I'd like to call the regular meeting of Monday, March 25th to order.

Would you all please stand for Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of reflection?

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God and individual with liberty and justice for all the thank you, everyone.

Marcella, do you mind doing roll call, please?

Councilmember Condi here.

Councilmember Malone?

Councilmember Nielsen?

Here.

Councilmember Solario.

Councilmember White?

Vice Mayor Paneda?

Here.

Mayor Weiss.

Here.

Thank you, Mayor.

And just a reminder for everyone on the floor, if you are speaking, could you please speak into the microphone so that way the cameras can pick up the feed?

Thank you.

Ron, item number two eight, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Actually, 2A is a woman's history month proclamation.

And I believe one of the council members is going to read that.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Ron.

So today I'd like to read this proclamation for Women's History Month, March 2024.

Whereas women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways and have served as leaders in their communities.

And whereas through leadership, innovation, and ingenuity, generations of women have made significant contributions in science, medicine, technology, business, politics, entrepreneurship, and arts and culture, and whereas women were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable and cultural institutions in our nation.

And whereas women have served our country courageously in the military, and whereas women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolish movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, and the civil rights movement, which create a far a more fair and just society for all.

And whereas the city of Abendell has a rich history of many dynamic and great women leaders, community servants, entrepreneurs, and business professionals, educators, and more that have made their influence felt and constructed the path for the city we are today.

This includes former mayors Desi Lorenz and Marie Lopez Rogers, as well as the many women who have served on the city council and those who serve today.

And whereas the City of Avondale is proud to honor the history and contributions of women in our community and throughout our state and our nation.

Therefore, I Tina Condi and the entire city council do hereby proclaim March 2024 as women's history month and urge all residents to celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over this course of history.

Thank you, Tina.

We appreciate that.

Marcella, we had two blue cards.

Mayor, it is my understanding that they will work with staff at this time.

Um but if Miguel or John are in the room right now, this is your opportunity to speak.

Um it was my understanding that they were not going to be here tonight.

Thank you.

And I and Ron, I appreciate the staff reaching out to them and answering questions more directly than we could in public comments.

So thank you for that.

Item number four is consent agenda.

Are there any counselors who wish to have an item removed for separate consideration?

Seeing none since we're going to be doing voice vote correct.

Uh can I get a motion, please?

Vocal?

I'll make a motion.

I'll second Mayor.

I have a motion from Vice Mayor Panetta, a second from Councilman Condy.

Marcella?

Councilmember Condi?

Aye.

Councilmember Malone.

Councilmember Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Solario.

Councilmember White.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Paneda.

Mayor Weiss.

Thank you.

Everyone passes 7-0.

Ron, are we reversing the order of regular agenda and uh executive session?

I believe Mr.

Mayor, we are.

We're going to go into executive session first and then come back and do the budget.

Um can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session, please?

Sorry, Mayor.

Um will we adjourn the meeting or take a recess for executive session?

We motion to go into it.

Okay, so we motion to go into executive session.

I move that we go on to executive session.

Second.

I have a motion from Councilmember White, a second from Councilmember Salario.

Marcella.

Councilmember Condi.

Aye.

Councilmember Malone.

Aye.

Councilmember Nielsen.

Aye.

Councilmember Solario.

Councilmember White.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Paneda.

Aye.

Mayor Weiss.

Aye.

We are recessed to executive session.

Thank you.

And everyone we will be back in the council chamber after executive session.

Thank you.

No, I think Mayor, if you'd like, I can do roll call.

Yes, please.

Councilmember Condi here.

Councilmember Malone.

Here.

Councilmember Nielsen.

Here.

Councilmember Solario.

Here.

Councilmember White?

Here.

Vice Mayor Paneda.

Mayor Weiss.

Here.

Ron, is it you or Renee?

Mr.

Mayor, it's gonna be Renee.

All right, good evening.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council.

Thank you for the opportunity tonight to present our fiscal year 2025 draft city manager's recommended budget.

Um, just to talk a little about a little bit about where we've come from and where we're headed.

So we had our staff retreats to launch this budget process at the end of 2023 in November and December, we had our council discussions in December and went through a lot of review of what is being proposed tonight.

So with tonight's discussion, we will be looking for your feedback, your comments and questions, and there will be opportunity at the end for us to open up the floor and have discussion about any items.

However, throughout the presentation, if you do have any questions at that point, you could stop us at any time.

Um so with that, tonight is going to be a three-part presentation.

I will be giving the budget update.

I'll be covering our current year status as well as going into the 2025 budget.

We'll be followed up by a CIP update given by James Melanese, and then a benefits update from Andy Musquita.

So let's start with where are we today in FY24.

So in the revenue side of the House, you're looking at the general fund revenues from left to right, looking at 2023 actuals through February, the current year 2024 budget, as well as our 2024 actuals, and then variants to last year and variants to budget.

So with sales tax, we did project revenues overall for the fiscal year of 2024 to decrease 1.4 percent, um, and that was due to an anticipated decline in contracting revenue.

Um and you can see that so far to date, we're 1% over last year and 8% over budget.

And we'll go into each one of these line items in a little bit more detail.

Property taxes right at budget so far year to date.

Same with state shared rails uh sales tax, we're just slightly down.

Charges for service licensing and fines.

So we're 24% down to last year, and four percent to budget.

So in this case, um we did anticipate having a lower level of growth in this particular area.

Um so that's why you're seeing that that significant decrease.

So we went from 9.5 million dollars in actuals last year.

We budgeted only 7.5, and we're coming in at 7.2.

And again, we'll cover the contracting um impact on those revenues in just a bit.

And then the last one is on property sales and investment.

So in this one, significant increases to both last year and budget, and that is primarily because we had some sale of properties which were not budgeted.

We didn't have that um that confidence at that time when we were building the budget, so that's just showing some significant increases.

So we'll take a little bit deeper dive into the sales tax um revenue.

So there's a lot of lines on here, but what you need to see is this is a five-year look back, starting at the bottom of the purple line that's um 2019.

So in each year, we've seen sales tax growth.

And you can see in fiscal years 22 and 23, we had some significant growth year over year.

Now we didn't believe that those kinds of significant growth levels would continue beyond those years.

And we did anticipate this fiscal year that those numbers would come back down, and you can see that.

The bold red line is the current year.

Yes.

Whenever we see this graph, even going back to 2000 in the early in the mid 2000s, you always see spikes, you always see dips.

But this year, what we're seeing is kind of a leveling out and gentle curves.

Is there a reason for that?

Do we anticipate that curve happening in the future also, or is it just an anomaly this year?

If I look at January, you always see spikes in January, but this year it was just a very even curve.

Well, and one of the answers to that question, Mayor, is that we saw some additional revenues in the month of December.

So you're seeing a smoothing out in this case.

Otherwise, if we didn't have those particular revenues, you'd see more of the spike in January.

But so that does speak to uh looking at the tax categories within sales tax.

So starting with retail sales, this is a number when we were going through the pandemic, we were watching closely to see what the market was doing in anticipation of a potential downturn.

Now revenues were budgeted pretty flat.

We came in at 26 million last year, we budgeted 27, and we're at that 26 million mark.

So one thing I can point out is that in our our comparisons between actuals and budget, we started out the year over both prior year and budget up until August.

Then we started seeing retail sales tax drop down in both categories to last year and to budget.

And we just saw that turnaround in the month of February.

So is that a blip?

Is it a trend?

We'll keep watching it, but it's a good thing no matter what.

We did show in the month of February we were up over prior year and to budget.

Auto dealers, we did see those starting declining over the past um 24 months, and we're right there at budget.

Um contracting, that's the one that is very cyclical, and and we'll show you a graph in just a second.

And it's something that we're not always budgeting to the level of that growth.

We're anticipating that growth to start sliding, but what's happening is it's just slowing a little slower than we anticipated.

So that's why our actuals are coming in at 7.8 million through February, where our budget was only at 5.6.

So that contracting category is what's really holding that red line on the prior slide.

So overall, total revenues are up a total of 2% to last year and 5% to budget.

So that's a good place to be right now.

So contracting sales, here's what it looks like going back to 2016.

So it went from about 1.5 million all the way to about $9 million.

Um so clearly, this is something that we're not anticipating to see this number continue to grow at that pace.

We do budget, we are conservative, and we do budget for that number to come down a bit, but it has outpaced that assumption in 2024.

So on to the next line, which is state shared revenue.

So in this particular category, it does include a portion of state income and sales tax as well as vehicle license tax and HERF.

This one, we just want to make sure that everybody knows that our forecasting of this urban share revenue is based on the forecast produced by the joint legislative budget committee, and their revenue does include the income tax reduction or the flat tax for income tax, and this uh revenue source is affected by legislation.

So looking at the the parts that make up the state shared revenue, the first is income tax.

That is a known number because there is a delay between that projection and when we received those revenues.

So we are flat to budget.

State sales tax is right online with our actuals, and um her funds is as slightly under.

Next category is our development revenue.

So again, this category of um projecting where are single family homes going to come in at.

So what we do is we take a projected number of single family homes and we use an average revenue per single family home.

So this year in 2024, that assumption was based on 750 single family homes.

Our actuals are coming on slightly under that.

But in our forecast for 2025 out to 2029, we reduced that forecast from 750 down to between 300 to 500.

And then commercial and multifamilies, a little bit more difficult to project as you can see in the next slide.

What you're looking at here is a 12-month look back from March to February.

The blue line is our current year actuals.

The purple line is the previous 12 months.

So you can see how those peaks and valleys occur.

The orange line in between is a flat line, it's a straight line budget.

So the difference between June and July is because we reduced our budget assumption.

So you're seeing that decrease.

So we decreased in almost by half in this case.

So now we will move from revenue to take a look at our expenses.

So in this chart, you are looking at the general fund expenses.

Again, year to date actuals through February of 2024.

Starting left to right are last year actuals, current year budget, and current year actuals.

And they are by expense category, personnel costs versus services, et cetera.

So in this case, we are up overall to last year, which we plan to be, but we are down to budget.

So one thing to make note of is that not all of those negatives means that we will be saving.

In some cases, it could be timing variances.

But if you look at the first line, personnel, that means, yeah, we are saving money because that's vacancy savings.

And we do take that into account when we build our forecast for the new year.

And then lastly, we wanted to show you a look at our utility enterprise funds.

So here, the first thing to note is that this these budgets do incorporate capital projects that are not yet completed.

So where you'll see in the middle column of budget, you'll see that the net is we're spending more than we're bringing in at a negative 17.9 million for water.

We're currently at 1.2.

Well, that's because we have a lot of capital expenditures that have yet to be spent.

So overall, the story here on all three funding sources is our revenues are up due to increased customer counts, and we have some unspent capital projects.

So before I move on to the fiscal 2025, do you have any questions at this point?

On 24?

No.

Okay, thank you.

So now we're going to take a look at composing the 2025 budget.

So let's start with our priorities.

So included in this process were the following priorities in ranking order, and the first being personnel.

So we did hear from you that is a high priority.

That is something that we need to focus on.

We need to maintain and keep qualified employees and good people.

And then maintain what we're currently doing, maintain our current programs, then look to see if we can add new or expanding programs.

As we mentioned with projects, we're still continuing them or finishing those.

And then lastly was new request.

So some of the assumptions that are included in what you're seeing tonight is on the revenue side.

There's no assumption of any recession.

Contracting sales tax is returning to normal, normal being less than that peak, somewhere in between, we saw that revenue climb over the last seven years.

There are no structural changes to sales tax or state shared revenues.

And as we talked about, single-family homes permits are forecasted between 300 and 500 per year.

On the expense side, due to that number one priority of personnel, we do have compensation increases included.

We are making the assumption in this five-year forecast that inflation is returning to 3%.

And then staffing for the new LMR public safety is included in this five-year forecast beginning in fiscal 2027.

And then lastly is vacancy savings.

This is something new that we haven't done for the past couple years, or if at all, and that is we're actually budgeting to incur some vacancy savings, albeit small, but we are planning that we will have about $600,000 in the budget of vacancy savings next year.

So some other changes that have been incorporated into this process.

Knowing that we were looking at the beginning of a revenue loss due to the residential rental sales tax.

