I have ten o'clock on the dot.

Now call to order.

Our budget education session.

You're thankful.

Okay.

So just a couple of notes that I wanted to go over about our schedule.

Uh one obviously next Tuesday, May the 19th.

We are starting at nine AM with public works.

And then uh we had to move uh DTS from today at ten to next Tuesday at ten.

So I think that's everybody got an updated copy.

Yeah, that's some outside the door.

Okay.

Uh uh Melissa's has got an updated copy, just make sure that everybody has one.

Today we will be going over general government, city attorney, uh internal audit, quasi agencies, HR and we left off finance.

So we'll cover that real quick.

Um I did not have any emails from any council persons with questions.

Uh Weston said that he did not either, so I would assume that today's uh presentation will be pretty much cut and dry.

Uh straightforward.

So I'm gonna turn it over to West and then uh let you let you run with it.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

I think last year, um we have some our budget team is watching, so they're gonna try and take down questions.

And I think Kim, maybe last year you helped us with questions.

Perfect.

So things come up, Kim will round them down or our team will round them down and we'll follow up if there's things that we just can't get to.

Um just wanted to make that note.

Um and then we'll just jump right in.

Um this is when we're looking at kind of this bucket of uh the budget.

Um the bulk of it is made up of debt service, roughly half of it is is the debt service at twenty-one point eight million dollars, and you have the contingency uh fund right now at three point two million.

Uh R and R this thing is replacing like small equipment, chairs, desks, uh wheat eaters, things like that.

Um things that aren't quite capital, but that departments need to operate.

So that's money that gets allocated to the departments for things like that.

Uh the education for TCA, that's the mixed drink money that comes into the city and then we send to the county for education.

Um this bucket also includes the money for 911 and McCaney.

Uh that's a bit of a change from last year.

Last year that was uh in the police department budget.

Uh we pulled it out because it's more of a citywide function.

Uh 911 is is a public safety, so it kind of is fire and police.

And we just thought with some of the changes in there, it was kind of hard to track the changes in CPD's budget from like an operation standpoint, so we thought kind of pulling it out from here in this in this slide, and then this bucket of funds made a little more sense.

So that money is there.

Essential costs, oh we have a slide that kind of breaks down what that other is.

And then uh the four million dollars at the bottom is allocated to agencies.

I think Kevin sent out an email yesterday on that.

Um, and so we can we can touch on that as well.

Uh uh debt service.

This slide just kind of, I'm not gonna read it to you, but it kind of shows the the bond issuances that make up that debt service number, the balances on those, the annual debt service for next year, and when they mature.

So just kind of an FYI for you guys.

I'm sorry.

Do we have a digital of this that you're going over?

I could share it with you guys.

If you could share every file before we have these meetings, that would be great.

Or reference the exact budget page that you're pulling it from.

But the actual presentation is better.

Is there a folder now?

There was a 26 folder, but I had not seen a 27 folder yet, and it would not let me create one.

So I have to get it updated.

So you're just sharing the this is the general government essential costs.

That's right.

Thank you very much.

The R and R bucket is broken down by department, and this is kind of the breakdown of how that works out.

Each department submits a list to finance for what they are requesting.

Um, and then we kind of go through the list and based on what they're asking for, what we've given them in the past, go through the process of allocating the funds.

Um this is the allocation for 27.

And again, that's for things like uh anything from desks to like I said, weed eaters, small equipment, things like that that they need to do kind of some day-to-day operational things.

And what where does that appear?

Is that within their own budget or is it outside of their budget?

It's outside of their budget, so it's in this essential cost.

Right.

So they only replace 1.5, yeah.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Other essential costs that is broken down as follows.

So the stormwater assistance fund money that goes to United Way, uh, stormwater money on city facilities, technology replacement, that's essentially laptops.

Um and small technology, the DTS, they use the money to replace um laptops.

Um dues is our annual audit, it's about 130,000 and some other juicy things in there.

Election expense is just that.

If if we had to have a special election or anything, we always set aside some funds just to cover that in case something comes up.

