7 a.m.

on July 15th.

At this time, I'll enter.

Oh, uh Roll Call first.

Alter Roman O'Neal.

President.

Alderman Thorpe.

And I'm here.

At this time, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda with an amendment that moves our general discussion above supplemental appropriations.

So the order would be uh business and miscellaneous, general discussion, then supplemental appropriations and adjournment.

Is there a motion for that?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the last finance committee meeting?

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Beautiful.

All right.

So Ms.

Jerry, would you prefer to give us the general finance department update before budget actuals?

Do you have a preference which way we go?

All right.

Let's just uh start with the budget to actuals.

So first of all, thank you so much for getting these to us to the whole team.

And I will tell you just truthfully that I skimmed through it this morning.

I have not had a chance to dig into it quite as much as I would have liked.

But our goal here really is just to look through this and be able to ask you any questions, but also if there's anything off the bat that you think that you want to call our attention to, uh put the baton in your hands before we start peppering you.

Good morning, everyone.

Um course this is my first time uh actually looking at this report, and uh it's a wealth of information.

Uh my only concern is um basically focusing on the material uh budgets.

I think that is something that we probably can rearrange it to have those items discussed first.

So rearrangement is important to me.

Um in addition to that, I I really believe that we can probably come up with a way to uh present this in a different way.

So I'm happy to have those discussions in the future, near future.

Excellent.

Yeah, we'll be interested to hear that.

Thank you.

Um so at this time I'll open it up to the committee to ask any questions, anything you wanted to go over anywhere.

Uh I'm thinking mostly about specific things, but if you have general questions too, that's just fine.

Either one of you guys want to go first.

I will be honest that having received it last night, I have not had a chance to do more than a crucier over.

So at this time I don't have any questions.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um thank you uh for submitting it.

And um and I uh Roger, your guidance there, Mr.

Chairman.

I'm gonna skip the specific questions because here we are in.

I don't have any specific questions because here we are in July on a on a March close.

So I'd like to jump to my general questions.

And I think you you touched on uh several of them right up front, and I appreciate that.

Um I'd I'd like to ask you to go a little deeper into here we are in July.

Um, and what are you what are your thoughts, observations way forward uh for the closing process as you think about this, what you what you've seen so far, and uh and I'm not looking, I'm not asking you to look back, I'm asking you to look forward.

So for the closing process, uh we've talked about um doing a quarterly or a monthly.

Uh I think that we should continue those discussions.

I think that it is doable as soon as we figure out the format in which we want to present this uh to the council.

Um but the closing process is um I think is fairly simple where we can either do the monthly or the quarterly.

Uh, but I do believe that it is going to take us some time in terms of sending this information out on a timely basis.

The reason being is the departments is um all of the departments in the city of Annapolis would have to uh put in their transactions on time in the general ledger in order for the numbers to be accurately reflected.

And I think that that is a cultural change, and it's going to take some time to do that.

Uh we have already started uh making some of those changes.

We're we're we're pushing up the dates, of course, for the financial statement.

So that's having a real impact uh with all of the departments.

Uh these are earlier deadlines.

No one has seen these kind of deadlines before.

And so we're already chipping away at that culture right now.

Um so again, it takes time to change cultural, and so that is the reason why I think it will take a full year uh for us to to do this.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I love the the fact you use a cultural change.

And I think you and I have talked, so I'm gonna steal your words a little bit.

I mean, I think part of it is your effort to help them understand that it's actually better for them to do this as compared to jamming it down uh your coworkers' uh throats to do that.

Um the second thing uh uh again stay in general, I'd like to to commend you for the annotations that are provided in the report to the right.

Um I think the presentation that you provided full disclosure.

I read down the right side first, um, and then you know, look at all those lines.

And uh just going forward, I I hope you continue to do that.

And um what I would like to hope to get to in this committee is not that we have that we take this and say on line you know, four of this department, what is this, but rather, again, as you and I have discussed, that that you you provide an overarching.

Here are the three or four things I'd like to highlight, and and again, I want to commend you on the comments on the right.

It's not just an observation that that something um is off, uh that there's a variance, but why it is or what you're doing about it.

Um, you know, the snow is a perfect example that you know it's a large variance.

It we all know it because we've been told it already that that there's a transfer and we saw the transfer, but it's all written here.

So it's real easy for us to go through this and uh recognize your observation.