We took a little different approach or a little harder look at the budget this year, and the first was going line by line through every operational budget to see where do we have money that maybe has not been spent.

Looking at the historical trends for a couple years, seeing where we've spent the money, where we haven't, where could we reallocate some money?

So that was done across the board, and it resulted in an overall reduction of $2.5 million that have been reallocated within this budget.

Same thing on the CIP side.

We looked at projects looking at our resources, where are we able to complete projects based on our capacity?

And so some projects have been moved out beyond the CIP to fiscal year 2030, and that accounts for 28.9 million.

It means it was there every single year.

But in some cases, as we talked about, maybe some weren't getting spent.

So there were some decisions that were made to the tune of about 1.3 million dollars where it's not assumed to be ongoing.

It's in this budget, and then we will readdress it next year when we build the fiscal 2026 budget again.

Capital contingency, this is something we started a couple years ago to make sure that we could adjust as needed for unanticipated price changes, etc.

for capital projects that still exists here in the 2025 budget at $5 million.

We talked about vacancy savings, so that's $622,000.

That's actually planned.

So when we enter fiscal year 2025 on all the vacancies that we have across the city, for the first 622, those are planned, and we need to recoup those dollars right off the bat.

And then adjustments for interest on investments.

This is new.

We've seen some pretty low interest rates over the past few years, and that has changed over the past year, but we've been able to focus on our investment portfolio and take advantage of those increased interest rates, and so we're able to generate an additional $2.3 million in interest revenue.

So that is incorporated into this budget.

And last is we went through our existing projects.

So just like we did on the operational side, we're reviewing current projects that we have outstanding.

Where can we identify savings and where can we reallocate monies?

So we did that, and it impacted a savings of 3.3 million on the general fund alone, $13 million overall, and those monies are reinvested back into the budget.

So next we are looking at utilities.

So council did approve a two-year rate increase back in June of 2023.

We are implementing the second year rate increase of $1.50 for solid waste in July of this year, and the water and sewer will follow January 2025.

And then come the spring next year, we'll be back to council with our recommendations for any future rate increases.

Impact fees and debt.

So development impact fees.

We started building the development impact fees, the land use assumptions, the infrastructure improvement plan back in 2022.

The fees themselves got approved by council and were effective in June of 2023.

When we started building that plan, the cost for the wastewater treatment plan expansion was 79 million dollars.

Today, that cost is estimated at 130 million.

So clearly, our fees were based on a cost that is too low, and it is very likely that we will go back through that process, which can take many months, and we'll be bringing that back to council so that way we can adjust our wastewater development impact fee.

And then we're talking about debt as we go through the CIP and we talk about even that wastewater treatment plant.

We are going to have to finance some of these projects, and we're planning to do so.

So this is to put this on the table to make council aware that this could be an option of going out for a general obligation bond in 2025.

So keep in mind we are monitoring our tax rate in the city and making sure that we don't see huge fluctuations to taxpayers.

So that is something we will bring back at a later date.

And then we will see the slides you're familiar with.

Start looking at the general fund.

And the first one is ongoing revenue and expenses.

So blue line revenue, orange line, expenses.

So in our financial policies, we want to establish a structurally balanced budget, meaning expenses aren't exceeding those revenues.

So think back to some of the changes I just mentioned.

We've actually made some hard decisions and move some things to one-time expenditures.

So they're not necessarily projected in those future ongoing costs.

We'll have to make those decisions from year to year as we transition through this revenue reduction and how we plan and see this revenue growth going forward.

So from fiscal 2024, our revenue is at 109 million.

You see it table off in 2025.

That is because we are taking a half a year loss of the residential rental sales tax.

So it starts in January 25.

So we see a half-year loss.

Then in 26, we will incorporate that other half.

So there is some growth in the other categories, and it's offset by that residential rental sales tax.

And then from 27 on, we're back to a more normal historical growth pattern for sales tax.

Mr.

Mayor Council, as a reminder, one of the reasons in 27 you don't begin to see that gap is the additional of 15 or so firefighters for the station.

Yeah, about 15 firefighters are budgeted for that year, FY27.

Which is why that stays very close.

And then on the flip side, after ongoing is our one-time.

So you've been seeing a chart like this for some time.

It's usually a peak and back to a valley.

We're making some progress.

It's a downward slope now.

We're trying to level off this peak and then coming back.

And then again, this is going back to what can we complete?

When can we complete it?

What is our capacity?

So we can better cash flow these types of projects.

But in the end, we are spending the balances that we have built up, we're spending them over time.

Thank you so much, Renee.

Is it because we're going to go back out to do a general obligation bond that we don't have an uptick for what we are forecasting for expenses with the water?

Looking at 2027, 2028.

Yeah.

That 130 million dollar cost, that is correct.

Okay that we are not planning to fund that out of general fund.

And and you're looking at the general fund right now.

Thank you.

Yes.

Mr.

Mary, in addition, the 27 or so million we have uh in the thought process for the fire station.

So the Alamar fire station is also not in there because we're looking at bonding most of that.

Is that correct, Renee?

And development impact fees.

And development impact fees.

So that neither one of those would be general fund.

Thank you.

All right.

And then when you put all of that together, what does it leave us?

This is our general fund forecasted fund balance.

So first let me say this is after stabilization in the capital reserves are set aside.

So for those that aren't aware, stabilization consists of two parts.

The first is emergency reserve of 25% of prior year budget.

And an additional 10% is a rainy day fund.

Again, 10% of prior year adopted, and the capital reserve, we talked about it being a flat $5 million.

So after you take those reserves and set them aside, this is what we're left with.

So if you look out to fiscal year 2029, we are at 6.6 million.

So we have had the conversation on what should that number be.

I think we talked about a percentage and maybe even 10 million or less.

So I think the story and the takeaway from this is the city's in a good place right now.

We hear a lot of stories about other cities and what they're dealing with financially, and I think we're we're doing well.

I I think when you look at a general fund balance at the end of every year, you know, it's bragging rights for council, it's bragging rights when you look at that and you say, okay, 2024 it's 61.8 million dollars.

But ideally that's money that's sitting there that could be used for other things and priorities that our residents have.

I think you're right.

Having a percentage of like we do for the stabilization in Rainy Day, having a percentage of the budget and say this is what we're targeting.

We may never we may not hit that target every year, but at least it's something to shoot for.

For me, 6.6 is pretty low.

But 61.8 is way too high.

So I I think for council going forward, it's just something to consider as part of a policy that you say what are we targeting going forward after 26-27.

Mr.

Mayor, if I can add, uh Renee, what is our current um stabilization fund um budgeted for next year?

How many millions do you or Rob know?

32-ish.

32 million plus another five million for um the capital fund.

So we have about a 40 million dollars set aside.

Renee and I have been discussing this, and we think the number is about 5 million is all we really need there.

Um historically and in the near future, we will continue to underspend our budget, I think, because I am an optimist, and I think um our construction uh sales tax will continue to beat our budget, um, and that money always goes into one-time spending.

So I I think right now um the number looks pretty decent when you think about there's 40 million dollars we already have set aside for just it just in case.

And if I could add to that, um as far as the ending fund balance and setting some type of policy, you want to keep in mind that, yeah, one part of it is ongoing.

The other is major projects that have been allocated that if they're not getting done, they're costing us more down the road.

So we are overspending, we are using those reserves.

So that's why on this slide, you see us, we have plans to spend all that money back down to that six.

So if you think we have extra money, you want to look at 2029.

That's really what we have.

And as Mr.

Corbin said, any kind of underspending along the way will be able to be reallocated and invested at a later date.

Okay.

All right.

So and when we're talking about fund balance, um we do have the stabilization requirement inside of our financial policies.

This year we will be bringing a revision to those financial policies to council along with the adopted budget in June.

We are proposing to make um additional revisions around reserves, and that is in other funding sources.

So right now you will find language around the general fund.

That's the stabilization that's currently in there.

We're looking at other funding sources that pay for operational expenses.

So on the first line here, public safety sales tax.

That is a separate fund that has approximately um well, 2.5 is a minimum.

It's we are asking to create a policy that that has a minimum fund balance of about 16 percent of the prior year ongoing expenses, which is the equivalent of about two months' worth.

So this is saying that that funding source pays for what would be about 2.5 million over the course of two months every single year.

That's an ongoing expense.

So we want to make sure that we don't see a pot of money and spend it knowing that there are maybe salaries, there may be ongoing costs, and we want to make sure we're holding that cash in there.

When you look at dedicated sales tax, that minimum proposed amount is only $600,000.

That's because we have minimal operating ongoing expenses in that fund.

It's all one-time dollars, as well as HERF.

We're not requiring any balance in there because we should be spending that money that we're getting for that.

And then the enterprise water sewer solid waste, those are based on future rate increases.

So with that, I just want to um point out that council was provided handouts with the FTE, the supplementals, and all of the projects.

So we're just gonna highlight what is being proposed tonight.

So on personnel, don't plan to read through all of these FTE.

I will point out a couple things, however, just to clarify.

So the first is um NSF homeless service coordinator.

So here you're seeing dollar salary with no FTE.

The reason for that is it's an existing position.

It's just changing funding sources.

So I want to make sure that that's understood.

As well as at the bottom of that list, position reclassifications.

Again, existing people, just wage adjustments that are being included.

Um the last thing here is parks summer camp program.

3.9 FTE is included in the budget, but that's not 3.9 people.

That is one full-time and a lot of part-time.

I want to just for the record, um, this is the word shows the detention officers.

We're adding two positions, so they would be authorized to fill them, but they're going to be paid for out of salary savings.

So it's not those two positions don't go into reoccurring expenses.

Correct?

That is correct.

Ron and Renee, so when I look at development services, there's two positions.

Does that get us where we need to be in that department?

Are we support there or is it the step?

So I think that we continue to evaluate uh that department, and I think that that puts us in the right direction.

One of the things we did was we made sure they had enough funding for uh consultant services that help do some of our other stuff that we can't get to.

So based on the current demand that we believe that that should get them uh where they need to be.

They have certain years of experience and supervisor experience, and they're just hard to find right now.

So we've reclassified that to so we can get another person here to help us with our projects.

So we are uh continually uh doing things in that department to get them in the right spot.

But I believe that's the right step for this year.

Remember also that helping uh planning by the self is not enough.

They often depend on engineering and public works and other teams to supply them information reports, data, traffic engineering, all that stuff.

So as you see, we've also added some other stuff throughout the uh throughout the city.

When we get all these positions filled and things moved in the right way, then we'll be able to better evaluate whether it's right sized or not.

Okay.

All right, and then we are going through the highlights of the departments.

So under general government, and again, these are the recommended supplementals that were included in your handouts.

Um across the general government departments, we have election costs, we have some consulting for payroll, we have uh a compensation study planned next year for human resources as well as some cybersecurity and contracted services for IT.

In public safety in fire, we have some vehicles and additional overtime.

In the Office of Public Safety, we include some increased training costs and software and in PD, we do have the take home program included.

Now that was approved by council earlier this year.

However, we do have capital associated with that program budgeted in fiscal year 2025.

Renee, before you go on, um I think it's in part of one of James's slides, but for the record, um, that's uh a new vehicle there listed in this section for the fire department.

But we're planning to purchase uh three or four uh app four apparatuses next year.

So you're gonna see a request to uh allow us to purchase those early through a early fund transfer.

So um we're we continue to invest in our fire department's uh equipment, but we're getting four new, we're not getting them, they take up over a year to get.

But we're uh ordering uh four uh new engines.

I have a question on that.

Well um engines already be ready to go, or do we have to build it out like we had to build the ladder truck out?

Um mayor council.

Um they will be uh turnkey.

They will we are ordering them with everything on it, and they will be delivered, but I'm sorry.

That's right.

Um but they the earliest that they'd be expected to be delivered is two years, 24 months.

Okay.

And they're fitted exactly the way like are we are our fire department going out there and to making sure that it's exactly what we need?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And then Chief, a follow-up to that is the vehicles that we're replacing, will we put those into a reserve fleet or will we um our sell those off or auction those off?

Well, the way we're proposing is they go into reserve for a couple years and then they will they will be uh surplused out.

Mayor.

Renee, just a question on the police cars or whatever, the supply side of that.

Are we thinking that we can get all the ones that we need and all the ones that we want?

