2026.

At this time, we'll start with a roll call.

Auto Roman O'Neill.

Present.

Alderman Thorpe.

And I am also present.

So we're all here.

Beautiful.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

The agenda is approved.

Is there a motion to approve the meet minutes from our previous meeting as so moved?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Motion carries.

All right.

We're into the meet.

We're starting with a.

Thank you.

We're starting with uh FT 1326 for uh fund transfer for transportation fleet operations.

I see we've got Mr.

Kwaku in the back.

You want to come up talk about this?

Dr.

Kwaku.

So this is not just for uh transportation.

This is the general fourth quarter.

It's got a bunch of different pieces.

They have the first piece, so yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh, Jiman Doa with me is Uriana, uh, accountant officer assistant.

Uh for that particular essay, that is within their transportation fund that we did projections uh to the end of the year, and we realized that we need to move some money around uh to pay for the bills.

Uh so this is based upon uh projections that we do work out with the finance department.

Sorry, are you talking about the fund transfer at 1326 or are you talking about SA 2320?

Uh it's the uh F the FT 1326.

Yeah, that's where we have a bunch of other departments in.

There's so there are a couple different pieces.

There's like 10 pieces to it.

Yeah, you're not talking about the supplemental, right?

No.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Uh sure.

We want you to talk, yes, okay.

All right, got it.

Transportation maintenance vehicles admin.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um, so let's start with that.

Can you guys explain why the budget ended up being different than what we were budgeting?

Are you talking about FTU 1326?

Oh, I am talking about the FT, yeah, sorry.

The way the way you started off, I thought you were talking about the supplemental.

I got confused, that's on the apologies.

No, generally, uh as we move throughout the year, we look at our expenditures, and based upon where the things are trending, we will actually do a projection, and I just appeals accordingly.

So our fiscal assistant working with the finance department look at those numbers.

Actually, do meet regularly to look at our quarterly projections, and based upon that, we are projecting that we will need the transfers to meet our obligations at the end of the fiscal year.

That's why you have different items listed in there.

Sure.

So I think the way we'll do this is go one by one.

We've got these, what is it uh nine different chunks?

So I'm hoping we can go one by one and have each department talk about it, and if they're not here, we can of course have the city manager talk about it.

So at this time I'll just ask if either of my colleagues want to jump in and asking questions about the transportation department portion of this.

Sure.

So um my my overall questions on these deal with um not that I have a problem with any of the transfers, but the but the budget process that got us to this point.

Um, so as I see um in the transportation part, we're taking 163 dollars 163,000 out of your uh salaries and benefits, that right.

Yes, that's correct.

Altogether, yes.

And so that's a fairly large number.

It how do we have a hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars to pull out of the salaries of benefits of the maintenance section of transportation?

The maintenance section uh portion of the expenses are also paid for in grants.

So in FY2026, we used about 495,000 as a grant revenue, which a portion of it is used to pay for salaries and benefits.

However, when award was made, uh we had a substantial increase in that so basically that means that we do have more revenue in the uh maintenance division uh to pay for that compared to in other areas where there was a stun shortfall.

So the increase in the maintenance revenue came as a result of increasing the grant revenues, and we have Suzanne here who can actually elaborate on that.

In terms of where those savings came in from, it's vacancy savings for a position as well as the increase in the PM grant, and the increase in the what?

PM grant, the preventive maintenance grant.

Got it, thank you.

So this goes to your point during the budget process about budgeting for vacance to taking into account vacancies, and then the second thing I would look at the second big number there, because I'm not gonna ask go line by line, but $75,000 to go into the vehicle section of transportation for salaries and benefits uh I'm sorry, for uh go back to the salaries and benefits, $58,000 for salaries and benefits in vehicles.

If we budgeted, if we over-budgeted for personnel in one section, how did we under budget for personnel in another section?

For for the personnel, uh, as we did allude to when we're doing the budget, we assume a different budget grant amount.

So that's what we used, and at that time we were thinking that what we got in the previous year is what you're going to get.

However, when the award was made, it was very much substantial.

So that actually led to the increase in the revenue side for the salaries and benefits.

So that is how that overage came in.

For the supplies and the others, we talk about ties and other parts and material that we use.

Uh we do have price changes over time.

Uh so that could explain why we also have that kind of increase.

Do you have the details?

License, yeah.

Am I are we waiting for you to find something on your computer?

Okay.

I think fundamentally the thing that we're oh, sorry, you ready?

I want to start.

I mean, expanding.

I was gonna say that the salaries are is it's um generally speaking, it's over time.

And for the 74 900, that's that's for fuel and oil.

That's what?

Fuel.

Okay, all right.

Thank you very much.

That makes sense.

That makes a lot of I think what I was just about to say, and and this kind of I I'm gonna hazard guess when I speak for all three of us up here.

What I think we don't see reflected in what's before us that we want to know is the why.

And so when you say like we need more money and supply us another because fuel prices are higher than we expected, that's exactly the kind of thing we want to know.

So, folks are coming up and talking, like that's what I think we're all trying to get at here.

Um, that's all the questions I would have had about transportation.

You have the floor.

No, I'm I'm I'm good, and and I I would associate myself with the chairman.

This is all about uh the continuing process that took to the continuing improvement of our budget process and the fuel, that's a perfect example where when you did this budget a year ago or a year and a half ago, there's no way for you to know that fuel prices were gonna go through the roof.

So thank you very much.

Well, Rona, you've got any questions for transportation?

Okay.

Um I should have planned to have you guys go last, and then we could have just done the supplemental and not had to have you jump back and forth, but we'll let you go sit back down.

And um, if there's somebody from DPW, we'll just go right down the list.

If it's okay, I'm actually gonna ask that we do central services.

Uh because I know Corey has to leave.

Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.

Yeah, let's do central services.

Go ahead.

Thanks for being here, Mr.

Bradley.

Good afternoon, Corey Bradley Risk Management Administrator representing Central Services.

Thanks, Corey.

So I think like I was just saying, really what we're trying to get at here is why did we have such a large chunk of money available?

It looks like it's mostly in salaries and benefits, and then why do we need the funds going into fleet operations going into contract services and going into well it's really all fleet operations but different parts of fleet operations?

It should be one to facilities as well for a hundred thousand.

Oh, uh coming out of facilities, right?

Correct.

So we have funds coming out of salaries and benefits from.

Oh, I see.

This is on your facilities.

So we're also putting taking some from salaries and benefits for facilities and putting that into contractual services.

So you want to start with that?

Correct.

Yes.

