Good afternoon, everyone.

We'd like to call to order the meeting of the Chattanooga City Council for Tuesday, February 10th.

I'd like to invite Councilwoman Dotley to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and invitation.

Thank you.

We have uh we have quite a few folks here today.

There are many days when we have a lot of people here, and I want you all to know if you don't regularly attend council meetings that we don't have a way to know why people are here.

We are um considering uh we will be considering it strategic planning, adding an element to collect information on why people are here so that we can fill you in.

Um but we understand that last week we had a lot of people who joined us for the meeting who wanted to talk about immigration enforcement and were frustrated as first-time council attendees at the way that our meetings uh work.

So I want to just briefly let you know if this you're here for your first time.

Um today we do have a special presentation from our police chief, and I believe our mayor is going to speak.

Thank you, Mayor Kelly, for being here.

But after that, um we will do a uh review of our agenda for today, then we will look at our agenda for two weeks, and then we will look at our agenda for three weeks from now, three to four weeks out.

We are a council that works far in advance so that we are able to make very thoughtful decisions.

Also, today we have a budget committee meeting that has a great deal of information on budget policies that um we've been working on for quite some time that I think that by the time we finalize them are going to be uh a smart choice for fiscal responsibility for our three.

So we will work through all of that, then we will take a recess.

Typically, our recesses are about 45 minutes long.

Um when we leave here, we typically keep working.

We've some of us have been in meetings since 9:30 this morning.

Um meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting.

So we will um be meeting um on some legal matters, and then we will come back.

So that is how our day will go.

We are glad you are here.

If you are here and would like to speak, please know that this council does stay until the last person is finished speaking.

We want to hear from you.

Um public comment is a time for you to share how you feel.

Um it is not uh set up to be a back and forth, but every one of us represents a district in the city and is available in a not just in this meeting today, but um in in other ways uh via email, personal meetings, phone calls.

Um so please do take advantage of all of those opportunities.

That said, I would like to get us started with our special presentation brought to us by our police chief John Chambers, and I believe that Mayor Kelly is going to introduce him and introduce this presentation.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

Um yeah, before you hear from Chief Chambers, and he's got a good presentation, I think we'll be very informative for everybody here, but I wanted to address some comments that were reported in the Towns free press about this complex legal landscape that we're navigating regarding state mandates and immigration enforcement.

Um comments were from a much broader discussion with the editorial board there and without full context.

So if I was unclear there, let me clarify.

Like you, I've been deeply disturbed by the aggressive and violent nature of ICE tactics that we've seen in other parts of the country, and I never want to see that here.

Any locally governed scenario is preferable to that, which is the point that I was trying to make to the newspaper.

But these times just underscore the fact, frankly, that our country desperately needs a functional immigration system.

We are in local government stuck in the middle until Congress acts to create meaningful immigration reform.

The vast, vast majority of immigrants simply need a clear path to legal citizenship so that employers and immigrants don't have to continue to skirt the law in order to get by.

And I sincerely hope this becomes a major topic in the upcoming congressional midterm elections and that federal enforcement efforts return immediately to peaceful and civil and constitutional methods.

And as you'll hear from Chief Chambers, the Chattanooga Police Department is not and will not be an arm of federal immigration enforcement.

Our officers are trained as guardians, guided by compassion and governed by the Constitution of the United States.

Their job is to keep our neighborhoods safe, which depends entirely on building and maintaining trust throughout the community.

But make no mistake, we are navigating a very thin line.

We will fulfill our state legal obligations because we must, but we will do so without compromising the community trust that has taken us so many years to build.

Our principles have not changed.

We remain committed to constitutional policing, to transparent reporting, and to one Chattanooga where every resident, no matter where they started, can live with dignity and without fear.

So the bottom line is this.

And that means a city that is both economically vibrant and fundamentally decent.

For those goals to be met, we must remain a welcoming and diverse community, and I will do everything in my power to make sure we live up to that goal.

So I think now we want to hear from Chief Chambers.

He's got a presentation to share with you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Kelly.

I appreciate those words very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council, uh, for allowing me to be here today to take this time.

I know our time is very valuable, and I truly appreciate this opportunity.

Um I've been an instructor kind of throughout my career, um, so I say that because at times, especially like in my personal life, possibly with my wife, whenever I do start to explain things, I can over-explain them.

Um I do plan on going into some detail today.

That's not because I believe anybody is ignorant or anything like that.

So please don't take like I'm talking down to anyone.

I don't want to assume that what may be common knowledge to me is also common knowledge everywhere else.

So I'm going to go into some some intricate details about police reporting and things like that.

So please bear with me.

For the sake of time, there's some introduction slides and things that I will be moving past, title slides and stuff like that.

I'll move through that quickly.

I want to start by making the statement that Chattanooga police officers serve every member of our community with dignity, fairness, and respect.

Our mission to keep you, your family, and our community safe is rooted in constitutional policing.

We protect people, we do not target them because of who they are, where they come from, or the language they speak.

Now there's been some uh a lot of concern that has been brought about based on this data, based on the monthly release of data from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office.

And if I didn't understand data and I didn't know any better, I would be equally concerned.

Because the way this data presents, and as you will see in the excerpt from the Chattanooga Times Free Press indicating a 47% increase in ICE detention, sorry, in ICE detention rate per 100,000.

When you see those numbers, it is alarming.

When you see those numbers, you're left with nothing but to assume that what that represents is that the Chattanooga Police Department is out here unequally enforcing the law against a particular community, that we're targeting our Hispanic and Latino community because look, we made 20 arrests that ended up being either a lawful detention or deportation in the month of December.

That would be very concerning if I didn't understand what this data truly represented.

That's not what is being reported.

It is being misconstrued as something that it is not.

When you're analyzing data, the data you analyze, you're looking to make a comparison to see is there an increase or decrease.

The manner in which that data was collected has to be consistent.

If you change the parameters by which data is aggregated or the parameters by which the data is applied, you change the data set.

So if you take data that was collected under a particular parameter, and then you change that parameter based on a law change, you can't compare past to present because the data sets are completely different.

So when you see this increase in your mixing past protocols with previous law versus new protocols and new law, you cannot compare those two data sets.

That is not the same reality that the data was collected in.

So the way our data is aggregated and collected is based on something called the Tennessee incident-based reporting system.

The Tennessee incident-based reporting system is a derivative of the national incident-based reporting system.

And in the early 90s, early to mid-90s, the U.S.

government realized that we did not have nationwide a consistent way to compare data from one state to the next, honestly, from one city jurisdiction or one county jurisdiction to the next.

It was not consistent, it was all over the map.

So they come up with a way to do that.

Tennessee adopted those rules.

What those rules do is they dictate to all law enforcement agencies of how we will collect data and what data we shall collect.

There are no options.

These are required fields.

Two of those required fields are relevant here.

One of those is race, the other is ethnicity.

Ethnicity is not race.

So if you're of the Hispanic or Latino community, your ethnicity would be Hispanic according to what we are required to report.

It is not a race.

So you could be white, you could be black, you could be Asian, and also have Hispanic ethnicity.

So the proper way, and we have been a Tibers agency since the late 90s when that was adopted by the state of Tennessee.

So our data is accurate and collected the same all the way back then to present.

So we did a three-year analysis to see what does it look like from an arrest standpoint?

Are we targeting any particular group of people, especially or specifically our Hispanic and Latino community?

So as you see the very top, very top is every individual, 18 or over that we arrested.

So we arrested 7,658 individuals for something last year, which is a 5% decrease from 2024, and 2024 was down 14.2% from 2023.

We have consistently arrested fewer and fewer people year over year.

The chart to the bottom left is where we're able to drill down into the data to try to answer the question that's being asked, which is is a community being targeted based on their ethnicity.

And as you see, of that 7,658 individuals that were arrested, 7,078 of them were not of a Hispanic ethnicity.

Which is a 6.6% decrease from the year before.

The individuals who were not of Hispanic ethnicity was a 4.9 or 5% decrease.

Both of these decreases are consistent with the overall data you see in the top, the overall aggregate that is demonstrated there.

The other question that I've received many times is about driver's license or driving without a license.

And I'm going to go into some scenarios here in a few minutes to explain this in great detail.

But what we did was we took that number, the 580 number, and we pulled out the number of individuals over the last three years that were arrested specifically for driving without a license.

And that is the data in the chart that you see there, where last year in 2025, we actually experienced a three-year low in the number of individuals of Hispanic ethnicity that were arrested who were the age of 18 or older.

That is completely contrary to what is being assumed by the release and analysis of other data sets.

These are the facts, and we can't change this.

This is what is going on.

So the Chattanooga Police Department unequivocally is not targeting anyone for their ethnicity or the country they're from or the language they speak.

And at the same time, our overall crime numbers continue to go down, continue to go down in some areas drastically.

And we ask ourselves, well, why is that?

That is because our focus is exactly what I said it was.

Our focus is to keep our community safe.

We have focused specifically and especially on violent crime.

Last year, the city of Chattanooga experienced fewer homicides than what we have experienced in over 25 years.

We saw a 48% reduction in homicides last year.

At the same time, criminal shootings.

These are offenses that we see on the news regularly.

It affects every single one of us.

It especially affects our underserved communities even more.

We started separating aggravated assaults from a shooting, because in Tennessee, the definition of an assault or aggravated assault is assault with a deadly weapon.

So whether it's a baseball bat or a knife or a gun, it's all the same thing.

So we in 2013 we separated that data out for criminal non-fatal shootings.

And last year we saw fewer than we have ever recorded since 2013.

That is because of the deliberate efforts by the Chattanooga Police Department as well as our community partners, other city departments, non-governmental organizations, our faith-based organizations, we have all collectively and collaboratively work together to see this type of result for our city.

And I am extremely proud of all the work that we have done.

This is not done by victimizing any one community.

This is done in collaboration in an attempt to keep our community safe.

Now, when I spoke briefly about changing the parameters of a data set, July 1st, 2024, House Bill number 2124, sorry, yeah, number 2124 was passed.

It reads like this.

All law enforcement agencies and officials shall, in accordance with eight USC 1357 G10, communicate with the appropriate federal officials regarding the immigration status of any individual, including reporting knowledge that a particular alien is not lawfully present in the United States.

In 2024, July 1st specifically, Tennessee legislature passed this law.

That means if any police officer has knowledge that someone is here in an unauthorized capacity, we shall communicate with the proper federal authorities.

There is no leeway.

Now, when we saw this bill coming through, because it was technically passed or approved in April of that year with the effective date of July, we reached out to the state to ask, how are we able to do this?

Because as police officers working for a municipal government, we don't have access to an immigration database.

There is no way that we can determine what that looks like.

So how can we?

And in that conversation, it was determined that because of how our arrest process works through and with the Hamilton County jail, we can't do anything about that.

We don't have the authority, we don't have the access to make that determination.

It is literally impossible.

The manner in which we meet that is that Hamilton County Sheriff's Office is tasked with identifying if an individual is here or not.

That is part of the law.

And when they determine that someone is, they are required by law to make that notification.

I also want to be clear.

The Chattanooga Police Department does not have its own jail.

We haven't had a city jail since sometime in the 80s, I believe it was the early 80s.

We the only place that we can take a prisoner or an arrestee is the Hamilton County Jail.

We have no other choice.

When you change the parameters by which data is applied or aggregated, it changes the data set.

So you cannot look at 22 or 23 or even the first six months of 24 and compare that to anything.

It is inaccurate, and that is not how you analyze data.

I also recognize there's been a lot of discussions around the 287G program.

Now, while we're not part of this, nor do we have any intent on being part of it, I want to discuss a little bit with everyone here about the initial conversations whenever I was appointed chief, and we recognized this was going to be an issue for our community.

As I've stated, and as we will continue to focus, our mission is to keep our community safe.

Our focus is violent crime.

And any additional resources that I have to pull away from that to focus on someone else's agenda, I am not interested in.

And that is not something I'm willing to compromise.

Therefore, we have never been part of this.

There have never been any conversations about us being part of this because there are different models.

You have a task force model, you have a jail model.

I'll explain a little bit about that.

I don't know all the intricacies because we're not part of it.

It is my understanding on the task force model that I would have to select police officers to send to, I don't even know where they go, but they would go to a federal training site and be trained by the federal authorities on how to investigate, identify, and fill out paperwork related to immigration.

Once they came back to the police department, they would then be granted access, access to information and data sets by which they would use to query or to search individuals to determine their immigration status.

I am not going to devote resources to something that is not going to benefit our community, especially when we are so afflicted by violence.

That's not something that we're going to do.

The jail model is similar in that way.

The jail model, uh the sheriff's office would have to send officers to be trained.

When they come back, they would have to have access to the information in the databases in order to fulfill that part of their obligation.

Now, here's something that I found very interesting, because we've read a lot, I've seen and heard a lot about the sheriff's office and the fact that they did sign the MOU to be to participate in this.

But understanding the processes that has to take place before that program is actually implemented.

I asked the question.

And as of at least Saturday, the Hamlet County Sheriff's Office has not fully implemented the 287G program.

They still don't have access to the database, to the data set.

So all of the numbers that are being reported that some individuals are misconstruing to mean something it's not, all of those numbers are 100% predicated on state law changing, requiring the communication from the Hallenda County jail to the proper federal authorities.

Now I want to go over some scenarios.

I want to talk about three scenarios.

So we've had it's not been a secret if you live in the downtown area.

Mufflers and loud noises, loud mufflers are a thing.

It will literally can physically hurt your ears if somebody revs up as they're going by.

We received a lot of community complaints in this summer.

We did we did quite a few traffic enforcement actions in the immediate downtown and north shore area.

We wrote a lot of tickets.

So I'm going to use that as the premise to set this up as possibly this could have happened during that time or any other traffic stop.

So an officer here's a loud muffler that goes by, rattles the windows of his of his SUV, makes the traffic stop.

The officer approaches, asks for the individual's driver's license, ID and proof of, or sorry, driver's license, registration, and proof of insurance.

Standard questions, and then has a brief discussion about why they're being stopped.

Goes back to their vehicle.

To what we say is we say we're going to run them for warrants and a license check.

Those are our words.

What that means is we're going to access a database and query this individual's name, date of birth, and driver's license number to determine if they have a valid driver's license, if there's any local warrants, or if there's any warrants outside of our jurisdiction.

