on the neighborhood or something along those lines.

So the way it the way it's written now, somebody could be fined if they rent their short-term rental out without a license, they advertise it for 400 and they rent it out and they rent it out for three nights, they could be fined three times fifteen plus two times whatever I said the rate was four hundred dollars.

That's not how I understand it.

What I'm was thinking is you're not you're not double counting, you're doing it as this is the minimum fee.

So if in your example, uh, well, let's say not your example.

Let's say the example of somebody who has a thousand dollar a night one.

If they were to rent it out for three nights without a license under current law, they would be fined six hundred dollars.

Under our upping it to five hundred dollars a night law, they would be charged fifteen hundred dollars, right?

Three nights times five hundred dollars by adding in this third one, or this the second part, setting the minimum fine, we're making it so that they are charged three thousand dollars.

What we're doing is just saying if you're advertising for more than five hundred dollars a night, your fine is increasing.

Is that I would be fine with that because it gets a little too high if you do both.

Yeah.

But then should it say or among the two options or and then at the end, whichever is higher?

It would be the higher of A versus B.

Yeah.

Because it if you did the three nights plus twice the advertising, then you start to cut into their mortgage.

Yeah.

And I think that's how we would phrase it in the actual fine.

Is we typically say this the higher of the two is how it's typically written, right?

Cool.

Okay.

Um moving on.

So thank you, Miss Leonard.

I think we're good on that topic.

I appreciate it.

You just stay there if you like.

You can come up and get a cookie if you need.

Uh might get a cookie.

Yeah, go ahead.

Please get it.

Um increasing short-term rental registrations for non-owner occupied while lowering them relative to proposed for owner-occupied.

So I'll tell you guys how I submitted this as a budget amendment with not knowing what exactly the numbers should be.

I said bump it up to 700 for non-owner-occupied and bump it down to 600 for owner-occupied.

I think that makes sense.

If we if we actually have five times as many non-owner occupies as we have owner-occupied, that would result in us making more money than frankly we should on these.

Um, but without knowing the exact numbers from Chris of the breakdown between owner-occupied and non-owner-occupied, I thought it made sense to just say what we're trying to get at here is split the two.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

So are you guys okay with this as it's written?

Yeah, and I'm fine with the number right now.

Um, and maybe we actually even want to include it as a uh recommendation.

I I would like to ensure, and to the city attorney's point that fees can only cover the cost to the city, but I would like to ensure that we cover all the costs.

Absolutely.

And and this is one where I think we need to go to the extra couple steps to ensure that everybody's costs who have anything to do with this, and gasoline to inspect them.

I mean, they would really I with the emotion that's involved in the with the residents.

I think we need to capture every dime so that the residents writ large aren't paying for this program.

So I'm just I'm happy to add in a amendment because I think we're all in agreement on that.

And so I'm phrasing it as insure what you're just saying.

Yeah, which is ensure that um STR fees cover full program costs.

Alright, the next one that I had put in here was increasing fees for recreation and parks and for the harbormaster for non-residents while lowering for residents.

Uh Alderman Thorpe let me know that the harbormaster tells us apparently we can't do that for um for non-residents.

Do you know anything about that, Ms.

Cobb?

Yes.

Um I'll just give you as background.

Yeah, I started this quest with the trucks and boat ramp, as that was a place that we know lots of non-residents use, and it might make sense to just bifurcate those fees.

So you let me know what you know.

So the the boat ramp, we we do um DNR's rules do apply to that, and they do not allow us to charge differently.

Um so there and then they have they they we applied for a fee increase and they have approved that.

So we can do the inquiries, we just can't do it apply it differently between the residents and the non-residents.

And so okay, trucks in park, can't do it.

And but what about other examples within the Harbor Master's Office?

Would you say generally speaking, they're all under falling under these DNR rules because we got in program?

This is because of program open space money, right?

That's no, I don't I don't believe it's programmed.

Open space money.

Is this law or DNR's rules?

No, it's tied with um, so I don't believe it's program open space, although program open space does have that, but a lot of the DNR grants of which there's a variety, um, basically say that if you're taking state money, it's that you have to sort of apply it equally, or you have to get their approval, written approval in advance for a change.

Um, I don't have a full, I know there is a lot of DNR money on of various types on I would say a substantial number of our um water-related facilities.

Um I don't know if they're all, but DNR did send me once a comprehensive list, and it's that's a lot.

Yeah, for the boat ramp, there's there's one, and we have to treat residents and non-residents the same for watershed improvement program grants, which we we do our street end improvements with those, our bulkheads, our floating docks, etc.

Um DNR, those are DNR again grant um related, I believe that is a across the board same.

Well, there's no fees associated with those anyway, but we have city rules like how long you can dock, how what size, but those are city rules applied to that.

So there's no fees related to that.

There's just citations, which are not different based on who's docking, who's pulled up their dinghy there?

Um, and then we have mooring ball, um, which mooring balls, which are DNR again.

Some of them, the some of the fields are DNR grant funded um same fees there for everybody.

Um, and but then the city operates its um our mooring balls that the city owns that we put out annual leases on, and we do charge differently for that because those aren't DNR funded mooring balls, they're city mooring balls, and therefore we can make up our own rules.

Got it.

So I'm confused.

Can the two of you tell us specifically concerning the Truxton Park ramp?

What prevents us from charging out of Annapolis?

Different rate.

That one is definitely a DNR grant.

Plus, I think there's programs open space.

I think Truxton has, I believe, both program open space plus additional DNR grants.

So we have used those two funds for trucks and park ramp.

Is that what you're saying?

Okay, truckston park rather has a that's for sure has a lot of DNR funding tied to it.

I'm able to charge differently.

So I'm gonna delete Harbor Master out of this.

Um, do we think this is still something that's viable for wrecking parks?

Yes.

Okay.

But I think you also had there's a fee increase for our mooring balls, but that's and which again, city can do that.

We can increase our mooring ball rate.

We're not proposing that it'd be different for county residents or city residents, but we're going the proposal was to go from 35 dollars to 40 dollars, which is still I think below market rate.

I don't think anyone will blink at that.

Um, it has those fees have not been increased in 10 years.

Wow.

So we're losing revenue there, and they can they do generate quite a bit of revenue.

They can be turned over three times at a day, so that could it's either thirty-five dollars three times or forty dollars three times.

And with City Doc not being able to have as many people docking there because of construction, we're looking at the mooring balls to generate the revenue from our boating operations.

What would stop us from making the mooring balls for FY27?

45 versus 35 just as an IP uh a way to make up for not having dock dockage at City Dock for the season.

I don't think anything prevents us.

I think it's a question of the recommendation of the staff.

Yeah, so nothing prevents you from doing that to make it a whatever, hundred dollars a night if you had use if you wanted to.

But we think, you know, and it's been 10 years, it probably should be 45 dollars, even $50.

But as far as you know, people some people that come in are residents that tie up.

I've done it.

Um so I'm not a resident, but from the local area, you know what I mean.

Um, so I think the Harbor Master thought just doing five dollars is not gonna cause any heartburn to anybody, but if we went up $10, it might.

But that's up, you know, you can make it whatever you want.

I would like to agree to give her top cover and make it $45, go to what you're saying rather than five dollars, ten dollars.

I don't think $45 dollars for a morning ball is prohibitive.

Amendment we could put forward we agree.

Yeah I don't I don't have a problem with it per se but I'm not terribly inclined to put it in our recommendation at this point unless we have a particular need to do it just because I'm a little wary of we just came up with this idea just now and also I'm not sure we would spend the money on but that's just me being wary more than me saying absolutely no.

Um I would say that I would support it because I would not support lowering the resident park and rec fee um I do support increasing the non-resident park and rec fee but I believe that park and rec fee is all told if we had more revenue there could possibly be more programming which goes back up to that after care scenario that is one of the priorities of the council.

So okay I'm gonna delete this while lowering for residents from the wrecking parks one.

I'm fine with getting rid of that you guys both really want to bump up the morning ball fee.

And I did have in other thoughts that we should better adjust for inflation.

So if you guys both want to do that I am fine with increasing daily city owned yeah fee on city owned.

Okay.

Everybody all right with these green recommendations I'm gonna move on to these couple from Alderman Thorpe.

Okay so we can strike this first one about rental units.

Yeah yeah I think if the Harbor Master is here she would ask you um not city owned she would use she would ask you to use her I agree Alderman um for I think that it people just like what is the city owned and what is not at that point so um and then there's jocking for what they think is city owned.

We just considered them all city mooring balls so I just would say mooring balls.

Go with me.

And then if someone um decided if we found you know the the rare situation where someone actually could install their own mooring ball um then that would be outside of this daily fee.

Okay.

So I'm just gonna go ahead and delete this chunk here.