So these discussions are more about um your your senior observation of this, which arguably is the same thing you've told the city manager and the mayor, and that we're not trying to you know go through 19 lines and asking you questions about each one, uh, which is a is an awkward conversation to have in a forum like this.

Thank you, Alderman uh Thorpe.

Uh I do want to thank Capri Turner for putting in all of these estimations.

Uh I do also want to bring to your attention that those estimations uh are generally for anything that's 10 percent or over.

Uh so we do have a threshold that is embedded in this report.

Uh and I think that we should continue.

Uh that it's been my audit experience.

Anything that's over a certain threshold should be explained.

Um, but what I don't know is if we should do a by-line item or if we should go to the total line um of the budget first and then go from there.

Yeah.

Uh and I'll leave that over to you.

Even my opinion really is less important than your decision on the way forward.

Um I love the 10 percent.

I love that as a guideline so that when we're looking at it and we do see an 8%, um that we know why you didn't put a comment, because if you put comments on every one of them, then yeah.

Um the one thing I would add to that, and I know you're probably already thinking this, and Capri's probably thinking it, there might be a variance of five percent that you know to be significant for some other reason than the amount.

And my assumption would be that it would still be noted, or in your brief, you would say this is a variance of only five percent, but know that we're highlighting it, we're focused on it for this reason, and this is what we're doing about it.

So love that 10 percent threshold, and that's good for us to know.

So thank you very much.

That's a great point, and just to tack on briefly, and then I'll give you back the floor.

But I had a professor who described the difference between statistically significant and economically significant to that's in economics.

And uh the point being like sometimes you can you can figure out that you're really sure it's statistically significant, but that the effect is only two pennies.

And and at that point it's like, all right, statistically, yeah, we've done enough research to know it's significant, but it's not actually economically significant.

I think that's it's kind of the inverse of the distinction you're drawing.

That sometimes it's not statistically significant because it's small, but it is economically or in the states financially significant.

Um I jumped in, but feel free to take the floor back.

Um the the uh the last my my last comment um would would be on timing as we go forward.

Um from a selfish standpoint, I would ask you to look at the finance committee's schedule.

Um with the idea uh first of all, I want to commend you for sending this to the whole council.

I thought that was a a good move, at least I think you did is as I looked at it, right?

That's a good move because they they all should have that visibility.

Um, but if you could look at our calendar to the best extent possible, realize you know we don't live in the perfect world we both want to live in, but uh so that as we move forward, whether quarterly or monthly, the closer we can be to the actual time, because it uh as you know, the the the better.

And so again, you know this, and I I don't mean to be sounding like I'm lecturing you because I'm I'm not you're I'm super excited you're here.

Um so but the closer we are to the close, it's a more meaningful conversation for us to have the farther away, and since we meet every two weeks, roughly, um, if we could hit it right before rather than wait another two weeks.

But that's just that's a minor point, and the fact we're talking minor points is actually a good thing.

So I would like for Capri to jump in because she is familiar with the timing.

The the the timing that I'm really concerned about is when we're closing the books for the fourth quarter.

So I will turn it over to Capri and then go from there.

Um Capri Tanner senior budget analyst.

I'm not for sure if it's written in code, but I believe we have to deliver it on the 15th, by the 15th of the following month of when the quarter closes.

Um, but I do remember us having a conversation with um finance committee for the fourth quarter for it to be delivered in September based off of all the transactions happening at the end of the year.

Um I don't believe that we'll have to do it in September this year, it'll actually be in August because we plan to do everything earlier and have the state statements prepared earlier, so it'll actually be closed earlier to deliver it earlier.

Um thank you.

And and thank you.

Every time we add of a budget brief and there's a success story, somebody punts it over to you and says, This is the person who did it.

So I do want to say that it was it the whole team, the whole team works on the report with our departments and put the comments in.

So it's a team effort.

And that was said too.

So thank you.

Um, so I think what I would ask, and Mr.

Chairman, uh, this might be a uh do out for the committee, as we have the new team, um, and we're in the beginning of a 10 or 15 year team uh to be doing this, um, that we might want to look at what's in code.

We might, and and as you're putting together the calendar to get to a December close.

Do we need to amend the code?

Um, or or or as the chairman has done, remove from the code calendar items, um, like you've done with uh submitting the budget, uh, some of the budget information.