So we're moving money from the salaries into the open positions because we've had those open positions, the work still needs to be done, correct?

So we're moving that in the contract services.

We have aging buildings, we still have to maintain them.

Um HVACs go down when we hit extreme temperatures.

So we just need that in order to keep our buildings and our people safe.

So the obvious the obvious question would be uh were we trying to fill that position and we weren't able to?

Is that the idea?

I'm gonna say yes at this moment in time.

I don't know any differently.

And there's also simply a delay, right?

So for example, um, you'll see later you've got some salaries and benefits from fleet, right?

Fleet manager had retired, right?

We just as of yet today.

We started today.

Didn't have a new fleet manager on board, right?

So there's there's vacancy savings, and there are a couple of positions like that in central services, correct.

Um last budget cycle they opened up a position for a fleet analyst.

That position wasn't posted to earlier this year, and it just got filled.

That gentleman started today as well.

Thank you.

And I think just to pile on to what the chairman said, as we go through here and we ask these questions, um, there's a very various answers, but as specific as we can be based on what happened, would be great.

You know, we had a position to do this for a hundred thousand dollars.

We weren't we didn't fill it.

Um, for this reason, right?

We didn't fill it for this reason, and by the way, the reason doesn't have to be the reason could be whatever the reason is, right?

Okay but but that gives us we're looking really at at the uh effectiveness of the budget process here.

And so if you budgeted to do something to hire somebody for a hundred thousand dollars and you aren't able to hire them, that is what it is, and that's the city manager's challenge to continue to work that and you need to move a hundred thousand dollars or something else.

And I say that for everybody in the room so that uh we have an appreciation for what the finance committee's looking for.

We're not doubting you or anything like that.

We just want to make sure that we reinforce the sanctity of the budget process.

Okay.

Thank you.

So Mr.

Bradley, that was uh real straightforward part of facilities.

We're just moving some from salary to benefits over to contractual services, makes sense.

We then have this part down here about fleet operations that I started to ask you about beforehand.

Could you talk about the why behind that?

Alright, so fleet operations.

I think the elephant in the room and that will be the cost for fuel.

Cost for fuel has gone up, gone up significantly.

I'll use May 2025 versus May 2026 as an example.

Fuel cost last year was 19,400 for that month.

This year it's 33,000.

33,000.

I mean, that's a 70% increase.

Um, and so we're seeing that we need that transfer in order to continue to operate.

And then when you look at the bigger scale of how we operated during this winter, we had dump trucks, plow trucks on the roads, 247 fueling.

So we just want to we're trying to encumber that money into that account so that we can keep our operations going.

The other 150,000 transfer is gonna be to assist with fleet operations, obviously in today's climate, cost and goods of services has increased, and we just need to meet that needs for our fleet.

So this is essentially like mechanic services.

Correct.

Correct.

I mean, we do the best we can in-house, but there are things that we have to we have to contract out, we have to buy parts from all over.

Um how do we figure out what we so I I take your point that on the fuel side, this is both we used more and it was more expensive.

But I don't expect that we would have been able to get that we used more part right because it's fully dependent on the weather.

But in terms of forecasting the cost of fuel, how do we do that in our budgeting process?

How do we are we paying four dollars a gallon or two dollars a gallon?

Um I'll if the budget team wants to to jump in, feel free.

Um, but in general, we generally look at historical trends um and do a best estimate based on what we're seeing currently.

Uh obviously, you know, we we've had some international uh pressures on fuel costs that we would not have contemplated a year and a half ago.

Um and and that stuff is now hard to predict moving forward as well.

So um you know, other than looking at historical trends, it's that one is our crystal ball is particularly dim for fuel costs and not just us, right?

Like everyone struggles with that.

Sure, yeah, go ahead.

So, relative to that, um did we budget differently this year based on last year, or did we use the historical trends?

I believe that we devoted some additional dollars.

I think we took our projections this year and went up a percentage.

I don't know that percentage offhand right now.

Was it the percentage from last year to this year or we looked at our historical data for this year and what we're projecting to spend the rest of this year?

So we increase from that.

Yes, ma'am.

Some reason it goes down, then we'll be ahead next year.

Thank you.

Yeah, go ahead.

So it it strikes me with a new director of finance that we have an opportunity to rethink the way we do that.

In other words, we are the city of Annapolis with 40,000 people and a phenomenally great finance team being put together.

It seems to me we just use Maryland State's number or Anne Rondo County's number.

Um, or the feds, right?

Or or the feds, some number that makes sense that our budget team saves a couple hours and from doing that.

Unless we have somebody that really loves to do that stuff, but even then, so just a thought as we go forward that that's an area where we we get a lot of pressure from the residents saying, hey, why don't we leverage the county and the state more?

That that seems to be a good opportunity.

And after that, I'm now getting into how you do your business, so I'll stop.

Anything else on this?

I think what we heard is we have the money available in salaries and benefits because uh we didn't have the folks hired to do the work on city facilities, and so we had to spend that money on contractual services.

Similarly, we had more money available in salaries and benefits on sort of on the fleet side of what we were putting into the fleet side because again, not everybody who we wanted to have hired was hired, but we've more or less rectified that now.

So we have additional funds, we need to put those towards both the increasing costs of fuel and increasing costs of more or less mechanic services.

So I I feel sufficiently explained.

Mr.

Bradley, I think you're good.

All right, sir.

Ms.

Buckland, do you have any other suggestions about the order we go or you want to just go down the list?

We can just go straight down now.

Thank you, Tracy.

I think this one's gonna be pretty uh pretty straightforward, at least in terms of why.

So Tracy, did we have a big snowstorm or anything this year?

Anything we should know about?

Not at all.

Uh uh really is why did we decide that this was that uh contingency was the most appropriate place to pull this from, and that's probably more a question for the budget team or the city manager than for you specifically.

And also I I totally thought, and just tell me if I'm wrong, we only had 300,000 in contingency last year.

So if you wouldn't mind addressing that, Mr.

Johnson, I'd appreciate it or this year rather, FY26.

Uh Darren Johnson, senior budget analyst.

So we use contingency, um, because we had touched contingency all year, so we had the pot of funding for contingency.

Um, if not, we would have had to pull from different pots to equal up to the amount, so it was easier to just pull from contingency.

Now, and as far as the amount, I would have to double check because we couldn't put 541 if we didn't have the 541,000 available.

Yeah, maybe a better way for me to ask that would have been how much do we have how much do we allocate to contingency in FY26?

So the I while you were talking, I went ahead and pulled that up.