Uh and then yeah I gotta tell you Alderman Thorpe I'm not a fan of uh decreasing the red curb once so uh I mean we could do something we uh like we have in another place where we put in here that it's uh you guys feel strongly enough that that you want to put it in here and we'll just note that I'm dissenting but I think that's better as an individual amendment if you're okay with that yeah I'm okay with that um if you have it saved before I yeah Alderman um I'm sorry Huntley uh I just had a reply from the Harbor Master and she said that the proposal does include the marina owner so a fine against the both the owner of the house bar offending house barge and the marina owner the rationale being that the marina owner allowed them to be there without a permit.

Yeah it makes total sense to me that the marina owners should be responsible um so okay thank you for explaining you're saying both sorry you're saying they both get fined on correct that's what the current proposal is.

Currently, the citation only goes to the owner of the house barge.

The proposal is the owner of the house barge and the marina owner.

How would that happen if that would require a code change?

Yes, right.

Okay.

Where is that code change happening?

It's not happening right now.

There's there need to be an amendment for that.

Got it.

Okay.

Well, it wouldn't even be a budget amendment.

It would be we'd have to do some of the yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

All right, that's fine.

Um, did you have this copied before I knock it out of here?

Thank you.

Yep.

Um parking buses.

I think that's a great idea.

I know it's a little bit specific to Eastport maybe, but I see no reason why the committee couldn't endorse this.

Uh I think I think it I think there's other words that's I think Yanu's talking about it too.

Yeah.

So I I yeah, I think this is I mean, and the thing is they just sit there with their motors running, yeah.

Um for a hundred bucks, it's worth it for them.

Worth it for the AC.

I have had residents when I talk to them about this, say it should be 500, because the bus driver's not gonna pay for it, the company's gonna pay for it.

So the whole goal of increasing this fine is to get the word out that don't park your bus and hang out on the streets of Annapolis.

Totally.

So I'm happy to include this in here.

Yes.

Way back when when I worked for Watermarket Cruises as a salesperson, we were told to very explicitly tell groups coming in to the city that buses were not allowed to remain on city streets while their kids were or groups were on tour that they had to go to the mall or to the park and ride on Riva, and that was actually written into our lease agreement.

So I think it's just faltered over the years.

Yeah.

Alderman Thurp.

Do you want to?

I I'm totally supportive of this next one.

Do you want to include it here or would you rather lump it in with your other one about red curves?

If you all agree, I think we I think it should be here.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think we should uh we should delete the part where it says $200, so right.

Or just to be consistent, we should delete that.

Yeah, because yeah.

Whatever the number is, yeah, it should be the same.

You're right.

I have one more clarification from Betsy McKean.

Oh getting your own responses.

Oh my goodness.

Um she said she doesn't know if um 10% would be feasible as Stantec runs the numbers.

So we'll have to do that, run them under different scenarios, whatever you want, accommodation you want done.

Um, so she'll just follow you can follow up with her on that.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, I'll check with Betsy about it.

Like I said, it was uh we've had such phenomenal track record of our department directors responding that in one of these hearings when I say you'll get back to me on that, right?

I didn't even think twice to make sure that they actually had because everybody uh within the city had done such a great job.

Okay.

Well, I mean how they just to finish here, yeah.

It says currently is $100.

I agree with not put in a final number, but which is different than the number for red curves.

Just to be clarified for anybody who reads this, sure.

Why are we saying this?

All right.

Um I have a note here that actually I just need to check on this.

So we don't really need to discuss it.

It's a factual question of whether that 2.6% increase is still true.

I think that was just a holdover from last year, but I'll check it.

So move on to the mayor's office.

Um Alderman Thorpe, anything you want to highlight for us from this mayor's office part?

I don't think so.

Uh back to and maybe focus on the recommendations since we put some more weight on them.

Um the recommendations review what committee meetings are available in person online to determine the value of making them.

So I I went and looked on the YouTube channel as to how many people have watched some of the meetings, and there's a bunch of them that only five people have ever watched.

And having heard the team talk about the strain that it puts on us, um, I've as I wrote here, I'm wondering if that's a continuation of COVID, and and you know, maybe we need to not lean so far into that and give it a try.

Yeah, yeah.

I I totally agree.

Yeah, I'm 5050.

Prior to COVID, many of the committees and commissions were not broadcast.

You had a meeting since COVID, due to many of the meetings being broadcast, new things have come to light for us to know about.

Um I don't have to point out any one, but there are a few that um where before it was never recorded.

Um, and I know that um administration is working on revamping some of the commission uh rules and regulations and asking that those commissions go to at least quarterly in-person meetings because it's really important.

I think you lose some of the effectiveness of a committee if it's only on Zoom.

Yeah, and I think it's case by case, and now with Laura Richards focused on this as she is and all that, they there might be a case where the department director it's inconvenient for them to get here for a personal uh in-person meeting, so the decisions made to put it online.

So I think I think it's case by case, but I think right now the default is we do we just broadcast them all.

Right.

I do think it needs to be studied and take a closer look at it.

Um, yeah, I don't really need to.

Oh go on.

I was gonna go to second bullet unless you want to.

Nope, no, nope, I had a question.

So second bullet, I thought I was trying to capture the the uh concern that the city council had expressed with the deputy chief of staff.

I think that almost doesn't need to be said, but it we're saying in our council report, finance committee report.

Uh same thing with uh ombudsman.

Um and then the fourth one might be a little personal on my part.

Um I don't think it's well defined, and I submitted a request back in November and I don't have an answer yet.

Um so the council went to great effort to put three thousand dollars per council member and there's no guidelines for it.

Um I agree with all of yeah, yeah.

If I was gonna quibble, I I agree with the ombudsman thing, but I'm not sure it's super relevant to the budget, but I'd I probably shouldn't even say anything because I don't need to quibble.

It's I defer to you.

No, but I think that's a great point that we ought to make sure we stay to the budget.

My point is is we funded the the position.

Yeah.

Um, so law is not terribly uh uh interesting, no offense, Ashley.

It's you know that's it's like the finance department, you don't want them to be interesting.

When they're interesting, that's what we have problems.

But I did update uh the stats that Carrie shared, because I I thought they were interesting.

Um I noted the increase in budget, like why the salaries and benefits were over budget even though we have significant vacancies.

Uh I also called out that the county's management of municipal elections is getting expensive.

I think that's a place that if you just look in the budget, you'd see all the elections area is going up, and it's important to recognize why it's because the county is charging us more.

Uh and at some point it probably just becomes more cost-effective to run them ourselves.

So I wanted to highlight that.

But the only recommendation is updating the fee schedule for the hourly rate, and that's something uh sorry, for the hourly rate of an MPIA request.

And that's something that is already in the well, actually, maybe Miss Leonard can jump in here.

In the proposed fee schedule, it bumps it up from I think $30 to $35 an hour.

And what we heard from Kerry and the office of law was we want to make sure we're capturing the full cost of people doing that.

And uh at the risk of very much putting you on the spot, I think that we're probably talking about more than $35 for an hour of your time.

And so uh I want to make sure I wanna what I'm trying to understand is do we need to change it further from what is proposed to get to that goal of fully recovering the time.

I'd but I haven't looked at recently, I'd like to look at other jurisdictions.

I know a couple of years ago, they were basing it less on a flat rate and more on who was actually doing it.

Keeping in mind they had limitations, and like, so for if you don't need a lawyer to do it, then you don't have the lawyer do it kind of thing.

Um, but other jurisdictions, I believe the last time I checked, do sort of acknowledge that there's different levels of like because we're talking about the search and preparation fee is what we're talking talking about.

There's a different level between like, you know, how much time IT needs to pull emails, how much time is needed for a lawyer to re legally review and redact things versus like someone just gathering, you know, like basic low-level documents.

There's a different workload on that.

Um, and other jurisdictions I believe reflect sort of if you need a higher paying individual to do something that that's reflected in the fee cost.

So yeah, that is our goal, and I think the way the recommendation is written is clear on what our goal is.

I want to understand whether what's in the proposed fee increases cover set?

35 is, I mean, the reality is the Office of Law does most of the heavy lifting on it.

So 35 is better than 30.

Um, but it's still not.

I don't actually know off the top of my head what my hourly rate is, but I don't believe that's close to it.

No.

So I think it is worthwhile to include this as a recommendation and work with the city attorney and the budget team on what would covering the cost actually be.

So anybody want to talk about that more?

Yeah, the only thing I would point out is of a lot of these recommendations, I think this is one that we ought to really get a number for to go forward.

I mean, I I would want to look at what other jurisdictions in the state are doing before I would make a solid number recommendation.

Um, and then some of it is I think some of them they actually just put it's like the rate up, so instead of putting a dollar amount in and it's a prorated amount of like the hourly rate, and so then the staff person would have to look up their hourly rate and do the proper probation.

Yeah.

But are you saying that you want to be able to write in here $42 or $43?

Yeah, it's that's what I'm saying.

I mean, I think, and I think this is a uh philosophical question too.

It's I like exactly what you're saying, is what do other jurisdictions do?

We don't want to make it so expensive that nobody requests information, but on the other hand, if if it costs sixty dollars to do it or whatever, we ought to we ought to ensure that that we're charging the right amount.

So what I'm saying is if it's possible, we ought to put a number in here, not by tonight.