Or is that just a number to hold, and that's going to trickle under 18 months, 24 months, and we may have to adjust it later on.

If we're not able to um to achieve our request in the supply, we will leave that and roll it over going forward until we can.

Thank you.

Mr.

Mayor, I would ask uh if Kirk can just give us an update on the uh status of ordering our vehicles.

It's so Mayor, Council members.

The the supply chain for vehicles is still very um fluid right now.

Um right now, even the normal Tahoe's that we normally get are it's questionable whether we get enough even in this fiscal year.

So we continue to look at that and uh when the order banks open up, we'll order what we can.

But we're anticipating that the take-home vehicle program, it could take three years to get everything that we we need to fill that request.

Okay.

All right, continuing on to community services.

So for neighborhood and family services, we have some education support, homeless services, home buyers program, and some temp positions in parks with that addition of summer camp.

We do have some additional costs there as well, some some special event and sports programming.

And then for public works, um, we have 1.2 million for the expansion of the WeRIDE program.

So this is for additional weekday hours and to add Saturday to the schedule.

However, Public Works Department will return later in June to provide council an update on that detailed plan.

In community and economic development.

So for development services and engineering, we do have some additional costs related to some expanded modules in our permitting system.

And for economic development, we have 400,000 in our opportunities fund.

So I would like to point out on this one that the Economic Opportunities Fund does not include a suite at the race at the Phoenix Raceway in this budget.

The cost is not included.

However, if council would like to add this, there would be an additional cost of 41,000 that could be revised prior to presenting our city manager's recommended budget.

Renee?

Does that include, I think last year we had some for scholarships for college students and things like that.

Is that fund where that comes through, or is that some other place where those scholarships that we had for the culinary and uh grant?

That is not included.

Yeah, Mr.

Mayor Council, so two things.

Um no, but they haven't spent all the money that they currently have.

That was paid for out of ARPA funds.

And we have not uh replenished that one.

We did replenish some other programs like the um uh nonprofit uh donation program, we're keeping it 200,000.

So we've done other things, we're moving the sonar team from the ARPA to general fund, but we did not move that program over.

Um I know that the college is in contact with Kenchapa and others, and so when that money is expended and we look for other programs that we'll come back.

I do want to say um uh Mr.

Mayor, if we could wait till uh if we're gonna debate what goes, you know, to change in the budget if we do that at the end, but but we would love to hear from council on not just that one but other items that you want to see changed or moved or added or whatever the direction is.

Okay.

All right, and then public works.

Um we have some increased costs about for the recycling program embedded into the forecast, as well as a regulatory studies and just the increase in the cost of water purchases.

Sorry, Renee.

I was I was being so good, I was being so quiet.

Mr.

Mayor Council, if I could add that all of these additional things are built into our fees.

So none of these items cause an additional increase to our fees.

If they begin to cost more and we have to increase fees, of course, we would come back.

But at that time we would bring difficult conversations back to council to see where our priorities are, uh raising rates, changing our processes or doing different things.

But I'm told that uh that these additions, including the recycling costs, are are built into our current fee structure.

Okay.

All right.

So if you don't have any other questions on that portion at this time, I'm going to turn it over to James.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council.

Happy to be if uh before you again to talk about the capital improvement plan.

Uh as Myth Weatherless did, I want to go back through as an update from the December presentation.

Um, kind of talk about how we are doing with our CIP, highlight some projects, and then we'll start talking about uh highlights on new as for projects.

So again, we had uh promised to complete several projects this fiscal year when we talked in December.

Those first two are already done, the distribution pressure improvements and old town phase two.

Um I do want to just take a second to thank the residents of old town phase two in that neighborhood.

That was not an easy project for them, though those narrow streets.

Um but we received very few complaints about it.

They were definitely troopers for it.

Uh the Sam Garcia Library and Cernas Plaza Park Improvements and the City Hall Furniture will be wrapping up here in April, as well as the Aquatic Center.

And so now we're just focusing on the aquatic center and getting everything ready for the ribbon cutting of the state of the city.

And then uh the same volleyball quartz, uh, we expect sand to be delivered in May.

So we'll be ready to complete that project in June.

Um and then for the water reclamation facility order control, if you recall uh last year you uh accelerated that project a little bit, allowed us to buy the materials in advance.

Um so the the equipment has arrived, it's being installed as we speak.

And then we'll 25B if you've driven along Van Buren and you've seen the giant Jill uh drill rig out there next to Fire Station 175.

Last I heard they were about 550 feet deep.

They gotta get down to like 850, I think roughly the number, and then put the casing and equipment in.

But again, it should be all in prior to June 30th.

Mr.

Mayor, if I can, before he goes on, I want to clarify a couple things.

Um I have uh learned very sad news today that we do not get to be the first one down those slides.

Um so apparently a staff member without permission decided to test one of the slides.

And I have it on my list of things to handle tomorrow.

Um but uh we'll we'll try to make sure the other slides, there's hopefully only the one got used, at least there's only video evidence of one.

Um but very excited to have uh uh that project wrapped up in.

And then the odor control thing, those residents like myself who live in Alamar are grateful for you of budgeting that odor control uh uh work that they did down there.

So thank you, Kirk and team.

Okay.

And we still have several projects you have to get started.

And some of these were planned to get started late in the year, some were not.

Good example of one that was not a civic center park.

We had to work through those federal regulatory issues.

It's done, it's out to bid right now, so that project will start um prior to June 30th.

The Western Avenue reconstruction, we always plan to start during the summertime.

We want to do it in June and July because of the school bus pollout.

We don't want it, we want to minimize the impacts to them.

Um so that project is still going forward.

I do have to note here that I'm gonna talk about it a little later.

Um, that budget number we're gonna be asking for additional funds in April.

Um the street section wasn't built the way it was supposed to be built.

Um, and so we're gonna have to excavate quite a bit more and do a bit more work than was planned.

Uh the boulevard well and transmission line, I feel like I've been talking about this project for about three years, but it's really to make sure we have enough water capacity around the boulevard area, handle with all those apartment complexes coming in.

Um we staged the work to help our developers go in.

So we let them kind of get what they need to do, and we're following behind to put our water line in.

That project will be bidding soon.

Deacon Sini Park kind of cheating here, it started actually a couple weeks ago.

So if you drove by there, you've seen it's all graded out.

Um, but that project coming along.

And then we have five hocke projects that were scheduled for this year.

Two of them will be in before June 30th.

Um, that we can pretty much guarantee.

The other three, we're gonna do what we can, but I'm not comfortable saying that today.

As with uh every time I talk to you, uh we want to have that cadence of talking about and showing you the projects where we need to do transfers before coming and asking for permission, giving an opportunity to talk about it before we do.

Um so you can see the other times, July, October, and January, we've done it.

The next time up is in April.

So the first of these is on Western Avenue.

Already touched on that, the issue of it just wasn't built correctly, and it's gonna take a lot more work to get it done than what we initially anticipated.

Uh the next one on the list is D Consini uh Park and Bridge Housing ARPASWAP.

And really, this is a matter of timing.

Uh so ARPA has a requirement that we obligate funds by December 31st, 2024.

So the end of this year.

Um, the dollars we receive from the county, the two point or sorry, 1.7 million received from the county, they obligated that to us.

So we have till December 31st, 2026 to spend those dollars.

The amounts that council gave us to spend on this project has to be obligated by December 31st, $613,000.

Because of some changes in trying to get this project going, we're out right now looking for a new new design team, but we will not have the design fully completed and bidded and obligated by the end of the year.

So what we want to do is take a deacon CI project, which is already partially funded with ARPA dollars and use some of those dollars to finish that project off and then use more general fund dollars.

Again, neither projects asking for more money, it's just an accounting um thing that we have to deal with.

And then what we already talked about the four fire apparatus.

Again, those were already programmed within the five year, so it's not changing those overall budget dollars, it's just moving them forward.

Um, and similar is the friendship park amenities.

We had asked last year for three projects out of friendship, uh uh a dog park, a pickleball court, and a softball field.

And what we had asked for in the initial ask was just hey, let us get like a design concept.

Can we put it where we want to?

Can we make sure we know what we need to do?

That's done, everything's looking great.

We're actually asking, can we go ahead and accelerate the design, get it done as soon as possible, and then that way we can construct the dog the dog park and the pickleball courts next fiscal year.

And so we'll be asking for a little bit more money.

Again, not increasing the budgets, just accelerating them within the program.

And then the last one here is the aquatic center bond closeout.

So we had uh sold bonds, they've been sitting in a bank account, the project's done while it was sitting there, it was earning interest.

We can use those interest dollars to pay for the aquatic center rather than using some of the general fund dollars.

Not a huge amount, but it's still administratively something that we need to bring forward to council.

So this is the pie chart that I showed you in December back then.

Back then, that green, if you recall, that was the unspent, uncommitted dollars.

Um, and previously that was more than half, so we are trending in the correct direction.

Uh what we want to see is that blue be the entire slice if possible, within the fiscal year and the red being the encumbered, but those two numbers are growing.

So we are getting closer to where we want to be, and we're gonna continue to look at this and be transparent about it too, so we can be better at doing it.

And with that being said, um, before I talk about new asks, I just want to remind everyone that we have several big projects still coming.

Um, and a lot of them are public safety to start with Fire Station 171.

It's currently in design, everything's going great with design.

Uh, one note on that project, you're gonna be seeing in May a request to rezone the site.

So, this is administrative cleanup.

Uh, when we started the design out there, where there's probably six parcels, and there was still a road that went through it, so we had abandoned the road, combine all the parcels.

Now we need a resone it to the proper designation.

Uh, the canine facility is underway, or the design is still underway.

Um, so we know we'll get the detention center done, and then we can come through and add that on.

Uh the police communications bureau model.

Uh, we've had a little bit of a snag with that project.

The initial thought was when it was asked was that simple growth of staff.

But what we're realizing is the number of call volume continues to increase.

They actually got to split the signal.

Is that the right term, Chief?

Split the channel.

Split the channel, thank you.

I knew I was wrong there.

Um, and so they have to have to operate in two channels, so they need a little bit more space than we initially anticipated.

Um, in addition, as we grow more workstations, the building's getting a little older, we need to replace a generator and some HVAC that we were anticipating.

Um, and so this cost of this project is going to be going up slightly.

So we'll be asking for more money through the budget cycle.

Donatello Park is still scheduled.

This was the other one with Civic Center Park that was at federal grant compliance.

So that's behind Phoenix Children's Hospital, still on schedule to start uh design and then completion uh construction the following year.

And then pavement management.

Reminder, 33 million dollars over the next five years that we're asking to commit to pavement management.

We now have a pavement manager.

Thank you so much for um helping us get that uh person in place whose job is specifically to make sure that we're applying the right treatment at the right time to our streets.

Um, you're gonna see a lot of spend, you're gonna see a lot of traffic control throughout Avondale over the next five years to make sure we're taking care of streets.

And then old town phases three, four, and five.

Like I said, we just finished two.

Uh three is next in Cashon.

Uh so it's the entire neighborhood that's getting all new streets, all new water lines.

It's gonna be a massive project.

Uh, we're gonna start rolling out the public relations on it next month to get everyone aware as we go to bidding.

So the drawings are done, we're just going through a third-party review, making sure everything's you know, all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed before we put it out to bid.

And then the plan, we've already started the design on four and five.

So uh the plan was always let's get the project done one phase through construction and then go right to the next phase, right?

So that we're continuing that cycle.

So we'll continue to commit to that.

And then of course, the water reclamation facility phase two expansion, which um has already been touched on in the large dollar amount.

Thank you for looking over here, James.

Um, I just want to, for transparency's sake, he used the word a slight increase when he talked about the comm center.

It's more than double.

Um, no bad reasons.

I will talk about it when it's time, but I just didn't want to be a misleading that that it's gonna be more than double.

It'll be more than four million dollars.

Thank you, Mr.

Garbin.

I apologize for that, Ms.

Speaker.

I love your comments.

Okay, so talking about new projects.

Uh so you're gonna see a little bit of a change that, or at least this year and even last year.

Um, rather than coming forward and just saying, hey, we need a lot of money for a new project.

We're slowing down.

We want to make sure we're studying and we're doing it right.