Um the contingency in the FY26 uh budget was five hundred and sixty-one.

I'm gonna have to go figure out why I thought it was only three hundred thousand, but that's what we're doing.

Because uh it looks like initially it was um, but it also looks like there I'd have to find out the the history of that, but there's uh there was a revised, there's a revised budget, the revised budget number is 561.

So there was an addition to it at some point.

Okay.

At some point we adjusted.

All right, I will try and figure out what that was, but we don't have to do it on camera.

Anybody have any questions about our snowstorm?

This is seems like to me the very much what the contingency fund is there for.

It's actually not as much as I thought.

Not as much as we thought.

Could be worse.

Uh, all right, thank you guys.

I appreciate you being here.

Oh, Tracy, do you have two questions?

I see Director Jacobiac there.

Oh, yep, you're behind Chief Migas.

You want to come on up for this is uh a relatively small one, but basically the question is how did we have these funds available in salaries and benefits, and why do we need to put them in supplies, another.

Uh this reflects the fact that the department and fiscal year 25 and 26 had uh an unfilled position, and uh that position has not been filled because I haven't found the right person, and I'm allowing staff to adjust to a different way of managing our operations and current planning.

Um I intend to feel it, uh, but not right now.

It also reflects the fact that there are um two other positions that are not filled, and we've had some difficulties filling.

Uh HR under the recent acting director uh moved quickly to allow us to fill those positions, which we appreciated.

And in both cases, we advertise, but uh have not found someone to fill that position, and we're gonna have to re-advertise.

By just telling me what those three positions you just talked about are the first one I referenced is the chief of current planning, and the second one is the zoning administrator.

It's a principal planning or senior planning position focused on zoning, and the third is administrative assistant.

So the administrative assistant position is still not filled?

Correct.

Oh, that's too bad.

I can understand why you would want that.

Uh I know just for me alone, you get quite a lot of emails.

Right.

So uh all right.

Uh anybody got any other questions?

The only thing I would say is I was trying to quickly find your total salary budget for 26.

And the fact that you only are transferring $55,000 shows to me some pretty accurate budgeting.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Richard, could we am I remembering correctly that uh and maybe this is actually a question from Mr.

Johnson, that we do have a vacancy savings built in in planning and zoning?

Yeah, it's like what 150?

So like 147, something like that, yeah.

Okay.

Not a show off the top, but it's like 150,000.

So if we were to fill all three of those positions, and you know, assuming we don't have people leaving, if we were to fill all three of those, we would planning zoning would be a little bit over because of that vacancy savings.

Is that fair to say?

I think we should be good.

Um we're not close to going over this year.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm talking about for FY27.

Yeah, we would be fine.

Because we plan when we do the budget, we budget as if all the positions are filled.

Right.

So we take into consideration a hundred percent capacity.

Right.

So we will be good with that, including that in there.

Okay.

I get what you're saying.

I'm not yeah, that's fine.

We can move on.

Uh I pulled up the number.

Five million six hundred and eighty-four thousand.

So pretty darn good to only have fifty thousand dollar difference.

So, yeah, seriously.

Um, all right.

I don't have any other questions.

anybody else?

No, we can move on.

Thank you very much for being here, Director.

Thank you.

All right, uh, who we got up next?

APD, Chief Migos.

How are you doing today?

Good afternoon.

I'm Acting Chief Amy Miguel with the police department and uh Craig Medley, police administrative manager.

Thank you guys for being here.

I'm not gonna ask you why we're uh able to transfer money out of salaries and benefits, but can you explain why we need money in contract services supplies and other capital outlay?

Yeah.

Yes, thank you.

I added up.

I didn't know where it went.

Um so the few things were uh the few big things.

Um 41,000 was for a 2024 PO that got closed, so that last invoice had to be paid out of this year's funds.

Um so I decreased another 2024 PO that we're still waiting for the um products to come, so this is just a replenish that uh the sixty-three thousand in contracts uh services, the main thing was a big Oracle project or old in-pursuit system or data management system, um, was going down, so we had to get somebody to come in and get it running again so we could get all the data out of it, as well as the contract IT person.

So that's really should you know it can come out of salaries anyway for him, so that's just a replenish.

Um the other big one is software, 18,000 for the visitors uh system when you come in and get the card and everything that was a project that was done after the FY26 budget was all finished, and we're asking for 40,000 to be moved to replenish the ammo that we used for the new firearms that would went through.

Those are the big and that 40,000 that goes under supply is another, right?

That goes under supplies, yes.

And the software you're talking about is under capital outlay.

The purchase order, the PO, that's what a PO's purchase order, right?

Uh that is was that under capital outlay, or that was under that was under capital outlay.

Okay, thank you.

Anybody got any other questions?

Um thank you guys.

I think that's good.

Thank you.

Already went through transportation and central services.

Bucklin, what's FASF?

That was the forfeiture.

Oh, forfeiture and seizures.

Seizures.

There we go.

Uh oh, I'm sorry.

So that is also police.

I'm sorry, guys.

It is.

I always I always forget what F-A-S-F stands for.

It's there's an acronym in my world of uh SAF SF.

Sustainable ag food system funders.

And so that was all I could think of.

Yeah, no, for the anti-social.

Yeah, forfeiture asset seizure fund.

There we go.

So um, yeah, could you guys just tell us why behind this one?

It's a relatively small one.

This is just mainly to pay um uh cable electric for the offsite.

Uh we did have to get a couple of more rental vehicles, so that jumped it up, and the cost of everything kind of went up more than I budgeted for and expected.

Not too much, but a little bit.

And and feel free to stop me if I'm asking you about something you don't want to talk about.

But uh tell me why were was capital outlay much less than we expected it to be.

So capital, so we're responsible if something happens to that building, we're responsible for fixing it.

Last year, two years ago, there was like an electrical bit that needed to be fixed.

So we put money in there as a just in case something happens.

Um the vast majority of the time we don't use it, but it's there just in case some emergency happens.

So we're liable for like I think HEAC, like if there was a plumbing issue in the unit, so there's certain things that that under lease we're responsible for, so we budget for some of that, and um, but then our um lease was up for renewal and the amount went up.

Yeah, and with the lack of fleet funds citywide, we were supplementing cars we needed with the rentals that we use.

We're trying to come up with some more economical way to do that in the future.

Uh considering purchasing vehicles rather than leasing them, but uh it's part of our uh union contract to supply vehicles, so we're trying to use that as a stopgap method.

It's okay to pay for that out of the forfeiture and asset seizure fund.