And so uh not not a not a request for you to do this afternoon, but as you go as you set the calendar, is as you look at it and say this is a reasonable thing, reasonable calendar to have over a 12-month cycle, then let's look at the code and go, okay, this says September, October makes more sense, or it makes September does it need to be there, whatever.

So uh something to have in the back of our mind.

Yeah, yeah.

Just to put a fine point on that, I think the way I put it is as you're working on this calendar for December close, incorporating having these meetings would be very helpful.

Chairman, I I don't want that statement to go.

We're not looking for a December close.

We're looking for a December audit.

I'm sorry, you're right.

Yes, thank you very much.

Yes, it's I don't want people calling in and going, wait a minute, what are we doing?

Thank you.

You're right.

So okay, that uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and thank you very much uh for all your work.

Appreciate it.

So I I take uh Alderman Thorpe's point that uh we want to hear the high level part, but I I do think there's a benefit to going line by line and making sure that we not not line by line, but digging into particular lines and making sure that we have a full understanding of everything.

So I have a couple that I want to ask you all about, and I'm I'm maybe going to have them be most of them probably are more city manager questions and finance questions.

So Ms.

Buckley and I saw Miss Lewis just came in.

If you guys want to jump in on these, that's great.

Um but one to start, uh it probably is more of a budget question.

On the very first page, I noticed that we're about 50% of what we budgeted on elections, but we're done with elections.

So is that something that we should expect is going that we're just permanently going to have only spent 50 or 34 percent for the year?

No, Miss Bucklin, you you're shaking your head.

No, the um the budget for elections is very cyclical.

Uh and so we do budget different amounts uh essentially almost every year um to account for the activity of that particular year.

Um I know that there will be a lot of discussions about the next step cycle, what does that look like?

What's the city's role?

Um, but no, the the goal is to have um uh accurately predicted what is our responsibility for that fiscal year.

So you should not expect just uh that that's normal.

Sure.

What I'm and I I totally take your point, but I think I was asking a little bit different question, which is this says that at the end of Q3 FY26, we had only spent uh about 50 percent.

I'm sorry, were there additional expenditures in Q4 that you should expect to hit?

I'm sorry.

That's basically I I totally misread your question.

Um your answer was important too.

It was just to a different question.

Yeah, um yeah, do we do have some quarter for?

Yeah, I'm looking over it, Capri.

Um, yes, there are some expenses that trickle in after that coming quarter four on the time you have when they have um law gets the invoices to process them.

Um, but there you're right that there are some savings there as well because um for the postage part of it, we have to anticipate how much we're gonna spend on the postage that we're receiving because we pay for the um for what gets mailed in.

Um, and the post office has a threshold amount that we have to meet, and they charge against it.

So anything that's saved from that, then we go through a process of them uh sending that back to us.

And there was a I can't remember their amount, I feel like it was 27,000 um that we received back.

So they're not gonna spend the full thing, it is loaded a bit.

Gotcha.

Oh, that makes total sense.

Thank you.

Um yeah, it just struck me as one where we would expect to have spent everything by Q3.

Um I had uh just a couple other things I wanted to check in on, and some of these really are questions that I don't expect anybody in this room to answer, so but a follow-up with the departments, but um this and this might end up being one of those.

But Ms.

Buckland or Miss Lewis, do you guys have any idea why we were getting less requests for community development block grant funding this year than in 25?

That just was another one that struck me as surprising.

I would have expected that we would get more.

So this is I'm looking on paid six under homeownership assistance trust fund.

There my understanding, and I I take this with a grain of salt because I want to um uh fact check this um with the director.

Um, but my understanding was that we did do make a bit of a change this year in what kinds of things got funded through CDBG.

Our C D BG funding has been relatively flat, and so this year um we did make a push to encourage organizations um for 20 for this year to um engage with the community grants process for some more operational type things and reserved a bit more of the CDBG for capital.

Um, and so I believe that's part of what the difference has been in in terms of like number and in and engagement.

That's awesome.

I mean, I it's not it's neither good or bad, but it's awesome that you knew the answer.

Thank you.

Yeah, I that said, take that with I that that is what is in my brain as as my memory of that discussion, but I would in fact want to fact check that.

Is that your memory as well?

I'm not for sure.

Okay, yeah.