Oh, but that was all I was getting at.

Yeah, not by tonight, but but for the the actual pass on the budget, we should work to to make sure that we have a number to put into the into the I can look into it.

I also am curious.

Most of honestly, most of the time burners are email searches.

So I'm curious if any jurisdictions have broken those out.

So it's not that hard to find most normal documents.

It's the email searches that are very time-intensive and heavy.

Um, Thorpe, if you want to figure out a way to write what you said into this, I'm totally fine with it.

Something along can charge the actual hourly rate of the employee fulfilling the MPIA request parenthesis encoded in the fee schedule.

Cause what you're saying is you don't want to write down actual hourly rate.

You want to write down forty-five dollars an hour or sixty dollars an hour, and that's totally fine.

Or whatever.

I mean, it if it's a range, I'm not if it's a range, because sometimes when you submit a request, I've seen answer that come back that says yes, we will do that according to the uh rules, the the rate could be between $50 or $20 and $100.

This is gonna cost $80 or whatever.

So whatever, I don't want to drive the when you do it, but if possible, this would be a good one just to wrap up in the next couple, you know, next couple days so that we actually put it here.

And it might be exactly what you got.

Right.

I I made myself a note.

Cool.

Okay.

Let's keep moving because we we got a half hour left and we can't we do have kind of hard stop in that uh we got to get this formatted and pretty.

So on to city manager.

Okay, uh all good news.

The real the challenge could be made a recommendation, but um I wanted to make sure that we noted the amount of effort gone uh uh being put by the onboarding uh that's going on of senior staff.

Um we've already starting to see uh project and process improvement initiatives and uh and I wanted to make sure we note that with the new city manager it it brings the deputy city manager back to the business of uh um performance metrics.

I think that was a recommendation because she's already tracking it.

Yeah, but it's uh it's a great point to make though.

Yeah, uh resiliency and sustainability uh commented uh that uh City Doc is in progress and on track, um and uh and I uh took to heart the brief that uh completed the uh climate action plan and the greenhouse gas emissions um uh challenges.

I think uh they really haven't changed a lot, and committee recommendations um provide 20 fiscal year 27 performance measures relative to stated benchmarks, um, and uh and provide city council updates on the leaf blower rebates and enforcement.

We talked about doing a uh work session.

Okay, all right.

And you got my 20% raise.

It's a carrying minute.

I didn't hear it, which might have been good.

I don't know.

She wanted to make sure we included uh a recommendation for her brains.

Uh we talked about 60%.

What was your recommendation?

Yeah, I like that one, Francis.

All right, Harbor Master.

Uh any questions on that one, Harbor Master?

Harbormaster, uh real kudos for the amount of work they've done for uh uh their flexibility with everything that's going on on City Doc um and not to be forgotten uh all the work they did on house barges.

Um challenges continue to work with uh uh with the city dock effort um as well as ongoing uh changes in the mooring and and docking um and also the temporary off working in a temporary office space and same thing uh really zeroing in on creating uh goals and objectives for the performance measures.

I wanted to note for um resilience and sustainability.

If it's something that you're not aware of, um our highest priority for the city manager's office in general is making sure that we have money allocated to the second environmental program manager that we hired in the past year that was made a that was a civil service position, which you intended to make a permanent position.

But you last year when we hired that person, that money came from um unused salary from the city manager's office, so it definitely needs to have be something that we include in our permanent salaries, just highlighting that for you.

Yeah, generally our recommendations are only if we're suggesting we do something different than what's in the mayor's proposed budget.

Okay, so that's and that is in the proposed budget.

It is in the proposed.

I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that because the funding source it was confusing to some people at first, some of the members of council.

Okay, totally support of those recommendations.

Yeah, uh community services, good news, rebranding, increasing training challenges, still there's uh very high demand for rental and utility assistance, but the funding is um projected to decrease.

Um grant funding decreased by 10 percent, even though requests for higher than in FY26, and um they talked about a challenge of repeat clients and trying to find solutions to help people better understand financial literacy and opportunities for growth versus coming back to the city time and time again.

Um, I said our recommendations were um again in that repeat clients um solving that partnering with nonprofits to offer education and financial literacy, create a process to make the housing assistant funds last longer, um, which they were already working on.

Um in the budget we are budgeted to um bring them a new case management software package.

Uh I just wanted to actually clarify that one.

Is the case management software already in the mayor's budget, or are you suggesting yeah it is?

That was one of the positive that they said that the enhancement that they had received.

Um so can we just make that clear in the recommendation and something like this guy's but just now we don't put it in there unless it's not um agree with the implementation of the case management software?

How's that?

Um and then my last recommendation was outside of the budget process or somebody's recommendation, which I agree with.

Rewrite the community grants code to focus more on funding, catalytic funding.

Yeah, that was my uh that phrase catalytic is you guys go with what I mean by that.

You understand what I'm saying there that we give them money so that they don't need our money in the future.

I I think we should spell that out.

Okay, uh you think it should be focused more on uh self-sustaining, becoming self-sustaining.

Yep, focus on to focus more on funding that can enhance self-sustainability, yeah.

Perfect.

Or support, say support self-sustain.

I'm great with all of those.

Um Alderman Thorpe, you want to talk about Central Services?

Sure.

Um super impressed with uh Central Services Brief and the amount of work uh that they've gone to.

Um I do think they are underestimating the uh improvements in both savings, productivity, and efficiency.

Um, and I think uh time will tell as they do that.

Um I think he's working through the the uh personnel changes um uh and I I spoke to uh to the director, then I spoke to the city manager, they're not necessarily in sync.

So I think there's a couple different uh chess moves that he's got to figure out.

I'm not so on the risk manager uh position.

Um he was able to explain to me a lot better what the risk manager was.

So for instance, he explained uh maintenance had not been done on uh air conditioners for many years, and there was nobody looking at what the risk was to that.

Um so it's across the board facilities-wise as to where we should be doing preventive maintenance and things like that.

So I I definitely see the need for that risk manager uh capability as well as I think uh this bucklin was pointing out, fire uh fire drills and things like that.

So I I would not I see the the addition of the third one.

I think we we need to hear what the city manager and the mayor want to do with this department because I think it's all over the map right now, and so um I would hesitate to move the chess pieces for them because I think there's what six chess pieces, seven chess pieces, the the original budget funds two funds three.

He said he would give up those three for another two, and then the risk manager, uh, or the real estate position is a consultant, and he's saying I'd rather have the risk manager, whatever.

So there's a whole bunch of moves.

Uh I it's it's a it's of my mind and talking to the city manager, they're putting a lot of effort into this as to figure out where the chess pieces should be.

So I I don't have a position on uh on them, and I think they're sorting it out.

So my take is they're the best qualified to say that.

Yeah, I'm I'm pretty darn opposed to the idea of having that risk manager.

I mean, every justification that we've heard for it feels like it can't possibly the benefit that they are suggesting will come from it, can't be anywhere near the cost for it.

Like fire drills.

I mean, we should of course we should do fire drills, absolutely, no two ways about it.

Do we need $135,000 a year position to do fire drills?

No, I don't think so.

I feel pretty confident we do not, and yet I see all the time how not having a real estate manager harms our ability to negotiate leases, it harms our ability to um get right of way for city projects, and because it means more work falls to you're sitting right here, so I'll point to you, Miss Leonard.

It means that things that wouldn't even be under this position's purview, like a guy trying to negotiate an easement on his land, leads to the ends up taking longer.

So I I am actually would go even further than what I think Otto Roman O'Neill wrote here, and say we should totally get rid of the risk manager position, fund a full on real estate manager.

There's a slight difference in cost there, which I think we can offset with um it happens to be almost exactly the cost difference between the deputy chief of staff as originally proposed and what that'll actually cost, and then that frees up a hundred thousand dollars of one time money for something else.

So uh my recommendation would be get rid of it entirely.

We could either say, we all three have different positions on this, and so we shouldn't include it, or we could say I'm over here, Otterman Thorpe's over here, Otto Roman O'Neill's kind of in the middle of us, perhaps we take her position.

I yeah, so I I literally am not having talked to him at length about this, and then talk to uh Ms.

Bucklin about it.

I don't I don't feel that it's more complicated than than a one or the other, and they've actually they're looking at a plan in central services to I think propose to the city city council a change that will actually overall save revenue, um, taking into account adding subtracting billets as well as as moving the um real estate manager from so that our amendment be that we don't support the risk management position, yeah.

City government is already too risk averse.

I'm all over that.

Well, so yeah, but so that's the problem, and I I talked to Matt about this that the title of the the job, there's there's a lot of things that aren't getting done, and and I'm not arguing for or against it because I I don't have my notes in front of me.

I mean, he he went through this great analysis, and then Miss Buckland went through the.

They've got they are wired on this, so my my concern is for up for me to weigh in on either one of just these two when they actually fit into a bigger chess board.

That's my concern.

So I understand that, but in the interest of time and the fact that our budget amendments are due today, um, and we could drop an amendment, but we could not necessarily add an amendment until after the budget has come through.