Isn't that like supposed to be pretty self-contained?

No, it is it is one of the allowable expenses to use.

You can't supplant things, but this was some money that wasn't budgeted for, so we needed it.

Got it.

I see what you're saying.

Okay, yeah.

Chief, do you this is my education process?

Do you pay it out of your budget for lease vehicles or does that come out of central services in fiscal year 27?

FY27, it comes out of our forfeiture funds.

So it's I mean, in general, like new police vehicles will be in fleet replacement.

Right?

There's right, but lease vehicles aren't.

Yeah.

And if this the city could decide to lease vehicles marked police vehicles, that could be an option.

But right now, the vehicles that we lease, we pay for it through forfeiture funds.

Are these vehicles marked police cars?

Is that what I no?

No, they're not marked police.

Okay, got it.

Got it.

Thank you.

Were we for this particular expense?

Were we to not have the contract saying that we're obligated to provide take-home vehicles?

Would it still be your recommendation that we make this expense?

We have other options to fulfill that need.

Should that have come to pass?

We could have had other ways of dealing with it.

Uh the the vehicle shortage, basically.

Um this was just one of the options, and the forfeiture fund is there for us to use for things like this.

So that's that's why we decided to do it that way.

We weren't in such a crunch that we needed to do um more thinking about how to how to do it.

I mean, the contract allows for obviously if if this we don't have the supply that um that we can make other arrangements, we can work it out, things like uh, you know, not having every officer have a vehicle, but that would require some you know discussions and a little more work to work out.

Gotcha.

Yeah, what I'm trying to disentangle is it seems like there's two reasons why we want to lease these.

One is we are required to make sure people have take home vehicles part as part of our union contract, which I hear your point that we have some flexibility on.

And the other is we need them for work people are doing on the job.

And I'm trying to understand were A not a reason, would we still have the reason B?

Would be the reason B be enough that we would do this?

Right.

Yeah, yes.

Okay.

Otherwise, we know you look like you maybe had a question.

No.

Okay.

Oh, your A B.

I could have been a little more clear on that.

Um, okay.

I don't have any further questions on this.

Seeing no other ones, uh, I think we can move on.

Thanks for going down.

Are they coming back?

No problem.

Thank you.

Otterman Thorpe over here thought it was about submarines.

Uh all right.

Uh Mr.

Paco, how you doing?

Good afternoon.

Uh, Brian Packman, ITS director.

So, question to you is just how were we uh able to spend less in salaries and benefits than what we budgeted for?

And why do we need to spend more on supplies and other than what we budgeted for?

Uh we had an unexpected departure from the department.

Uh that position has not been filled yet.

Um the transfer into the special project um would allow us to take immediate action on some of the initiatives that are being re recommended by the plan.

Um we've actually had a meeting just this morning outlining the year one objectives.

Um putting this funding to use in the special project and continue it forward in the 27 um would be ideal for us to get a head start on these initiatives.

So I just want to make sure I understand is this for doing strategic planning, or is it for you've done the strategic planning, now you're trying to implement it?

We're implementing year one initiatives.

Got it.

Okay.

That makes great sense to me.

Uh, I think that's one of the best things we've heard is you have some additional money available, and so you want to get a jump on this.

I like that.

Uh anybody got any other questions?

Yeah, go ahead.

So I think this question is directed to the director of finance uh nominee, and um, I don't need an answer.

On the fiscal year 27 budget proposal, the budget for salaries in IT was 1.706 million.

The projected 26, but uh expenses were $37,000 more than that, $1.743,000.

So when we did the budget, we were briefed that IT was actually going to spend more money on salaries by $38,000, which by my quick math is about what 2%.

And now a month later, we're we're handed a document that says we can pull $65,000 out.

That's what I'm looking to in the years ahead to clarify.

Projections are projections, and when this projection was done, it was six months ago, things changed, and that's why I don't need to get into an answer.

But that's that's the kind of detail that I think our department heads should have.

That said, well, we thought we were gonna be sixty-five thousand dollars behind budget or thirty-five thousand dollars behind budget.

This and this happened, so now we're gonna be sixty-five thousand dollars ahead of budget, and we took the opportunity to do strategic planning.

So again, I don't need to get into that, but that's really what we should be looking for.

Thank you.

That's a great point.

And let me just ask you, I understand you don't want a total answer, but did the departure you're talking about happen after we did this projection for the city budget?

Is that the answer?

Yeah, I'm getting nods.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Uh I think that's all we need to hear unless anybody has any other questions.

Seeing none, um, the next one is finance, and I think we all.

Yeah, thank you.

I think we know the why behind this is it basically just we ended up having an acting director who is contractual for longer than we expected, so less salaries and benefits, but more.

Yeah, you don't even need to come up, Mr.

Johnson.

All right, uh, I don't have any questions on this one either, my colleagues.

No, sorry.

I would uh offer a motion for a favorable recommendation to the council.

Second, all those in favor, favorable recommendation on FT 1326.

Please say aye.

Motion carries.

Alright.

Only uh uh or no, we do have two other pieces of business.

But our next piece of business is SA 2326, which is our folks from the transportation department talking about parking, one of our favorite topics.

Okay.

Um this is a request to uh move funds from the parking fund to both the parking funds and then the transportation fund.

Uh let me start with the smaller numbers here: 29,000 for four.

Uh, you may recall that I guess a few moments ago, we talked about a 74,000 uh interfant transfer to help pay for supplies and others and majority of that amount is going to help pay for the four.

That is not enough.

So we need additional money, and that's where the $29,000 come from.

Foot six thousand dollars transfer to the transit revenue.

We did a projection for the transit revenues.

A large portion of the transit revenues actually consists of transfer from the parking fund, which is the subsidy.

So based upon the projected revenue, we need additional forty-six thousand dollars from the parking fund to help with the shortfall in the projected uh transit revenue uh account.

So that is why we are asking for the $46,000 from the parking fund to transit revenue, because we always get some kind of transfer from the parking fund to the transportation fund.

Now I'm at the end of the year, but based upon the projection, we want to be kind of uh take action right now to ensure that uh we have enough money to pay for that.

The larger amount is for the contractual services uh for metropolis uh mostly uh due to uh increase in salaries, uh increase in uh overtime and increase in data processing.

Uh particularly for data processing, I believe the budget was around 50,000.

Uh it has changed dramatically, increased uh uh maybe 150 uh fold or to three, yeah, 150 fold.

Because of that, we need additional money to help pay for metropolis contract.