Let me let me I believe that is the correct answer, but let me let me fact check that.

And I had just one other thing to ask about, because I didn't understand one of these acronyms on I think this on page eight under watershed restoration fund.

Um there's a note about employees erroneously charging to WRF and WFP has been updated to reflect changes.

Which WFP?

Um WFP is the workforce plan.

It's what we use to build the salary and benefits.

Got it.

Okay.

So the explanation is just that um for DPW and enterprise funds positions are allocated a percentage between and they just weren't allocated appropriately.

Um so we have to do a journal entry to correct that.

Makes total sense.

Thank you.

I just uh that acronym wasn't hitting for me.

I kept thinking working families party, which I knew is not right.

All right, that's uh all the questions I had.

Either you guys want to jump in with anything.

Oh, all right.

Well, thank you again so much to Mr.

Jay to the whole budget team for making sure we got this.

We're gonna keep working on making sure we get it a little bit earlier.

We're gonna work on maybe a better format for it, and would love to continue those discussions with you all.

Uh thank you.

Next up, we have our finance department update.

I think we kind of just went through it, but is there anything else that the finance department thinks we should be aware of?

So we will present the audit timeline to the audit committee on Monday.

Um, so we will have those detailed discussions unless is that okay?

Uh Alderman.

Yeah, let's go with me.

Okay.

Um, and then right now we are uh in the preliminary stage of our audit.

The auditors will physically be here starting next week.

There will be four auditors uh that will be in contact with in person, of course, uh, with all of the um people throughout the city of Annapolis.

I will be involved in those meetings.

Uh Ms.

Aness uh Capone uh who's our finance office manager will also be involved in those meetings, and what will be happening at those meetings is that they will be taking a look at all of our processes and uh looking at the internal controls related to those processes.

So that's what's happening at the moment.

Great.

Thank you.

I'm excited there's tomorrow Monday.

Uh nothing nothing gets the blood pumping gets you excited like an audit.

So we'll hear all about it.

Um Miss Lewis, I know you wanted to be here for a particular item.

Uh are you ready?

What can you remind me which one it was?

Okay, yes, one is 23.

Okay, got it.

Uh yeah, come on up.

That can't be right.

This is about lighting.

This is about lights.

I don't think they want to talk about lights.

Oh no, it is not, Chair.

It is uh a follow-up from our last meeting with the request to um make changes to our transportation fund and change the funds.

So it's it's the essay we already passed, yes, not one that's on our agenda today.

Yes, thank you.

I'd love to hear that update.

Okay, so we we made a a commitment to um going up going back uh after the meeting and taking an opportunity to to look um at the information that was presented to us, reconcile that have conversations with the company, um, and present back to you kind of where we think we are.

Um that was the first piece, but in addition to that, uh the director uh will also be presenting today some of the protocols that we'll put in place to ensure that going forward um our vendor, not only for this uh contract, but some of our other vendors, particularly those who have been with us for uh a period of time and we value them, how we will communicate and ensure that uh we stay within the bounds of kind of what we have engaged.

Uh so the first piece uh I I'll turn it over to the director.

But what I will tell you is that um we are um uh happy to share that um while we asked for nearly 500,000 to be uh moved for um access to pay this invoice.

Uh I think the more reasonable total where we are today uh is between two and two twenty-five.

Um we are continuing to work on that amount.

Um we think that's a significant difference, but we're still having conversation with the vendor, so I can't promise you what the final amount will be within that range.

But to suffice to say that we have done our due diligence to verify um kind of our responsibility and the vendor's responsibility as part of that.

So I'll turn things over to the director.

Yeah, good morning, uh finance committee chair and uh members.

Marcus, for the record, Marcus Moore, director of transitation and parking.

We want to share with you information for the source of the surplus was the parking fund.

Uh the total amount was 573, and the breakdown was 492 300 for the SP contract, which is outside the concession area.

So the biggest things that we came up with, as the city manager may mention, uh, we've had internal conversations with our staff, um, ADOT, as well as the vendor.

But we're coming up with internal measures, processes uh to reconcile uh in a more timely manner, and if we do detect overruns, we'll have you know immediately have a meeting with the vendor uh to discuss these findings.

Um there may be at times a legitimate concern that will require a um a change order that would need to be approved internally before something like this ever happens again.

Um so we wanted to just give you an idea of what it was that overrun, as the city manager may mention close to 500,000, and we've come down quite a bit.