Um, we've done that with the Agua Fria Trails uh project as we continue to work that trail south.

Um council had approved a multimodal trail project in the last couple years.

Those projects are at a point now we're ready to move forward in construction.

So we've got two major impact projects, and those are the major crossings at Lower Buckeye Road and MC 85.

Um we also are looking at restoring the Basum Meridian Wildlife Area.

That photo was taken right after the flood in the spring.

Um so this would be an agreement between us and Gaiman Fish, who actually manages the area.

So parks and recreations working on agreement with them.

Should council approve this, we would provide the materials, and then they would improve the area.

On a similar note, um, again, we aren't the only player for that area.

Um we're working for an IGA between all the various parties to do a long-term master plan for that area.

So this amount you see here, the $300,000 would be Avondale's uh proposed share of that.

And then we've got a small park at Dysart and Western Avenue.

As you turn off of Dysert onto Western Avenue, there's that small parcel.

It's got a little driveway, it's just a dirt lot.

It's not really appropriate for any sort of development there where the driveways at near the intersection.

So we were talking about putting that into a pocket park, a small entryway park into Western Avenue.

And then the last one I want to touch on here is the trail improvements at Boulevard area.

This is actually more encompassing than just the boulevard.

It also includes the trails around like the aquatic center that council gave us a little bit of seed money to start the design on that.

I can say we've just entered into the agreement to start the design for that.

Our design team's totally comfortable on getting the design around the aquatic center and across Van Buren.

And then I want to talk about some transportation projects.

So we've been talking about Avondale Boulevard for a while.

I think December, we might have mentioned a mill and overlay.

Our new payment manager has taken a good long look at it, and he thinks a microservice is actually the better treatment for the street.

So we are asking for 2.7 million dollars to treat it with that.

We have the intersection at Western and Central Avenue.

When we complete the work from central to fourth, obviously, we're gonna need to touch up the intersection there as well.

So we're looking at some uh companies that uh they specialize in that kind of patterned asphalt treatment.

So we can keep it looking aesthetically pleasing at that intersection.

Lower Buckeye Road study.

We know that with SR30 and the continued growth of Southern Avenue, that road's gonna grow and we need to plan ahead when one day there's gonna need to be a bridge, one day it needs to be expanded.

So how do let's get that planning going now?

Uh intersection improvements at Dysart Road McDowell.

This is for a capacity improvements.

Really, how do we rebuild the medians so we can have more cars in the left turn lanes so that they can get more cars turning left and not backing up the through drivers?

Uh the last two, or the next two on here, I just wanted to highlight because they're grant projects.

I know council has a uh a real uh ask that we continue to look for grants.

So the safety action demonstration plan and cellular communication and CCTV intersection uh projects, those amounts there, it the actual hit to our budget is far less.

It's like uh 10 to 20 percent of what those project budgets are because the rest of it's gonna be grant funded.

Uh, and again, those are continued improvements in safety on our streets.

And then the last one here I want to highlight is the Van Buren Bridge Lighting Project.

So we're trying to figure out is it can we do that with uh uh solar lights or do we need to do traditional lighting?

Um so this would uh the project would do that to light that bridge should council want us to go forward with it.

For facilities, uh we have a vacant lot across from the mosque.

Um, and we think it would be a good place to house additional warehouse capacities.

Uh if you ever been down to the mosque, multiple departments use it, uh, facilities, parks, uh, traffic engineering.

They're bursting at the seams, they need more space, uh, especially for uh parks and rec as they continue to grow more special events.

They need more materials to host the events, facilities as we grow more buildings.

Every time we get a building, the contractor leaves us with boxes and boxes of extra material.

They need a place to store all it.

Um, this would be a programming effort to sit down with each of those departments and really understand what their needs are, their space needs are at, and then perhaps construct something at that location across from the uh municipal operations center, and we would come back again to council for design and construction dollars, should that make sense for the city.

The resource center expansion, I misspoke on this one last December.

They are not out of room, um, but they are trending to be out of room in several years.

And so this is taking a look at what they need to have to be ready should that event happen.

Uh and then the performing arts study, we believe that there is a gap for performing arts in the Southwest Valley.

Um we have asked the team that is performing the master plan for parks and recreation to include questions about a performing arts study in their surveying.

Um, should those come back positive, this would take it to the next level.

What does that mean?

What's the size?

What's the location look like?

Uh the court expansion phase two.

This is uh dollars for design to expand the jury room and add a new restroom.

And then again, coming back to that same yard with the photo right here of the lower Buckeye Yard.

Uh we want to be good neighbors, and we really should screen that property.

Um, and then the fencing on the back has fallen down.

We need to make sure it's safe and that nobody's getting in there in illegal dumping.

And then uh just highlight a couple of the public safety projects.

Uh so the first is a regional wireless cooperative uh tower.

This is a new tower that would be located down by the raceway.

It would be another large partnership between Avondale, the raceway, and our neighboring jurisdictions, the the sheriff's office and the uh the other cities.

Um, this portion here is what we believe right now, our share of the project would be, and our deputy city manager is currently negotiating that contract.

And then the fire training tower, we talked about this in December.

Um so the one on the left is obviously our current condemned facility that fire cannot train at right now.

The one on the right is a random one, it's not gonna necessarily look like this.

I just tried to grab a shiny new one off the internet to show you.

Um and the dollar amount here um this we're learning that we need to spend a less a little bit more down there than the initial gas.

The first cost uh the 3.7 million replaces the structure itself.

But taking a farther look into it, we need to redo the paving around it, which could be concrete to better withstand the weight of the trucks, um, some other structures that could help them train on.

Um, and so the actual ass is going to be closer to 4.1 million dollars.

I apologize.

I wasn't able to get the change in here before it was published.

And then just to highlight some utilities projects, because the treatment plant expansion is not enough.

Um Rancho Santa Fe sorry the um Wow.

The uh Rancho Santa Fe Reservoir Booster Electrical and Control Grids.

You're gonna see uh you've probably recognized this name before.

We invested a lot of money at that site um last year.

We cleared out all the the tanks, we're completely re-did them.

Um this is our largest tank in the city.

We need to also make sure that the electrical controls meet current standards and all the controls are the latest.

Um Harrison Drive sewer reversal and seventh street sewer replacement.

These two projects are highly related to the Dysart Road sewer project.

So last year we did the Dysart Road and we came across MC85.

There's another project that's gonna take it all you know further down along the river.

As those projects are being developed, we can do the Harrison Drive reverse.

So right now, part of that Harrison Drive actually goes underneath the apartment complex.

It works, it's fine, but if something were bad to happen, it really limits our opportunities to maintain it.

So we're actually gonna do instead of going east-west, we're gonna go west-east um on that sewer line.

And that will actually help with the fall.

And then the seven street sewer replacement, similar to to the Dysart Road replacement.

We're gonna upsize the line a little bit, make sure it flows a little better for the people in those neighborhoods.

And then um the Northside Booster Station tank rehab.

Um we're gonna go through and take it just like we did with the Rancho Santa Fe tanks, and then the 10th Street Lift Station electrical upgrades again.

We recognizing that we need to continually invest in our water facilities and our uh sewer facilities, and that's really what's happening here.

Um so if we look at all of FY25 requests as a whole, you can see the pie chart there and the 53.5 million dollars, and the asterisk there is that remainder amount that we don't spend this year.

So it's not just 53 million dollars.

We already have lots of projects that aren't on here that we're carrying over from this year that we'll be adding to that.

Then over the five year, um, again, the numbers the three 375 million dollars.

Um, the orange, uh sorry, Kirk, um, is again a large chart.

That is the water treatment facility.

Um, but we have tried to to flow this out as Ms.

Wethos talked on uh to spread out our workflow so we can actually get these projects done in the year that we're asking for them.

And with that, I'm available to answer any questions or take comments.

So I can't log into the it's coming up with an error for the Avondale CIP for the information that you sent out.

We did that on purpose, Mayor.

I'd like us to take a look at, and again, no promises, no commitments tonight, but we were at the event today with Southwest Chamber, and they talked about Tolison talked about two pedestrian bridges that they're building over 95th Avenue over Van Buren, and Curtis shot me a smile.

We've talked about bridges over Avondale Boulevard.

What I'd like us to take a look at our protected medians to get people across Avondale Boulevard.

And I think if you look at the West and Kereland area, Scottsdale Road, uh in Kieran Drive, you'll kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about there.

Um I don't know if one and a half or two million dollars for a pedestrian bridge that goes over the road makes sense, but something that gets people back and forth across the boulevard.

Uh for me, I'd like I'd like to look at it.

The one that you and I have talked about before a little bit is if council remembers uh with previous administration, there was a discussion of a commercial building uh where the water feature is on the boulevard.

Okay, does everyone remember that where we're talking about south end of the sports center?

There's a pad right there.

There had been talk about the city building a commercial building, uh class A office building, and leasing it out.

I think it makes sense for the city to look at that prospect again, not this year, not next year, but in the future.

And look at having Phoenix Raceway be a long time term tenant.

So my vision of this would be a two or three story building, Phoenix Raceway would tie take the top of it, 20,000 square foot total.

Phoenix Raceway would tie take the top of it.

20,000 square foot total.

Phoenix Raceway takes the top, long-term lease, and then the bottom spaces are restaurants, bars, other retail things along that line.

We didn't really didn't have a vision for that when they came up maybe five years ago, but I think the market might be right for that.

And again, I'm not talking about 24 or 25.

I'm talking a little bit further in the future.

Phoenix Raceway, they've kind of abandoned their plans to build a building down by the racetrack for their administration.

They don't think it's feasible.

They don't think logistically it makes sense, but they absolutely want to stay in Avondale and stay in this area.

It also allows us to use the top floor of that building for things that we want to do.

So I'd like council kind of in the future to look at this and and see if you have an appetite for that.

The only one that I have is I think, and again, I can't look at the CIP.

When we look at bridges in the city of Avondale, so whether it's the Thomas Road Bridge, whether it's the Gila River Bridge over that takes us to the southern part of our development area.

I get questions on that all the time, especially the Thomas Road Bridge.

And I know there's been some planning and design work done for that, James, from what I remember.

Where are we at with that Thomas Road Bridge?

Have have those costs been updated on that?

Are we looking at a timeline somewhere in the future?

I'm still opposed to that bridge.

I think it hurts Rancho Santa Fe, but I think it's going to happen a long time after I'm off council.

So I just want to kind of get an idea on this.

So I I believe we did have a very basic look at it, and it was in the MAG plan, right?

But in like 2040.

Um so we have not done more than that.

And there's no plans to do anything more with that spot.

Um really it's um studying Lower Buckeye Road as we continue to grow down there.

I'm as you guys know, that road closes down periodically, and we don't have any good options depending on how long SR 30 takes.

And so that's really probably our next big ask um for either a build grant, a federal grant, or finding some way to get that funded.

But we need the study first to show the the need.

And the the other thing, Mr.

Mayor, to say about the pedestrian bridges, uh Tullison uh was able to get some of those through grants um because of their schools, and so they were getting kids across the road.

Um until we have the people traffic going in one direction or the other, um, it's it's gonna be really hard for us to um justify that spend or ask for it for those so we have to it's on our long to-do list, you know, uh eventually, and we always look at that, but it's not we're not just to be honest, we're not actively pursuing bridges there at this time until we see what the actual need is and whether we can justify getting a state grant.

For me, a pedestrian bridge over Avondale Boulevard just doesn't make a lot of sense, especially for people who cannot climb the stairs to go over.

I I think protected media's shown that their work, they're they're a fraction of the money.

Um they can be aesthetically pleasing, and for me that's kind of where I look at.

Okay.

Council, anyone else on the CIP.

I have a question.

Thank you.

Um I was thank you so much for your presentation, James.

I think when we um I'll go through the things that I had highlighted.

We looked at Friendship Park and we talked about maybe a dog park and um some additional fields.

I did not hear any discussion about continuing um the pathway under the fairway drive bridge so that we can connect the southern part of the I tend uh to the northern area and the park.

That's really um pretty big for residents here.

I think people feel like that trail system um having that there.

We already have a dog park there.

I know we want to have improvements, but I think making that connectivity, giving people more access is uh a higher priority.

Um I really enjoyed seeing 20 million dollars set aside for transportation in Avondale in the next uh uh Mayor Casmer.