There are three databases that we have access to.

Our own local RMS, TIES, which is the state database that maintains all of the driver's license and vehicle registration information, and NCIC, which is a national database.

That's where things like warrants outside of our jurisdiction are loaded into, stolen vehicles, orders of protection, missing persons, things of that nature.

They are entered into that database.

Those are the only databases that we have access to by which that we check someone's information.

The officer runs the information, comes back, the person has a valid driver's license.

The officer, I almost said right because I've done this a couple times in my head.

We don't write citations anymore.

That was back in my day.

Now we do it on a, it's like a phone tablet thing.

So the officer fills out the citation, walks up, issues the citation, the driver goes on.

Scenario two.

Officer makes the same traffic stop for the exact same reasons.

In this scenario, and the officer approaches, asks for driver's license, registration, and insurance.

The individual says, Well, I have a driver's license, but I left it at home.

By law, that is technically driving without a license.

Okay, but it doesn't mean you stop there.

It doesn't mean that person automatically goes to jail.

Further questions are asked.

Okay, is this registration is this your vehicle?

Well, yes, it is.

Okay.

Do you have any other form of ID?

Do you have a passport with you?

Do you have any other form another form of a state legal ID?

Well, no, I don't.

Okay.

Go back, officer goes back to the car and searches those same three databases.

If this individual has a driver's license, we have access to their photo as well as the ability to verify the information that they provided us on the vehicle registration.

And in that scenario, the individual would be issued a citation and sent along their way.

Because the officer is able to confirm that this person is who they say they are.

Now, in this third one, the officer approaches and the individual says, I don't have an ID.

Okay, the same questions are asked.

Do you have any other form of ID?

I do not.

Do you have a driver's license in any state?

I do not.

Okay.

The officer goes back to the car.

He searches name, date of birth, whatever information that he has obtained from the individual.

If the officer is not able to affirm who this that this individual is who they say they are, the officer cannot by law issue a citation.

We have to be able to verify that you are who you say you are before we can issue a citation.

That point, the officer has to take the person to jail, which is a full custody arrest.

The officer transports the individual to jail, fills out the booking paperwork, the affidavit, swears to the affidavit, and gets back in service.

That is the end of CPD's involvement in any form of deportation.

That is the end.

The reason that's the case is I can arrest you if I don't know who you are.

Trust me, John Doe has been arrested more times in this city than any other human ever.

And that's I know it's a little bit, you know, a little funny, but that is the truth.

Because it is the jail's responsibility before the individual enters into the judicial process, they have to determine who that person is.

That they are who they say they are.

It is at that point that if a member of the Hamilton County jail determines that this individual may be here in an unauthorized capacity, that they are required by state law to make that phone call.

I think you don't mean may, but they are required to make an arrest, right?

That's correct.

It's not a good idea.

In order to enforce, yes, ma'am.

In order to consistently to consistently enforce the law, the only option is to arrest.

Thank you.

Yes.

CP does not make immigration-related arrests or decisions or detentions.

CP does not make arrests based on citizenship or immigration status.

CPD does not possess the ability to determine immigration status.

CPD does not track, charge, or target individuals based on their immigration status, and CPD does not participate in any form of immigration enforcement, as that is outside the scope of our authority.

And we simply do not have the access to the information to even bring state law into play.

In the spirit of transparency, I wanted to talk about a couple things.

The Chattanooga Police Department has been an accredited, a nationally accredited organization through Calia for over 25 years.

In 2025, we actually the first time ever that the CPD received 100% compliance to all of the expected policies and procedures set forth by this third party.

What this does is it opens up, we open ourselves up to an inspection every single year by this third party organization, and their job is to search through all of our records, to search through all of our policies to ensure that all that our custom policy and practice are consistent with the law, the constitution, as well as industry standard.

And as part of that, we're required to do certain analyses every single year.

Use of force, vehicle pursuit, and internal affairs.

All three of which are vital to building trust within our community.

Vital.

Now, once I was appointed chief, we decided we would make these public.

They're already available, but a lot of people don't know that.

So we went back the last three years and placed all three of those reports open on our website.

And they've been there, and we will continue to do that this year.

Our annual report for 2024 was also placed on there, and 2025 will be available as well as the other three reports will be available on our website.

Our goal is early spring.

The CPD for over 20 years has had a community police academy.

That is a literal behind-the-scenes look.

It is every Thursday night for nine consecutive weeks where you can come in and you will meet officers and they will explain what we do, how we do what we do, and most importantly, why we have to do it that way.

We have received nothing but glowing reviews from individuals who have attended that because we are as transparent as you could possibly be.

Not just reports or data requests, body cam footage, all of our internal investigations, all of that is open to our Freedom of Information Act.

And if anyone has a question about the thoroughness or having access to reports, arrest reports, anything like that, you absolutely can gain access.

The Chenaga Police Department remains dedicated to ensuring the safety of all residents through constitutional policing that respects individual rights, fulfills state-mandated reporting requirements without compromising community trust, and maintains accountability through transparent reporting, and that will not change.

Now, I've talked a lot about processes, facts, and law.

Two weeks ago, there was a young member of our community here that was had asked me some questions because this individual had some concerns and really felt that we were intentionally targeting our Hispanic and Latino community for immigration enforcement.

And they asked me a question.

They said, how does it feel when you arrest someone and you know you're tearing them away from their family?

And when I gave them my response, they said people need to hear you say that.

So I want to talk about that for just a second.

It absolutely sucks when you come in to a home, and the children are crying their eyes out because mom and dad have been in a fight.

And because state law requires you to determine who the primary aggressor is, and you make an arrest.

And as you're escorting mom or dad out, you hear the kids say, please don't take my mommy, or please don't take my dad.

Even though we do wear uniforms, we are humans, and that is a difficult thing to do repeatedly.

Just this past summer, I was working sometime on midnight shift, and I backed up a couple of our officers.

They were on Brainerd Road, they had made a traffic stop.

This young man had had a rough patch.

He had about two years prior, where he'd been arrested a few times, he lost his license, and he was actually he was bragging about what all he had done, and he had every right to brag to get his license back, he got a job, he saved up some money, bought a car, got his own apartment.

As the officer was doing what I described earlier, a warrant came back during the process of him getting his license back, he overlooked something, and a judge took a warrant out on him.

And we had to take him to jail.

And when we exp when we explained that, he sobbed.

It absolutely sucked.

Not a single one of us.

I looked in the eyes of the other two officers, not a single one of us wanted to put him in jail.

Not at all.

But we do not have a choice.

The law doesn't allow us to apply our opinions or our thoughts or beliefs into how we enforce the law.

That is something we have experienced in this country, in this city, and I will fight like hell to keep it from ever happening again.

We're not going to subjectively or bias our enforcement efforts.

That is not something we are doing, and that is not something that we will ever do.

Knowing what the narrative is, or in some circles, what the narrative is about CPD right now, despite the presentation of the accurate data.

We knew coming into this, I knew coming into this current administration with the president that there was different ideals, different perspectives, different missions, and that it was going to adversely affect our ability to protect the Hispanic and Latino community when they may need us the most.

Because the result of this, the result of misinformation is you increase the level of fear, and then you decrease their opportunity to feel like they can call for help when they need it.

That isn't also a tragedy because nobody wants to see children suffer because they don't have someone to protect them because they don't have someone to stand up for them because they don't have access to the support that they should have because they're afraid.

Knowing that, and knowing that historically the Chattanooga Police Department has maintained a very good working relationship with La Paz in recent years that relationship had withered.

And I made deliberate efforts to rebuild that, and we have spoken at town hall meetings at several events, been asked to speak by uh our director of New Americans, Office of New Americans, spoke at a few events.

The goal here was to try and bridge the gap to try and earn the trust that we knew was going to be fractured, and in my monthly meetings with the senior leadership of La Paz, we're finding out that those efforts were not paying off.

And I was actually sitting on the front porch one morning, I believe it was back this past spring, of Dr.

Everlena Holmes, and she mentioned how effective the block leader model was within the city, and I kind of had an idea of what if we could apply elements of that model to our Hispanic and Latino community because I can go speak to a group all day long and I'm wearing this, and my words will only go so far.

But what if?

What if we could build relationships with individuals in those communities that already had the trust and respect?

And what if we could provide those individuals with access and information to help provide that support?

So my victim services unit partnered with the mayor's some of the mayor's staff, and we're piloting that project right now.

That is an active and ongoing project that we are trying.

Because we're committed to continuing to try and serve however we can because none of us want individuals in those communities to suffer.

And some of those individuals, a large number of those individuals, are here, are authorized to be here, but they're still subjected to the same fear, and that's unacceptable.

So as I was preparing for today, I thought a lot about some of the things that I'd read online, some of the news reports that I'd heard, and the implications that we were targeting the Latino and Hispanic community, and I thought, you know what?

Maybe they're right.

We are targeting the Hispanic and Latino community.

We are targeting them to go out of our way to give them access to the support and resources that they desperately need in a time when others are not.

That is something that I'm continuing to do, and I am committed in that area and will not waver.

Thank you for your opportunity.

Do you have any other questions?

Thank you very much.

Chief Council, do we have any questions?

Um the board is quiet.

Um, Chief Chambers, I want to say thank you.

Very much.

Um you've been listening as I've brought this need for the public to hear what you just shared.

And I know that I especially, I mean, the data for me is encouraging.

Um, but also I'm really glad that you took some time and shared the human perspective of being a police officer.

And you all carry a great burden on our behalf and trying to keep us safe.

It's important, I think, as a community for us to always be looking to how we work together, not opposed to one another.

And I don't know if this has answered everyone's concerns, but I know for me I found it very helpful.

Thank you very much.

And thank you again, Mayor Kelly, for sharing.

Yes, appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Okay, council.

Let's take a look at our agenda for tonight.

Oh, minutes.

Thank you, Dotling.

Before we do that, Council, can I get a motion on the minutes from last week?

Thank you.

Minutes will approve.

We'll uh we'll stand without objection.

All right, so taking a look at today's um agenda, we do have uh a couple items under final reading, or one item, excuse me, under final reading.

Then let's take a look at ordinances under first reading.

Um we have several planning items.

We do have the air pollution control.

Councilwoman Dotley.

He is um, madam chair for item uh D 2026 001.

Um I did get an update from uh Karen Rennick earlier today about special exceptions that can be made in this particular zone.

So I will be offering an amendment uh for no liquor store there because it's close to the other store that was also on a legal store.

Just all down Dyes Avenue.

So um I'll be I I'll be offering that amendment, and I hope I know we'll have the the public hearing and everything, but I wanted to mention it now.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Councilman Elliott.

Thank you, madam chair.

Under planning item F.

I'm gonna be looking to the furthest today until March 10th.

I've already talked to the applicant, and we're gonna uh code to our neighborhood association before we continue.

Okay, did you say March 10th?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, council looking at resolutions, have a handful of appointments.

Um I would like to point out item C, Council.

This is the resolution related to our council rules of operations.

We do have an alternate version that came through late that is uh more specific to the items that we talked about in strategic planning.

Um there is uh there is one section that I think uh well that I know we decided we were gonna continue to discuss, which is um on page five item C three related to the five yes or five no votes.

Um I don't see any lights.

Um I would suggest council that it that if we choose to vote on this alternate version, which is the one I will have read, that we do make an amendment to strike um the language about um the quorum because we are gonna review that on our March 17th strategic planning.

So that section is unless a majority the the new language that that's in here that we weren't quite ready to decide on was quote unless a majority of the quorum present choose to allow the majority of all members present to approve any issue based on timeliness or expense concerns in accordance with Robert's rules of order.

Councilwoman Dotling.

Yeah, so Madam Chair, I just want to be clear for that item of 5C3 under voting.

This is what we currently have, correct?

Um so five C three.

So um this is what you're speaking of.

Am I right?

Is this the area?

Is this the place you're talking about?

We talked about it at strategic planning, but what happened was the attorney's office.

Um they created the alternate version that represents our discussion from last week.

So it's it's in your uh you have a link to it from Maria.

Um, but there was one item that they included that we had not had a uh agreement on.

Okay.

So you know, we talked about did we how might we want to handle that, and we said we don't we aren't ready to make a decision on that.

Right.

Okay, so the other items that are in the red line version um clarify the fact that uh chairman pro temporar would be elected there on page one pursuant to the city charter, um the change to the name of the community development committee, um, a change to the vice chairperson's responsibilities, um, and then the council expense reimbursement section.

Um the the main version on the agenda does not reflect the discussion that we had about being able to transfer um and also modernizing the language.

So the alternate version has that.

Okay.

Oh well.

Thank you so much, madam chair.

I may have some questions later about about that particular one.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Maria sent a red line at 1140 that you have everything.

Yes, uh, Maria sent a red line at 1140 that you can yes.

Uh that that's what's yeah, what I'm discussing is the red line.

Yeah, I didn't I didn't see that either, so that's why I'm asking questions.

Did she not send to the entire council?

I believe so.

I'm sure she did, but by 1140, we were okay.

All right, so you guys can take a look at that and determine how we want to move forward at the meeting.

Um, okay.

Um we have a couple of resolutions under economic development.

A couple of parks and public works items, and we will have a report on debt obligation.

Okay, taking a look.

I see no lights, so let's take a look at our purchases for today.

Ah councilman burst.

Yeah, uh, I do want to circle back to the resolution on our um rules of operation real quick.

Okay, what if um when is the discussion gonna be for the pieces that are still outstanding?

Is that gonna be at our upcoming our strategic planning March 17th?

Okay, thank you.

Yes, do you have any other questions about this uh today's agenda before we move to purchases?

Okay, seeing none, let's take a look at purchases.

We have four purchases today.

If you have any questions, hit your light.

Councilman Elliott.

This is it called as soon as I hit the light.

This is adjacent to the um tree conversation.

I mean the tree.

Hold on, am I on the right one?

Okay, awesome.

Sorry, I'm on the wrong week.

Um, this is adjacent to the tree.

Um April, can we connect after this?

I'm some questions on some other trees printing.

We're doing in parks.

Um, but let's just connect offline.

That's it, that's true.

Okay.

Do we have any questions about purchases?

Council, we do have one emergency purchase.

We do not have any uh renewals, RFPs, or sole source purchases.