If we support not funding that position, yeah.

Just to your point, I submitted an amendment on that from me.

So I don't think we're under necessarily the constraint of we can't do it, because you can only just vote for mine.

But uh, yeah, but I mean I uh on the merits, I agree with you that we should just include as a recommendation to remove the risk manager position.

I think that we're safe in that because that way the budget doesn't go forward with it there, and we are able to talk about a reallocation of.

Yeah, I think I think it's not gonna matter in the end.

So I think if you two want to express your concern about it through this, I'm fine with that.

Um, and I'm fine with it because I know there's all this work that they're gonna that the mayor's office city manager's gonna come to us with a hey, here's the entire it's gonna it's gonna be an amendment right to the proposed budget.

Right, because what's in the budget now that won't stay, they don't want it to stay.

Right.

So I believe if we take the position that our recommendation is we remove the risk manager position from the budget at this time, it should be our recommendation.

Yeah, it standalone is not, I think that's a great discussion.

Move risk manager position.

Do you want to include and create real estate manager position?

That that would be my preference.

But if you don't fill up if you if you believe that, I would split it into two.

Don't sure that's fine with me.

Excuse me.

Yes.

Can I clarify which position you're speaking of?

Are you talking about the risk management specialist position?

Yes, the new one.

Yep, thank you for clarifying that risk manager, management specialist, management specialist.

Thank you.

Um and create real estate manager position specialist.

Uh Alderman Thorpe, do you want me to note on here abstain for you?

Okay.

I don't know why it was it's called colored brown on there when it was supposed to be purple.

It's because you were suggesting in purple.

So it's um okay.

Human resources uh they will tell you they did not request any enhancements, and so I did not have any recommendations to them.

Um the department has been working through having an acting director.

I think it's not really the time to make significant changes.

Uh Otterman Thorpe suggested adding the city city's onboarding process needs to be significantly improved.

Uh I agree with that assessment.

I suggested having a little bit more clear, like phrasing this more around what's wrong.

So if you have something you can come up with off the top of your head, that'd be great.

About the onboarding process, like if we can put it more in the form of the challenge is.

Didn't I say something?

So, oh that's great.

Yeah, so how about uh needs a defined process?

We could say the city's onboarding process needs a defined process and timeline, to be clearly defined and included timeline.

And I would open up the idea of changing it from a challenge to a recommendation.

I think the most important time in employee time at an organization.

And if it go it goes to the criteria of uh city council work session, I'd be honest with you, I'd be game for asking the new HR person to you got three months to come tell us what so as it was written.

I felt like it was not written as a challenge, but I'm perfectly happy with just moving it down to recommendations and having that covered.

Uh ITS.

Um I actually did rewrite a lot of their section here, so I just want to remember if there's anything I put.

No, I don't think there's anything listed that you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Um, I did put in this point about having not yet developed the internal AI usage policy, which I find.

Um and then as for recommendations, uh so this third one actually is maybe the only one we should talk about.

This is something I want, but I'm perfectly happy with it just being a hairy amendment rather than a finance committee amendment.

Do you two feel like you agree with this and it's it's uh worthwhile to include as a general as a finance committee amendment?

I I would say that as a recommendation in our lexicon and structure, it won't have a lot of meat to it unless we uh I would support an amendment that uh tasks the staff to I don't think we want to write it this way, but to spend $10,000, but to put $10,000 into um looking into AI systems.

I mean, our reaction to uh Mr.

Jakubia when all three of us wanted to jump off of the dais here and hug him, um, I th I think if the city council wants to do this, we should put skin in the game.

So I would take it a step farther and and make that like an amendment.

Yeah, and I did submit an amendment for that.

What I'm suggesting, yes, so yes, I submitted an amendment for that.

Um what I was saying is just like it's is this niche enough that it should just be my amendment, or do you guys both support it and want to include in the finance committee's recommendations?

You've already submitted it here.

Yeah.

So then it would be a double submission.

Yeah.

So I'm I'm fine with it not being let's not go to this extra work.

Okay, I'm just gonna delete it.

Cool.

I is there any chance, Alderman Huntley, that you and I could convince Alder Woman O'Neill to support a one per.

Actually, I'm looking at Alder Woman O'Neil.

Is there any chance we could get you to support that in my discussions with the director of central services?

I think this is more of a mindset than anything else.

Um we heard over and over from every department that their budgets were cut because of consolidation.

Um, and I fully understand that one of the things that was consolidated was like the BG and E bill, which we're not gonna get any volume discount.

But we work.

I thought that was like the example that Director Flint said they were already negotiating.

It doesn't matter.

Yeah, sorry.

So uh my point being though is I think I think the residents are looking for us to to get savings, and uh, I haven't had a chance to watch it, but I'm getting the link of when this was proposed, and I just think we need a mindset that we challenge the staff that part of this consolidation is saving money.

Now, I fully agree that if if the city manager and the mayor come to us and say we actually are increasing by two percent because by consolidating, we found that we needed three other software items to spend that I would support that.

But I think from a mindset leadership management decision, I think we need to drive them to saving money.

Philosophically, I think that that's what they're doing by moving it to central services.

I don't think that we can realize the savings until we have actual data to prove that, and I don't think we'll have actual data to prove that for at least six to eight months into the new budget.

So that's where I didn't want to pretend we had these savings that then we have to do a fund transfer to cover the cost of what we thought was going to be saved, or whatever.

If we end up saving money and we're we have money that we could put towards another opportunity later on in the year, I think that that's great, and I think that's a discussion for later, but I don't think you can start a budget with hopefully we're saving that's that's why I descend.

Okay.

I give on the descent, keep it in there.

Okay, keep it moving.

And then um, but actually to that point, I do think we should have this recommendation be aligned between ITS and central services because we're we're doing essentially the same thing, which in central services we wrote determined significant cost savings that result from creation of this department.

Uh but doing the same thing here.

So my suggestion is just that they be parallel.

Yeah, I think the difference is my level of confidence that the city's gonna come forward with a c with a cut in central services is pretty high.

I haven't dug as deep into IT.

So what I'm sitting here thinking is is again what action does this, with with the dissent, I'm thinking that there is no finance committee amendment at one percent because we're not unanimous.

So maybe I should submit an amendment to to reduce uh expenses by one percent by X number of dollars.

Uh so I think I do think a little bit it's apples and oranges because we don't to Alderwoman O'Neill's point, we don't know that other than a conversation we had, the philosophical discussion when the director of ITS was here.

So that's fine.

If you if you see a distinction, um, so we're deleting both.

Sorry, did I mess you up?

Yeah, hit control Z so I can copy and paste it.

There you go.

Um and honor and Thorpe, we should I I think you should keep it in here than all women O'Neill descends.

Okay, right?

Is that is that our next con or do we need unanimous?

No, we've had in it is uh my approach is ultimately we are governed by majority, and so if there's something that we think is important that there's a majority but not unanimity on, we should include it.

Um and I I've taken that position in the past even when I was the one in the minority, but uh it's always nice when we can have consensus.

So I think it's worthwhile to include.

All right, finance department um has some challenges due to low relatively low staff.

My recommendations, so first of all, uh Alderman Thorpe put in this one about put processes in placing complete ACFER.

Uh totally support that makes great sense.

It'll make our budget easier next year.

I think also everyone will agree about ensuring that debt service for FY27 matches bonds that are actually issued uh just because we had lower debt service than we thought we would in 26, we want to try and tighten up all those numbers.

The one that needs more explaining is this increased contingency fund ones.

Funds one.

So first of all, I just don't think the contingency funds that are in this budget are adequate.

Um we have three about three hundred thousand dollars in the contingency fund.

We overspent on snow removal by sixty percent more than that.

Their three hundred thousand dollars for something coming up just strikes me as laughably low.

Now, it's hard to make the argument of boy, I'm going to cut something I really care about and put money into.

Well, what if something bad happens?

Like that's uh a tough decision for anybody to make.

So ultimately, this is going to hinge on where do we get the funding from.

I do think, and I uh submitted an amendment on this that I've been working on the finance with the finance director.

I do think that we should calculate vacancy savings for more departments than just police and planning and zoning, and so that would be a very straightforward way to increase the contingency funds.

That was a long explanation, but I hope you guys can agree that it is worthwhile to increase the contingency funds, recognizing that that of course requires some pay for.

So uh I totally agree with you philosophically.

Um my concern is to get from May 11th to a budget.

Um I'm concerned that one, we can do it, and two, we can do it without the right amount of granularity in the effort.

Um I totally agreed with the conversation this morning in the Financial Advisory Commission that you led.

Oh, right.

Um, and so the way I look at it, um, I really commend the finance department for getting us to this part of the of the process of the budget.

Um, and I think there's a desire in the finance department to do exactly what you're saying.

But I think it's a it's a significant change to the way the city's been doing budgets for a long time, and so with the new finance director, with the new mayor, with a new city manager, um we we budget right now very conservatively, and then we use the money next year that we saved.