If we can just talk about that for a minute, because I think it's a very good point on that bridge.

Um that bridge is uh double the price of those underpasses.

Um so we it's already budgeted, unfunded.

So we already have uh designs.

Are the designs finished for the No, not yet.

But we're working on finishing the designs.

And then um Liz and everybody continue to put in for federal grants.

So we've been talking to our state re to our federal representatives and senators, trying to get some federal dollars for that uh connection.

But it was um I forget the cost of that bridge estimate, but it was it was over five.

Six.

So it's over six million dollars.

And so just getting that money set aside, but it is already designed or being designed, it's part of the plan, already approved.

We just have to find the uh federal funding for that.

Well, you caught me at a great point because I was leading into the the transportation expenses to share that that's probably where we can get some federal grant money um in the transportation space to help work that through.

Um, exactly.

Thank you.

Um and then I just had a question.

I just want to make sure it's on the record of that.

I know because I I still feel like I'm new.

All of our our partners in Trace Rios for for our IGA, I I have this, and correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm missing, it's Avondale, Bureau of Land Management, Game and Fish, City of Phoenix, Gila River.

Is that it that we have the IGA with?

Or are there any other players?

Yeah, that that's yeah, that's pretty much the list right there.

So Mr.

Mayor and Council, um, Brian, um, there's also other parties though, right there in that area.

The Speedway owns some land that we work with them on.

Yeah, sorry, uh Phoenix Raceway does own a big chunk of land right around there.

In fact, I met with Game and Fish this morning and and we talked a little bit about that that partnership and um uh a lot of the the land right there is Phoenix Raceway, but they've been cooperative in the past as far as being willing to uh do some improvements over there.

So and then just uh I just want to make sure they're all covered, Mr.

Mayor Brian.

Does the county have any play in this?

I didn't hear Maricopa County mentioned.

Uh flood control, but not county itself.

Flood control.

Do uh is flood control the ones who will fix the buoys that came out when the flooding happened, or is that part of what we I I thought they were they they fixed them, they said this morning, so I didn't know that, so they're already back in place.

But yeah, uh that's game and fish.

So and then with uh final question with the well, I have two more with the ARPA swap.

There's nothing with the grants that we have to or the ARPA funds that we have to change or anything.

We can do that internally because we're gonna exhaust those funds and use them correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

And then um I I heard the performing arts were doing a study, but that study is coming through our existing survey that we're gonna have taking place, correct?

So, yeah, the the team that's doing the uh the master parks master plan is gonna be doing a survey.

We've asked for them to include questions about it so that way we're not going out and surveying again, right?

Uh the survey we're asking funding for uh would actually then take that information, say yes, there is a need for it, there is a desire for it from residents.

What's the size of it?

So they would look and figure out how big it would be and the the best location for it.

And would we even inquire of the residents?

Do they realize that we have an outdoor amphitheater that we could do performing arts in right here?

With I mean, because I don't even know if people realize we have this resource we're sitting on truly right outside.

I mean, I'm looking forward to Shakespeare in the park at some point.

Um, but that's just my vision of the future.

Mr.

Mayor Council, uh, we're on the same sheet of music, ma'am.

Um I've asked about some type of uh performing uh uh uh Shakespeare in the park or something like that.

They're looking at that.

Um part of that study um is also supposed to evaluate total resources in the region.

Um and that could include that, it would include the high schools, EMCC, uh Tulison's looking to expand uh uh one of their um or uh build a new one.

So it'll take all of those things in consideration.

Um it's kind of funny we had a concerned uh resident talking about um the data center and said we would be so much better off with a performing arts center.

And I wanted to stand up and shout, yes, I agree, I would love to have a performing art center.

Um but uh the reality is we need someone to really take a closer look because my want doesn't mean it's sustainable.

Umce that happens, we would look at uh the best way to run it, whether it's uh run by a private company or the city or some partnership.

So it's a this is just step one in a long process.

Um but I I'm a huge fan of that.

If if it's needed, maybe it's not needed, maybe we already have too many resources when you look around.

Um but they would take a deeper dive into the resources.

Veronica, I just want to go back to our Hawk signs.

You said two of the three or two is a five will be happening over what the before the year's end, is that correct?

By June 30th, yes.

Okay.

When will the other um three?

I I think three of them, one of them is gonna be down on Central Avenue, right by the school, um by Avondale Elementary School.

Do you guys know when that will happen?

So the the the what we're working through with those is the um utility companies.

We're gonna go ahead and try to order everything in advance, but it we're waiting for the utility companies and then getting the land rates for all those locations.

And that's why we're gonna try to get them all by the end of the year, but there is um trying to get all those approvals and try to get the utilities to it and then also have the workload to get them all in.

We prioritize the two that are on El Mirage.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Mr.

Mayor Council, um, that's in Central and Awley.

Holly is where that one is going, yes, ma'am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the one that crosses the street because you don't have anything from Western to all the way to MCA 85, and the kids are crossing straight over there.

I know Dr.

Hargrove does doesn't want to put a just a crosswalk there because there's nobody in Madden.

But having that hock sign prior to like the beginning of the school year would have been nice, but I understand.

Okay.

Oh, Curtis?

I'm good.

Um while we do the study, just because this is a question that's come up a couple of times in regards to friendship park and uh softball fields.

Um or at least the pickleball court and the softball fields.

Um is it possible to do at the same time do any sort of uh study to determine if it would be worthwhile to extend any of those fields to uh what one of the the local junior highs were utilizing high school fields um and our fighting for space also including uh little league uh for some of their age divisions to having a bigger field on one of our parks.

Is that something that could be feasible?

So um Vice Mayor, we asked the consultant to look at extending um the one uh main softball field there to see if we yeah, to see if we can go uh increase the uh outfield distance.

Um so they're evaluating that.

Um it might be cost prohibitive with the lights and things that are there in place, but uh that was part of the this the design we had some to look at.

So Mr.

Mayor, to clarify because the vice mayor use the word study.

At this point, we're looking at, but we're designing, right?

This is actual design, so we're beyond uh inventory and those kinds of things.

Correct.

We are um uh pickleball, dog park, and that softball field.

So the softball field included the entry plaza and ADA accessibility, but also the the design as far as trying to uh get a bigger field there.

So um if that was possible.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

And next will be Mr.

Mosquito.

James, thanks for not making promises.

You're welcome.

Well, Mr.

Mayor, we're on the record, I it's like we're careful.

Talk some talk amongst yourselves for a second.

Well, good evening, uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Uh this portion of tonight's presentation is an overview of our fiscal year 25 compensation and benefits recommendations.

Um but first to set the stage, I just wanted to acknowledge that the recommendations we'll be discussing.

Uh this evening were developed in a collaborative effort between city management and employees.

Uh as you'll recall back in January with your support, an MOU was approved with the Avondale Professional Firefighters Association.

Um over the last few months, we've also had meetings and discussions with the Avondale Police Association uh to seek input and understand their priorities.

And over the last several months, we've met periodically with our employee benefits committee that is made up of a representative group of employees from across the city.

Uh Kathy Reyes, who's our benefits manager, is is here with us tonight, and I just want to acknowledge Kathy for her efforts in leading that discussion with our benefits committee members.

Um through these discussions, we've been able to seek input, identify priorities, and evaluate potential options within the context of the city's proposed budget.

Uh we believe the recommendations will continue to build upon the city's efforts to support the retention of a quality workforce, ensure competitiveness with our comparator cities, uh support our continuous effort to be an employer of choice and ensure fiscal responsibility of taxpayer funds to enhance services for our community.

So the first slide is specific to our sworn firefighters.

Um as I previously mentioned the MOU with APF FA was approved back in January by council, which covers the period of July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2026.

I won't go through all of the uh each item, but I've listed just the high-level overview of the compensation and benefits related items that were included in the MOU.

And then outside of the MOU, we're recommending a retention program that would be available to eligible firefighters and police officers.

And I'll talk a little bit, uh I'll talk a little in more detail about that program in a later slide.

Next for Avondale Police Officers and Sergeants, we're recommending the following.

So um up to an 8% pay increase for uh for police officers and sergeants, what this would include is a 3% cost of living adjustment for all employees, um, and then step movement of up to 5% for those that are not topped out.

So if if we have a um an officer or sergeant that's topped out, they would be eligible for the 3% COLA, but nothing more based upon where they sit in the step scale.

Um ranges overall are competitive.

So when we looked at our competitors, um the range themselves were competitive, but we were lagging a little bit at the entry level rate, so there's some opportunity there for us to be more competitive.

So what we're proposing is that we combine the cadet salary rate and step one to support competitiveness at the entry level, which would make it 3166 for a new recruit to join the organization.

What that does is it also accelerates their movement a little bit in their in the early part of their career.

So for example, once somebody comes in at that at that step one cadet rate, they would then go to step two after graduation from the academy, and then they'd go to step three after successful completion of probation.

So there's a little more aggressiveness at that beginning stage of the step scale for those that are entering into employment with us.

Similar to firefighters, we're recommending an increase to the pay period contribution that the city provides to eligible PD employees.

So if an eligible employee contributes at least $50 per pay period to their 457 account, the city will contribute $50 per pay period as well.

So this is up from the current amount, which is $25 per pay period.

Again, police officers and sergeants are eligible for the retention program, which I will discuss in an upcoming slide.

Additionally, what you'll see as part of our recommendations is for police officers and sergeants to be eligible for a pilot sick leave sellback program as well as a sick leave compensation program, which I'll provide some more details on as I talk about those subjects particularly.

So this is just an overview of what the new pay scale would look like for FY25 by condensing that first step and cadet, and then the remainder, you'll see that 3% cost of living adjustment for each of those remaining steps.

And then again for our sergeants, you'll there's no no change really to the structure of the step plan, other than adding that 3% cost of living adjustment to each of those steps.

So retention program.

Currently, the city provides any police officers with a $7,500 retention bonus that's paid out over the first five years to promote retention.

So this strategy or some variation of it is typical among other local law enforcement agencies to promote recruitment and retention.

And while it may entice potential applicants to apply for a specific agency, these types of programs are typically not structured for the long term.

We believe that the retention program we're recommending is a true retention plan intended to incentivize eligible employees to stay through a 20-year career in public safety and sets us apart from our other competitive competitors.

The proposed program allows for up to a total $36,000 payment over a 20-year career with the max payout of $9,000 per five-year cycle.

So employees may receive a reduced payout if they wanted to choose to take whatever that particular year was prior to the end of that five-year cycle.

Let's say there's a life event or something that occurs that they would have that option of doing so, but then they wouldn't be eligible for payment again until they go into that next cycle.

So again, cycle one would be years one through five, cycle two would be six through ten, and so forth.

Eligible PD employees are currently in the five-year retention bonus cycle can opt out of that program and opt into this program.

What we would do is we would just reduce that first five-year cycle by any amount that they've already received to ensure that there's not a double payment in that space.

Similarly, with our firefighters, um, covered by the MOU, there's a productivity pay option available to them starting at year 10.

Um so what we are going to be coming before council with is an amendment to the MOU to allow for the option of a firefighter to opt out of that program and opt into this retention program.

Um additionally, if they if elected, the first cycle payout would be reduced by any productivity pay that they may have already received in that comparable cycle.

The option will also exist for them to revert back one time during their career.

As far as timing, eligible employees would need to declare election for payout by January 1st of each year, which would then mean that they would get paid out based on their cycle in July, July 1st of that of that following uh fiscal year.

This way that we can appropriately budget for the anticipated payouts, and then continued employment is a prerequisite for that.

So if they terminate prior to the election or payout, it would forfeit any rights to to the payouts.

Again, our intent for this is a true retention program to incentivize employees to stay through that time frame.

So sick leave sellback program.

Again, this one would be exclusive to Avondale police officers and sergeants.

Uh, what this would look like is by June 30th of each fiscal year, they must have completed at least uh 20 years of continuous service, must have a minimum of at least uh accrued sickly balance of at least 80 hours, and then to participate, eligible employees would submit a request to sell back up to 40 hours of sick leave.

The minimum number that they could sell back would be would be eight hours.

So again, this would just um incentivize them to be able to uh to sell back sick leave when they usually when you're tenured in that in that level of your career, you may have some additional sick leave that maybe that may go and used.