Councilwoman Dotley.

Yes, thank you, madam chair.

I just had a question about the emergency purchase.

Um do we know how long, or can she for someone off the CPD about how long it would take um for the remediation to get done?

I know right now, administrative administrative offices are kind of spread out across various places.

This is this is the mode mold removal.

So do you know how long that would take, and then when you would get everybody re-established back down on the public.

So what they've told us is three months from when they started, they started last week.

So we're hoping.

Um I don't want to hold my breath for three months, um, but that's what we're hoping they can stick to that that timeline.

They intentionally have brought in a large force because you know, obviously, us being displaced is very difficult on everybody.

So our hope is that we can be back in there by you know April May ish at the latest.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much, thank you, madam chair.

Okay, all right, council looks like we're good on purchases.

Let's take a week a look at next week's agenda, please.

Items uh under first reading for next week.

We have a couple of mandatory referrals in district five.

Um planning item in district eight some economic development resolutions.

Hit your light if you've got any questions comments.

Okay, seeing none, let's take a look at future considerations, please.

Future considerations is pretty open right now, council.

Do you have um some items for the city attorney and the mayor's office and the council office?

If you have any questions or comments, please hit your lights.

All right, looks like we're good on that.

We have a big budget meeting that we are gonna have this afternoon.

So I will hand Madam Chair 40.

I have one more question.

Okay, Councilwoman Burst.

Thank you.

Um for the city attorney.

Could Maria just resend that again?

Yes, ma'am.

The last email I'm looking at is at 1144.

Yes, and it does not have the red line in it.

So did she okay?

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Yes, super.

Okay, my that's that's all.

Thank you, okay.

Great.

All right, I'm gonna turn it over to budget chairwoman Dotley for our budget and finance committee meeting.

Okay.

All right, council.

Um, this is our budget committee meeting for February the 10th, 2026.

Can I get approval on the minutes?

So move.

Thank you so much.

Minutes stand without objection.

Uh so before we get started, um, just our agenda's pretty lengthy today.

Uh so I wanted to give an overview first.

So if uh Rick, you can bring up the that yes, that's the right one.

Yes, this uh presentation, please.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so you can go to the next slide.

And I wanted to just give us a brief uh what the agenda is and just a brief overview of what uh to kind of refresh your memory regarding the budget, but I'm sure you all have studied.

Um, so we will look at uh FY26 some highlights.

Uh the PFM is here to give us a bond update.

Uh Weston will come up and do our financial policy review, and then Dr.

Akov will come up and do uh a summary of the budget research update, noting that we will be uh having more in-depth sessions about that.

So if you go to the next slide, please.

So as a reminder, our FY26 budget overview, which is this current fiscal year.

Uh, that is our operating budget, which is 390 million dollars, and then our capital budget is 61 million dollars.

Next slide.

I do want to note that I use AI to make this slide.

It was very exciting.

Uh so it looks different from all the rest, but it asked that I want to beautify the slides.

I thought sure, and came up with this.

Uh so but uh our budget highlights, and council, you should be very proud of uh of yourselves and uh and working with the administration uh that we prioritize employees with competitive wages and benefits.

We prioritize public safety and also prioritize infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

So for employees, uh, we continue the implementation of the Gallagher study for some of our newer council members.

This was a study that Mayor Kelly uh implemented upon coming in in 2021 to uh level out our pay because there were people had been they had been with the city for 10 15 years, never had a pay raise, never anything.

Um so this now uh with this implementation of this, and it was uh approved by council, and we were able to move that into our budget.

So the last couple of budget seasons, we've been teeter tarting back and forth between are we gonna get a give a um a you know a pay raise to sworn, non-sworn, and things of that nature, and through our last budget session, we were able to do both, and moving forward, we'll be able to do both.

So this allows us uh this allows for competitive wages and puts us in a position for strength as we enter FY27.

So good job.

Great job to council for for actually being able to stabilize this this portion of our budget.

Uh next slide, please.

For public safety stability, uh, we prioritize public safety, stability, and resilience.

We improve recruitment and retention.

You heard um Chief Chambers talk about the largest academy class since 2013.

In 2024, we had a vacancy of 24 23 percent in 2024 to now 0% plus eight today.

So that is a good space again that goes to show those investments that were made.

So thank you to Chattanoogans, thank you to this council, and for the fire department, they are hitting their retention goals, they are keeping talent.

Uh, because I don't know if you were aware, but that it was a very high chance of a mass exodus.

Uh if we did not fix this, this this teeter totter we were doing.

Plus, we are recruiting new talent, so we're in a good place here.

And then finally, next slide, please.

Um, and these again are just highlights.

There are many other things that happened, but uh these are some of the highlights of of that what has happened in the FY26 budget.

Uh we've prioritize infrastructure.

So the Wilcox Boulevard Boulevard Bridge, we saw we're we're seeing investments in that, and PFM uh may mention that today.

We have a landfill expansion as well as continued paving investments, and thank you, Jay, for the information.

Uh we're looking at for this fiscal year uh paving roughly 50 58 paving miles.

So we are excited about that.

So, council, we've done the work.

Um, and so all these policies that we get ready to look at really help us continue in doing that right work, the research, the policies, and all these things.

So I wanted to give that brief overview as we got started with um with this presentation, and I will uh if the administration is Kevin in here, yes.

Kevin, did you want to add to this at all?

No, I think it's that's good.

Okay, all right, thank you so much.

Uh so with that, we'll get into our updated financial policies with uh with an if you could.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Council.

Weston Porter, CFO here at the city.

Uh I just want to take a minute, a few minutes today uh to provide an update on some policies that we've been working on in finance and in conjunction with administration.

Uh I'm gonna skip through these.

So just kind of a quick overview summary.

Uh during the F uh during FY25, the city engaged the government finance officers association or GFOA to help us prepare a detailed analysis of our fund balance levels and and where we were with that.

And as a part of that discussion and as a part of their analysis, they had a recommendation that we formalize and adopt uh a number of policies.

Uh and so at the request of of Chairwoman Hill, we started to work on that, and that's been nine months maybe or so now that we've been working on these back and forth in the midst of passing a budget and everything else.

And so uh we're gonna present some of those today and kind of start the conversation.

So the four policies that GFOA outlined were the one-time revenue policy, volatile revenue, structural balance, budget policy, and fund balance reserve.

Um I do want to kind of preface the rest of this discussion uh by saying that these these policies outline a number of great budgetary things and practices, um, most all of which the city was already doing.

This these policies just kind of codify that and put it into a formal written document.

But again, most of these things you'll see are things that we've been doing throughout the budget process for the last uh number of years.

So we'll jump into the first one, which is a one-time revenue policy.

And with this policy is it's designed to limit the use of non-recurring revenues to one-time non-recurring expenditures or to pay down liabilities.

So when we're talking about one-time revenues, we're looking at things like donations, the proceeds of sales of assets or property, settlements from legal uh cases or things like that, and then one-time federal, state, and revenue allocations.

Uh, the policy also outlines kind of what we can do with these.

Uh, these one-time revenues we can use for capital improvement projects, paying down debt, uh, including the pension, like we did in in FY25.

Uh, replenishment of any kind of reserve deficit that we may have.

Uh, but what we can't do with these one-time revenues is use them to fund ongoing regular operations.

Um, and then and then each of these slides as we go through the policy documents here is gonna kind of outline what we need from council and pretty much all of them are just require you guys to look at them.

Like we have one here kind of every four years so that each new council person will will get a crack at it and be able to kind of refresh.

Um and ultimately we're trying to ensure that these policies remain in line with the city's objectives to exercise fiscal responsibility.

Whoa.

There it is.

Uh the next next policy we'll look at is volatile revenue policy.

Uh, this policy is designed to treat extraordinarily high annual revenues from volatile sources as one-time revenues and limit the use of these revenues to one-time non-recurring expenditures to pay down liability or pay down liabilities.

And essentially, what this is doing, um, interest is a great example of kind of what we're talking about here, depending on how much cash we have on hand or what the markets are doing, interest could range anywhere, say, from five million to ten million dollars a year.

And what we don't want to do is take the high end of that and fund ongoing operations that when that comes back down to normal, we're left with this with this deficit.

So, what with this policy kind of outlines is you take what you set a baseline, a three-year, five-year average, whatever makes sense for that particular revenue source, and then anything in excess of that baseline is treated as a one-time revenue.

So it would refer back to that one-time revenue policy.

Um again, interest is kind of the clearest example of of how that would work.

Um, can we use these four rev volatile revenues that increment, say we our baseline for interest is six million, but we bring in 10 million in a given year, that four million dollars would be contributed as a one-time revenue that we could use for capital projects, paying down debt, uh, funding the reserve uh if need be, um, things like that.

Uh, we will continue to monitor these these volatile revenue sources throughout the year and report back with any issues or concerning trends that we see.

Um, and again, what's needed from council just just a review of the policy every so often just to make sure that it continues to align uh with our priorities.

There it is.

All right.

Uh the next policy is the structurally balanced budget policy.

Uh the state requires us to pass a balanced budget.

What it doesn't require us to do is to make sure that that budget is structurally balanced.

So essentially, a government in Tennessee can pass a budget that is balanced using one time revenue sources that would create uh structural deficits within the budget in future years.

So what this policy does is it commits the city to balancing its recurring revenues and recurring expenditures without including those one-time revenues.

And this is to help prevent any kind of structural deficits that might occur in the budget.

So again, a structurally balanced budget is a budget where recurring revenues and are sufficient to cover recurring expenditures.

How do we develop a structurally balanced budget?

This is done using well-reasoned conservative revenue projections and balancing that against departmental budgets that focus on recurring expenditures and prioritizing prioritizing operational needs over one-time spending.

This policy also addresses debt and capital funding.

Capital improvements will continue to be funded using the appropriate sources, whether it be bonds, uh pay as you go, the one-time revenues that we talked about earlier, things like that nature.

And debt service will also continue to be funded using stable recurving recurring revenue sources like property taxes.

Two things on this one needed from council, things we're already doing.

Review annually, discuss and adopt a budget that is structurally balanced and make sure that we don't inadvertently end up with some with a with a structural deficit in our budget.

Again, things we're doing already, but this just kind of codifies that.

And then review the policy every four years.

This last policy, uh certainly not least, is our fund balance reserve policy.

City actually does have an existing fund balanced reserve policy.

It was adopted back in I think 2006.

Uh it sets the target at 15% of revenues.

Um this new policy, this is again was kind of at the crux of what GFOA was tasked with doing was helping us kind of figure out where we needed to fall when it comes to our general fund fund balance reserve.

Uh this policy sets the range uh 20 to 30 percent.

Um general best practice is 17%.

That's the state that's GFOA.

Uh best practice municipal finance is around that 17% mark.

But what GFOA did is they did a kind of a 10-year outlook to say if we ran into an economic downturn, a major tornado or flood event, uh a pick global pandemic, where did we need to be to get some level of confidence that we would not fall below the 17% mark?

And so the 20 to 30 percent kind of gives us an 80 to 90 percent confidence that if we run into one of those situations, we won't fall below 17 percent.

Because if you set it at 17 percent and you have uh a big economic downturn, you're gonna fall below it.

So we kind of overshoot it to give us some cushion in that.

Uh currently, we ended FY25, June 30, 2025, at 27.7% and did not budget to use any fund balance reserve in the FY26 budget.

What can we use reserves for?

It's outlined in the policy as being used to address unexpected revenue shortfalls, emergencies, payment of debt, and one-time capital items.

Again, it cannot be used to cover ongoing operational costs, such as salaries or other recurring expenses that would compromise the structural integrity of the budget.

How will excess funds be handled?

Similar to what happened last spring, if it's determined that the fund balance is exceeded kind of that that level, uh, administration and finance would work together to bring a proposal to you this body, uh, and you guys would have an opportunity to discuss it and pass it to use them in one of these appropriate manners.

Um again, the last thing we needed on this is just a review it every every so often to make sure that it continues to align with what we're trying to do.

And that's my overview of the policies we're working on.

And any questions?

Yes, all right.

Yes, we have a couple of questions.

Councilman Elliott, followed by Madam Chair Heel and then Councilman Henderson, I believe.

I also have one question.

Uh well, you guys are bringing the and you probably already said these, but I'll just want to clarify.

Will you all be bringing this before us to codify this?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

That's all.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Ailey.

Madam Chair Heel.

Thank you very much.

Um I'm very excited that we are at this point.

And Chairwoman Dotley, thank you very much for shepherding this.

Um couple of specific questions.

The one-time revenue policy restrictions and use.

Um, one-time revenue should not, it reads as follows.

One-time revenue should not be used for regular operating expenses, such as salaries and benefits, routine maintenance, or other ongoing costs that would create ongoing financial obligation.

Um, so my question is about not being able to use a one-time revenue for um routine maintenance, knowing that we have so much opportunity for maintenance.

If we were to have a windfall, why would we limit ourselves from, for example, um painting pedestrian crosswalks?

Sure.

So I think the idea is not to budget to use these things.

So if we had in building the budget, that's right.

That's right.

It kind of goes back to that structural integrity of it.

But we can we can add some specific language to kind of like part of that.

Just something to consider.

Yeah, I understand.

If we wouldn't have had the windfall or the the one-time revenue.

Okay.

Okay.

Um the structurally balanced looks great.

Um volatile, volatile revenues.

Um I had a question under item five.

Um, risk mitigation and diversification.

I thought it was an excellent thing to consider as part of this policy, but I wondered what the thought process is on the third bullet.

Quote, the city will also consider establishing long-term partnerships, endowments, or grants that help stabilize revenue.

Can you give me some examples of what you guys are thinking about with that?

So I think this is kind of I and I failed to mention this when I started.

We we developed these policies using uh GFOA has what's called the policy challenge where they take policies from across the country and they put them all kind of in one hub, and you're able to log in and and pull kind of these, and and that was something that we we pulled from a number of a number of municipalities that had a similar verbiage in theirs, and it was just a good idea.

We haven't really nailed down exactly how we're gonna do that, but I think considering just some of the long-term partnerships with the a lot of the uh the groups here in town in the philanthropic groups, and how can we partner with different folks?

It was just something kind of to explore a little bit further.

Okay, that we hadn't considered.

So it was it was an opportunity to us for to pull from other municipalities and see maybe maybe there's something that we haven't been doing.