Um I I think I you know, I think I know I agree with your sentiment this morning um at the Financial Advisory Commission, but I'm just worried if we make this shift in the next 30 days um what we end up doing to the finance department so I yeah so so let me be clear the recommendation is not put vacancy savings in I I purposefully didn't include that uh as the finance committee recommendation because I that's that's what I that's that was my worry is that what you were do you were doing yeah no no I I totally think it's a good idea I do think we can do it in the next month but I intentionally did not write that as the committee's recommendation because I figured we did not have unanimity on it.

What this recommendation is just saying $300,000 is too low for contingency funds.

And if we start putting in vacancy savings it's definitely too low.

Yeah but so what I'm saying is I I agree with you that the $300,000 is too low especially when you your point about snow and other things um but it's not too low because of how conservatively we budget and over years we we have significant like millions of dollars um and I think the discussion that you had this morning about looking at that whole thing that I think contingency should be higher and we should be budgeting more accurately but I just don't think we can get there in the next 30 days so I would be it to me it would seem to if we increase the contingency without becoming less conservative across the board we're just increasing the excess that we're gonna have a year from now whereas I think your sentiment this morning and today is that the finance advisory commission and now talking at the the finance committee we'd like to become less conservative on our budgeting i.e more maybe better say more accurate in our budget which would cause us to require ourselves to have a higher contingency because we're taking more risk so that's a long way of saying that I I don't know that I want to put more money into contingency to raise that but I definitely think the sentiment is there across the board and we have the people coming into place to do it when the new finance directors identify and all that to quite frankly I think not only is it a city council work session but I think we should direct as a city council to budget more accurately yeah I mean it it's a question of how soon should we do this I feel like we can very straightforwardly come up with a metric I feel like I have come up with a metric for how we can calculate this and I hear you're concerned that we have a month left but I also think we got a whole month we can figure it out to say we there's a relatively straightforward way to do this of we're gonna look at the the average for your budgets and salaries over the past however many years we're gonna throw out any outliers and then we're going to apply that discount rate to your budget and salaries now.

Can I respectfully point something out?

Yeah go ahead we have a new HR director coming in who's gonna drive the hiring process a lot harder um we have a new city manager coming in so I'm not sure that the data based on the last two three years four years gives me the confidence to use that data to budget going forward um and we've had a significant amount of turnover and so I I agree with you philosophically except for I just think that there's a different you know I'm guessing a year from now we're gonna have one senior vacancy.

Maybe.

Maybe zero button right but I think the point of this is not to address senior vacancies.

The point of this is to say if public works has 60 general fund employees, on average, how many of them are we missing in a year?

It's not, it's not is there a vacancy at the top.

It's and what you're saying could still apply, but I think there's the the what we're trying to do here is get at the savings that don't have a lot of variation.

And my I'm sorry to interrupt you, but my point is I've had directors express frustration to me that they did all the paperwork ready for the hiring month after month after month.

It never happened, and my point is I think that's gonna change.

Sure.

Yeah, I mean I think I I'd like the city council to be, I'd like the finance director to report on a monthly basis the number of vacancies we have.

I think that's a huge, I mean, all members of city council have in some way, shape or form mentioned why why isn't this person been hired that the city council said to hire?

And I think that's an important metric, and I think I think we're gonna drive to it anyway.

So let me let me suggest a different way of phrasing this, and you guys tell me.

Well, uh, we haven't heard from you at all, Auto Roman.

You have thoughts on how I've written this so far before I proposed something different.

Something different.

Um I believe that the contingency fund should be higher.

Um, we should have the expectation of if we were over by thousand this year, then we will equally be by that much because they did not increase the storm removal budget in DPW.

That's just one example, so if I don't want to change it, it sounds like you just agreed with me.

No, what I was gonna suggest, uh, that I think could satisfy all parties, is saying this as increase the precision of our budgeting process, which would likely require increasing contingency funds.

Is that okay?

I mean, just to be clear, one reason I love it, doesn't do anything in the next 30 days.

I mean that I think it could find it.

If you need an amendment, yeah, that increases the contingency fund by X number.

Okay, and you leave it up to them.

Yeah, okay.

We are uh at time, but I think we need to get this done.

So, um Auto Roman O'Neill.

Oh no, sorry, Frank, you're up.

So really quick, um, I applaud planning and zoning for the metrics they put in their brief, which were tremendous.

I think we need to live by those metrics.

Um, and uh, and a recommendation, uh as I stated earlier when we all jumped for joy about the AI capability, um, I think we're all we're good to go.

Right, end of brief.

Keeping it fast, beautiful.

Auto Roman O'Neill, police department.

Department, um, I tried to keep it short and sweet.

They good news, 640 community outreach.

Um, they have increased their clearance rates for top what I call most violent of um, so they're well above the national average for doing that.

Um, they have continue to have challenges with uh staffing and filling vacancies and recruitment.

Um my recommendation is strive towards 100% occupancy of sworn officers.

Um, I know there's been a lot of questions about is our 126 an actual uh number or should it be the 135 that would um account for our adequate public facilities number?

I believe it's 135 uh 132.

Somewhere around there, exactly.

So the only other recommendation would be what would be the difference if we actually put the number of officers in that is the national requirement, which I believe is 135.

If we wanted to add that as a recommendation, I would not.

But strive towards 100% occupancy of sworn officers, I feel it's a great goal.

I feel like maybe we can say that a little more clearly.

Strive towards 100%, or maybe say strive towards 0% vacancy for sworn officers.

Sure.

So I know what you're getting at, but I'm just not sure the public would understand vacancy or sworn officer position.

Everybody good with this?

Do you think I left anything out?

I don't think there was a lot of discussion about drones and um speed cameras, and are we can we don't need to put that in there?

I don't think we need I'm not saying we should, but just to make sure that the sentiment our sentiment is communicating.

If you all three agree on we support the drone editions and red light camera editions, let's just write that.

Well, they're doing they're doing both, right?

Right.

You want speed camera, but not red light.

No, I would I I want speed more than red light, but five for both.

Okay, I'm gonna just write speed.

Um so strongly support uh run program and speed.

Uh fire department response times continue to meet or exceed national standards.

Um in this budget, it does fund the peak unit.

Um as discussed, there was a question for me on that.

Um, well, it's good news.

There's also an earmark by the county to partially fund it, which we can't count on, but I didn't know how to put that in here.

Because if we realize that savings of 258,250, just call it 250,000.

Um, if we actually get that passed through the county, um, where would that savings be allocated?

Um, which could kind of come to, I know that there was a lot of amendments in regard to um the CIT budget and perhaps it realize there.

Um challenges that 2.9 million overtime, need of more office space that was not um approved in the budget, and the way EMS billing changes are taking place, it could uh reduce overall department revenue.

Um, would you be okay with me adding or slow growth at the end of that?

Reduce or slow growth.

Um I see the committee's recommendations about the full accounting of all the costs and revenue from the peak time, yeah.

So I wrote that, um, and I'm happy to explain it if you like what I so what I was getting at there is partially what you're saying that we have this county uh revenue, which to me it makes sense, and I don't know, maybe just flared a year or Ms.

Turner can lay in on it, but to me it makes perfect sense to include that, um, even if it's not in our hands.

I think we can trust the county executive's word.

It also doesn't include any estimate of the revenue for from EMS billing, and then there are also some costs that I think are left out.

It doesn't we don't see any increase to repair and maintenance for the units or for um the uniforms, and so I I put together what I thought was as best I could a whole cost revenue, whole cost revenue accounting of the peak time medic unit, and my preference is to include, doesn't have to be like my thing is perfect, but include as many of the costs and revenues as we expect rather than as we'd so often do, including uh doing it in the most conservative way possible.

Um, so yeah, what I'm getting at is it should all be in there.

Um I can confirm that the cost, um, all of the calls for the unit are included.

Um they were included with the enhancement request.

Um, and I believe the fire chief spoke to the revenue side of it that it would not increase the EMS billing revenues because it's what they're currently doing with what this with the staff they have now.

So if anything, it may reduce some of the overtime, but um, I believe he spoke to that as well, saying that that wouldn't reduce it either.

That's why it was not included.

So what I heard from him for as to why the the revenue from medical billing was not necessarily getting included, is that we wouldn't have people on day one.

We wouldn't we might not actually get it going until six months from now.

But we're paying for the people as though we're having them on day one.

So to me, we should just be consistent with the costs and revenue.

Either we expect this to happen in six months, or we don't, and we should try and have both of those things match that.

So we do have historically, we always um budget two months of vacancy savings for all new positions.

Oh, okay.

Um we forgot to include that in the budget, but it will be coming forth as an amendment to do so.

Um, however, we did not do six months, we only did two months.

Sure.

I mean, I'm fine with whatever is realistic.

I just think we should.

Yes, that's fair.

And and similarly, if we think this will be operational two months in, then we should start getting the revenue two months in and we should just discount that by one six.

And Ms.

Turner, I just want to dig in.

You said all the costs were included in the budget enhancement, but I think the budget enhancement only went to salaries and benefits and to the actual medic unit.