And this is just another option similar to what we do with our vacation sell back program.

And then payouts will occur in July of the new fiscal year.

Additionally, uh our sick leave compensation program.

So this would be also be exclusive to police officers and sergeants, and they would they must retire with at least 20 years of continuous service with the City of Avondale, which would mean that they would be eligible to receive 100 percent of accrued sick leave for up to 500 hours at the employee's current hourly rate, or 50 percent of the total balance of accrued sick leave, whichever is greater.

Currently, I believe the percentage is 33 percent.

Um so we're we're increasing that to 50 percent.

Additionally, with each subsequent year of continuous service, the 500-hour limit would be increased by 50 hours, not to exceed an overall 1,000 hours.

So just to give an example, an employee with 23 years of continuous service would be eligible to receive 100 percent of their accrued sick leave up to 650 hours at their current rate or 50 percent of the total balance, whichever is greater.

And then just to go back real quick on the sick leave sellback program.

So this being a pilot program, it's gonna allow city management the ability to evaluate the impact and use and determine possibly if the program would be considered citywide as part of of an FY26 um budget or compensation recommendation.

So again, looking at options that would exist for our public safety staff, but also is this something that would also that would that would be um that we would look to roll out citywide?

Thank you so much.

I think it's awesome to start it as a pilot with with our police officers.

We probably will not have bad actors in that space.

I don't imagine that, but I can see where um this program might get taken disadvantage of, or you know, you could possibly accelerate, you know, the end of your employment, just padding that end time with that that sick leave.

Uh are there any controls that we're putting in place to avoid that?

So there are certain there are certain requirements as far as being eligible.

So again, they they would have to maintain employment um through the city up through each each of those payment cycles.

Um if they were uh they would have to ensure that they haven't given their written notice or intend to resign uh from employment on or before the payment date, um, and then they would not be able to be eligible if they were terminated for cost.

Any sir.

I'm a worst scenario guy, worst case scenario.

Let's go to the next slide.

You've got an employee who's got 20 years.

They're going to sell back, let's use the 500 hour limit.

What is that cost to the city?

Let's go let's go a 20-year 20-year sergeant in the city of Avondale right now is at $66 an hour?

Is that what I saw on the compensation package?

$60.

60?

$60.07.

So, Mr.

Mayor, the 500 hours is already um the benefit.

And so when we do our liabilities, those numbers are already included.

One of the nice things about this program is most of this is already calculated as a liability for the city.

So it's really just moving the liability up.

Now we are expanding it to 50 percent and then 50 uh hours per year.

So the in-cost will will be a little bit.

But when we looked at the impact on this, it's minimal.

And we'll be able to pay for it out of salary savings.

We're not looking to add additional money.

So this is um so for a long term, one of our goals is to uh encourage people not to some employees after they reach their max payout, they feel more free to use their sick leave, you know, once they have that.

And so one of our goals here is um first goal is to make sure I don't increase uh the tax, you know, a resource, the use of resources unnecessarily.

But then the second is to also encourage you know great behavior, and this will I think encourage people to sell back their sick leave versus using it.

Now we have a reduction in overtime use.

So there's a lot of benefits.

Your sick leave is an insurance policy, and for those of us who have been in the business a while, it's very sad to us when we have someone get sick at the end of their career and not have the sick leave on the books for whatever reason uh and and then they don't have that coverage.

So we want to make sure that we don't encourage them to sell back or use it, but to save it, but then at some at some level, there's no need to keep saving it.

And so that's the hours we're we're encouraging people to sell back here.

So this is something that I think um as we re-evaluate um, you know, the city provides uh cost-free short-term disability, and then you can apply for long-term disability.

So we are um taking this next year to evaluate our entire uh sick leave short-term, long-term disability program.

Um very few cities do it the way we do it and provide the short-term disability for free.

So we're gonna look at our leave policy, look at our short-term disability policy, and work with our benefits team and come back with uh an idea next year on to make sure that we're providing uh the safety net that employees need and should have uh as one of our employees, um, but also making sure that we're able to uh reward those employees who are uh more judicial in their use of sick leave.

This is I think a start of a good benefit.

Not many cities uh sell back sickly this early.

I was talking to Andy early and the the county um sellback program is uh not very generous at all.

So it just kind of depends on where you're at.

But we want to be an employer of choice, and we think this does good things.

Curtis, absolutely.

Good.

So we've talked about um fire and and police, and so talking about the the remainder of of our workforce.

Uh so what our our recommendation is similarly to to what you saw with PD, um, up to 8% overall uh compensation adjustment, 3% uh cost of living increase for all employees, and then again up to a 5% merit pay increase.

Uh again, employees who are topped out may receive less who are topped out may receive less than the 5% merit pay.

We would still have um the the parameters that we as we've had in the past about having to successfully complete original or promotional probation as of the pay period it's implemented, and if if employees are still on promotional or original probation at that time, they would receive their um merit increase upon successful completion of that probationary period.

Um additionally, we've uh submitted a supplemental budget request item to do a FY25 compensation study.

So it would be specific to salary only.

It wouldn't include um classifications or uh job descriptions, anything like that, just to ensure that we're still keeping um uh an eye out as to what the market is and and being able to plan accordingly for any adjustments that we need to make for FY26 as it relates to compensation movement uh across comparative cities that that we look at.

Transitioning to our our benefits plan.

So um you may have seen some of this information already, but this was one of the things that came out of our employee benefits committee, and sounds like um prior to my tenure something that's that's been discussed for some time.

Uh transitioning from a two-tier option to a four-tier option to essentially provide our employees with with more options as it relates to coverage.

So currently or or in our current benefit year, we have employee and employee and family coverage.

So this would transition to employee employee spouse, employee child or children, and then employee and family coverage.

Um the associated rates with these will be in an upcoming slide that I will share here shortly.

Um other medical plan updates, so we have no change in premiums for our dental revision plans.

Um our health savings account, which is tied to our high deductible health plan, um, just has a couple updates.

So our IRS 2024 minimum out of pocket deductible limits are increasing.

So for individuals, it's going up to 3200 from $3,000.

And for family, it's going up to $6,400 from s to from $6,000.

Um additionally, the city will contribute the following amounts to HSA accounts.

So employee only will remain at $2885.

And even with our um our now four-tier option, we'll continue to contribute $57.69 per pay period for each of the of the remaining uh tier options.

So these are our uh the rates that were approved by our employee benefits trust committee on February 28th uh earlier this year.

So independent of the move from the two to the four-tier uh scale, employees would have seen at least the five percent premium increase with the move to the four-tier scale.

Some will see a slight decrease in premiums, while others will see an increase in premiums now that the structure will better reflect associated cost based on the overall number of participants in each category.

And just to give context, um 47 percent of our employees are currently enrolled in the high deductible health plan, which is essentially our most affordable plan.

We have 42 percent of our employees enrolled in the PPO, and then we have 10 percent of employees who are enrolled in the EPO, which is our our least affordable, but it's I know in my conversations with Kathy, it's kind of the Cadillac of our uh of our health plans.

So um a lot there as far as the cost.

Um Andy, if we look at the high deductible health plan and your comment on the ESA HSA's health savings account, that's your thought on offsetting those high cost deductibles by the city contributing that $28 per pay period, and then the employee also can contribute if need be in that, correct?

That's your thought on offsetting those high cost deductibles by the city contributing that $28 per pay period, and then the employee also can contribute if need be in that, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

I believe the employee uh Kathy can correct me.

I think it's 3400 over the year spread out over the 26 pay periods, up to 3400.

And then our rates for uh dental and vision plan.

Again, as I mentioned, they they're remaining flat for this upcoming benefits year.

Um our employee assistance program, there will be a slight change there to the city monthly premium spent, and I'll talk a little bit about that.

I think it's it's one of my later slides in the presentation, but we did make some adjustments to that program that I want to uh or we're recommending some adjustments to that program I want to share with council.

One of the other things that we are uh proposing for this upcoming benefits year is um changing our benefits eligibility date for new hires.

So currently employees are eligible for benefits the first of the month following 31 days of employment.

Um in that scenario, an employee could go almost two months or so without having benefits coverage after starting work with the city.

Uh so one of the things that that we're proposing is that uh new employees would be eligible for benefits the first of the month following their hire date.

So in that in that instance, somebody could probably go about a max of of about a month without benefits, but in other instances it could be a much shorter turnaround time.

Yes.

Um elected officials, I know that we go for the 60 days without benefits.

Is there a way that that can be immediate because our term starts immediately?

So off the top of my head, we'll have to look into that, but you would the plan document wouldn't matter that you're elected or not, it would be on the start date.

So I don't know.

We have to look at that.

Um but my guess is you would be like other employees, and it would be on the first of the following month.

Um but we'll look, we'll take a look.

Thank you.

We'll certainly follow up on that.

The next one is uh is uh a pretty significant um recommendation, and this one was discussed both during our negotiations with APFA and and was also a topic, one of the higher priority topics in our employee benefits committee.

So it's paid parental leave.

Um so our recommendation is to provide up to 240 hours or six weeks of paid parental leave for the purpose of care or bonding following the live birth of an employee's child, which also includes the placement of a child under the age of 18 for adoption or foster care.

Um eligibility must be continuously employed with the city for at least 12 months, and leave must be taken within 12 months of an eligible event on a going forward kind of rolling basis.

Um what since this would go into effect July 1, um events that occurred prior to policy effective date or employee eligibility date would be eligible for the paid parental leave program if they're taken within 12 months from the date of an event.

So, for example, let's say we have an employee who's been here for at least 12 months, um, has a baby in May.

Policy isn't in effect yet, but in July 1 it would take effect, so we would allow that individual to be able to use paid parental leave up through May of the following year.

Um it works out in some instances and some it may be cutting it pretty close.

So we just asked departments to work with their employees to be reasonable, you know, uh from an operational perspective, but also from a time off perspective as well.

Um leave would only be used once during a continuous 12-month period, and leave can be taken on a continuous or intermittent basis, subject to director approval and in accordance with department needs.

This was a this was a lot of discussion.

There was a lot of discussion on this particular topic.

Um in some instances, primarily with our larger departments, you know, they they would just say, hey, let's take all six weeks at at once, you know, allow that individual to be off, have the time to bond um and care for their child during that time.

Other departments who are much smaller don't have a lot of of um of staff to be able to cover in situations like that, wanted more flexibility to be able to maybe work with that employee to do an intermittent cycle, where maybe they're taking a week here and there or a few days here and there.

Um so we after further discussion, we determined you know it's best to have both options and allow for that collaboration between uh an employee and a department to ensure that the employee is able to realize the benefit, but also ensure that there's some consideration for operational needs and how to work around that.

Um questions also came up about if both employees are are um if both parents are employees of the city of Avondale, so they would each get their uh independent 240 hours of leave in in that situation.

Andy, I I just uh I want to throw this out for consideration.

It is possible to have two kids in one year.

So I I can see that that 10 month period that you might have in between there.

I I just don't want to penalize anybody if they have to i it looks like you can only take that leave within that six weeks once.

That's within one calendar year.

So it would be from the date of the event.

From the date of the event.

Yeah, so you have 12 months from that for that particular event to utilize your 12 to utilize the six weeks within that 12-month cycle.

If I have two events, I can use 12 weeks.

So we would look at when the date of that second event occurred, and then you would have uh that 12 months to be able to use six the six weeks of leave, but it wouldn't be able to you wouldn't be able to get more than six weeks in the twelve-month period, if that makes sense.

So Mr.

Mayor Council, I get it.

So you would have about two months that you wouldn't be able to maybe not be able to use that, but you still have your FMLA leave and other leave processes you can use.

And then after that two months, you would be able to use your six weeks.

We'll use a rolling look back period um for for that uh leave leave period.

Only reason I I I ask and inquire, I can only imagine that if that was that uh family's choice to do so, that that second birth might require you to use that six weeks sooner than later.

So I just want us to be aware and conscious of that for those folks who are in their um family expansion stage of their life and they work both parents might work for Avondale.

And of course, we there is the FMLA behind that, and we would follow the FMLA also to make sure they got the leave that they're uh obligated to get.

The next recommendation is specific to our a flexible hours bank.