So this is less than half of what we're gonna be asking for.

The other parts of this essay actually went to um other parts of the transportation um, you know, the bonds and the uh transitation um transfer to transitation to cover other expenses um as well.

So we're just talking about that one piece with the contract.

So just to be clear, there are components of this that are reasonable as that includes data, um data fees as associated with the contract and also maintenance.

Um where there is a difference in kind of how we had to navigate it is other costs that were associated with the contract.

Um, and the biggest disconnect uh throughout this process was just the need to do a change order to ensure that we were all on the same page, and that did not occur.

And so part of one of the protocols that we're just confirming with our vendor is that in order if if there are any shifts or changes that need to be addressed, it has to be addressed by way of a change order.

Uh I have two questions for you guys.

The first is uh I hear you you're putting new processes in place.

Could you, and it it can be relatively high level, but could you go a little bit deeper into what those processes are?

I'm not maybe you already said and I just didn't understand, but could you just help me get a little bit more understanding of that?

Sure.

Yep.

So basically internally, you know, within the our agency, we do have fiscal assistance that will do the scrub and going through the contractors the way the contractors, the way they present the data to us, something called client view, making sure we're looking at what the budget, you know, those line items say and where we are at that particular time, um, doing that timely, maybe bi-monthly or just once a month as we see things progressing in a normal fashion.

But raising the flag, if we do see something like that, bringing them in and uh getting the additional information necessary and under having them understand that budget overruns are not acceptable, we're not doing good stewards of the taxpayer dollars if we don't.

Got it.

That makes perfect sense to me.

So essentially, in this contract, and and I do have to give the team um uh uh a round of applause for for flagging this in in this contract, it there is typically a monthly uh invoice that comes in that is pretty consistent.

Um those invoices started to shift and tick up, they made mention to the vendor that this this seemed to be something that we have not observed previously, and so um instead of having kind of a a longer window to be able to do that, we're proposing to reconcile that almost immediately every month to ensure that if there is uh a tick up that we're able to kind of confirm with the vendor that that happened quickly.

Got it.

If I may add one other point about data processing fees and what they're associated with, and this is it's processing citations.

So that's gonna be derived at the amount of citations that come through, even though they may uh uh try to flatline it and divide that number by 12.

We can look at general session and summer time of being those kind of peaks.

So looking at that, we may see an uptick there, but knowing the next month or two, it'll probably uh balance itself out.

But data processing fees are derived at a citation um trigger.

Got it.

Uh the other question I had for you, and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues.

Help me answer this question that I'm sure I'm gonna get from a resident.

And I think you partially just did, which is that we're paying basically for more citations.

But the city's paying more.

What better service are we getting because of that?

So citation the data processing fee does generate citation revenue.

Uh that is up, and it's not always a good sense that more people are they're in violation, but that would be is it's driven this direction when you're writing more.

The biggest driver that we're seeing here is the company that was used to produce this.

We found mid w mid-stream um halfway through the second half of our or third quarter of the fiscal year 26, a cheaper way to do it.

So that also is a savings.

So there's another uh guardrail that's already been instituted to save money to do the same thing.

But but to clarify we we were not the owner of that company executing that function.

That was a that was the vendor, and so that was a decision that we flagged to bring the balances back down, but that that of course was not in our control.

That was the uh decision on on behalf of the vendor.

Got it.

Um, I think that's a reasonable answer.

Uh all right, you guys got questions.

So thank thank you very much.

Um I'd like to clarify some timing only because I think I heard a couple different things.

And and first of all, I want to thank you for uh being people of your word, which is obviously an assumption that you always are, so that's not a surprise.

Um, but thank you for working it so hard.

Um so my first question has to do with timing.

I um on these invoices as you as you track them, because I I think I heard three different timelines.

I heard bi-monthly, monthly, and immediate.

And so, as I understand it, the it's because these are fairly big uh invoices, you get them on a monthly basis.

So does immediate mean immediately when you get the monthly invoice, you're gonna look at it.

That that's really a question.

There is a lag from the information that the vendor will get from the data processing, which could be 30 days later, just getting things now in July from maybe late May or June.

The internal processes that I was speaking of of what we're gonna look at um internally uh every two weeks, once a month, but what we get from the vendor, there may be a lag of 30 to 40 days of what comes in, because what comes in may require two notices, you know, that second notice final notice or whatever may come in.