Wasn't there what it what about the line items for repair and maintenance?

Those didn't seem like they went up.

So the the they include, um, if they feel what they're asking for is exceeds what they propose for their repair and maintenance account.

They include it.

Um outside of that, the request for the build of the position, the personnel enhancement, um, includes anything of that position that may be an expense as well.

So it's the cost of the position, the benefits, um, any training and education, cell phones, any expenses that come along with that position as well.

Uniform.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm sorry, I'm digging into this still.

But the repair and maintenance for vehicles in FY26 was 776, uh 500 for the fire department.

We're gonna have a new vehicle next year.

We're gonna have two new vehicles.

Well, one's a replacement, but we're gonna have on that one new, and we're only increasing it by a little under $8,000.

Is that really like a realistic estimate?

If it's a new vehicle, I wouldn't expect it to have high expenses for the first year.

It would be in FY28.

Okay.

Um I still think we could say include full accounting of cost of revenue, and we can kind of hammer out exactly what that is and just like we're doing now.

But um, I'm fine with that.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you, Ms.

Turner.

I feel like I was kind of grilling you there.

I didn't mean to.

Not at all.

Free doesn't like it.

Uh yeah, go ahead.

All right.

I'm sorry, Ottoman Third, did you have something else for fire?

No, no, go ahead.

OEM, uh good news, they helped with city doc funding.

Um, coordinated the emergency response to Storm Fern.

And there's we've seen a significant reduction in total overall overdoses.

Total overdoses, sorry.

Um biggest challenges are federal grants that have not materialized, and in an increase in festivals, events, and parades, which add planning hours and workload to the staff.

Um if that trend remains, the department will need to request more staff for FY28.

But the director seemed to think that he was covered in FY27.

So we did convert three positions from grant-funded positions into the operating budget.

And so no recommendations.

I didn't have any other recommendations.

Any last recommendations we need, Mr.

Mandel, since you're here.

Just appreciate your support questions in regards.

And I'll just repeat for the record what uh Deputy Director Mandel said, which was essentially appreciated the council supporting the positions that had previously been federally funded, but had not received that money.

Yes.

Okay.

No recommendations.

Keeping it easy.

Yeah.

Public works.

That should be easy, right, Ottoman Thorpe.

Yeah.

A lot of good news coming out of public works, the city doc and uh the FEMA grant, uh, the two big ones, um, as well as the effort to uh revise the stormwater utility fee structure and the fee reduction program uh for non-residential properties.

Um the traffic safety concept designs for the for West Street, Edgewood, and Hilltop.

Um I want to commend them.

Uh I think we should commend them for the clear results based on data-driven performance metrics of public works has and uh and I thought it was noteworthy to to uh on the good news, tremendous response to the major snow and ice storm.

Um road surfacing and uh and exceeded benchmarks for high quality and safe drinking water, something we take for granted um quite a bit.

Uh on challenges, uh I think throughout the briefings there was discussion.

This goes to the point number one on the top of the the report about visible uh improvements, uh as well as the essential infrastructure and and Alderman Huntley.

I I agree with your addition of such as sewer mains.

I think that's a that's a great great point.

Yeah, I just wanted to point out what less visible looks like, because I think in a lot of cases we were saying the infrastructure is the visible thing.

Yeah.

Um and then just shooting down uh to uh committee recommendations.

Um I think what we heard during the briefings was that uh director Vogel uh tried to save a couple dollars on his uh technology for snow removal, and I think it's the sentiment of the finance committee that we fully fund that technology improvement.

Um the uh recommendation to support the challenges up there that uh emphasis on resources on visible infrastructure, um continue to provide a quarterly update.

I think that's been very valuable, and I and uh as and I didn't mention in here, probably could have, and if you guys want to go back and put it in there, there's there appears to be a lot of effort gone into uh clarifying and cleaning up the CIP projects and reducing them and and consolidating them.

And I don't know that it needs to be added, but but I think that will make our quarterly updates um much more important.

And then uh we didn't talk about it at length, but I do think it's the sentiment of the committee that we would like to see more resources uh spent and and work and amount of time and effort on street cleaning, um, and it would be the only place in here that it's mentioned.

So, and I appreciated the fact that Director Vogel had indicated that the snowplow software um could be utilized by the street cleaners.

Yeah.

Um I think that that's something that I've asked for for five years.

Just get a heads up, let me know.

Next week the street cleaners could be on my street.

Um, so I think that that's an important part of um also agreeing to that software upgrade for them.

I had one little thing I wanted to change in this, which was just uh where we say response to major snow and ice storm, it says tremendous.

I maybe suggest we switch that to impressive in that public works response was impressive.

They worked very hard.

We were all impressed with how hard they worked at the same time.

I think if I went around town and asked residents to rate the response, they would not rate it as tremendous.

You okay with it impressive?

Or you want to disagree?

I would lean towards tremendous.

I wouldn't stay in front of the railroad tracks.

I mean, I think as we were all trying to dig out of it, I think we thought it was horrible because of the inconvenience and and uh and the problems of cause, but I think as we look back and we saw the reports of the after action and the severity of the storm.

Um not to your point uh should you know we could add tremendous response to major so we I I'd be fine with impressive, but I also put in there tremendous kudos for their acknowledgement and effort to improve what didn't go right.

Um uh maybe if you wanted to go with impressive response to snow and ice storm and and commitment to improve or maybe tremendous and and commitment to improve um that which needs to be improved or something like that.

Impressive boy, talk about splitting the difference.

Impressive response to major snow and ice storm and tremendous commitment to improve where there are opportunities to do so.

Work for you or cool.

I just don't want to get pillaried for that later, but I bunch of people who are not happy with the the response as m as hard as we all agree public works worked on it.

There's a distinction between how much effort went in and and uh the results coming out.

So any uh changes to the recommendations or other parts of the public works.

Okay, all right.

Moving on to Wreck and Parks.

Um these guys' presentation was well suited for our uh our format here of uh good news and challenges.

Um I did include as a challenge that we did not see targets for revenue growth.

Uh maybe there's a better way to phrase that, but I think that that was a real challenge that we heard.

You want a better got a better way to phrase it?

I would just delete the word growth, sure.

Um, I mean we didn't see any targets for revenue, yeah.

Period.

I mean, whether we want growth or not.

And and I would argue some places we maybe don't want growth in this area.

Uh so as far as recommendations, I heard loud and clear that uh we want to see more maintenance of our parks.

I tried to leave some um wheel room uncertainty on this, both in exactly how we should spend that money and where we should get it from, but I made some suggestions, and then uh this one about established maintenance schedules for parks to set public expectations.

That was from Alder Roman O'Neill, and I think that's a great idea.

And then I let you guys uh work on the harbor house pool part.

So before we just see the pool, um establish public maintenance schedules for parks to set public expectations.

I think there's another part of that too, which is my understanding is there's a tremendous backlog, and I never saw a report on what the maintenance back.

Right.

And I think that should be a required report.

Um, especially the backlog that is beyond uh the life cycle or the plan or whatever.

I get what you're saying.

I think we're talking about two slightly different things.

Right.

Yeah, you're talking more about facilities, and I'm talking more about parks.

And because you're talking about buildings not being maintained, right?

Well, across the board, not just buildings, but other maintenance ball courts, and all that.

So it you're right, I I agree with you, it's different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree with adding that bullet as a recommendation to for the department to create a report that does talk about the schedule for facilities.

And facilities meaning ballparks, gymnasiums.

Provide committee with report on deferred facility statements.

So to me, it's it's almost as important as public works' quarterly report on CIP.

Because if fences, if things aren't being repaired in parks and recs because of a lack of resources, we should know about that on a quarterly basis.

Um and I understand there being a maintenance backlog, and there probably should be by philosophy, but I'd like to know is it growing or is it shrinking?

And I'd like to know on a quarterly basis so that when we come time for budget, it's part of the discussion.

Absolutely.

I've both put in that recommendation here and also noted it as an opportunity for a briefing from a uh for a future finance committee hearing.

All right.

Uh Alder Roman O'Neill, you want to talk about the pool.

Um it's not in my word, but it's important to a lot of people.

And I think I told you that trying to pull resources.

In fact, I got two phone calls.

Why have we been sitting here with people that are trying to help us with a resource to open the pool in reaching out to Neely, she had also reached out to a pool management company, and it looks like that's the direction we're gonna go.

Is hiring a pool management company to do it because it does not appear that Wrexham Park is able to manage that with staffing and with um I'm gonna call it maintenance, but having a pool manager who can check the chemical levels, make sure that we've got the right chemicals.

Um, I do have a slight request, it's currently empty pool, and I would love to see if we could find some way somehow to paint lane lines on the bottom of it before we fill it, because that would increase its usage availability.

Um, there is an organization that would run their swimming practices there, and we could also run swim team if we had that.

Swim team and swim lessons by nonprofit organizations.

Something to add to that, Alderwoman?

Uh so speaking with Director Johnson, she did recommend that HACA hire a pool company as you as you said.

