Okay, so welcome everybody to this Ben City Council work session on our new meeting schedule.

Um so we will be doing these work sessions on the second and fourth Wednesday of most months.

Um today we've got a couple of topics.

Um we'll start with roll call to make sure who is here.

Um Council Franzo, you want to start us off.

Oh it's someone in the back.

I couldn't see him response.

I know, yeah.

Gina Franzo says she, her.

Melanie Keebler, she her.

Megan Perkins, she her.

Megan Norris, she her.

Steve Platte here.

And Councilor Riley is excused today.

Okay, so we're gonna start with conversation on transportation funding, and we've got Russ here.

Before I turn it over to Russ, I'm gonna uh kick this off.

I mean, I think um council will probably appreciate that transportation is probably one of the hardest things that you do, right?

It's hard because there's lots of competing interests and values, it's hard because funding uh funding challenges, and you know, we're we're dealing with our our own here at the local level, and of course the state is also grappling with this issue, and there's a difference between capital and maintenance and different funding streams, etc.

So, you know, just kind of setting that stage.

We spent uh quite a bit of time as a community developing a transportation system plan that has a vision up till 2040.

Within that transportation system plan, we said we we've got to fund it.

We it's not just about a plan.

We want to want to make sure that what our our vision actually is uh baked in reality, and so we can actually fund it.

So we created a template, a funding strategy that had multiple uh multitude of strategies.

We've been implementing that.

Russ is gonna talk about kind of where we are in that big picture.

The state is kind of going through that same process, right?

The state has done some things to increase capital projects, uh, but this operations and maintenance problem is definitely staring them in the face.

And so they've we're gonna talk about the transportation funding at that state level, kind of starting at that high level, what kind of influence that has and impact that has here at the local level, and then we're gonna talk about our own strategy of what we are doing here locally and how that interface between the state and local, what kind of decision points that council wants to have.

So I'm gonna state right up front, we're gonna do a better job, I think moving forward of just uh sharing the why with you all.

Like what's the question we're asking?

And that question is does council want to pursue additional funding at the local level.

We came up with a a phased approach to the transportation fee.

So Russ is gonna go into a lot more detail about where we are and what's left of that strategy that we came up with uh a couple of years ago that we're in the middle of implementing.

And then if if so, do you want to continue with the transportation fee or are there other funding sources you want to look at at the local level?

But before we can answer that question at the local level, we want to you know raise back up and talk about what's happening at the state.

Uh so as we all have been following the 2025 long session concluded.

Uh disappointingly on the transportation front where there wasn't a uh a package that was uh advanced.

So uh the governor kind of stepped in and tried to work out a proposal that was you know maybe kind of meeting people a little bit closer, more of an iterative approach, saying maybe we can't solve this big transportation problem if we can chunk it out and really start step one.

And so what uh she called a special session that happened at the end of August uh with the House voting on the package, uh Labor Day weekend, but it's uh somewhat stalled in the Senate.

This vote is scheduled for next week, Wednesday.

Um there was uh a member that was having some health issues, they wanted to make sure they had a full uh full roster of folks to vote.

Um so we we know what that package it's been published now, we've commented on it the year and participated in the hearings as she talked about at the last council meeting.

So I just wanted to talk about what the impact of that session, if that's if that is approved, what that what that would mean for Bend.

Uh so because we are a couple of months into the fiscal year, so this was like a 700 million dollar package.

What that means based on the highway trust fund split, which is not being proposed to change.

It's a uh 50% of the that gas tax title and registration fees, all those fees that pay for operation operations and maintenance statewide.

50% of that revenue goes to ODOT to maintain the state system.

30% uh is shared with counties, 20% cities.

So our portion, if the package continues to hold, which it's past the house, it's just that last step with the Senate.

What that would mean for Bend would be an additional 1.5 million of new revenue this fiscal year, and then a full fiscal year of implementation would be 2.7 million.

That's indexed to I mean, so you know, future years, it's a little hard to predict because we get uh projections from ODOT.

There's a lot that goes into those projections.

But so I'm just kind of telling you what what is in store for the next uh for this biennium that we're under.

So it's it is additional revenue.

I think the question is you know, we we're programming an additional five million in that phase three, it's not quite that five million.

Earlier transportation packages from the state were actually exceeded that.

So it's a little bit short of that.

Um so I'm gonna have Russ kind of walk through the transportation fee and kind of where we are there, and then I'm gonna come back and then talk about that direction.

That question that I asked from council.