So you may get citation revenue now that actually the citation occurred in March.

So if I can tell you what I think I heard you say, I think I heard you say that the information comes from the vendor to you, maybe time lagged because of the nature of the business, and that when you get it, you're reviewing them immediately.

That's correct.

So yes, there are two components to it just to clarify.

There is the initial review of what we did and trying to verify that those fees, those are probably more consistent, but the second part is a reconciliation, which is when we get the additional citation information or whatever the vendor sends us, then it is reconciling that on that previous invoice to ensure that it is in line and everything has been verified.

So uh I think what we're saying is um we we internally will be diligent both on the initial invoice that comes in on a monthly basis and the reconciliation that needs to take place, which might have a 30-day lag to it.

So uh speak you you you made a comment that the data processing fees are tied to um the invoice.

Um and this is a an important topic for us to make sure that we when we're out there talking to our constituents can fully explain because I oftentimes have have made the public comment.

I never thought I would run for office, and if I ever did, I never thought I one of the things I would run on is better parking enforcement.

Um you're doing it.

Um I'm hearing the feedback that people are seeing the vendor out there um and uh continue to get good reports on the citations that are you know, no criticism of the citations you're given.

One question I've often received though is is the vendor rewarded for giving more citations, and so there's a there's a nuance here between the that question really means to me, does the vendor profit 10 percent on every citation or something like that, as compared to if the number of citations goes up, the cost of business, i.e.

what I'm hearing data processing goes up, and we need to pay for that as part of the contract.

Am I understanding that correctly, or could you better explain that to us?

Yeah, your your two-part question is there's no um formula, there's no benefit for them writing more citations.

That's all city money.

They don't get any kind of bonus for or a percentage of a citation.

One of the things to keep in mind when we went gateless, um, everything there is mailed out a citation, right?

It'll come into the mail.

But what we forget is is the street.

There's a there's a ticket on the windshield, and that still may need to be chased.

So it's not just the garage, but the others, and as I may mention, um, when that triggers a second, you know, who does to a third, um, when do we write off as you know, quote unquote the bad debt?

What is collecting, uh, maybe 85, 87 percent might be in the ballpark.

Uh so there's no benefit for a parking contractor to get some monies that belong to the city.

Okay, thank you.

That's a really as we talk about these cost overruns and we talk about the reasons, that's really important for us to be able to explain.

Um I'd like to slightly shift away from the data processing part um and make a positive comment and make sure there's not a negative to it.

I have found the parking vendors to be exceptionally generous with their time.

The feedback I'm getting is well, first of all, firsthand when we invite them to meetings when we reach out to them, they are tremendously responsive.

I'm getting feedback from the residents of the same thing that uh phone calls and all that.

What I what I didn't hear, and I I hope is not the case, that the the some of these overruns are the result of us being charged for extra time for their tremendous responsiveness in these challenging parking times.

Is am I accurate by saying that?

Very small amount.

Um as we went through the town halls after the second one we did, uh they were coming out, but keeping in mind that's just an hour and a half.

So the other meetings that might we might have had around the uh the wards, ECA included, uh it's not like even a whole eight hours in a 40-hour pay or eight hours in a in a month.

And very in uh incremental, a very small amount um is being attributed to that, but it has driven cost of a very, very small percentage.

Okay, and and looking at your two's body language and the head nods, you're managing that appropriately that when you see the need to do that uh to increase the amount of time you you know, you're managing it in in your in your words, immediate uh I mean not immediately when you're invoice, but immediately when you're tracking it and all that.

I mean, I think that that would be reflect very negatively on all on all of us as a city and as a vendor if we if we have an unlimited amount of overtime and then billing that goes with it.

So I will I will say and I'll ask the director to confirm.

So there is uh a contract which we have very defined parameters around what we would like to see from the vendor, and they are able to execute on that, and and we should be reconciling that piece within the scope of what we've asked them to do.

Um, in in the event that we uh are asked to do additional things like increase enforcement or um add additional things that the council might want as as a point of response to the community, um, I think those will have additional costs.

And while we will manage them within the budget that we we have, I think perhaps what we should be more transparent about is the actual cost of that whenever you when you're asking that to happen so that you're clear on every adjustment that we make might have a cost to it.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Those are all my questions.