Um a pool operator is required at that pool, and the person who did it last year is no longer available.

Um, and record parks has been having difficulty finding lifeguards.

It's even for running done pool, they think they'll get there for done.

They always, she said we always do, but then we don't have guards for Hacka.

And the guards that said they would work there last year, um, some of them when their parents found out said they they refused to let them work at Hack A Pool because they felt it was unsafe.

So she obviously can't force them to work there, and then um some of the other guards just refused to do so because they felt as it was unsafe.

So if we hire a pool management company, they will have a certified manager, as you said, for all the levels in the in the um pump pumping system and other machinery there, but they also have a pool of lifeguards that they can send in on a temporary basis as needed, on a full-time basis as needed, and they manage all the payment of that.

Um, so as Rosalind tries to fill her own needs at her pool, this is probably the best solution, rather than waiting on Ross to get guards, see if she could do it or not.

So that's that is the direction they're going in.

Yeah.

So well, let me just ask real quick: is the funding that's in the budget already adequate for that?

Um, um, Director Johnson believes so.

I think I believe it's 44,000 or something like that.

Um, that might not be the right number.

It's close to that.

She thinks that we're trying to figure out how to get that money to them without the city.

Her worry is that if we pay the pool operator directly, then the city would look like we are responsible for that pool operator when HACA's hiring the pool operator.

So working with finance to how do we do that?

How do we make sure the funds can be transferred to the for the use of Hacker?

But the city's not responsible for the operation of the pool and managing the operator.

So we'll work that out.

So uh this is pretty complex, but it really is should be easy.

This exact conversation happened in January and February of 2026, or on May 11th, and we have not hired a pool operator company.

Um so there's there is adequate financial resources.

There is a lack of clarity as to responsibilities.

One decision that's been made is that the city pays for the lifeguards, and therefore that pool is open to anyone in the city.

People like that.

There's all kinds of social benefits to that, including what Alder Woman O'Neill stated.

Um, and so that we have a clear confusion of authorities going on as to who should hire who, and I think uh Jackie just mentioned it.

So we've got to clarify for 2027, who is responsible for that pool being open?

Is it Rex and Parks, which is where I think it should be, or is it Hakka?

And when you get shared responsibility, nobody's responsible.

And that's why we spent four months this year, and the pool is still the fact the pool's still empty is good news because we can get lines painted on it.

It's bad news is in that it's supposed to open in less than two weeks.

And so I would recommend a a line in here that says that the city manager should uh determine whatever the right word are, go to the effort to determine who is responsible for opening the, and I would call it the Harbor House pool rather than the HACA pool, the harbor house pool um on Memorial Day 2027.

No, what's it?

Oh, we I need the office of law to jump in here.

So then the only problem with that is HACKA is a separate entity and they own this property, so we can't actually force them to do anything, nor can we legally take over the pool with that.

There's an MOU.

Every year they do an MOU.

Yes, and I write it.

But that MOU does not give us that sort of authority.

Hacker would have to grant us that.

Right.

I'm not sure.

I haven't been involved in the this year's conversations.

In the past, HACKA has not been willing to grant us that level of control.

So that that goes to my point that we need somebody, and I think it should be the city manager, to so the fact we don't have.

She can ask, but we can't tell.

Can I finish?

Yeah.

So the MOU should be done in this year for next year, and it should clearly state what the city responsibilities are going to be and what Hakka's responsibilities are going to be.

And that should be our negotiating tool.

If we're putting 45,000 into this, we should get a lot in return.

Um, and so who is responsible for what is totally up to I think the city manager as this is worked, but it should be signed by the end of the year so that it's done and everybody knows their responsibilities.

If we take control though, you do understand that we're also assuming liability and insurance for it.

So if we if HACA agrees to this and they give us full operational control, then all liabilities related to say I didn't.

I'm sorry to interrupt you back, but I didn't say full operational.

I don't I don't care.

I just want to know who's got the responsibility pinned on them to open this pool.

And right now it's this.

Well, that's because it's an act.

We have figured this out.

I've done the MOU for the last two years, but the problem is it's a it's a give and take negotiation.

Right.

Um, and when you're coming down to it, those are the these are the material things that sort of stall the conversation is yes, we're offering them money, but are we also offering help with insurance or liability?

Um, and it like I said, we've figured it out.

I have figured it out for the last two years.

We've had MOUs executed to get the pools open, but as things shift in HACA's world, it it's it's a harder conversation this year.

And so what I think matters for this is there enough money to get it done.

And it sounds like there's a lot of questions about boy, who's responsible, who how do we give it to them, what whatever.

But my question is, is there enough money?

The answer seems to be a resounding yes.

So I think the recommendation is use existing funding in the budget to hire uh, let's let's put this in the passive voice for a pool management company.

It's budgeted.

Is it budgeted, Karma?

Or do they have money?

45,000 in the budget is in budget.

So there's 45,000 in the budget for Rex and Parks to manage the pool for it to be open.

But for Rex and Parks to take full management operation of it, it'll exceed the 45,000.

So let me 45,000 only um the 45,000 is based off of the current operation hours with the current access that they have um staff and a small budget for repair and maintenance that um the manager does herself.

In past years, Hacka has contributed financially to it.

So the city wasn't paying for the full operation.

We were I believe in last year's we were basically playing paying in-kind services, where we were supplying our staff to supplement what HACA was already paying to PACA was paying for their own management, their own operators, and city staff was being sort of loaned out to supplement what HACA was doing.

It sounds like this year HACA is not able to bring as much to the table, and so then it's a different negotiation this year versus the last two years.

Is the negotiation ongoing?

I I haven't been actively involved in it.

Yes, but yes, I believe discussions are going on.

So there's no negotiation ongoing quite yet as we've tried to, but now is the time to do it since we have figured out that Hacka is going to manage the pool through a pool operator, and there's you know, there's it's not in an MOU yet, but there's an agreement that we will somehow get them the money so they can the 45,000 dollars.

And in the past also, HACKA had a pool person who's certified as a pool operator on on their staff.

He's not available this year.

So that could be an additional cost where they're gonna have to they're gonna have to contribute a little bit more.

So I would just want to say that up front though, it recreation parks is not responsible.

They don't have to manage the Hacker pool.

They would like to see it open, they'd like to see that available for residents, especially in that community, and they've done in the past, which Ashley's worked out with MOUs, you know, um, using their the people that Wreck and Parks hires as lifeguards.

So this is something that will have to be negotiated again this year.

How much is HACA gonna contribute?

We know what the city can contribute to be it being budgeted.

You know, we can't wait for it this budget to pass because we the pool one we went opened the pool on Memorial Day, and that's come up around the corner, right?

So um, you know, and the reason I know this much about it, I was not involved in January.

If I had been, I guarantee you this will be a lot further along.

But for the last few months, I have been designated at least three months now.

I've been designated responsibility for Wreck and Parks, they directly report to me now.

Um, and this all just came to my attention.

So I'm trying to get this accelerated and move this along, but I think now that we just worked this out with Hack in the last week that yes, you should be the ones to get the pool operator, so now we can go to Ashley and start working on some terms.

I already have a shell agreement.

And I I understand how important this is.

I want to make sure you have what you need to get it done.

I also want to make sure we can keep ourselves moving on this to separate subject.

Okay, so I try to write this in the most passive voice in such a way that it it leaves a lot of options open.

But as as right now, it says use funding and proposed budget to cause a pool management company to be hired, whether that is by whoever for the hardware house pools so that it can be opened.

Are we are we good enough with that?

Okay, great.

Moving on to ADOT.

Well, just one moment.

Oh god, I thought we were good enough.

Well, the way you've said that is that we're responsible for the management, which the city would not be responsible for the management.

That would be hack up.

No, I intentionally did not write it that way.

We are we are using the money that is in the budget so that a pool management company gets hired.

There is a an input and there's an output.

Okay, thank you.

All right, department of transportation.

Um, they've have a strong service in uh parking as far as enforcement coverage, um, meter readiness and compliant response.

Uh challenges are always um fixed routes, um, and how we run those and how many people are on them.

We've asked for some data.

Um the ridership also is there, and then the ability to collect fares electronically to adjust to modern money habits, um, is one of the challenges.

Uh, we're recommending um for the department to consider ways to expand Annapolis Go to more parts of the city as well as longer hours, operate electric shuttle in Eastport as opposed to downtown um as it had last year during the pilot, and work with the parking contractors to try to consolidate parking apps, that's a big Alderman, could you even clarify something for me?

Did I hear you correctly that said you would prefer the east the electric shuttle to work at Eastport rather than downtown, or or was that an and downtown?

Rather than downtown.

I know that they moved the electric shuttle from Eastport during the pilot last year to downtown in order to create increase downtown.

But um as we spoke last week, Alderman Huntley said he would just as soon people continue to use the magenta shuttle and send it back to Eastport where people are begging for that to come back.

Yeah, and just to be clear, I think you're you're lumping both loops into downtown broadly.

I was talking specifically about the dock street loop, right?