Uh on the other side, what you don't see here, and Suzanne talked about it, there is also some increase in revenue also for in the parking fund, particularly uh uh through the increase in enforcement that we have and all the other improvements that uh we have implemented in the various parking assets managed by Metropolis.

Uh Suzanne, if you have any additional details that you can add to that.

Okay, so I think it's important to note that um we actually spoke with law as well as um upper management and Yolanda will speak to this in regards to this contract because it is so high over budgeted.

The budget was actually from them for $2.5 million, and it's coming over at $3 million.

And uh most of that is payroll related, $300,000, and some of that is data processing.

Um, the about $175,000 of that.

We do have some increase in our income in the parking fund.

Maybe about $200,000 is what we're projecting right now.

But yeah, you want to speak on this a little bit?

Okay, so I mean, if we had a contract for $2.5 million, now it's three million dollars.

Yes.

I'd love to know why.

Thank you, Chairman.

Um so let me give a little context as to um why we're asking, but then also give you some guardrails as to how um we're proceeding.

So there is a $492,000 overage.

We um when we got the information of the overage, we uh started to investigate and look into what those costs were.

The team has been very thoughtful um in shoring up data, um, also personnel costs, but those were not costs that were necessarily um pre-authorized for uh for the city.

It was authorized within the company itself.

And so at this juncture, what we are doing is taking a deep dive into the actual invoice to sort out what level of responsibility we have and then what uh amount of funding um from the invoice needs to be reconciled.

Once that is reconciled, then we'll have a more accurate picture.

That said the current invoice, the current request is to um transfer the full amount so that we um can address the um the overridge if it needs to be.

If in fact uh we reconcile that and it comes to a lower amount, that money will still be available and go back to the original fund.

We go back to the parking fund?

Well, it yes, because it it essentially would not be expended on behalf of the city.

Oh, right, okay, because this portion we're not transferring, it's it's yeah, it's staying within the parking fund.

Sure.

Um, did you have anything to add?

Oh.

Can you explain some more about why why the decision is to have the money that I I get what you're saying?

They authorized expenses that before asking us, they're now invoicing us for those expenses.

It sounds like the decision was made by you guys to say we're in a better position to have the money while we argue over the invoice.

But I'm just curious what what the why is behind that.

Why do you feel like we're in a better position if we say yeah, yeah, so so the invoice came in um at the beginning of June, and I think what you're seeing is a reconciliation of kind of the in-year process to shore up all of our invoices that need to be paid.

So this was one of those.

Um, and so in recent days, we have really started to dig into this, meet with the company, and getting ourselves position to uh reconcile the invoice, that does not mean that we will not owe something.

Um what it means is that I I think that we will be in a better position to pay a lower invoice with the right level of um context and conversations, um, and the money will be available for us to kind of pay the bill immediately as opposed to coming back before the committee uh to ask for the funding.

What we will do and commit to do is in the next finance committee meeting, hopefully we'll have this reconciled and we can tell you what portion needs to go back and where we land it with the final invoice.

That works for me.

You guys got other questions?

Um just jump jumping.

Um Madam City Manager, I applaud your relationship building.

Um I have a hard time supporting this because I think if you went out on Main Street and asked the citizens for what's the number one thing that frustrates them, it's parking the garages specifically.

And for us to for the finance committee to recommend a 20% overage be approved without more detail.

I mean, almost to the point of asking somebody like the director of transportation or you or the company to testify 20% overage.

Um I just don't think the city council should approve that if we're stewards of the residents' money, and I think the burden is on the company.

I I applaud your customer service, your relationship building and and all that, but for them to tell us in June, 30 days before the end of the fiscal year, we're 20% over budget.

Um I don't think they have unless I'm missing something, a license to jam us.

And so I I would recommend that we we not we withhold our support for this transfer until we hear from you that you have received the details that you recognize the details, they make sense, and that based on that information you do recommend in order to move forward effectively we transfer it.

I I just I think we would be relinquishing our responsibility if we did it on good faith, which by the way, I'm willing to do on numerous occasions for you all, but not this one's a tough one.

Okay.

Um Alderman Thorpe, can I just respond if that's okay?

So I want to ask finance a question sh momentarily, but let me um address your first point.

Um uh the team will tell you that I have been extraordinarily adamant to um move forward with this at all.

Um my first position was that um decisions made on behalf of a company are not the decisions of the city and therefore do not um obligate us to um address those overridges.

That said, there are some um there is some room for conversation around what is what was required in order to fulfill the contract and and what might um be items that that should not be part of our our invoice.

Um I think for me it is really we have the data, we can tell you what they spent the the um the overrun on.

If you want to have that data, we should we certainly can make that available to you.

Uh I am comfortable that we will not be in a position to pay 20% overage.

Um will we have to pay something?

Yes.

Um will it be the amount that we are transferring?

Absolutely not.

Um and so either way, if you approve it today, um our commitment is to ensure that we will not I think be position in a position to have to pay that invoice, and we can share share how we uh work that down to a much more reasonable number.

Um if we have to come back, we can do that too, but we can provide you all of that data.

I think the question is if it is going to delay anything in the finance office, and I can't answer that.

Uh so I'll turn to the finance team and um deputy city manager Bucklin to have in any feedback on that piece, but thank you for we agree.

So Karen Ajayee, uh the deputy finance director and the nominee for the finance director.

I don't think it's going to delay anything to be quite honest with you.

Um I have had discussions with Yolanda regarding this, and I do believe this is the uh right way to go at the moment.

Um so if you have any other questions for me, I'm happy.

Thank you.

And I appreciate we, Ms.

Buckland, did you were you gonna add something?

Just regarding the timing with respect to year end.

Right, that the that's the other consideration is making sure that those flows happen in the correct fiscal year.

So go ahead.

We can't go back and appropriate funds, right?

So it's nobody's nobody's desire to pay this.

Um, and that's why we involved law as well as the city manager in this, because nobody wants to pay it, and we haven't paid it yet.

Um it's not the plan to pay it until they can provide us with some additional information which would actually show that we requested the extra services that they are billing us for.

Thank you.

So now I'm this is starting to become a little more clear, because my intent was perhaps to have a discussion with you later while you were asking us to do this on good faith.

The challenge is June 30th.

Yeah.

And so, uh, and so today being the 18th, if we don't if we don't recommend this and it doesn't go to the city council on Monday, then you are not able to expend this money.

So I would be willing to support this on the good faith, but I would like to have a detailed report, and I think it should be public.

It should be at the at a finance committee meeting where we provide the details that you would have provided had it not had we not been under the gun for a June 30th deadline.