All right, so that is something we could learn from other folks.

Okay, for sure.

Um that was my last question.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Okay, council Mahenderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um Weston, on the going back to the volatile revenue policy.

Um, before we codify now, you've given some examples and it says, but not limited to will we actually list all of the revenue that we feel like is the volatile revenue and also establish a baseline for those before we codify.

I don't think we'll we can add to the list, but I don't think we'd want to call it the list, because if something were to come up that changes in a number of years, then we'd have to go back and readdress the policy.

We could certainly look at it though and make it a more comprehensive list.

Um, but I I think the idea of leaving it open-ended was to there just maybe something we just haven't thought about or just hasn't come up yet that would then require us to come back and amend the policy to include it or not, but well, don't I mean an only reason I bring that up is because of the history of the years I've been serving on the council.

Sometimes you know, we'll ask, what about this?

Oh well, that's you know uh I just felt like if we had something very defined, we would know what's volatile, what's not volatile, so that if we bring up what about this, we're not gonna get to answer, oh, we've decided that's volatile.

Okay, you follow what I'm saying, yes, definitely and then establish a baseline for all of these uh volatile revenues.

Um the second thing I want to go to the fund balance.

Uh and I had spoken to you I don't know a week or so ago about the ability to be able to uh create a strategic gold reserve.

Did you find out whether that's something that we can do as a city or not?

As far as invest taking this this reserve that we're setting apart and investing it well kind of in the same way.

And so what I'm I guess I mean, and I'm just talking out loud right here.

Um, you know, we've got a range of 20 to 30 percent if we allocated a percentage of that range, uh, you know, of say five percent to a strategic gold reserve that sort of in my opinion holds holds the value.

I mean, the the feds have just announced they're gonna start quantitative easing and which will continue to devalue our dollar.

So as those dollars sit in those accounts, it's quite possible that they're not going to be earning the interest or return on investments that we're gonna start seeing the devaluation of those dollars, whereas as the dollar devaluates, gold typically continues to rise or holds it holds its value.

Sure.

So I guess what I would like for this council to entertain or in the even the administration is possibly creating a certain percentage of our unreserved fund balance to go to a strategic gold reserve so that so that we have some assurance that that our dollars are maintaining their value.

Sure.

And what we can do is we can add to this policy kind of an investment.

Uh line item, maybe number eight or whatever number it would end up being, and bring to you guys as we continue this conversation some options of here's how we could potentially do something like that.

Yeah, and we can add that to this definitely.

That'd be great.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

That's all I want questions.

Okay, thank you.

For that.

Thank you, Councilman Handersana.

You were saying gold, like the rock.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

I thought you said gold.

That was last.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for clarifying clarifying it.

Councillor Ann Elliott.

Okay.

This is a clarifier to Councilman Henderson.

Like, so do we actually buy this gold?

And I don't know how it works, so you have to excuse me.

We build our own Fort Knox and try to be funny here.

I mean, you got plenty of room over there in our homestead, so I don't know.

Do we know there?

I would rather see elevate certificates.

That way we know that you actually got the method.

Um just forward, we need to work something that would have helped stable dollars that we have in those reserves because we value every year and work less.

It's typically no about that.

Okay.

Thanks, sir.

That's not mad chair.

All right, thank you so much, Councilman Elliott.

So council with that, uh, we'll continue to work with finance, work with Weston and try to bring some policies to you uh early March for us to vote on, and it would just be a resolution.

Yes, right.

And and whatever we vote on, we'll use as a basis for uh you know, basis for our FY27 budget.

So that'll be coming up.

So just keep that in mind, and thank you so much, Weston.

And are you going to introduce PFM?

Sure.

Okay.

I think they have a slide deck if we could pull it up.

And PFM is here.

Uh we closed on our bonds last week, so they're gonna just give a general update on on how that went, how the process went, and kind of the results of that.

Okay, thank you.

One one other thing, uh, Weston, we also have a report on the agenda tonight, and that is a report that we've sent to the state at this point that's required by law, correct?

That's correct.

So the report under other business is a state, is a report we're required to file with the state, it's been filed by Bassbury Sims or Bond Council, and it's just an informational item.

Uh, there's really no action to take or anything to do with it.

They just it outlines kind of the proceeds and and where everything went and the closing costs and and and all of that information, a lot of which Lauren Lowe is about to go over uh from PFM.

And that item is just informational only, it's required by law to be presented to you guys.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon.

Um I will control the slides here.

Please make sure if I flip by if you miss something, let me know.

I'm happy to go back.

Um, my name is Lauren Lowe, I'm a managing director at PFM.

We serve as the independent financial advisor to the city.

So I'll give a quick overview of the transaction that Weston mentioned that did close last week.

So the city issued 2026 general obligation bonds.

This provided 40 million of capital expenditures that were part of the FY25 and 26 budget process.

The bonds were sold at a premium, so we actually borrowed 35.4 million dollars.

We worked with the administration to structure the bonds.

We factored in the budget process, the affordability, the expected credit rating of the city, as well as current market conditions.

Um we did work directly with city finance to prepare responses to the the rating agency's questions.

The city has a Fitch and SMP rating, and that process resulting in affirming the city's credit ratings of AA plus by Fitch and AAA by SNP.

Um the market conditions the day prior to um the sale were somewhat volatile um given news articles and things that are outside of our control.

However, when we step back and looked at the market conditions, which B val is an index that we use to track tax exempt bonds, like the city issued, um, they actually were better off than when we had started this process or a reference point is in mid-October, excuse me, mid-December, when we met with the rating agencies, the market actually approved improved or had gone down 0.06 to 0.21% in interest rates.

That is still factoring in the volatility that occurred the day prior to pricing.

Based on our independent review of going into the bond pricing, we actually estimate that the city priced 0.04% to 0.15% better than we had independently evaluated.

So for context general obligation debt in Tennessee, when it's the first time you borrow general obligation debt, it must be sold at competitive public sale.

So prior to that bond offering, PFM contacted approximately 40 underwriting firms to get feedback about the market conditions, the city's bond sale, and really answer any questions they may have.

Questions usually are can you send me you know the SP rating report, things of that nature.

On the day of the sale, we did have 17 bidders signed up.

I tried to manage everybody's expectations that we might not get all 17.

And to my incorrect reference, we did get all 17 bids.

So it was a very favorable process.

The result was PNC was the lowest true interest cost provider at a 2.976%.

PFM independently verified all of those bids to the right, all 17 of them, which required us to do two sets of structuring, but we did it.

And we just noted how aggressive the bids were.

And when you look at PNC kind of going down that list, in fact, the next bid was 0.003% comparative to the winning bid.

So we took this as a very strong process that the city undertaked.

So as a recap after the issuance of the debt prior to going into the the 2026 bond issue, we had about 120 million of outstanding.

120 million of outstanding um uh debts associated with the city's general improvement bond.

So anything related to general capital needs for the city.

Um after the issuance, we had about 156 million.

So we provided to you as a graphic to sort of see the blue Vars represent existing debt payments, and where we have layered in the future debt payments associated with the 26 bonds.

As the city attorney noted, um, there is an item in your packet related to um it's called the Comptroller's Report on Debt Obligation.

We often short refer to as a short term as just state debt report.

It is a non-voting informational item, must be provided to the governing body within 45 days of closing.

It is on file in our electronic format at the Comptroller's office and also accessible for for the public.

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

Council, any questions for PFM?

All right, Lauren, you did a great job.

No question.

Good.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

All right, but I know it'll be questions wide next one.

A cough come on up.

Very exciting.

And as a reminder, council, he's gonna give an overview, and then we will also have additional end of sessions uh regarding this as well.

Yeah.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Good to see everybody again.

Good to see you too.

Um, so like Chairman Dolly mentioned, um, I just want to give a brief overview of sort of what I've been working on in the draft report.

Um, and I will um kind of walk you through some of the high points.

Uh, some of this I may be preaching the choir just a little bit, so I'm happy to skip over some ones, but uh stop me at any point if you'd like, and um I'm happy to answer questions or engage in discussion, et cetera.

Um I will briefly uh kind of tell you the the high points I was gonna touch on.

So so A, the focus is on mostly general fund revenues expenditures.

Um so obviously that's the the biggest chunk of governmental funds.

That's that's most of what you all consider, I think, on a on a weekly yearly basis, um, et cetera.

Um revenue and expenditure forecasts based on those uh a look at the fiduciary funds, aka pension funds, um, and then we talked about developing some measures of of fiscal health and other kind of performance measures.

Um so those are kind of the the highlights of what I'm I'm presenting now, and again, there's sort of an ongoing draft that I'm working on, so I'm happy to consider other points and answer other questions.

Um my general caveats, I'll I'll give my good legal disclaimer.

Um, so this is not legal or financial advice, um, and these are just my opinions, not state, UTC, anybody else.

This is this is just me.

So I will say too, any mistakes are mine.

I've I've caught a couple, and I think others that have given me feedback have caught a couple.

So thanks to the uh finance and grants and HR and the folks of the pension fund and others that have that have helped me along the way, but uh I want to make sure that anything I say that's wrong is me.

Um, and again, I'm I'm looking for your feedback as we go.

So general caveats.

Um big picture.

If you go back way, way back to 2001.

Just kidding.

Uh so I I started, I looked back actually back to back to the 90s.

I was just curious in kind of overall general trends and spending in terms of uh general funds uh expenditures and and revenue sources kind of as we go.

So I've looked both at general spending and revenue sources both in terms of nominal dollars, basically like the dollars that came in then, the dollars went out then, um, also in terms of inflation adjusted dollars.

So the nominal dollars, basically the dollars that came in and out are on the bottom lines, you can see in red and green, and then the top line is basically the inflation adjusted dollars.

So I know you all have probably heard this a lot and heard of last budget season, et cetera.

But you know, if you consider inflation adjusted dollars, uh both revenues and expenditures, obviously the line becomes a lot more flat over the last even 25 years.

Um obviously, you know, some of the spikes you can see basically due to you know recessions, pandemics, you know, short-term um funding things that uh you know, potentially things that Wyson was talking about with hey, we have a bunch of extra money this year, we're gonna fund an extra 10, 20 million dollars in capital projects or something like that.

So some of those spikes are due to those, where especially you see expenditures exceed revenues uh in terms of both of those lines there.

But I just want to get kind of overall big picture of kind of where where we were and where we're going.

Um just as a recap, again, you all will probably hear this much, much more.

So since the the um the annual audit was hot off the presses um as of end of December, I figured I would give you just a brief rundown of of what you all ended up with in fiscal 25.

Um so I want to talk about revenue sources, um, particularly those that are the most important uh to general fund and also those that uh arguably are under most of the control of council.

Um so one, your biggest one obviously is property taxes.

I know there's lots of discussions about this.

Um last budget season, there's discussions about this every year.

Um, but again, in terms of general fund revenues, um almost half of your uh of your of your money comes in comes just from property taxes.

Um below that is sales taxes, general fund sales taxes, um, as well as state shared sales taxes that come as a um as a per capita allocation from the state, and then those sales taxes that you designate to economic development purposes uh that the city basically has assigned for those.

Um so all told in terms of those top sort of revenue sources.

If you look at property taxes plus those different sales tax categories, you're talking over three quarters of your revenues come just from those two essentially items.

Um property taxes, sales taxes, vastly important.

Um so again, I think a lot of discussions obviously surround those two things, and I think obviously that's just because of the nature of how much they make up.

Um there's a few other things on here, obviously, uh that you all have maybe less control over, intergovernmental revenues, uh, you know, grants, funding from the Fed, state, et cetera.

Um, and then we can talk about briefly or or an ongoing conversations about some of the other local uh taxes and revenue sources.

Um, just as a as a caveat or preview, whatever before we get into it, um, a lot of these revenue sources, even going back 20, 30 years, have remained pretty flat.

Um so again, these aren't like high dollar items, but you know, dollars and cents, these things add up.

So I think those are potentially things that you all could look for in terms of shoring up some of the current city operations.

Uh and the miscellaneous revenue is things like investments and and other things like that.

So all told um general fund again was was 391 million in change this past fiscal year.

Um since we're talking about property uh tax revenue, so this is just a a basic valuation uh basically showing the the increases in property tax revenue um in terms of assessed value that's um that contributes to that property tax revenue over the last basically 20 fiscal years.

Um so you can see those those lines where it goes up are basically those reassessment years, um, with the exception of uh the 2013 uh reappraisals when the um the rate was kept flat at the at the certified uh at the certified rate.

But other than that, generally as you see those spikes ended up being uh usually those every four years, or as I call them the quadrennial cycles uh where you all get reassessed and then and then adjust the rate accordingly.

Um again, this is gonna be a point of ongoing conversation, but um I think the just the nature of uh the unique way that the Chattanooga's elections fall and that the reassessment cycle happens is that you know, any four eight-year cycle, there's a new administration or there's a second term of administration, there's some new council members coming in those every four years.

And so, as opposed to a lot of other cities in Tennessee, it puts you on a unique cycle where it's like, hey, we just got this reassessment, you need to consider this new rate, and boom, you know, you're all off to the races, you know, within your first couple weeks, months, or whatever of assuming office in some cases.

Um, addition to that, you know, there are a lot of times where into administration or in council members have priorities for their districts for the city as a whole, et cetera.

You know, so that's when you oftentimes reconsider those big policy shifts, those new investments and initiatives and things like that.

Um so thinking about how that looks over time or incrementally potentially is is something that um you may want to consider.

Um some other things to put on your radar too.

The um the states uh in terms of certain policies that either have been implemented or that uh are certainly under consideration right now.

Um one thing that was passed last year was a new formula for calculating uh state shares sales tax revenue.

So again, this is allocated per capita.

The the change in that is that um you can now rely on the uh the Boyd Center for Economic Research at the UT Knoxville.

Um they're doing basically year-to-year projections of population and growth.

Um so as opposed to previous years where maybe it was just the decennial census and and cities were complaining that it wasn't capturing higher growth rates.

Um that's one change that they've made this year that um that they're gonna uh supposedly start that on July 1 of 26.

So going into fiscal year 27, basically.

Um another one that's that's come up the last couple years, so this is just a consideration.

This is not obviously passed or been adopted is uh the either elimination or limitations on um uh sales tax on groceries.