Okay.

All right, no.

I do have thank you.

Um just one question.

Um this particular parking contractor, when is the contract up?

Which particular one?

Oh, I'm sorry.

You're speaking of this one here.

Yes.

It's um June 30th of 2027.

2027.

And have we started any talks or negotiations as far as it'll go out for bid.

Um, hopefully, most likely the end of this year.

Um, and they have the opportunity to bid um back on it as well as others.

But the commer they all they are aware that the RFP will be going out in the next three to four three to five months.

All right.

Um yeah, I yeah, uh I I had a question that would go down a different rabbit hole, but I think I'll skip it.

Uh so that's been wonderful.

Thank you very much for taking the time to show up and talk about this directly.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we got up next SA 127.

And I assume, Miss Kyle, that's you're gonna present on that.

Yes.

Um I think this is uh the one type that I put in my category of my favorite kind of grant where our favorite kind of essay where we're just being given money and also there's no match.

It's really my favorite.

Uh and seems like for you know, I I joke like I'm always happy to vote for these as long as they're not for puppy killing machines, and uh this is quite the opposite.

Modernizing our lighting is something that has lots of benefits.

So uh I don't imagine we're gonna have a whole heck of a lot of debate on this, but would you mind just giving us a quick overview?

Absolutely.

Jackie Gyle, deputy city manager.

This is a uh grant from the Maryland Energy Administration, it's one of their local government modernization program grants.

Um the amount we applied for um that we received was 408,500, and that is to um replace outdoor lighting, which we're street lighting, parking lot lighting fixtures to LED.

The bulk of that will go to that.

It's not just the light bulb, it's the the entire fixture, it has to be changed out to accommodate LED.

Um, we also have some very specific fixtures in the city, so it's a little bit more expensive, especially in historic um areas of the city, and then part of this will go towards uh an energy um our building a BEPS action plan for Pit Moyer, which is our building energy performance standards requirements by the state that we have to um submit for buildings 35,000 square feet and larger, which PIP um is one of those.

Um, and this the audit that will be performed with some of this these funds is to um going towards acquiring and outfitting all of our street lights um with LED.

We did a study, you may recall we did a study last year with funds um with Tanco lighting that um evaluated which lights were the city-owned lights, city owned and operated, those were city-owned but BGE maintained, and those which were BGG, B G and E owned and operated, and the benefits of acquiring them ourselves and maintaining them ourselves, which is quite significant over a period of 20 years, we can save millions of dollars.

Um so this is the next step in that process that we've decided to go forward with, which is a detailed audit to get a firm understanding of where the lights are, which ones are redundant lights.

We are being charged for some lights that do not exist.

We're getting yeah, yes, and some are not operating effectively, and so we're getting overbuild for some of these as well.

So some of this, some of the funds about a hundred thousand dollars will go towards that detailed audit, which is the next step in acquiring the street lights by the city.

Right, and you know, I also like when I see that we're putting most of it towards doing stuff, and only part of it towards studying doing stuff.

So, like that too.

Um which is the next step in doing stuff.

I I know that uh Alderman Savage does love to remind me of that.

Yes, but okay, I got uh I got no questions on this.

Anyone else got questions?

Oh, all right.

Uh with that, is there a motion to make a favorable recommendation on SA 127?

I'll make that motion.

Second, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye, aye.

Motion carries.

Thanks for sticking around with us, Miss Kyle.

Uh next up, we got SA 227, which is another grant to the police department, and uh relatively small one, but uh we want to make sure we get this recorded.

And this is the alcohol compliance grant.

So can you tell us a little bit about what we do with that?

Craig Medley, police administrative manager.

Uh, for the alcohol compliance, it's a grant from Department of Health that goes to overtime and to pay uh cadet to go and do alcohol compliance checks.

Great.

Why uh why did they end up giving us more this year?

They just happen to have a little extra this year.

All right.

It's normally around 5,000, but it goes up or down 5,000 bucks or so.

Much appreciation to uh the county executive, I guess.

Anyone got questions on this one?

Nope.

Seems like it's going to a good cause.

Definitely not puppy killing machine.

All right.

Uh, is there a motion for a uh favorable recommendation of SA227?

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

Thank you guys.

Appreciate you being here.

Uh all right.

With that, I think we're through our agenda.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Bye.