Now I understand and and I fully understand the good faith request because it wouldn't make sense in February.

Got it.

Okay.

So I I would be able to support it.

No, that I'm in basically the same place you are.

Auto Roman O'Neill.

So my question is this, um, as somebody who um works in a place where I provide contracts to people and sometimes there's overruns in my contract.

It actually says if there's an overrun to the services that I'm providing, um, I will give adequate notice.

Is that something that's in our contract?

It is.

It is explicit.

We went through the agreement.

There is um specific language that the company should have notified us at the time or immediately after there was a um sighting of overrun, and um actually I think we found it and the team reached out to provide notice that the invoice did not look like um previous year, I mean, previous months.

Um, and so the overrun we not only gave them notice that we saw the overrun um they continue to spend um to support whatever decision they made, and so the the language is there so this will not happen again in with other vendors.

We can't see a waterfall of other people trying to do the same thing if it looks like we are paying out.

No, we we are quickly um putting in place a whole set of parameters and uh letters working with the office of law to make sure that if you are engaged with the city, that um our contracts and our agreements are very clear and that we will adhere to them and um so do we expect our contractors?

Thank you.

So I'm oh I'm sorry, you got another question?

Go ahead.

I would just say that I'm being very polite, we're being very polite and all that, but we would empower you to tell the contractor that this that the finance committee of the city council or the city of Annapolis would not look kindly to paying these bills in the future, yeah.

Well put duly noted.

Where I was gonna go with this is first of all, I echo what Alderman Thorpe said, not just now, but previously that the the issue with this is that we're at the end of the fiscal year.

Um but I'm curious before we approve it.

It's 492,300 is the overage.

If you guys are here saying the amount that we're gonna have to pay is somewhere between zero and four hundred and ninety-two thousand, is there some let's say exclusive, right?

It's somewhere between those two.

Is there some level lower than 492,000 that you feel like it would be appropriate for us to authorize?

We have not determined that specifically, and I I think I would get ahead of myself by saying the actual number.

What I can tell you is that um based on our contractual agreement notice should have been provided, and therefore we uh certainly have um standing to be able to say that we wish to have the company absorb this.

That said, we realize that there are costs of operating um with the city and with um the requirements that may have been placed on them to as they shifted their business practices, and so I think for us it is a conversation about about what is reasonable.

We certainly don't believe that where we are now is reasonable, and I think um based on our conversation today, the invoice is actually significantly less than what you see before you.

Um, I would just say give us additional time to continue to reconcile it, and um I think it will be significantly less than what you what you see there, if at all.

I think we're going to go ahead and approve this.

I would love us wherever we can to be able to shrink these, these uh I don't want to say error ranges, but the these predictability range, uncertainty ranges, that's the word I'm looking for.

Uh so that no.

If we're very sure it's not gonna be more than 400,000 that we appropriate no more than 400,000, but I am willing to move forward with you saying you're not comfortable saying 400 versus 390 versus 360.

Chairman, give me one second.

I can tell you that when this was repair prepared, I reached out to law and they told me to put worst case.

Okay, all right.

Well, I think you're I think we're ready for a favorable recommendation on this.

So moved.

Second, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye, aye.

All right, motion carries for a favorable recommendation of essay 2326 with the caveat that we're expecting a report.

Uh, is it reasonable to expect that at our next finance meeting on July 1?

We will give you an update even if it's not reconciled.

Thank you very much.

Looking forward to it.

With that, the last thing, uh, thank you all very much for being here.

I appreciate your help.

Uh, with that, the last thing we have on our agenda is the fees for long-term room rentals.

Um, I think what we had left off with that the speaking of shrinking uncertainty windows, what we left off with at the end of our last meeting was the idea that colleagues wanted to see a tighter window of how much these would cost us to better understand what the fees should be.

My am I saying that right?

Yeah, okay, I think that's fair.

Uh so do we have additional information to shrink that uncertainty window of what licensing a room and a bedroom for the people will be?

I mean, I will venture to say that nothing has changed in the impact report nor in the staff report since last time we talked.

I also noticed that.

So, I mean, this is based on basically five households turning into room rentals in private homes into boarding houses.

Um, I will go on record as saying I'm not gonna support this legislation because I don't think that it needs to be legislated, but that's just my personal opinion.

I mean, I hear you, but it is legislated already, which is that it's illegal.

Does it say it's illegal?

Yes.

Specifically, and how are we enforcing it?

We can't even enforce illegal STRs.

Right.

Which are very, very vocal and very, very visual visible.

Um, this is very individual invisible in my re in my opinion.

Oh, you're right.

I I think that we are spending a lot of time and enforcement hours on something that I would like to see data on what we think how many people are currently doing it.

I can tell you four in Admiral Heights.

I can tell you that in many cases it's helping somebody already with rooming because they couldn't afford to go to an apartment, and they may not have that opportunity if we started licensing it.

So I am not going to be in favor of giving a favorable recommendation to the fees, regardless of the fact that it hasn't changed since our last question.

Someone to add on a mentor.

My only question for my colleague would be a process question in that the legislation.

City council for a vote with 125 dollars is the fee.

And that question we're faced with is 125 dollars the right amount.

So would it be possible to divide the issue into two things?

One, do we think it should be legislated or not?

And two, if it is legislated, is the right number 125.

So um I would ask if if we could maybe do the second, and and mainly also to send a message to the director of finance, because as the chairman said, we don't have any edits to the fiscal report, and and it says here, granted, we're only talking $625, but I think we need to send a clear message to the to the finance department that it says while the new licensed fee revenue is not expected to fully offset the increased costs.

Um why would the finance department ever recommend that?

Because we're looking at other residents saying you have to pay for this.

If this is approved, you have to pay for that, which for some people might be a different reason to disapprove the legislation or to submit an amendment to say what we asked at the last meeting of Mr.

Doyle, what would the cost the the question we asked at the last finance department, and realizing we're in a transition period, but we the question that why we didn't address this was what would the cost be?

And if the cost is, you know, if the answer is well, it would be $137.22 cents, and we think it's easier to do a $125, okay.

I got it, or the cost we amend the cost to be $150, but right now I don't think we have a recommendation from the finance department that says to cover the the fees to cover the cost of the program should be this.

We have a is not expected to fully offset.

So the second part is really what I'm trying to drive through is with the finance department stand tall to say if city council, if you approve this, this should be the fee.

And I'll I'll add to that if you look at the bed and breakfast or the hotel motel or in, and say I have a bed and breakfast that has five bedrooms, and I can rent out all five bedrooms of that.