So again, since this is you know currently under consideration, um, again, it has been passed, it could be amended, who knows?

But this is another um revenue item that that is big, obviously for cities in terms of sales taxes on groceries, um, whether it's just the state portion that's eliminated, whether that trickles down to the municipalities and counties.

Um obviously there are a lot of places that rely on sales taxes on groceries for revenue items.

So that's another one to kind of keep your eye on as we go through this legislation and then potentially other legislative sessions as we go.

Um and the other big one, obviously, your your largest general fund revenue source, property taxes.

Um for the last few sessions, there have been discussions of property tax caps.

Um the um the background on this, and and some of you probably already know this, is Cinnasy is one of the only few states that does not have a cap on year-to-year incremental increases in property taxes in terms of revenue.

Um, and so there's been discussions over putting a cap on that.

Um the city averages sort of like a natural growth of about one and a half, two percent per year in terms of new construction, new development, et cetera.

So that's kind of what you're looking at.

Um, if you were not able to then increase uh after a reassessment cycle.

But most of the recent proposals that you're looking at, generally put it at about two percent.

So again, this is still under debate.

This may not be passed, but I'm just kind of giving you a heads up to kind of look for this as you go into budget season, kind of considering your your largest general fund revenue source, is most of the formulas look at 2% plus inflation uh plus previous year's growth at the previous year's rate.

Um so some of the projections I've done that are in the report and will be in obviously the final report, um, basically do a do an analysis of kind of what that would look like.

Um I even went back in time starting back in the 90s to say, hey, if you've done this, basically maxing out that max cap, um, what it would look like.

Um so again, some of those things we can we can talk about sort of as as we go through budget season and and today if you'd like.

Um the other kind of like um item on that is that if you did need to include um additional revenue sources um for whatever reason, again, some catastrophe or you know, some some event happened that you really needed to is that it would go to referendum for the people.

Um so basically, so people would have to vote on uh an increase that that would raise their revenue above that above that limit.

Um so just giving you a preview of kind of some of the things that uh I know a lot of cities are keeping on their radar as we're going into this legislative session and this budget year.

Um just based on current property taxes and and growth, et cetera.

I've kind of done three different scenarios.

So those are based on uh one, sort of just like the natural growth that you see.

That's sort of the in the in the projected side, that's sort of the bottom green line.

Um the the blue in the middle is sort of following the pattern that the the city has taken.

And again, it's not not just this council or previous council, it's pretty much been a trend going back to the 90s, is that most increases in the property tax rate and revenues has come every four years following that reappraisal cycle.

I think they're only about two to three years where that rate was changed and sort of those intersectional years in between those reappraisal cycles.

Um so most of the time the reappraisal comes in, you all capture that natural growth over the next three years, and then there's a reassessment, and then you know it's reconsidered with new councils and new administrations.

Um so that middle line is sort of the every four years increase in incremental uh revenue that comes from that.

And then, like I mentioned earlier, is I assume sort of the maximum that you could um that you could do in terms of revenues with the uh tax cap.

So that's the that's the top line.

So if you were actually to max out the two percent plus growth plus previous year's growth, um, that's what that would look like.

Um so those are kind of three different scenarios looking at sort of the I would say probably the low end of revenue growth in terms of property taxes.

If you just captured the that natural growth over the year uh or year to year, um, and then sort of the top that um if you all are consider adopting sort of the max cap um if that legislation were to be passed, that's sort of the the top line there.

Um also look at sales tax revenues, and again, uh you know, was to mention these are these are somewhat volatile, so again, this is another one to obviously consider and keep your eye on.

Um so these are just um a look back for the last basically 20 fiscal years, which are on here.

The um the line on there indicates the year that the city and the county into their sales tax agreement.

Um the current sales tax rate goes back to 2004.

So before that, the city took in a lot more in terms of sales taxes.

Um so those have been adjusted over the years.

But but generally we see about a two and a half percent increase in the last 10 fiscal years, basically in sales tax increases.

Um the other things to consider again um, you know, in terms of of policy recommendations, you know, you do have the ability to go up uh just a little bit, uh half a percentage point in terms of sales tax revenue.

Um so a number of cities have have looked at this in terms of general sales tax increases and or uh surcharges.

So Nashville just passed one focused on transit, Knox will just consider one that failed.

Um Memphis passed one um several years ago that was dedicated revenue for their fire and police pension fund.

So there are additional revenue uh opportunities that could come from sales taxes in addition to the surcharge that the state has now authorized under the improved act.

Um there's a lot of other other revenue stuff that'll be in in the draft report and in the final report.

Um another thing that that I mentioned earlier is a lot of the fines, fees, licenses, etc.

have remained pretty flat over the years.

And so I've I've mentioned this um in previous settings and other reports and things like that, but but one example I've used in the past is the uh the motor vehicle license fee.

So, and and I appreciate also I should give a shout out to Nicole and the clerk staff uh for researching this me a while back, um, is the original ordinance went into effect in 1943, imposing a five dollar uh basically city sticker.

Yeah.

So 1943 was when the five dollar sticker, those of you that have been around for a while, remember the little stickers you used to put in the the front of your uh windshield.

Um now they're paid through the uh the county when you go rent your tag.

But it's been five dollars since the 40s.

Um that's one that has not gone up.

Now, again, the the nuance around this is originally part of this was was for commercial vehicles, especially ones that are coming out from Georgia that were you know using city streets and and infrastructure and things like that, putting wear and tear on our roads.

Um then it and then it extended to passenger vehicles.

Um there were several lawsuits over the years that that challenge sort of the the nature of this fee.

Um and so again, there's a sort of caveat in city code and um and and some of those resulting lawsuits.

Um again, I can for city attorney you can correct me on any of these, but um, but basically the the the courts and and presidents says that basically you can't use these as general fund general revenue um you know raising.

Uh they have to be dedicated to specific purposes.

So same thing generally goes for all types of licenses and fees.

You can't just use them for general revenue increases uh that go to other projects, they have to be sort of tied to and justifiable through the amount of money you spend either on infrastructure or in other cases of license and fees, the amount of money that's spent on uh you know staff work, labor, materials, things like that.

So you have to be able to justify these fees.

Um, but again, that's another opportunity if you're all to consider in terms of increasing funding and in certain creative ways.

Um looking at some of the peer cities, so Memphis Shelby County, if you're a resident in Memphis, you pay both.

Um it's 135 dollars total, National Davidson's 55, Knox County's 36, they don't have municipal, they just have a county.

Um but those are some kind of peer and comparison cities.

Um so again, this could bring in an additional uh amount of revenue every year.

Um I think in 25 it was about 400,000 in change that came in.

I've done the back of the napkin math.

Not everybody is paying this fee.

Um so you know, those of you that have have gone and renewed your tag in person, sometimes there's a little bit of a wink when they're like, hey, do you want to pay the city sticker?

You know, so anyway.

Um but I would say not every vehicle in the city of Chattanooga has paid that fee.

I know the city's worked with Carta and others who are trying to incentivize that this past year in terms of parking and other things, but that's just an example of some of those things.

So on the other side of the equation, so expenditures.

Um, again, I'll try not to belabor this too much.

But um, but looking at expenditures for 2025.

I know you all just talked about expenditures 26 and going into 27 now.

Um, again, generally your top expenditure categories in any year for any municipality that has these functions, fire police, public works, generally.

Um, you know, again, the the biggest investment basically the city makes is in people, you know, local government is a service-heavy job.

Um, and so those are generally your largest apartments.

A lot of that is the majority of those budgets are payrolling or people that are that are serving the city.

Um, general government is also in there, um, and again, that's over the years generally a catch all category.

Um, in addition to to obviously lots of functions of the city, that's also money that you all spend giving to other agencies and contractors and things like that, uh, nonprofits that provide other services for the city.

Beyond that, parks outdoors, economic development are some of the other top ones.

Um, I've tried to break it down into uh the big the big uh line item categories that um that you all see generally when you um when you look at the budget.

Transfers is the other big one this year.

And again, with Weston's presentation earlier, I know the policies you all are considering working on.

Some of the stabilization funds, those uh shorn up, some of the basically unassigned fund balance and things like that that generally were in there, but uh putting a little more parameters around how you use those uh were some of the big transfers this year, um as y'all were discussing earlier, also the one-time fee shoring up some of the pension funds, uh, caplan projects, paying down debt, stuff like that.

So transfers this year were very large, but those are also pretty big investments that that are um out of the ordinary for any given fiscal year.

So those were pretty big investments this year that came out of that budget.

So generally the transfers won't be that large.

Um but basically that's the net transfers that came in and out of the general fund this year.

Um and so putting all those things together, basically I projected revenues and expenditures based on those different categories of uh revenues.

So you can kind of see that here.

Um again, you know, we can discuss these going forward, uh, and you obviously have these conversations as you all go forward.

Um, but you know, just capturing year-to-year growth probably um, you know, would not keep up with the current um uh rates of expenditures, but at the same time, obviously any given budget year, these things are adjusted up or down.

Again, these would include transfers and things like that.

So that's kind of coming off that line, uh, sort of what you're seeing.

So again, those things obviously go up and down in any given year.

Um, so that's part of the budgeting process.

But I just want to kind of show you the overall long-term projections.

Okay, before I move on, um, I would say I'll entertain questions about any of that stuff.

Um, I'm sorry, the uh that graph actually I don't think is in the report.

Actually, I just I just put that together.

The yeah, sorry, the well, it's in the it's in the it's in the slide, yeah, it's in the slides, sorry.

No, no, no, it's fine.

Well, the the tables are in there, the the tables with um the revenue and the expenditure projections are in there.

Um I just put the the graph together for purposes of the presentation.

Yeah, sorry about that.

I'll I'll update um I'll update those as we go, obviously.

Um the three different scenarios, um, the departmental expenditure forecast, that's on page 16 of the report.

Um, and then the three revenue forecast or yeah, revenue forecast options.

Um those start on page uh 10 of the report.

So I basically just kind of smush those together.

You can continue on.

I'm sorry, we'll just capture questions at the end.

Okay, yeah, sounds good.

All right.

Um pretty sure if I'm supposed all right.

So the two big ones I looked at did not look at other post-employment benefits, I'd not look obviously component units like EPB and others that that are that are part of your overall funding, but um, but generally out of the purview of of general governmental operations.

Um fire employees pension funds.

Um so one of the big measures that we look at um in terms of you know, sort of fiscal health and uh and performance measures is the funding ratio.

So basically the long-term liabilities relative to the the net position or basically assets that the that the fund has.

Um the the end of this year it went up to 63%.

Um I know based on our discussions um last time I was here, the the target has been about 60% is getting that getting that up from the the mid-50s.

So back to uh fiscal year 24, it was 56%.

Um so obviously it came up, but particularly that one-time investment.

I know one of the um the things to look for, obviously, is that since there was a pretty large increase in pay this year, um, that that will that will likely bring that um that ratio down some.

Um so again, I you know, I mentioned this last time I was here that that caveats that this was not an actuarial analysis.

They have better data uh than I do.

Um but I was looking more kind of at the fund level.

I was looking basically at trends, um, looking at um the overall uh net position and liabilities, uh the number of participants paying into it, things of that nature.

Um so obviously I would defer to to those folks when uh they come and present the the findings to you from the past year and kind of going into this year about uh contribution rates and things of that nature.

Um but based on the the overall trends is um is I would expect over you know the next few years or however you all might choose to do this if you wanted to bring it up to 60 percent um could potentially require another 10 to 20 million dollars.

And again, that's just based on um the large projections uh sort of at the fund level.

Um again, that's that's not necessarily considering um some of the the uh more granular data that's that the actuaries kind of take into account there.

Um some of the other um things that have come up basically um actually I'll save those for the next couple slides, but I basically did a forecast of which is in your report um of both of those.

Um so that kind of shows you the the um the big picture of kind of where where those trends were.

The the liabilities are definitely a lot more stable in terms of predicted versus actual values.

But the uh the net position, basically the returns and things like that have obviously gone up and down a lot.

So again, I hope I'm not misrepresenting anybody, but you know, based on uh uh conversations I had and and being able to sit in on uh some of the the board meetings and things of that nature.

Um I know that's that's um a lot of the the previous funding policies um obviously been changed and are a lot more stable now.

Um obviously with with recessions and pandemics and things like that, that adds a lot more volatility to markets.

Um I know there's been a pretty hefty decrease in the expected rate of return, basically the discount rate over the last basically 20 years or so.

Um so used to sort of assume I think it was in the 8.5% range uh rate of return, now it's down in the sixes, I think it's 6.75.

Um, as you all discussed with bond ratings and things like that, I think Fitch assumes like a six percent.

Um the the fund has always performed better than that generally, um, particularly if you look smooth over time and not just year to year.

But um I think there's uh there's a you know sort of bigger push from from rating rating agencies and others to be a little more um a little more bearish on the market in terms of what our expected uh rate of returns are.

And so that inherently makes your city contributions go up because it assumes less uh interest rates being earned over time, and so that basically increases the contribution in any given year.

So again, I would defer to to the experts on that, uh, but those are sort of just my um sort of big picture looks at those.

Um the other thing is again back to the funding ratios.

So you know, 60% was the targets, and again, that's not totally arbitrary.

Um, you know, the the Comptrol and others have uh certain thresholds they look at when they look at funding ratios.

Um I know 60% basically it's uh once it dips below that, it disallows you from from making certain changes to benefits and things of that nature.

So um so 60% certainly has been, I think you know, certainly is you know, still the the minimum target, um, but just to provide some context, I pulled data uh from a number of sources, including Census Bureau and other surveys uh that look at different pension funds.

Um and generally it seems like the ballpark is let's say between 75 and 80 percent funding.

Um there's and I this is on a another slide in the report.

Um there's sort of a general rule that that most people want it to be around 80%.

Um actuaries would say we want it to be 100%.

Um but uh looking at the nationwide averages and our region around us, um, generally it's in the 75 to 80 percent range in terms of funding ratios.

So that's just to give you a little bit of context.

Um another question that that I know that that I received from uh from members is um about the number of participants in the in the funds.

Um so this was again, I pulled these from the um from the ACRUs over the last couple years.

Um and generally these are lagged by year in terms of the financial reporting.

Uh but this kind of shows you uh the number of of uh folks paying into the pension fund versus beneficiaries pulling out and the inactive members.

