And Kevin, we had a very robust discussion earlier.

So we would so we'll open up another time and get started.

And we like to welcome Mayor T.

Kelly.

Well, we've been fighting us in these budget states today.

The property assessment, and we got the mayor.

So we've been, you know, bringing out the heavy hands.

So we appreciate you coming with our legislation uh today.

And we'll turn it over to Kevin and get started.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, well, council members, thank you very much for um not just the second budget work session of the day, but the sixth one in three weeks.

We've been spending a lot of time together looking at this budget.

I uh wonder if there has ever been a city of Chattanooga budget that has gotten uh as much attention as this one.

Yeah.

Well maybe so, that's right.

Um but so the the I'm excited to have Mayor Kelly here, obviously, um, to make this proposal about the village rate.

Um I do want to briefly say a couple things in response to some of the ideas brought forward in the previous session around potential areas to cut.

Um we are happy to look at at the proposal that you put forward, Madam Chair, um, particularly around community development and see what that might possibly look like.

Um in response to your commentary, Councilman Davis.

Um I I want to say that the administration in the second um session that we had when we brought forward kind of bodies of work and different numbers, um that was the product of earnest efforts to go through and find um find fat on this budget and and we put forward things that could be done, but then what my commentary at the time was that these are not cuts that the administration supports pursuing.

Um but I I feel like that we gave you guys all of the raw materials to put together, you know, a proposal, a slate of cuts, and I do appreciate that some of you have.

Um but I just wanted to I wanted to make that remark.

Um, and then uh lastly, one thing that we're gonna point out today in this presentation is that one piece that has kind of fallen off in this conversation is that you know, part of what we have done year over year as an administration with respect to putting forward more and more efficient budgets is that we have had to absorb escalating costs in all areas, and you're gonna see some of that in this presentation.

And and I my hope is that while we have spent a lot of time in the weeds over the last few weeks and in this budget, my hope now is that Mayor Kelly can can help us kind of big picture from our from a strategic perspective, um, talk about what would be an appropriately calibrated path forward.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Mayor Kelly.

Thank you, Kevin.

And thank you for all your hard work on this process.

This is how the sausage is made and it's how it should be made.

I mean, that's just that's what we're doing.

But I think yeah, my job here is to kind of zoom out back up to that 10,000 foot level um and talk about um what's at stake here.

So yeah, first slide.

Again, look, the the reason this is such an unprecedented and interesting um budget year is because we've never had in our lifetimes a spike in inflation like this.

It's it's really just quite quite simple.

Um when I came into office in 2021.

Um that that dollar today is quite literally for on average a buck 22, right?

So just to stay even, we would have to increase 22 percent.

Just to stay even.

Next slide.

Uh here are some great examples of uh random, you know, not random, but selected very important items that uh that we have to purchase on a regular basis and how much they've increased, right?

Um it's it is a it is a very very real thing.

Um those all of those items which are essential have increased uh more than just the kind of the the overall average.

Next slide.

Um and you can see it here in a in a deeper dive, a deeper bucket.

Um our costs are up 25 million bucks, again, 26 percent uh overall.

Next slide.

Uh paving alone, right?

We we all hear a lot about paving.

Um you know, when I came into office, of course, we were we were historically underfunding paving, we were spending three, three, four million bucks a year.

I pledge to spend 10, but again, 10's not enough.

I mean, it you know, we're talking about if we held the rate and raised 80 million bucks, it wouldn't touch the backlog that we've got in paving alone.

Paving costs have gone through the roof.

Uh now look at at some point we'll talk about alternative funding track uh uh strategies for transportation, but this is a really good illustration of what we're up against.

Uh historically, you know, we have captured growth.

You can see here the uh the tax revenue that we that we generate versus the uh uh the uh year and appraised value.

You know, again, uh uh you will hear me say we we need to do the responsible thing uh to drive Chattanooga forward.

We're not talking about uh the the order of increase that we would have historically made based on the rate of inflation.

Uh and again, this is not just about this year, uh, because obviously this budget, you know, will determine our next year, but it will also determine you know the next the next four, unless you've decided to change the rate somewhere in between.

Um next slide.

Can I jump in real quick and just say so we've talked about you know it's a fund the ask the fire and police and so forward uh that they both talked about respectively last week.

The number for for that ask is 23, 693, 912.