I don't have to live there, and I'm paying $100 well per room versus somebody who might be renting out one room of their house, two, three rooms or more, um, they're getting charged the same thing as a standard rental license.

Again, doesn't have to live there.

It might not cover the cost, but it seems to me an extraordinary difference in how we're looking at the different types of housing available.

I think the logical conclusion of the argument that I heard you make earlier is that the fee on this should be zero dollars, right?

Yeah, it doesn't cover the cost of us doing the inspection, but at the same time, if you if it was a bed and breakfast, it's a hundred dollars per room.

So if I'm if I want to rent out the three bedrooms that are empty in my house currently, or the two bedrooms, I should say, um perhaps it should be a hundred dollars per room instead of a hundred and twenty-five, then we'd have a better idea of how many rooms, how many houses are renting how many rooms?

Well, I think you would still have to say, you you would we would know how many rooms, right?

That's in the underlying legislation.

But my point is if your argument is you don't want to legislate this at all, then which I I mostly agree with you actually, as a matter of policy, except that the what we have at the legislation is better than the status quo where it's just 100% illegal, uh, then the logical conclusion of I don't want to legislate this is the fee should be zero dollars.

So I I would be perfectly happy to move forward with that recommendation.

We have data on how many um fines we've given for quote unquote boarding house violations.

I do not have that data.

I think what what I know about is at least two people who have come to the department of planning and zoning asking how do I do this legally have been told there is no way to do this legally.

Uh or I should say not at least, I know of two people.

Uh so I I would certainly be open to an amendment to putting it as zero dollars, and then that could work us towards the idea of we how do we reduce the regulatory burden?

Because uh, I mean, if the if the underlying legislation that was in front of us was simply allow this and not have it be a whole licensing process, I would vote for that in a heartbeat.

I just don't want to end up in the status quo where it's you're not allowed to do this at all, or you're only allowed to do this if we don't try and catch you, which I hate, where we like wink wink nudge nudge, it's okay.

So do you want to make that amendment?

Before we move to that point, I I guess my the question is not just should they be licensed, but should they be inspected and licensed.

And so I I think we all agree that if there is a cost to the tech to the city for a program, the cost should be as much as possible put into those people who use the program.

Um, respectfully, I do not agree with that.

I think it's true for some programs, but not for all.

Yeah, and I not for all.

That's fair.

I mean, not everybody uses the roads, right?

Not everybody uses a sidewalk.

So, so but but in a case like this, or short-term rentals, or um, I you know, I was gonna use summer camps, but actually I would like to see no fees.

Or summer camps, but um, but I think this is a case where there is a single digit number or a three-digit number of people in the city who use a program, we should look at it at the and it and in this case it's a revenue generating program for the individual as compared to summer camp.

Um, so these people are gonna make money, and then uh we're you know, the question is should we ask the city to subsidize their revenue generation?

Um, and I my position going into that would be if they're gonna make money and it costs the city to support that effort, then the city should pay for it, which leads us to the question.

So, and if we agree with that, then the next question is or whichever order, should they be inspected, should we care, etc.?

So, and and I I would say that we could have a discussion about whether they should be licensed and inspected, but if they're inspected, I think the and if there's a program for it, I think the cost should be borne by those who who generate income by the program.

My philosophy is that we should have a lot more things to our we should sort of figure out what the best revenue source is, what the most fair revenue source is for government, and then lean heavily on those ones and minimize the amount to which we extend we the extent to which we rely on fees, except in cases where we are trying to discourage additional consumption.

So water is a perfect example where fees make a lot of sense.

We don't want somebody to just sit around running the tap all day.

Um, to take a more national example, like there are folks who believe that you're you should get to have as many doctors visits as you want at zero cost.

I don't think that's a good idea because at some point you start having people who go for things that are not worthwhile.

Same thing maybe with the bus, although you can argue both ways.

Uh I don't think that this is like that.

I don't think we want to discourage people from doing too many of these.

I don't think people are going to for the f frivolously going to ask for licensure and inspection of these.

And so now maybe there's a different argument that it is a more fair way of generating revenue for the city.

But I'm not sure that that is on, I'm not sure I agree with that on this particular thing.

I would much rather we say this is the most fair way of generating revenue as best as we can tell, optimize that, and then use fees on the kinds of things where we're trying to make sure people are not consuming them frivolously or half-time, frankly.

So that's why I'm really pushing back on that idea that we should always make sure that the fees cover all of the cost for it.

Yeah, please go ahead.

Okay, I think I'm seeing some maybe people want to jump in over here.

Yes, and if we do want to make sure that the fees cover the cost, if we look at the fact that a regular rental is 125, what's going if we're what do you mean?

If I'm for regular rental, if I'm gonna rent out my whole space, sure, it's 125.

If we raise this fee higher, as we discussed, what's to stop people just from going with a regular rental?

That's an excellent point.

Yeah.

So then they don't have to live there.

They could rent, they could, and it happens all the time right now.

I sub-lease to you and you sublet, or at least to you, and you sublet four over their bedrooms, and there's nothing illegal about that.

That's a great point.

Mr.

Buckland, you seem like you want to jump in over there.

Yeah, I just wanted to raise a couple of points.

I I hear your frustration about the fiscal impact statement.

Obviously, as you alluded to, we've got a change in leadership coming.

Um I'm I'm quite certain that um Ms.

Ajaya will have her own take on how those should be done.

Um, and so I'm just gonna ask that you guys set that aside.

I think the question that Alderman O'Neill raised is in fact the relevant one.

So in this particular case, regardless if the underlying legislation passes, what should be the fee associated with it?

The presumption is if the original legislation doesn't pass, council won't pass the fee either, right?

But if it does pass, what should be the fee?

And to her point, the alignment with the other standard rental amount, it's more about alignment and incentives, right?

And as far as the city's costs go, it's probably not a huge amount of difference in how much staff time is going into that.

I think the alignment of intent is more important than some of those other factors.

Wanna jump in?

I love the way you just put that.

And what I would be looking for is this conversation in a coordinated way with planning and zoning and financing.

And if the conversation was, you know, there's only five of these, we'd like to encourage these, and we think the fee should be zero.

Um, because the cost of the program is borne by these five categories.

Um, and I'd be fine, I'd be fine with that.

You know, looking at the program, I think what you're alluding to is one step higher.

Um, because and and I do like the idea, as you said, as you all have pointed out, that that how does it fit with everything else?