So the thought behind this is that we have um the majority of our workforce works four tens.

Um when we have a holiday, there's uh eight hours of of holiday leave that an employee is paid, which means that that would need to be supplemented with two hours of their vacation leave.

So looking at um the number of holidays over a given year and how many hours would need to be um would be provided in order to keep somebody whole who works a 10-hour schedule to realize that full holiday, um, it would be about 24 hours.

However, we also have some employees that work traditional schedules that work a 5-8 schedule.

Um so we wanted to make sure that it was fair and consistent for everybody.

So essentially providing that 24 hours um to be used in any way that that employee um, you know, based on their schedules.

If they wanted to use that to take a full day off, they could certainly do that.

Uh again, it's with coordination with their supervisor for for approvals, um, and then it would be used, need to be used by June 30th of the end of the fiscal year.

Um, and similar to holiday leave, it doesn't roll over or or there's no payout of that at the end of that time.

And then as new employees come on board, they'll receive a prorated amount based upon the remainder of that of that particular fiscal year.

And lastly, this is one that I mentioned earlier.

So uh this was also a uh a topic during our employee benefits committee meeting, uh a higher priority topic uh to increase and and really on the in the sense of um increased mental health options for employees.

So currently we have um our EAP program provides six uh visits per incident uh per family member.

So again, not even necessarily somebody who's a dependent on the health plan, but any family members in the household.

Um that's our current uh no cost to employees to be able to utilize confidential counseling, whether that's face-to-face, video or telephonic.

We're looking to increase that to 12 uh for this upcoming fiscal year.

Um there's a cost associated with that to the city about $15,000 or so annually.

Um but looking at that and looking at our capacity within our employee benefits trust fund, we believe it's it's a well uh well worth looking that at that and expanding that option for our employees.

I just outlined a couple of the other resources that are available.

So an AI chatbot related to motional support and check-ins, uh 24-hour crisis helpline, peer support groups that are primarily online, and then just other services that are provided through the through the provider, um, financial assistance, legal services, et cetera, for employees.

That concludes uh the recommendations.

I'm happy to answer any questions that that you may have.

Counsel.

Curtis.

Just I assume the software is built in to keep track of those additional two hours and the times here and times there, so that when the time comes 20 years down the line, that thumb drive or whatever you've got there, cloud has got that all available so you know by the push of a button and not somebody sitting there trying to do all the work to spit it out.

Oh and I'm sorry, sir.

We're talking about the uh 24 hours.

The 24 hours.

Yes.

Somebody's got to keep track of it so you're not doing it.

Yes.

That is that isn't our roadmap for sure.

Okay.

We're pictures with an abacus.

And I think Gloria will appreciate this.

When you talk about the flexible hours, I think that I think you really have thought deeply into that because there are employees who have to take two hours of vacation to cover a day off.

Working in hotels.

It wigwam I would get three weeks of vacation a year.

But if 4th of July fell out of Tuesday, that was one of my vacation days because the hotel was open.

And I think you kind of go through the same thing.

And I think that sometimes management doesn't look at that.

For me, looking at that, I I think that's an incredible thing to do for our employees.

No, and like I said, I uh a lot of this going back to the the first slide was very collaborative.

This this was something that we really wanted to hear.

It's it's not a sense of, you know, we could sit in a room and think of hey, what what would employees really want?

What is it that's going to retain employees, but bringing them to the table, giving them a space to be able to share that and being transparent about the fact that you know help us prioritize these so we know what the big ticket items are, and and if something can't be done this year, but something that we know is on the radar for the next year or subsequent years, understanding that, and I think there was a lot of um appreciation on both ends of that conversation and and what could be done and and what's on the long-term roadmap.

Andy, you can definitely tell that there was a lot of thought and consideration.

Um I kind of echo what the mayor says, you know, being in that type of field, that's really cool that you're able to do that for them, and I'm sure they're super appreciative of having that in regards to the compensation for uh police and fire and the retention.

That's really great to do that for those folks and individuals because you know we can't compensate our first responders enough, and that right there shows that we're willing to, you know, maybe it's not meet them halfway, but that's really filling in that gap for them.

So I'm pretty sure that they're happy and they appreciate the time and because it a lot of time goes into that.

I'm sure going back and forth.

I know I spent some time today, so I know I can't imagine how many hours you spent.

No, absolutely, mayor council.

Um and and honestly, for the for the retention program, uh that is one where it requires a lot of out-of-the-box thinking.

And I I actually would want to acknowledge Renee for that because she really came with that thought process.

Um I think a lot of times, even me coming from a prior law enforcement agency, you look at what are other agencies doing and you try to replicate that.

You want to be part of that discussion, or you maybe tweak something, or you say, hey, can we do something a little bit more aggressive on this end?

But to really come at it from a different angle that truly is focused on retention and keeping people here to incentivize them.

I think that's really what this program is was designed to do.

Mr.

Mayor, we're not done.

We uh we're almost done, um, but we'd be happy to answer questions on this.

But so I'll say most of my love fest for later.

But uh I appreciate your guys' uh respect and acknowledgement of the staff and the collaboration, but we can only do this because we feel like we have your support and your uh universal appreciation of our staff and the work that they do on day in and day out, can't go unsated or unnoticed.

It is universal here, but it is not universal at every council.

So on behalf of our staff, uh we are grateful.

Um some of these will come back to you for formal approval, others will be done administratively, and so but we can do this because of the support we we receive from the the seven of you.

So thank you.

Um from the bottom of all of our hearts.

I just thought thank you so much.

I appreciate this.

And I and I think that we were really considerate of the uh the associate benefits team, they were brilliant in figuring out that they needed to have the four-tier system.

So I just want to commend the work that you all did together with Kathy.

Um, because I think it it is a lot.

Um me as a family person, family of five.

I I don't think an individual that just has one other person or a spouse should be paying for that in their benefits expense.

So um, with all due respect, that is that was a very good decision.

Um also want to um thank thank you for making sure we keep our people first.

Um thank you so much for for allowing us to serve the people here and and making sure we understand what they need and what they value.

Um and and I I can't say enough that our first responders are the right people to do pilot programs with um because we know that their integrity is extremely high and that um we don't have to hold them to the higher standard.

They they they are the standards that we're all you know stepping up to meet.

So I look forward to seeing the end of that pilot program so that it can be rolled out to the entire staff.

And then and I know that we got the best people to show us how to do it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Council members, I'll invite Renee back up to close out our discussion.

Thanks.

Hello.

Hi, Renee.

Good to see you.

All right.

So where do we go from here?

These are just the next steps in the budget process.

Um April 8th, we'll we'll be bringing back the city manager's recommended budget.

Um May, we will bring the tentative budget to be adopted by council, and then the final budget hearing as well as adopting the final budget will occur in early June.

So at this time we've concluded all of our presentations, and we would like to turn it over to Mayor and Council to provide any other additional comments, feedback, or um questions you may have.

For me, uh these numbers and what we're seeing tonight are much better than I thought they were going to be a year ago, nine months ago.

Um I think you've done a really good job of managing expenses.

You know, revenue we don't have a lot of control over, but expenses we absolutely do.

And being able to look at where we can make changes in the budget, um, where we can cut expenses, where we can move some things to kind of help us get where we need to be over the next year, I think is really important.

I'm looking at the OECD numbers right now for inflation that they're projecting for 25 and growth.

And your numbers for inflation are right on.

I would expect inflation to be higher than the three percent that you have projected, but it looks like we're right on there.

And I think growth, I still think we have a sense for a reason there's a chance for a recession, but I think it's gonna be much less than what we thought even two years ago.

And I think for council, my recommendation to council as we get into 2025 is just keep keep looking at these numbers and and seeing where we're at.

And if there's changes that have to be made, make those changes.

Don't be afraid to do that because it's much easier to make those changes up front than it is trying to play catch-up four months down the line.

So Mr.

Mayor, if I can um again, this is your turn for your discussion.

Can we but I think you'll like to hear what I have to say.

This is on the it uh point of order is I'm supposed to ask, right?

I mean, I'm required to ask, right?

I technically supposed to wait for an answer, I guess, but um revenue.

Um so when you talk about our ability to control revenue, I would like to point out that our planning team, economic development, and that whole group out there um are doing things to make a difference.

So um uh the data centers, um, while they're not a golden ticket, if the uh utility tax numbers are correct, they will replace and eventually surpass our loss in rental tax.

So it is an important investment if we're gonna continue to invest in public safety or streets or parks.

I just want to let you know that yes, we can't control revenue, but we're trying to make some good decisions on low impact water, low impact traffic uh facilities that will increase our uh revenues and not require us to increase our burden on our taxpayer base.

It was one of the options that I was beginning to consider bringing to council is looking at tax increases.

No politician or uh certain someone who's dedicated service wants to do that, which is why we started with the two and a half million dollar cut to operating expenses.

Um but the the data centers have a potential of really helping us get through any uh state uh uh cuts.

So I think we would talk about that.

I think that it's not just data centers, it's it's the Ashley furniture coming in.

It's broadening our our base of employment in the city of Avondale.

I sent Ron Nicole an email today that goes along with what you're talking about.

And it was a resident who was upset about data centers.

And I don't know if some of you got that email.

And I responded to uh that person and he was they responded back.

Don't know if it was a man or a woman.

Um they responded back much healthier discussion after.

And for me, and I think for this council, we have to convey what we're trying to achieve as a city.

And if data centers, which they do play a role in that, then that has to be conveyed to the residents, not just in the areas that we're going to build those, but throughout the city and say, listen, this is what they provide for our community.

This is what they provide for the schools, this is why they're important to what we're trying to do, convey that message and make sure we get that out as much as we possibly can.

The push has been for grocery stores, and we all want more grocery stores.

That's what we hear more than anything else.

Part of that has to follow rooftops, and that's when we hear about apartment complexes.

Why you're building so many apartment complexes?

Because it's the ability for us to build density in a specific area that gets those rooftops, gets that uh um gets that income uh per household income and allows us to attract grocery stores.

So I appreciate that you said that.

So council, let's go down line.

Mike no you know, just kind of along the same line in regards to uh two points, one being economic development in regards to our residents.

Uh you see it on social media.

Um you have it in conversations when they talk about how you know other cities are landing certain projects, but I think one of the things that's important for us to keep in mind is that not every project has the return and offsets the cost for infrastructure, uh congestion and other things, and at the same time does not provide the return that you would think that it does.

And so it might behoove us to allow not allow uh but to champion that the other cities uh landed certain things and that we're okay with that.

That's one point.

And the second point would be uh in regards to um growth data centers, grocery stores, and other things is is really just being mindful of the services that we have to provide as a city and the return that we receive from some of these projects.

And so while they may not be uh the golden ticket, as was just mentioned, um, we still also have to communicate to the residents that in order to afford some of the things without increases that data centers and other revenue generating opportunities not only need to be welcomed, but also are pertinent to our growth uh long term.

So anyone else?

Yeah, if I can say this, okay.

Uh I think I can speak for the council.

We're really appreciative of all of you working together, but it's not that it's this level, it's letting it flow down through the employees and getting the employees involved and get another set of eyes that see what's going on on a daily basis, and you appreciate what they see and what they what they're doing, and you take that back and bring it to us.

We could sit here and listen to you all night.

And whether we want to believe you or not, oh, you don't want to stay here all night.

Oh, sorry, maybe not all night.

But the idea is you are bringing to us what our employees and probably residents and other want to see done.

And then the eyes stepping out of the box, getting Renee's input on some of these things that you've got up there.

We appreciate that.

It's just not you, Andy, being there doing what you think you're doing best.

You're going there, you're going there.

Ron, we appreciate you.

And just pulling it all together and letting those people be in charge of what they need to be in charge of.

We trust you.

We appreciate you and we appreciate all of you.

Continue your good work, and let's get all those involved as far down as we can, especially those who are looking at ways that we can solve, I mean, resolve uh reductions in budgets and everything else.

Some of those people see those things on a daily basis and just want the opportunity to bring it up to somebody.

So thank you very much.

It's always heartfelt.

You know how much we care about you.

It's awesome.

And I will stay here all night with you.

It's a sleepover, Curtis.

Oh, we are here.

Yes.

Yes, we will stay all night for Curtis and the team.