There is still the Maryland Avenue one, which I think is helpful because it doesn't it's not served by the magenta shuttle, but yes, given the dock street is now served by the magenta shuttle, it seems like it this would be more useful eastport.

Thank you.

Are they good with that?

Any addition?

Great.

Uh community grants, the review team suggested community grants.

Um 62 applications were received.

They awarded 35.

Um previously we had um community grants were closer to 450,000.

This year they're 373,700.

Um we s went through the list um suggesting some changes.

Um I did get uh Leonard's suggestion that some of them may not have been vetted, and I was waiting to hear back from Aisha to confirm.

I thought we were told that everybody that was on the list had turned in their application and I was waiting for confirmation.

There was five that we changed that we added that the committee did not suggest.

Um, you highlight those.

Yes, we added um Annapolis Pride, um, play Annapolis, One Annapolis, Kingdom Care, and Bates Legacy Center.

Sorry, six and Blacks of the Chesapeake.

Somehow the number.

I need to update this again, Caitlin, because the number did change.

The bottom number, sorry.

The total.

So and then can you tell us where money came from relative to what was recommended?

Yes.

So we pulled money from Anorondo County Department of Social Services.

Um we pulled money from Heritage Baptist Church Food Pantry and Heritage Baptist Church Community Garden.

And Marshall Hope Food and Baby Pantry.

And wasn't there also an Arondo County Food Bank is one you had talked about?

Possibly reducing.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So FY27 recommendation was 20,000.

We bugged it on 10.

Um I normally really try to defer to you on these because uh I think you know it a lot better, but one of that jumps out to me is the community garden getting reduced down to zero.

Do you but I just love a community garden?

Um we pulled that down because um basically Heritage Baptist Church was already receiving $12,000, and um several people that I talked to talked about the fact that um they could do fundraising for the community garden through the church.

Um, and that we would make an assessment, um, but it was important to keep the food pantry and the backpack program because those are two that we have supported over the years and that supports our initiative to uh make sure that where there's food deserts because that was a $2500 ask, we found that they could probably get that funding from someplace else.

One of the things that I looked at um and have asked the committee to look at over the years is um places where there's double funding or contributions coming from different areas, but I'm open to making a change on that.

If we wanted to decrease, I think fundamentally uh a community garden for $2,500 to your point is something that somebody could really fundraise for.

It's it's sexy enough, you can go and get donors.

I there's a part of me that hurts my heart that that's the the thing we're not funding, but I uh I totally get we make tough decisions, and at the end of the day, if we want to feed people a food pantry is probably going to do more of it than a community garden.

So um, I will say kind of outside of this discussion.

I'm also working with the Eastport Community Gardens and Joy Grows to write an amendment to give them funding and working towards next year, possibly having them as part of economic development and a line item there, which would increase it, which they would be then able to spread out a wider net in the community if it was concentrated so could actually assist with this community garden.

Cool.

Okay, yeah, like I said, I know we we gotta make tough choices on these, so uh I feel like your explanation was good enough.

Oh my slender, yeah.

Um Aisha did send me four um today, uh which I'm assuming she wants me to share.

Um I did check Bates legacy is not currently in good standing with the state of Maryland.

And we will pull that what then we will pull that.

Yeah.

Um I know they're attempting to work on it but I don't know exactly what they have to resolve and when it would be resolved.

Um that she did have um with regards to kingdom care she indicated that um their application indicated that they already had a substantial amount of ad funding um and so she wasn't sure whether um the five percent we had proposed would have much of an impact given um the other resources that they had um with regards to Annapolis both Annapolis Pride and Blacks of the Chesapeake um they she indicated that she was a little concerned about um with blacks of the Chesapeake there wasn't a lot of a breakdown about what they were gonna use the money for and they were hoping to get more details um as to exactly what how the funding was gonna be expended and with annapolis pride they were concerned that um they given how much money they need for what they were asking for which I believe was an executive director position they didn't know if they would be able to sort of um reach sort of a long term sustainability um given that there's a that they haven't fully demonstrated that they have all the money that they would need for that position even with the city contribution.

Not that that necessarily needs change your mind per se it was just yeah those were her their reasonings on those particular ones.

Yeah in discussions about that um we felt like if we were able to give them 50% um I looked at what the county had given an apples pride for FY26 and what um they requested for FY27 and it seems to be that the county would have a match to ours or pretty close to a match so that they would be able to hire the development director and therefore be farther ahead in sustainability so um again just yeah those are her her thoughts but let's let's make sure I'm clear on the ones that are actually not meeting our requirements which was just as far as I know Bates legacy is not currently in good standing with the state the other three are more of a discretionary um yeah got it uh well well that would give you some money back yeah I guess we could go uh support a community garden um okay I'll make those changes and we can we have include those changes as committee amendments to the budget um I have to make changes on the masters in order for Kaelin to convert it and put it into the report I just want to make sure I understand what changes you're going to make I'm gonna remove the funding for Bates legacy.

I will add back in the 2500 dollars for um I can I make a comment did did we zero out um the Annapolis Maritime Museum based on anything more than my just our discussion on I zero based on my on sort of that idea that people get funding from other sources, the fact that they have a city lease that is I believe a dollar a year and both um the Maritime Museum and Crab.

I couldn't think of what it's called other than CRAB.

Just speak regional accessible voting.

Um have the opportunities to use their buildings to for revenue.

So I felt like if we had other organizations that didn't have opportunities for bringing in revenue, then we could offset it by pulling back on those.

They have other funding resources too.

So I would just say if there's money available, it'd be great to include them, but they're not gonna close their programs if you don't fund them, like some others might.

The other suggestions were all done by other older people as well, so I believe that everybody should have that opportunity too.

Yeah.

Maybe if if out of that 10,000 that was going to Wiley H.

Bates, uh we put 2,500 to maritime museum, 2500 to community garden, and then talk to Auto Roman Also Johnson about if there's somewhere else in Ward 4 that could be similarly helpful as the legacy center.

Okay.

Um I would be fine with that.

Yes.

And just sort of adopting that by voice vote.

Yeah.

Okay.

So with that, I think we've got our community grants set.

So that's everything.

anybody got anything they'd like to talk about before we just take a vote on make sure we're all behind these amendments.

These recommendations, I should say.

And these finance committee final recommendations are as what Kaelin has put in.

Yeah, she's been copying them as we've been doing it.

Yep.

Um I'm good.

I the only question I have is are we breaking out anywhere in this report amendments that we're proposing?

I don't feel like out, but I will work with Ms.

Turner and with you guys to make sure that there's nothing that is in this list of recommendations that doesn't get put forward as an amendment if it needs it.

Okay.

We'll send that list to all Roman OEO.

Yeah, okay.

Because again, with the new way that we're we're gonna do amendments, I think also it's a little less um, they don't have to be quite as precise, right?

Like we don't have to say, boy, we have to have this pay for in here, as in the way that we might have in the past.

We might have, let me put it this way, in the past, if I wanted to fund roads and sidewalks out of the city dock project, I would put forward an amendment to do that, and the finance committee might have to put forward one separately saying we want to fund roads and sidewalks out of whatever other CIP uh public water access.

Whereas this year we don't those two things are not really distinct.

Yeah, I think this might be a philosophical comment more than anything else, but as we've gone through this process and we've benefited from all the staff work, I think that finance committee amendments should both reflect the good of the city, not the good of the war individual wards, and therefore carry more weight.

Yeah.

And so as this process evolves where we're not competing for for one-time use money, et cetera, I think that's one thing that we want to look at.

It's I'd I'd like finance committee recomm uh amendments like we've done to make them ward agnostic and carry the weight that we heard them brief.

Absolutely.

Yep.

And I think um whether we do it this year or not, uh, some, or maybe we get to a point of all of the finance committee amendments could be in that sort of exempted category that we're talking about.

Some of them I think certainly this year, it doesn't make sense to, but there could be some this year, and we can maybe even want to work to a point where they all are that way.

So we I would call for a motion to approve the recommendations and the finance committee report as written with the caveat that we're gonna uh tighten up the community grants at Auto Roman O'Neill's uh discretion maybe I shouldn't say discretion in line with what we've just discussed uh we're gonna approve this and we're gonna give Auto Romanil five hundred thousand dollars to just sort of play around with uh no is there a motion on the table to approve the finance committee report as currently written with the addition of community grant recommendations uh that are about to come second all those in favor please say aye aye aye with that folks we are halfway through the budget season it was april thirteenth the mayor revealed it and we've done the hard work for the past three weeks these guys these guys have been doing the hard work for months but uh you gotta feel like you're getting close to the end but we the council is halfway through it and uh I think we've put together a really great product for our colleagues to understand all the work that we've done over the past three weeks what they can take out of it and uh it's been a real pleasure working with everybody in this room but particularly two people to my left and right.

Thank you.

Anything else we need to do today Miss Jackson?

I think so we said.

Alright well with that I think it's time for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second all those in favor please say aye.

Aye.

Beautiful motion carries meeting adjourned.