Um and so um a couple of years ago, this basically um sort of flipped, I guess, in terms of number of beneficiaries, um sort of outpacing the number of active members.

Um and again, a lot of that is um you know, demographic challenges, um recruitment challenges, other things too.

Um so again, I think over time, I don't think these are necessarily big problems.

Um, but at the same time, I know that certainly those are things that uh the folks are looking at.

So I just wanted to present those numbers and sort of a comprehensive table.

Um, and again, I would I would defer the the longer term projections to uh to our actual friends.

Um giving you some context for um for some of those numbers.

So in Tennessee, only 10% basically of pensions have more active members than beneficiaries, so we are not out of the norm in terms of Tennessee.

Um we're seeing that mostly in terms of of peers in Tennessee.

In the South, about a third, a little bit less than a third of pensions have more active members than beneficiaries.

Even nationally, uh, these are generally lopsided.

So again, these are general demographic trends we're seeing.

Similar to we see with Social Security, other benefits, things like that.

These are general trends we're seeing in terms of demographics of pension systems.

Um again, baby boomers and others have been retiring, not as many people have coming in behind them.

Um, and so and so a lot of these pensions are a little bit upside down, but again, over time uh with earnings with smart investments with other things like that.

I don't think these are necessarily big challenges, but obviously those are things that you wanted to monitor, and obviously things you need to consider additional investments in year to year as you all have other monies left over.

Um same thing for general pension, uh, which still has more active uh members than current beneficiaries.

Um so in terms of just sheer numbers, the general pension fund, not the fire police pension fund, but general pension fund has more uh active employees paying into it than pulling out of it.

Um and again, I've I've done similar forecasts for those.

Um so again, the um the fire and police pension, you know, I'd projected, you know, potentially being uh back into the in the mid-50s, uh, up to 60 with a more uh advantageous projection, um, considering the the new pay structure and things like that, um the general pension uh would still probably hover around the 80% mark, which it is traditionally been somewhere between 75 and 80 percent.

Um so those are those projections.

Um I've kind of talked through all these on belabories.

Um but basically this is just you know considering a funding policy if you want to consider something above 60 percent if you want to consider 80%.

Um again, actuaries would say 100% is the goal.

Um, but certainly I think 60% is the minimum, and something above that could be something that you all um consider as a city uh going forward.

Um and then finally, oh sorry, one last point on that one.

Sorry, I meant to mention this.

Um the other thing I was gonna mention too, in terms of just you know, policies and approaches to funding and payroll and things like that.

I think the more you take an incremental approach, the sort of easier these things are to look at.

Um so again, instead of waiting those four or six so years, you know, in between making these big bumps and pay raises, obviously will help sort of the long-term projections on those things and add a little bit more stability to that.

You know, so whether again it's it's you know, sworn employees, non-sworn, you know, general governmental employees, um, I think sort of an incremental raise structure and pay structure would certainly be be worth considering uh both in terms of general recruitment and things like that, but also you know, just keeping up with inflation and pensions and stuff like that.

Okay, um, last section, and then I will um certainly entertain questions and feedback.

Um measures of fiscal health.

Um so there's a number of these, and and we kind of talked about these a little bit last time I was here.

Um City of Chattanooga obviously uses some of these, so office internal audit um uses a 10-point test based on various ratios and analyses that they do every year comparing us to cities uh to benchmark cities.

Um there are multiple ways to look at some of these.

Um Nashville uses a modified version of ICMA's financial trend monitoring system.

Um there's there's what's called Brown's 10 point test, it's another 10-point test that also compares cities to other cities.

Um, and then there's a number of academic and municipal and statewide uh sort of monitoring systems and scorecards that that people use.

So, you know, the number of cities almost then there's a number of metrics out there you can use.

So um and sort of whittling these down.

This was um sort of my my question uh to you all is about what's useful and what you all would like to see in developing some of these.

So I can kind of walk through a couple of these and we can consider um certain ones going forward.

Um, what's useful?

Um B, I would say you know, ongoing monitoring of these is certainly best practice.

Uh so choosing relevant measures is certainly important.

Um I also put a caveat in the draft report, and obviously I'll include more detail on this.

But um, you know, everybody likes data and and numbers, especially come budget budget season.

Um, but in the interest of avoiding analysis uh paralysis by analysis, as they say, um the intent wasn't to just bog you down with like 30, 40 different measures that you all would look at in any given year.

Um I think it's adopting maybe what's already being done and pairing that with some new measures that would be interesting for you all to kind of monitor on a year-to-year basis as you look at peer cities.

Um that note, benchmarking I think is extremely important when it comes to these things, so not just looking internally, but also what peer cities around us are doing.

Um again, as a best practice, we like to as I joke in class sometimes.

We shamelessly steal ideas from other cities.

I mean, that's the whole point.

Um, is we learn what works, we learn what doesn't, we adapt those to what you can do here.

Um so we look at other peer cities and aspirational cities to say, look, what are you doing, what works, what doesn't.

We adopt those to our context, our resources, our constraints, et cetera.

So I think benchmarking is is one of the things to look at.

So in considering what cities we we also look at.

Um again, I mentioned this already, so again, I won't belabor these, and I'll all kind of wrap up for questions, et cetera.

Um, internal department already does part of this.

I would say um, you know, adopt some additional measures based on uh recommendations and your feedback on top of that.

Um, you know, I will say is as someone who is um as not an accountant, um, you know, a lot of times the folks looking at some of these ratios and things like that, it just makes more sense if you're in the financial weeds every single day.

Um for policymakers, for average citizens, you know, sometimes those ratios and numbers are just like, okay, great, you know, we're we're doing good.

Um, you know, and so again, not to um not to take away from from any of that work.

I think that work still needs to happen, um, obviously in terms of long-term financial health and sustainability of the city and their financial and the finances.

Um, but I would say in terms of uh what council looks for and uh potentially what citizens look for, things like that is considering some of those additional measures and what we can add.

Um the other one is back to my other point about um actually using these and incorporating these in terms of what we can learn from other cities.

Um and so um ironically, I I just reviewed a book for uh for a public finance journal.

Um Professor Amons, who's a UNC, um is a sort of guru of of performance metrics, and he just read a book.

Um and and he really emphasized sort of this idea of best practice benchmarking that it's not just about metrics, that we actually take those numbers and figure out how people uh achieve those in terms of looking at our peer cities um and sort of what we can do to improve services.

Okay, and then believe the last slide on that done.

Um so currently, again, internal audit looks at 10 different cities.

Um I would say, at least with this report, and I'm I'm open to feedback obviously, um, is I would keep a couple of these.

Uh so Knoxville, Huntsville, um, and Charleston, I think are good uh sort of peer cities to look at.

Um I suggested some other ones, so Richmond, um uh St.

Petersburg, Florida wants to sale North Carolina, and obviously there are others out there, but those are um cities that I've looked at that are a little bit larger than us, that have you know um similar demographics, but let's say lower poverty rates, they have higher incomes, they have other sort of uh you know demographic and economic targets that were like, hey, we would like to we would like to see those here.

Um so those are just three suggestions that I've made.

Um I'm obviously open to exploring others.

I'm sorry, no, this is not, yeah, sorry, yeah.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll I'll let that out of the draft talk apologize.

Um the uh the measures that that I was just focusing on again, in addition to the ones that turn audit's already doing um easy, easy simple ones of per capita revenues and expenditures, uh so those ones Nashville and others do, um, with again caveats that like you know, not everybody who lives in the city is paying into the system, not everybody uh who lives here is a is a number of persons receiving benefits from the city, so per capita is still just a you know a little bit of a subjective number.

Uh, but those are kind of easy ones to look at.

Um pension obligations obviously is one that that uh would probably be of interest to you all.

Um the revenue elasticity in terms of sales taxes, again, Weston mentioned this, and you all are looking at volatility in terms of uh potential revenue sources.

So again, looking at your reliance on volatility of certain revenue sources, I think is good.

Um, and then again, larger demographic and economic factors.

Um and then I think longer term, again, potentially beyond this report, um, you know, in terms of council and and others who may who may work on some of these things.

Um I think uh the councilman burrs maybe even mentioned this the the last time is adopting more of a strategic planning process.

Um, you know, what council wants to see as a city uh longer term, so that way you know year to budget year, um it's not just about what's happening in that fiscal year is how does this meet our goals long term.

Um looking at longer term outcomes, so again, not just year-to-year measures, um looking at long-term outcomes the city um is experiencing or impacting, um, and then again adopting more general performance measures.

Um so again, not to not to get bogged down just in the metrics, but again, also looking strategically at kind of what other cities are doing and how they're achieving certain outcomes.

So those are some of the longer term things I was looking at, and I will stop.

All right, thank you so much, Dr.

Aco.

Um, with that, we do have a few questions.

So, what do we council Madam uh Chair Heel?

Thank you very much.

Um very quick question.

We have a lot to consider as part of this report.

Um the grocery tax data.

Um can you please get us the numbers so that we understand broken out what we estimate grocery tax currently sends to our general fund each year?

Yeah, so I would say so.

I worked on a report for the county actually trying to estimate um basically what people spend on groceries.

Um so that's actually not publicly available data.

Um so you all receive um what's called a CIDAS report basically.

So there's only a handful of people who actually can look up, you know, what what taxes I guess are paid by individual like businesses, if that makes sense.

And so I think at least in my mind, and again, I could phone a friend back here, but um, but I think that would be the only way that you'd be able to get at exactly what's being paid in grocery taxes.

Is I think you can come up with that, I think the city itself and finance could come up potentially with an estimate, um, but there's certain there's certain restrictions legally on uh people being access information about like specifically like what grocery stores um are collecting in terms of certain revenues, if that makes sense.

So perhaps not that fine a point on it, but to get a uh a projection of what percentage of our tax revenue comes from groceries.

I mean, I would think that somewhere in the economic conversation, there are some sort of numbers on Tennesseans spend X amount on groceries, and it is X percentage of our total state income or total state sales tax.

Yeah, so and then we could extrapolate from that that if it's 30 percent or 60 percent of state sales tax, we could assume that it is 60 percent of our local sales tax comes from that, right?

Sure, yeah, so yeah, so because so the um so basically uh a thing uh I'd worked on for for the county a while back.

So yeah, so like I said, the um so basically uh the thing I'd worked on for the county a while back, basically I looked at household data in terms of household spending, how much it's estimated you spent on groceries.

Um I looked at the revenues, and then I estimate a certain amount of percentage that people spend on food outside of the city or county, basically, uh, based on based on previous research.

So, yeah, so there's certainly a way to picture estimate.

We need to have an educated guess on that on what that is.

Um the other one other question that I um let's see.

Um I I find a lot of value in the conversation around incrementalism, um, both incremental um revenue and incremental expense uh changes.

I think that that is smart for everybody.

And I think the more we can as a council tackle that um the better off our citizenry will be.

Um, and also with regard to building um uh determining our measures for fiscal health, I think it would be pretty terrific if what we what we ultimately choose is something that can be very public-facing.

Um to your point, a lot of people like ratios and things.

There are ratios that are really critical for us all to understand, and I think we could we could explain some of those online, but for people at a glance as part of our budget website to see here's the stuff your city council's tracking, and here's where we stand against what we want to do.

I think could be really helpful for the public um to understand how healthy we are, and then the final the final thing I want to understand, Chris, is the cities that we're considering pure cities.

Do they have the same funding structure we do at the state and local level?

I would like us to, if possible, match that as best we can, because I know that one of the big conversations that's entering the the atmosphere right now, I'm hearing, is about um senior citizens shouldn't pay property tax.

Well, it's one thing to say that in Georgia that has income tax, and completely different thing to say it in Tennessee where we don't have that revenue source, right?

Property tax is not the lion's share of the Chambley, Georgia budget or fill in the blank.

Um so when we and like Huntsville, Alabama is one that anybody drives through and you're like, dang, these roads are sweet, but they don't pay as they go in to in Alabama for how they build roads, right?

Georgia has a spLOS, we could potentially get to that at some point.

Uh, but the better we can really be peer-to-peer to peer, I think just the fewer questions we would have every single time.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

All right, thank you.

All right, councilman Henderson.

No, thank you, madam chair.

Um Chris, can you make sure that we have all the slides that were presented here today?

Because there was several on there that I was just tearing through this report trying to find earlier, and I I'm like Yeah, no, I'm sorry, yeah.

So those were um so uh so going back to our policy discussion, madam chair, uh, that we're wanting to adopt one of the questions that I forgot to bring up and going back to the incrementalism.

Um I feel like we need a policy that we fund increases on salary based on CPI or some number first in the budget, and we don't wind up putting employee pay, you know, on the on the backs of employees whenever we talk about having to increase taxes.

So I think that ought to be somewhere in our policy considerations that employee pay is put there first and and whether it's a step, whether it's based on CPI, you know, some some increment.

Um and then Chris, I think uh if I the chart that you showed, uh and I think somewhere in here you had it uh that you even spelled it out.

I think we're over any given four-year period about 13.42 percent increase in those reappraisal years, correct?

Right.

Okay, so it looks like you know, every in some years I know we I say we some years it was flat, and then we turn around and had a 24 percent increase, which is I think what put a target on our backs in the Senate or in the state legislature this year.

Um I think a a probably more modest approach is either a 13% every four years or an incremental approach where you know we're looking at three and a half percent per year or some number uh that we're looking at, although that would be a a year over year approach, which some elected officials may not have the stomach to do that, and I can certainly understand.

Um the other thing, and I think and you identified in one of the slides that that we didn't have um peer cities, and I think that's one of the goals that we wanted to have come out of this report is sort of adopt or identify and adopt peer cities so that across the board we're we're sort of comparing ourselves against cities that are structured very similar to ours, so that so that we have that baseline um Madam Chair, and that's something that you know I don't know if we want Chris to continue to research to do work on, but uh at least in strategic planning and moving forward.

I I would like to develop a policy or whatever you want to call it on identifying and have a a set of pure cities that we can uh uh look at.

Um the other thing, Chris, and you had said that um you wanted to leave this the contributions to the pension funds, particularly to the um fire and police to the experts, but I guess Madam Chair, I would like to see what we think the projections, and I know we're talking about what um what funding we looked at funding percentages, but I would like to know what the contribution to out of our general fund each year looks like going forward.