I I have uh transportation-related commentary, so I just want to look at it, and I know Harold does a lot with our fleet as well.

Um and and Kurt, I I I see the expansion of WeRide.

I see all these things coming with actual wheels on the road, which is really important.

But speaking of wheels on the road, I want to commend the city of Avondale before I was involved in this public service role.

Avondale was able to get the NASCAR championship race since 2020 here.

And I know that whatever our relationship is with Southwest Valley Chamber, we no longer have the access to be in there in the way that we used to.

I think the price tag is somewhere upwards of 40,000 to be there.

But I think in a way, um, we want to show those who bring business to Avondale that Avondale wants to support them while we're being while they're here.

Um we're we're on the world stage when people get to see racing in Avondale.

So I know I don't know what NASCAR plans to do.

I don't know what the Phoenix uh International Raceway plans to do, but I know that it would be good for us to plan to be there to show them some solidarity and and let them know if they if they choose to come back here with their championship race in the future.

Uh I'm not sure we'd be able to afford it, but I think it would be uh behoove us to put that in our budget, um, and that way we can manage that process however we go about that.

And I would like to ask if council would be willing to consider that or if that is appropriate.

Go ahead.

I think we can I think it's possible to make a presence there.

I don't necessarily think that we have to spend 40,000 doing it, but that's just me.

So I I will tell you you're gonna we're gonna know what 2026 looks like in the next month or two.

NASCAR will announce their schedule for 26, and we'll have an idea.

I've said this before.

Um I think, and I don't want to speak for NASCAR, I don't want to speak for Latasha.

I they do a great job.

I think what you're gonna see is I think you're gonna see a rolling NASCAR championship between us and Fontana.

I think they're gonna give it to Fontana to see what that looks like.

They love Phoenix, they love Avondale, they love the market, they love all of that.

I think you're right.

I think we have to have a presence in when NASCAR is here.

And I don't know if that necessarily means that we're at the suite for all weekend.

I think what that means though is taking the taking a very um progressive step and getting to know NASCAR leadership, vice presidents who are here.

We don't really do that right now.

We see them at the NASCAR race, and they they're good they're bouncing between their sponsors and everything else.

I think we have to be more aggressive in that and invite them to get to know council, get to invite the relationship develop the relationship aside from what we see here.

I I think that again, there's gonna be a new mayor next year, there's gonna be new council members.

They should have the opportunity to get to know those people like they know this current council.

So that may mean that we do something at the track, but I think it also means that we invite them or do something else outside of that.

I think you raised a good point, and you and I both know in the hospitality industry, it's all about fostering and creating the relationship and bringing the right key people to the table to so you can foster that relationship and grow it for not only maybe for those that are working then, but those that are coming in the future, and having that good solid basis of knowing who we are, and on the other side also knowing them as well.

And I think that relationship just doesn't happen on race weekends.

I think that relationship has to happen throughout the entire year.

And I don't think it necessary has to happen with council and mayor.

I think it has to happen with department heads.

We had meeting, we had a meeting at Phoenix Raceway at their headquarters.

I think we have to do a better job of getting letting them know Kirk and Memo and everyone else who's involved in what they do, and yeah, and Chief Rooney.

I think we have to do that.

Council plays a role in that because people always want to talk to council.

But the truth is for this relationship to grow and to expand, they have to know department heads.

Tina, you have anything for you?

Mine's gonna be short and sweet.

Um when we were coming into this meeting, sorry.

Council Member Conde, I I apologize.

Mr.

Mayor, um how best, because I don't really have direction yet on that 40,000 dollars.

We can find the 40,000 dollars, but if if I could get clarity from council on just the um NASCAR suite, uh if you I just need to know if there's a majority of of council that want it or don't want it, so I know to because right now we don't have it in our uh spending budget, uh, but we can easily move it there if if I'm I'm not interested in the 40,000 dollar suite.

Do you want to go down the line?

If you don't mind, that way I just know or not or something.

Anyone?

Um I would like to know a little bit more who would man that suite one.

Um what man hours or uh if it's our staff, how many hours, what days, and thirdly, if we were able to do a collaboration of splitting that $40,000 with maybe someone another partner in the city.

It does not have to be the Southwest Valley Chamber, it could be a partner in the city or something like that.

Thank you.

But I would like to see something like that, maybe be a little bit just like you guys did, just think outside the box.

So that it's not such a high um 40,000 dollars.

If we could split it, that would be wonderful.

If we have sponsors or or um relationships out there that want to do something like that, it would be who of us to look into all that.

Ron, I mean, just one other thought.

If you're gonna take 40,000, you've got that beautiful building over there.

We could invite the ones that are made or talking about Memo and the rest of them, or we could have some type of little party right there.

Uh get Mr.

Choppa to get one of those uh videos up there about what Avondale is all about and just have a meet Avondale type thing with uh absolutely um race weekends, not the weekend to do that, so we have to find the the right uh time to do that.

But yes.

I'd like to see money go there rather than do a box out there.

Okay.

Yep, yep.

That's a no for me.

Yep.

Yeah, I'm okay with looking at some sort of uh sponsorship or split splitting uh the cost with someone.

I'm just you know, whatever it takes to make sure they know that we're not only in support, but that as a host city that we have some stake in the game.

I I think as a city we have to show just like when we we do other things that support NASCAR, I think we have to show that it would be obvious if the city of Avondale was not at championship weekend.

Okay, and and I I think there has to be I I love the idea of a partnership, but I also think that when residents look at, and I don't know how closely they look at it, but we should be as transparent as possible.

When they look at that, Ron, they should say what is the benefit for that.

And we can point to listen, the racial relationships we've built with NASCAR over the years have helped us have this race for five years in a row.

That relationship has to continue for us to have more races, even if they're every other year.

But this is what we get for those dollars.

So I think we have to be clear.

I think we need to have an open discussion on that and kind of talk what the what the benefits of we haven't done this for all.

What are the benefits of NASCAR for Avondel?

Directly and indirectly.

Okay.

Tina, do you want to start now with kind of any comments on the budget?

Thank you.

Yeah, mine's just short and sweet.

When I came in, I was I think one of my biggest concerns um was how we're gonna manage to do that loss of the rental tax revenue.

And so thank you, and for your team.

You really made me feel better, like this is gonna be okay because that's a big chunk of change for us to have to lose.

Um, and I just want to say thank you guys for really just taking a deeper dive to see where um we can adjust and save due to those losses and identifying those uh project savings and really just going through each line item with the fine-tooth comb.

So I was really happy to see that.

So I just want to thank you guys all for taking your time again, thinking out of the box, really just kind of taking a deeper dive into all that.

And so I'm really um it I'm real comfortable at the discussion that we had and all the things that I learned, and um just continue doing the work.

Like Curtis said, we thank everybody, everybody that came to the table.

Um, and I'm just curious who is on the employee benefits committee.

Oh, uh Mr.

Mayor Council, we left that out, me.

No, I'm kidding.

Um just me.

Um, Andy.

Uh Mayor, council members.

It's it's a representative from each of our city departments.

Um so we put out uh with department head input, um having somebody represent their department.

They take back information that they learned, they help to um prioritize some of I think it was a survey that was done early last uh last year, um, some prioritize some of those requests and needs.

Um so they were very involved in in providing input into what you saw tonight.

Wonderful.

Well, great job, everyone.

Thank you.

Veronica.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um I just want to say that I'm really happy that we're focusing on the street preservations.

I had a um uh a drive around the city with Ron, and I I told him, look, we can't go back to having what we saw in Old Town or in Cash.

And those this is very important.

The roads are driven day in, day out.

Along with that is the safety of uh the hawk signs throughout the city.

Um when people are flying by, they need to know that people are walking through those uh hawk signs, especially when you don't have traffic signals for long periods um in between like Al Mirage Road all the way till you get to lower buckeye.

It's very important that we keep the safety of our community all around the city um at top priority.

I am appreciative that you guys did think outside the box on um being able to help um uh pilot for our um police and fire on the 45 uh 40 I think it's 40 hours buyback of sick time.

That's good.

Thank you guys for all the hard work.

I really appreciate it, and um look forward to April, May, and June.

Good?

Just remind it.

Andy, when does open enrollment close?

I believe it's uh March 31st, Sunday.

Yeah.

850 8 59 p.m.

To be exact.

Yes, you have to read.

It's a mandatory reenroll.

Yes, you have to.

Um, if any of the uh council members just reach out to Anisa and uh we'll get a time schedule with Kathy um or her team to meet with you to to cover what needs to be covered if you need help.

We we could fill all that on the line, right?

Or do we need to do that?

100%.

If you don't need assistance and just be sure to get online and do it, uh don't end up on that list, please.

Um but if you need help, uh Kathy and her team, uh Kathy helped us last year and and uh would be very happy to help any of the council members.

You should be receiving notifications in ADP if you log into ADP at all.

Um it'll give you uh an open enrollment reminder, and then you click on there and it starts to walk you through the process.

It's real simple, just get on there.

It's the thing comes up there, it says you've got this to be done before this date.

It takes you there, you got three steps, you're done, and you're now anybody else?

Team, any comments from you?

Anything.

All right.

Can I get I guess Renee has a comment?

I would just like to say thank you to council, and since we're sharing love tonight, I would like to say thank you to Rob and his team and Keith, as well as all of the other departments represented here in this collaborative effort.

So thank you.

So I'll also uh echo that uh mayor.

Um I told you I need to share a little love, but I am grateful for the leadership of the seven of you.

I met with uh most of you over the last few days, and and I appreciate your support putting up with that long meeting that we had.

Um very appreciative.

But um, I've got a great team.

Um, some of them walked into budget discussions not quite prepared for the questions they had because we did we hit them pretty hard.

But they were respectful, they were honest, and they uh did what they thought was best for the community, asked for what they needed um to make this place a better place to uh to live, play, and and work.

So I am very grateful for this uh uh team that you you see about here tonight.

I am grateful.

Thank you for having you do.

Uh, anybody summary of current events?

Anyone have anything?

Mike.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh last week uh here on City at City Hall, I ran into a gal named Gypsy from uh an organization called Baca, Bikers Against Child Abuse, and uh she shared a little bit of information regarding her uh 501c3 organization.

So if any of you want to look into that information, I know they help with or have worked with the advocacy center advocacy center.

So um I figured I would at least share information in regards to that organization.

Second, on Friday the 29th.

Um I mentioned this months ago in regards to the OWL closet that is had been formed at the Olifria Union High School District.

And this Friday from 8:30 to 10 a.m.

You may have received the email, but they are having the ground opening to the owl closet.

So if you can um attend, please do so.

And if not, if you can donate, please do that.

That um the donations would go towards um I think it's food, clothing, and items in need for students within Awfreas High School campus.

So uh again, Friday, 8:30 a.m., the owl closet.

Anybody interested, feel free to attend.

Tina, will you touch on our meeting that we had?

I'm sorry, Veronica.

Go ahead.

Just a little bit.

Oh, earlier this week, Mayor and I met with uh Maribel Cano, she's with uh Tona Tierra, and so she has been talking with us to see how we can help her and her organization to provide clothing and food boxes for the farm workers here in the West Valley.

And so she wanted to talk to us about canvas bags that they need to put the food into to distribute to the farm workers, and also collect food that are culturally sensitive.

You know, they you know, like beans and rice, things that the farm workers prepare.

So she is a nonprofit, she's asking you, had asked us how we can help as a city.

Um we did invite her to come speak at the um inner faith council to kind of share her needs with those um faith-based communities and our nonprofits to see how we can help her with her um with her organization.

Over the weekend, Councilwoman Conde and Nielsen and uh a lot of um our directors joined uh Avondale Fire and the Burn Unit to go out into O Town and distribute over what 700 was it?

Uh smoke detectors.

We knocked on all a lot of doors, and it was great to have um some community talking and just seeing how we could go out there and help.

They're very appreciative, very receptive uh with us coming out there and actually if they wanted to have smoke detectors uh replace our fire department and other uh volunteers did that.

So great job to our fire department and all the rest of the directors and anyone else that um came out to volunteer.

We appreciate it.

Can I get a motion for a German, please?

I have a motion from Councilmember Solorio.

I'll second it.

A second from Councilmember Nielsen.

Marcella?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you.