If I operate a bed and breakfast, you know, uh this this may lead us down a path to question this whole thing.

I mean, why am I paying $400 if I have four bedrooms?

It's not taking any more time to inspect it or anything like that.

Why aren't I just paying X number of dollars for a unit or whatever?

And I'm not the expert on that, but I would love, I love the way you're thinking, and I think we ought to go down that path of what's the most fair and equitable way to look at this, um, and what's the fee for every one in a holistic way, and and I don't think the finance committee of the city council should be picking numbers out of the sky, whether it be zero or 125.

I think it should be planning and zoning and financing to say, hey, that we've looked at it, this is what we believe.

Yeah, and I do believe that the it wouldn't necessarily be in the fiscal impact note, but I think when it was originally written, it came from planning and zoning.

And yes, I know we have a 10-minute warning.

I hear you.

Uh so I don't want to I don't want this to sound combative.

I'm trying to get the the answer here, but is it fair to say, Miss Buckliner or Miss Lewis, that the reason 125 was picked is because that is planning and zoning's recommendation.

That is my understanding.

So I think we have a couple options in front of us.

We could delay this just until we have a tighter uncertainty window on rooming houses.

Rooming house costs, I should say.

We could delay it and try to make this about updating all of these standards, right?

We just did it for short-term rentals.

We could try and start amending the legislation to uh increase standard rental operating license, bed and breakfast, home rental operating license, hotel, motel, or in rental operating license, all on the recommendation of the director of planning and zoning, what they tell us those costs actually are.

So those are that's option one, that's option two.

We still have the idea that it could be amended to zero dollars, if that's the political strategy, which I take from a from a staff perspective, I take that's maybe not your recommendation, but that's that strikes me as the difference between uh policy and politics, and I would understand if that's on a Roman O'Neill's goal.

And then the fourth option that I see is that we approve it as is at 120 or we make a favorable recommendation as is at 125.

Perhaps the fifth option is that we could, as you just said, pick a number out of the air and say, you know, we're gonna go with 600 because we know it's somewhere between 125 and 700.

Uh, but I think those does anyone see any other options in our universe besides those five.

Okay.

So do we want to start knocking out some of those five options?

Yeah, Ms.

Buckland, you want to jump in?

Uh, yeah, you guys jump in as needed.

Um, there are two things that I will discourage.

Um, one is I would discourage us potentially being in a situation where the underlying legislation has passed and there is no fee associated with it.

I think you do in fact need to land somewhere.

I will also discourage trying to boil the ocean on this and revisit it holistically.

That's a long-term project of what should all of those fees be.

I I appreciate the sentiment, and I'm not gonna discourage the sentiment, but this is not the time and the place for that.

So I we're down to three options, right?

Both of the delay ones are out.

Yeah, so um I that that would be my my personal opinion.

Okay, so the options that I'm seeing on the table now, unless somebody really wants to go against Ms.

Buckland's recommendation, are we can knock it down to zero and approve it, we can approve it at 125, or we can approve it at some number between 125 and 700.

I would also vote against that.

So if we have two votes against that, we're down to two options.

Uh so folks want to.

I I don't have a strong preference, honestly, between the two, but I think I'm gonna answer your guess, Solomon Thorpe, that you would much rather see it at 125 than zero.

Is that fair to say?

So I would like to have option two A, which is go with the director of planning zoning's recommendation, and send a very clear message in support of the leadership, staff leadership, and say, not tomorrow, not next week, but this is the perfect kind of thing where we're looking for the city staff to take holistic looks at these things and come to us.

We're not looking to be pains in the neck and make things impossible and you know, work 48 hours a week.

Um, but we'll take the recommendation as a sign of good faith.

Um, but this is the kind of thing that we're and and I applaud, I want to I also want to send the message clear that I applaud Mr.

Doyle's staff uh financial impact because it it is a step, uh very much a couple steps in the right direction.

Um we just send a a verbal message from the finance committee that we're looking for some more holistic financial recommendations.

Yeah, and I just you know, I just went on my whole philosophy stool about why how I think we should fund things, but I totally agree with what I think you're saying here that we should have a range in these fiscal impact notes of how much this is gonna cost us.

So uh I I like 2A from what you just said.

Auto Road O'Neill, thoughts?

Well, I think we're not really amending it.

It's a we're we're approving it with a request for information on how did you put it with a request for that holistic look?

Is that fair to say?

I mean, I dare say it could be part of the short-term rental uh effort.

I mean, you know, it would be perfect as planning and zoning is put in all this time into that that these five categories be touched on that we have these other four categories, and and here ought to be the rates because actually the short-term rental license is different as of July 1st because we changed it, but yeah, but yeah, I mean perhaps a recommendation for planning and zoning is boy, we really want to encourage short-term rentals to become long-term rentals, in which case we're going to for a year say it's a for that conversion, it's a zero dollar fee, right?

Like just as an idea, yeah, uh, or a $1, I would say.

But okay.

It sounds like there is some consensus to make a favorable recommendation to our 1726 as written with the caveat that we would like to see uh information of how much each one of these licenses are costing us in that sort of holistic look.

So, make a motion for that.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Alright, we got four minutes for an update from the finance department.

You want to speed run us, Ms.

Ajay?

Oh, we can move.

And the TV studio has a hard cutoff at four o'clock.

So you let us know what the top, I don't know, three things are that we need to know.

The first topic is that the finance department is going through transition.

I believe everyone is aware of that.

Yes.

That is a process.

Um the second thing, and I think we sort of talked about this a little earlier.

Uh Yolanda did talk about putting guardrails to prevent these contracts from uh going over uh in over the budget.

Uh so I will be visiting uh some of these departments to find out what guardrails need to be implemented.

Uh and then the very next thing is uh just letting you know that we are getting ready to get into the audit season.

Um we are currently reviewing uh the engagement letter from uh the auditors, and we have provided that information over to our city attorney Tony, he's reviewing it, and I've also been in contact with Alderman Thorpe about the engagement letter.

We will be talking more about that uh at our audit committee meeting next week.

That's what I have.

Beautiful.

I woke up in a cold sweat this morning thinking we had an audit committee meeting, but it's next week.

I was somehow had in my head that I had overslept it this morning.

Uh okay.

Anything to add, Miss Lois?

Nope.

Beautiful.

All right.

Uh Auto Roman O'Neill, did you have a question or something?

Otterman Thorpe, you had a question?

Motion to adjourn.

All right, motion to adjourn on the floor.

There's a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Bam.

Two minutes.

Great.

Well done, guys.

I feel like I