Um because I noticed that you know in in 2015 we had more paying in that was receiving benefits, but in 2025, there's more receiving benefits that are paying in.

And I would also be curious to know if that number was gonna continue to increase to look like a K shape uh diagram, or if at some point we think it might level out.

Madam Chair, the other thing that that I would like um some information about is I noticed on our general pension fund um from well basically 2015, we've increased 223 employees.

And I think I I I would like to know where those 223 individuals, those employees are or and and the need for that increase.

I mean, we we pretty much held steady up to about 2022 with about around 1,400 employees, and then starting in 2022, it seems like we started ramping up and and now we're 223 more employees than we were in 2015.

So actually if if it helps I had backup slides, sorry.

This is me being a nerd.

Um so this is actually the number of employees over time, and then the uh employees uh per capita per 100 residents.

Um so yeah, there was a dip um going from fiscal 17 over to 21, basically.

Um and I I looked at the departmental, and again this would be a probably question for for HR or somebody else, but um that uh either I could help you get over or you could, but uh but yeah, but looking at departments, there didn't seem to be like a huge drop or like reorganization necessarily.

Um it seemed like just a couple per department.

So again, it could be lots of retirements, things like that.

I don't know.

Um but but yeah, though there was definitely uh a little bit of a drop um between 17 and 21, basically.

Um but going back it it you know, if you look if you kind of draw a line across those across those fiscal years.

Um it looks like 2010 we had quite a few, um I mean probably about the same amount, and then we started dropping off.

So you're you're saying around 2015 or so, 2017 was just sort of a low point, and then we yeah, and I I didn't remember seeing this graph.

Yeah, it it certainly increased, and um, you know, I will um I just had the numbers that you had on your chart here going back to 2015.

Yeah, I and um again I don't want to um misrepresent any conversations I had, but but I'll either I believe there was a change in uh in how some of the employees are counted um in terms of um part-time and full-time and contract employees, I believe.

So again, I could you know either I can go back and ask that or um you know that could be a question for HR.

Um but but similar to uh what what the chief was saying with with um uh consistent measurements, I think that's probably uh a change in in terms of how the the FTEs were calculated potentially, even too.

Um, is that that was probably something between uh a change in FTEs or uh potentially others that they used to be contract employees or or other uh or otherwise funded.

But certainly I could I could follow up on that.

Okay.

Uh that's all I've got at this time.

All right, thank you so much, Councilman Henderson.

I think I got everything down.

And then uh councilman Harvey.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Um, thank you for doing this.

This is very in-depth and uh very enlightening.

Uh couple questions for you.

Um on the slide when you said our natural growth in the city averages 1.6% from the previous year.

When you when you say natural growth, is that new construction property tax only, or does that include sales tax?

Is it yeah, that's that's that's growth in development pro uh residential and commercial property basically.

Okay, so is that 1.6% of not the entire budget, but of the previous year's property tax?

Of the like basically of the assessed value of the city, essentially.

Okay.

If that makes sense.

So I'm not a math major, but if I was uh so if I calculated this correctly correctly, in new construction, did we take in 29 million dollars of new revenue in construction?

Yeah, I mean I would have to get a calculator too.

But yeah, but I mean, so you know, so so in the in the in the statistical tables and in the audits every year, is they'll publish basically what um what the assessed value of the city is.

Um and so that's basically where I pulled that from.

Yeah, so it's adding new construction, commercial, and otherwise.

Okay.

Well, I guess my my question is is is that 1.6% of the previous year's total revenue property tax.

That's at the assessed value.

So that I mean, in essence, it does translate yes to that.

I I mean basically, yeah, sure, it translates to that equivalent.

Okay, all right, very good.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um my second question is um you mentioned you know, some other funding uh sources.

Uh you know, for example, like uh we've got drivers coming here from other states, other cities, that kind of thing.

Um, and this may be more of a question for uh fill your office uh in the attorney's office, but uh do we have the authority to levy a visitor fee, visitor tax of some sort, and I'm not asking you to answer this right now.

Um may be something we need to research, but have you seen that in other cities?

I mean, I would say off the top of my head, no, and I can't imagine interstate commerce.

That's yeah, that's that's probably not a thing.

Yeah.

Well, and just the implementation that uh you know, I mean again, but you know, they're they're creative way.

I mean, you know, again, I mean, I'm not saying, you know, but you know, you drive through Atlanta, you know, there's toll road, right?

There are ways of capturing revenue from people coming through or into your city.

Uh, but as far as just uh, you know, uh a fee of entering your city.

Well, I guess I should read I should I should restate that.

I'm not looking to charge anybody just going to be able to do that.

Free of charge.

Do not do not mishear me here.

We want you to come and go freely.

Um I guess my question was it I know we're we're at we've got the motel hotel tax, but is there an ability for us to you know, I mean, people staying in our hotels are normally visitors.

Um is that something that we can you know, I guess lack of a better term, tack on to instead of the motel to hotel tax.

This is another you know, fee of some sort.

Yeah, so so generally you're limited, so basically you're almost tapped out on the hotel motel.

Right.

Um, again, there are certain things, again, um surcharges that were authorized like under the improved act, but it has to be designated for certain purposes, like again for transit for a certain information.

Well, that's what I was getting at is for example, if we wanted to do a first responders fee, is that something that we could do that would go directly to fire and police?

I would hedge on that and say, let me get back to you.

I mean, you know, I mean, I don't yeah, I don't know, I don't know what that would look like, but um but I guess it it you know where where would you then collect that I guess you know what I mean, is as opposed to just tacking on to general property tax or say you know what I'm saying?

Right, yeah.

I mean, because I mean there are certainly certain places that do user fees, you know what I mean.

Um so in places let's say they don't have recycling pickup, you know, you can pay a fee and they'll come figure garbage.

Um there's certain places um like counties don't provide or are required to provide fire service in Tennessee.

There are certain places that have subscription-based fire service.

Um, but generally, and chatting included is generally required to provide fire service to all residents of the city.

Um and so you can't have like a subscription based fee necessarily.

Right, no, no, it's certainly not.

I I'm just trying to brainstorm on uh you know, extra avenues of funding.

And so if we could capture, you know, uh, you know, folks coming here, whether it's through tourism or you know, like hotel motel, um something like that.

Additionally, I certainly, you know, not looking at some sort of script subscription service, but uh just looking at uh potential for an additional revenue source to help out uh for employees.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah, and you know, and again, I'm not advocating for necessarily raising sales tax, but something like that.

You know, it's not paid by all residents is paid by a lot of tourists or hotel motel, like you're saying.

Exactly.

Um the hard part about hotel motel is generally you're constrained and you have to spend it on things like economic development and there are certain parameters around what you can spend it on.

Um so that's usually where you're you're kind of hanging up a little bit.

Okay.

But certainly I but certainly I could look into that.

Again, I don't I'm not sure whether or not that's authorized in Tennessee.

Um but but I can certainly look into it.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Harvey.

Uh Phil, you had a question or a comment?

Yeah, just briefly.

Um I've been involved uh quite a while here with the city on in my um uh opportunity to look at your growth that has gone on.

And uh we are also restricted in our growth at this point in time about not being able to annex.

So that's another issue as far as the area that we've got.

Uh we cannot get any larger in size unless someone makes a petition to grow with us here and come into our city.

We also have nine other uh entities here in Hamilton County that also are our municipalities uh that we have to deal with.

I wondered in our peer cities how many others of those have that strange arrangement.

Because that I believe is one limitation that y'all have here in the city going forward, especially since your tax revenue is mainly from real property taxes.

That's your basic source.

And again, you know, this I think you know sort of plays into all the decisions you make are obviously are important.

Um, but you know, things like land use, you know, for for trying to go up.

We can't go out, you know what I mean?

Um so certainly, you know, decisions about development um and things like that are are important, certainly when it comes to lots of issues, but potentially with with our tax base.

Yeah.

I'm not sure what the laws are.

We only got one on the list in Knoxville that would have similar uh laws here in Tennessee.

So just look at that when you're talking about your pure pure cities.

Okay, all right, thank you, Phil.

Did you all right, Council?

Like the board is clear, and as a reminder, we will have a uh separate session uh regarding just this to Councilman Henderson's point.

Uh we'll work with West and to work on some of the other uh incremental pay as well as uh looking at those pure cities, because some of these things we can kind of go ahead and get done.

Um so uh Dr.

ACOF, we appreciate you very much.

We'll be in touch with some additional dates.

And with that, madam chair.

Yeah, if if I could just to clarify, yeah.

So next step, so I'll definitely get the pure cities and then um I'll look for your your family.

Okay, thank you.

Did you get all the questions everything?

Yeah.

Okay, all right.

All right, honestly, feel free to email me if you have anything else.

We have uh an attorney client and we will recess until 6 o'30.

All right, council.

We are back in session.

Madam Clark, will you please read item 7A?

In ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Co Part 2, Chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So as the reason on property located at 3014 Dodge Avenue from IH Heavy Industrial Zone to C C commercial court or zone subject to certain conditions.

This is on final read.

Move to approve.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Moving on to ordinances under first reading.

Item 8A.

In ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code Part 2, Chapter 4.

Which chapter is known as the Chattanooga Air Pollution Control Bureau Ordinance by providing for increased permit and certificate fees.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve this item with a proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Planning item B, please.

In ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Co part two, chap 38 zoning ordinance.

So it's the reason properties located at 1815, 1819, 1823, and 1829.

Jenkins row from R16 residential neighborhood zone to TRA and two traditional residential neighborhood zones subject to certain conditions.

Thank you.

This is planning case 2025 0181.

Is the applicant present?

Thank you.

Is there any opposition present?

Okay, Councilman Harvey, this is in your district.

I do not see any opposition present.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I want to make a motion to approve with conditions, and I will go ahead and read those conditions into the record now.

Um a maximum maximum density of 47 units dedicate right of way to the city of Chattanooga to achieve a minimum of 30 foot from the center line of Jenkins Road.

Install a minimum five-foot-high vinyl coated chain link fence along the southern boundary of the development from the right of way of Jenkins Road to the floodplain limits of Mackey Branch.

A 20-foot planted buffer to be installed and maintained per city standards along and behind the new right of way of Jenkins Road south of the property located at 1825 Jenkins Road.

And lastly, all homes shall be set back a minimum distance of 40 feet from the Jenkins Road right-of-way, except for any required front build to zone setbacks from Jenkins Road.

That concludes my conditions.

And does the attorney have a copy of those?

No, but I'll send it to him.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh okay, council.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with the conditions as read.

And we have a proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

Do you want the applicant to acknowledge the conditions?

Sure.

Okay.

He says good.

We're good.

We uh madam clerk, we witness a thumbs up.

I think Mike's thumbs up must be as good as his word.

Oh, on behalf of Councilman Harvey and the people of District 4.

All right, all in favor.

Opposed motion passes.

Item C, please.

In ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So that's the rezoning property located at 8476 East Brainerd road from REM 16 residential neighborhood zone to CTMU traditional misuse commercial zone subject to certain conditions.

Thank you.

This is planning case 2026 0013.

Is the applicant present?

Oh, Mr.

Thumbs up is over there.

Applicant is present.

Do we have any opposition present?

Okay, Councilman Harvey, this is in your district.

Thank you.

Um I also make a motion to approve uh with one condition.

And the developer and I have uh talked about this, and he is in favor uh to provide the 20-foot type C commercial buffer on all property lines abutting any residential zone.

It's also has another condition on the ours.

Yes, that's fine.

We'll keep that keep that as well.

Yes, sir.

So two conditions.

Yeah, yep.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I get a second council?

All right.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with two conditions.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed.

Motion passes.

I uh item D, please.

In order to amend Chattanooga City Code Part 2, Chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So it's a rezon property located at 4412 Dodge Avenue from R and 15 residential neighborhood zone to see TMU traditional mixed use commercial zone.

Thank you.

This is planning case 2026 0001.

The very first application put in for this year is the applicant here.

Y'all, I feel like this is like the first baby born of the year.

The applicant is not present.

Is there any opposition present?

All right.

Um councilman Elliott, this is in your district.

Oh, I apologize.

This is in uh councilwoman Dotley's district, which is why her light is on.

Sorry, it's the next one that's in nine.

Okay, thank you, madam chair.

Uh for this one.

Uh I want to first move to approve.

Uh, and I want to approve with conditions that there's no liquor store.

Does that need to be the amendment or that's not needs to be added as an amendment on here at this point to add one more condition that there is not no use allowed as a liquor store?

Okay.

So we but do we need to add it as an amendment because we just added conditions and we often add conditions.

As long as you have that as a condition to the motion on here.

This is on first reading.

Right.

So you can put it in with your motion.

Okay.

So I'll move to approve with the condition that there'll be no liquor store permitted on the property.

All right.

Can I get a second council?

Second.

All right.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with the condition there cannot be a liquor store on the property.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed.

Motion passes.

Item E, please.

In order to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So it's rezone properties located at 1810 South Kelly Street and unaddressed properties in the 1800 block of South Kelly Street and the 2100 block of East 19th Street from RN2 residential neighborhood zone to TRN3 traditional resident residential neighborhood zone development subject to certain conditions.

Thank you.

This is planning case 2026 003 0003.

Is the applicant present?

Do we have any opposition present?

All right.

Councilman Elliott, this one is in your district.

Movement's approved by the journalists.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

All right.

Item F.

In earnest to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance.

So it's the rezone property located at 2212 Bailey Avenue from RN2 Residential Neighborhood Zone to TRN3 traditional residential neighborhood zone.

Thank you.

This is planning case 2026 0008.

Is the applicant present?

Is there any opposition present?

Councilman Elliott, this is in your district.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to defer this until uh March 10th, and I'll make that follow the motion.

Thank you.

All right, we have a motion on the floor, Council, to defer until March 10th.

Can I do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Item G, please.

In order to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance as adopted by ordinance number 14137 on July 23, 2024.

Article 14, Administrator Section 3869, Board of Appeals.

Thank you.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Opposed.

Motion passes.

Item H, please.

In ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, part two, chapter 38 zoning ordinance as adopted by ordinance number 14137 on July 23rd, 2024.

More specifically, Article 2, definitions related to the flood hazard regulations.

Motion second.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Let's take items A and B in resolutions as a package, please.

Item A.

A resolution appointing Duane Bush Senior to the passenger vehicle for higher board for districts four, five, and six with a three-year term beginning on February 11, 2026, and ending on February 10, 2029.

Item B, a resolution reappointing Sandra Norr Wood to the Head Start Governing Board for District 5 with a two-year term beginning on October 26, 2025, and ending on October 26, 2027.

Thank you, Council.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

Um may up.

I had you and then push your blight again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Councilwoman Burrs had to leave for a meeting tonight and has asked me since I'm one of the three districts that uh are appointing tonight to the passenger vehicle for higher board.

We wanted to recognize uh Duane Bush Jr.

for being here.

Um sorry, senior, senior.

I apologize.

Um Dwayne Bush, thank you for uh being here.

Thank you for serving our city.

Appreciate your service.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Um, also we'd like to thank Sandra Norwood.

Is she here tonight?

Well, Sandra, if you're watching online, we appreciate your service.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

All right, item C.

Alternate version, please.

I only have one version on my document.

Yeah, an alternate version three, actually.

And you do not have an I you don't have access to alternate version three.

Um council, might I suggest that we make a motion to defer this item until next week?

Sure.

Second.

Okay, thank you.

We have a motion on the floor to defer until 217.

Any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion to defer passes.

And we will get a tidy version on the agenda for next week.

Thank you.

All right, economic development item D, please.

And resolution authorizing the administrative for the Department of Economic Development to enter into a third agreement to exercise option to renew with Song Birds Foundation Inc.

for the continued use of a certain space at the South Chattanooga Community Center located at 1151 West 40th Street, further identified as tax amount number 1550 in 001.03 for an additional term through March 14, 2027 for the annual rent of one dollar.

Second.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

And madam clerk, I abstain from that vote.

Motion passes.

Item E.

A resolution authorizing the administrative for the Department of Economic Development to enter into a first agreement to exercise option to renew with the American Heart Association Inc.

And substantially the former tax for the continued use of the surface parking lot located at 515 East Fourth Street, further identified as tax map number 135 MJ002 and located adjacent to the American Heart Association property at 519 East 4th Street for an additional term of one year for the consideration of $10.

Vice Chairwoman Noel.

Move to approve.

Thank you, Council.

We have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

Item F.

A resolution authorizing the administrator of parks and outdoors to accept a donation from trust for public land TPL for the purpose of supporting trail development and activities that support public use and access to Province Street Park in exchange for accepting this grant.

TPL requires that Province Street Park include the following statement and all public materials promoting the activities under this grant.

Province Street Park was created with the assistance of the trust for public land and the amount of $30,000 with no matching funds required.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes.

Item G.

And resolution authorizing the administrative for the Department of Public Works to enter into an interlocal agreement with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga UTC to research the potential impacts of land use and land cover change on Friar branch with a particular emphasis on urbanization, settlement, transport, channel widening, and develop tools by which the city of Chattanooga may be able to calculate water quality parameters with respect to total maximum daily load to EMDL.

With a particular emphasis on urbanization, sediment transport, channel widening, and develop tools by which the city of Chattanooga may be able to calculate water quality parameters with respect to total maximum daily low TMDL.

Thank you.

Council, we have a motion on the floor to approve with the proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

Moving on to purchases.

Good evening, Council.

Have four purchases recommended for approval this evening.

The first is for public for public works.

This is a one-time purchase for tree planning in the amount of $56,135.

The awards will go to Big Sky Landscapes and Lumberjacks Tree Service as the best bids.

Number two is for fleet.

This is a one-time purchase of a 2025 international garbage truck to be used by Solid Waste.

This purchase from Environmental Product Project Products Group will be in the amount of 254,630 utilizing a source well contract.

Number three is for public works.

This is a new blanket agreement for overgrowth abatement services.

This will be a four-year agreement not to exceed 350,000 annually.

The awards will go to TRG Lawn Care, Special Touch Lawn Service, Grassbuster Lawn Maintenance, and River City Remodeling as the best bids.

Number four is for wastewater.

Wastewater is rec is requesting a one-year extension to agreement PA 100106 with xylem for bypass bump pumping equipment rental in the estimated annual spend of $1,800,000.

Thank you very much.

Council, can I get a motion?

Thank you.

We have a motion on the floor to approve these purchases with a proper second.

Do we have any questions or comments?

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes.

I have one emergency to report.

Bell four USA group is providing mold remediation services at the police service center in the amount of $1,217,481.78 cents.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, committee reports.

Let's see.

I think I started down here last week.

Councilman Henderson.

No report.

Councilman Davis.

No report, but did just want to acknowledge the group of uh public works employees and fire department uh firefighters who recently went to Hickman County outside of Nashville to provide disaster relief following the winter storms.

Um and by all accounts, they did a fabulous job representing our city.

So just wanted to give them a shout out tonight.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Harvey.

No report.

Councilman Elliott.

Councilwoman Dotley.

Yes, thank you so much, Madam Chair.

We do have a budget committee meeting today of the PFM advisors giving us an update bomb for update.

We discussed uh for our financial policies as well as got a um summary from uh Dr.

A.

Cove and just be on the lookout be in touch with you, of course, to see about scheduling some additional education session.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Vice Chairwoman Null.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So we will have a legislative committee meeting next week.

Uh Council Maharve, you will be ready for Senate.

Yes, we have absolutely um.

Thank you very much.

Okay, um, we have one item that the attorney needs to report.

Yes, um, as we heard this afternoon from both Ms.

uh your city finance officer and Lauren Lowe from PFM.

Uh this is a report on debt obligations on general obligation bonds that needs to be reported to you all, needs to be part of your minutes and kept there, which is on file with the state, and it shows that there is a bonded indebtedness of 35,420,000 that was approved this year.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we have reached the point in our meeting where we are happy to uh hear from people who are here and would like to address the council.

If you are here and would like to address the council, please go ahead and line up behind the podium and listen while our attorney reads the rules.

Yes, ma'am.

And at the end of each council business meeting, the chair will recognize members of the public who wish to address the council, and here's your rules.

Each speaker wishing to address the council can only be recognized at the microphone up front, provided for that purpose, can't have more than three minutes to speak, and you can address the council only upon matters within their legislative and quasi judicial authority and not on matters which are not under their authority or regulated by other governmental bodies or agencies.

Do not engage in any vulgar or obscene language nor use the floor to personally uh attack or personally denigrate others and address the council as a whole and not make comments towards individual council members.

Lastly, do not engage in disorderly conduct or disrupting a public meeting, which is prohibited by Tennessee law, and someone commits that offense if a person substantially obstructs or interferes with the meeting by physical action or verb verbal utterance with the intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting or gathering.

Having stated those rules, please go ahead, sir, and state your name and district if you would.

Edward Hewitt, District 9.

Um I just wanted to start by thanking Chief for coming out and giving us this wonderful presentation.

Um I hope that everybody else got the same thing that I got out of it in addition to a whole lot of other stuff.

But I saw that in the last three years, the CPD has done an extremely good job.

We have reduced arrest by 100 or 1,500 plus.

Uh, in addition to reducing a whole bunch of other crime.

Everything I saw on that chart was a reduction and showing how great of a job our Chattanooga police force is doing.

So let's give them a round of applause.

They're doing a great job.

I really appreciate that.

So, that being said, as we enter into this talk about finances and budget for the next year, I just want to be clear, we're doing a great job.

They don't need any more money.

He's gonna come asking for it because it's his job, and he should, and he's gonna come say, hey, I need to give people more raises and all this stuff.

Clearly, the numbers show the numbers that he presented, show that they are doing a great job.

There's no need to give them more money.

We already gave them more money with the taxes.

So that's it.

That's all I got to say.

Thank you very much, and have a wonderful evening.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Lauren Hurley, District 7.

Um, I also want to thank the council for having Chief Chambers give this presentation.

I also was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the data that he presented to us today.

I also just want to say that I wish every officer in Chattanooga and beyond was like Chief Chambers, because I can really tell that his heart is in the right place.

I was honestly expecting to be able to have a gotcha moment and be able to point something out where, like, an instance where officers are moving to arrest people at risk of deportation when they could have instead used their discretion to avoid an arrest, you know, stuff like that.

Uh, but it turns out I don't have a gotcha, and I can't point something like that out.

The state of Tennessee has come down really hard on this issue and has covered all the bases, and the chief is just following the law to the letter.

What I do want to say is that acknowledging that unfortunately, CPD does make arrests that ultimately result in deportations, which occur way after the situation is no longer in their hands, and they have nothing to do with that part.

Hold on, I lost my I lost my place.

Knowing that, knowing that that is the case, doesn't cause the Hispanic community at large to distrust the police or avoid calling the police when they're in trouble.

It is an unfortunate reality that undocumented people have been avoiding having to interact with the police for years, long before recent events have occurred.

I witnessed it myself roughly five years ago when I saw a woman sedan with herself and her small children inside, get struck by a pickup truck in a hit and run situation.

Her car was totaled, and thankfully she and her children were okay.

But she did not want anything to do with the police, even though she was victimized in this situation.

And you know, I I disagree with that morally.

I think that's awful.

I'm sure a lot of people here feel the same.

So I guess I just want to implore the council and everybody else here today to imagine what can we tell our undocumented friends and neighbors, most of which are you know, hardworking members of society, giving to society without taking from society.

Nonviolent people, good people.

How do we let them know that they are safe here?

How can we let them know that they can call the police when they're in trouble?

If it risks deportation.

It makes me think that sometimes just following the law isn't enough.

And sometimes the law can be unjust, like we've seen several times in the past over.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Nifsy again, and uh District 4, I'm your problem.

I found out.

Uh, I do apologize on my glasses, I forgot my glasses.

Uh, last week, one of you mentioned that city council meetings had some things.

Oh, wait, oh my god, I'm so sorry.

When you spoke at the end of last week's city council meeting, you said some things and I'd like to follow up, not directed at anybody particular, but as a council as a whole.

You guys said that your hands are tied, that the state has passed law saying if you as elected officials push anything around immigration, you're subject to classy felonies.

After doing some research myself, I have a better understanding of the classy felony as you mentioned, and I've learned quite a bit.

Finding out that Tennessee has created one of the most anti-sanctuary laws that there is, that even the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union is actively challenging this legislation as it infringes on constitutional rights.

Tennessee Code 768-102.

I understand you guys are not allowed to put in rules that place rules in place that stops ICE from getting information, but that does not say anything about the city or CPD going out of its way to help us.

And no one's asking CPD to override federal immigration law by pretending someone is legal when they're not.

It only states that you cannot block or limit cooperation.

Meanwhile, the following are allowed funding legal aid, publicizing publicly criticizing ICE, hyping helping families, knowing your rights, education, data transparency, public pressure from the state, and using your platform to call out Tennessee laws, condemning ICE practices, publicly acknowledging the harm that it does to the community, and showing at rallies, meeting uh with affected families, and speaking alongside residents.

I want to clarify I am not running or spokesperson, but somebody who just attends these protests.

The community peacefully gathers every Monday from 16 to 1730, which is 4 35 p.m.

in civilian terms at Miller Park.

And I would respectfully invite the city council members to attend and show up and even be just briefly speaking to the community and listen and learn of some of the things that I've had, which is why I've gotten more and more involved in the community, learning a lot of different things.

Uh and what hence why we will keep coming back.

Um it's called Invisible and Chattanooga Bridge.

They're on social media, and that's where I get a lot of my information from.

If you guys are interested in it as well.

Um, we are not saying that we're not out here saying everything is bad, but enough people are being affected that it is impacting everyone that matters.

And my closing statement is there's not enough holy water crystals or deep breathing for the level of global nonsense we're fucking witnessing.

And that is it.

Thank you.

Okay, hey Niff, I need you not to curse next time, okay?

Apologies.

Okay, thank you.

I don't want to have to cut you off, friend.

Good evening, Council Mark Shackleford Shackle for towing in recovery.

Uh coming here to this body again for some help with the uh annual cost of living rate increase that the towing operators are you know at some point supposed to be awarded through the transportation for higher board, which seems to not have any answers and needs the help of the mayor's office to to get this transaction through again.

Didn't know if you guys could offer any help or if the mayor's office might be willing to to help.

Uh Councilman Elliott, did you want to speak to that?

Yeah, if you won't.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Yeah, hit uh Chris.

Can you help us with this?

All right, thank you.

We we'd like to have the mayor's office at our meetings where we can get things accomplished instead of having to come here each time.

That's kind of a thing that we've asked for, and it happened for a short time and then it stopped for suddenly.

Okay.

Last five or six.

Councilwoman Dotley, did you want to say anything more?

Yeah, oh I'm sorry.

Hey Mark.

Yes.

Yes, I was just gonna note that yes, Chris has put a placeholder on uh, I think three week out agenda.

So that should be coming up soon.

Also, uh, I'd like to speak with Chief if I could off offline about it.

If you don't mind, okay.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else here who would like to address counsel?

Oh, say hi, my name is Julia Henderson.

Um, and I am in District 8.

Um I do also want to start off by thanking all of you and Chief Chambers for um giving us this presentation at the beginning of this meeting.

Um I believe it was very insightful.

Uh my dad is a police officer in Nashville, has been a police officer in Nashville for over 25 years now.

Um, so I was respect I was raised to respect the police, and I do appreciate the utility of police within the community setting.

Um I appreciate the education on what the police are doing in our community because I believe that education is one of the most powerful tools that we have.

Um at the same time, I was raised to always do the right thing.

And when I was younger, that strictly used to mean following the law.

Um, although as I've gotten older and as I have become more educated, um I have realized that legality does not always equal morality.

And I wanted to just say that I understand that it appears that there is nothing that we can do on a lower level when the state law says that we must act in a certain fashion.

But realistically, that's why I'm here.

That is why I'm speaking, is because I want everyone here to know that there are things that we can do, whether we know the answers to that or not.

I want everyone in this room to know.

And I want everyone in this room to know that there are other people who are looking for the same answers that they are.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who'd like to address the council?

Council, I don't see that we have anyone else that would like to address the council.

Oh, so adjourn second.

Thank you.

We have a motion on the floor to adjourn with the proper second.

Going once, going twice, all in favor?

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Seven o'clock on the dock.