Um, and then obviously in election years.

Um a little bit.

City code revisions, there's an administrative cost to doing some of that.

Uh, so there's money for that.

Uh the tuition assistance is $20,000.

It's a program we offer to employees to help with uh tuition on uh basically eligibility.

And so is that a new program?

This is the first year that I've seen that.

I've seen it noted in multiple places in the budget.

It's not, it's it's been ongoing.

Um I I think in the past, maybe it was abbreviated TAP.

I know I've seen it abbreviated TAP, so I don't know if that's what it was in the past budgets.

Um, but yeah, the tissue tuition assistance program.

I don't know many of you know how long that's been going on, but it's been going on since that entire while the entirety of the Burk Administration.

And so what does it re $20,000 isn't very much money?

It's not, and honestly, we don't get a lot of use out of it.

There's very few people that that use it.

Um I could pull kind of the history, uh but and I can get the specifics.

I don't remember, Mandy, I don't know if you can speak to what it covers, but it's a certain dollar amount on certain eligible.

I believe it's up to a thousand dollars.

Up to a thousand dollars.

Don't quote me on that so I'll be able to do that.

Oh, but up to a thousand.

I think it's up to a certain amount, yeah.

Of course, has to be something that has to do with the job that you're doing, and you it's a reimbursement, it's not upfront.

So they have to come back with their grades so that they pass the class and then they get reimbursement.

Okay.

And we have a handful a year, maybe not a ton.

Yeah.

So it's not paying for it.

There are other policy.

No, yeah, no.

What about this intergovernmental relations?

You oh, sure.

Oh, yeah.

Um, so why is that essential?

That is kind of um some of the work that we use, the folks uh trying to think of the group.

Um the bridge, thank you, bridge.

Um that they do working with the state, trying to get some of the lobbying activity doing with them.

Um that's in there.

There's some sponsorships and things that list everybody.

But I think the bulk of it is kind of the bridge.

With our next session, uh this is session B.

Tennessee specific accounting and auditing issues.

Uh this is always a great session, especially for our Tennessee attendees and our panelists to adjust.

We've got Lisa Bellard, the senior contract on a review specialist with the comp controller's office.

We have Nathan Abbott, assistant director in the division of local government audit with the comproller's office.

We have Justin Garcia, contract audit review specialist with the divisional local government audit, also from the compontroller's office.

And then finally, we have Anna Brantley, the senior standards research and compliance specialists from Tennessee Comptroller's office as well.

Please welcome them.

Thank you.

How is it that you're not allowed to make all right?

Hey guys, good morning.

Um Google permissions.

All right.

When I went to the one that for 26 and right click to add a folder, it didn't move straight out.

But you just need to add a new folder because you should have a specific section this morning.

Whatever yes, there was a 27 but in the 27 there was a 26 folder, so I went to add a new folder in that, and it was grayed out.

It wouldn't let me select that.

I will try to get that updated in the baseball.

I know what y'all are thinking.

Uh oh.

Standards research and compliance.

That means I'm gonna talk about the standards.

I'm sure we all feel a little bit like this.

Under R and Right.

I will say I'm only 30 minutes is something.

So it really can't be that.

Um, so it's it's kind of a wide variety of things, but again, it can be worse.

Um replacing light just shares and desks.

It can be replacing public works, it can be get us into the rest of the gas being a good idea.

TRS money cost-sharing test work real quick.

Tools and equipment.

Um as far as the pension and OPEB census data for the Tennessee state plans within the case.

Um we have several different sets of census data.

We've got uh or I'm not trying to pick on I just said police, but it could be anybody.

I'm sorry, say that one more time.

Why is it separated out versus like if I know as a department head that we're gonna need to replace office furniture in this space for 2027?

Um I'm projecting that I'm gonna need to replace X number of dollars in office furniture.

Why is that not in my budget?

I think part of it's the main reason is because we kind of set a dollar amount for that.

So let's see where we are.

So like that that amount originally was um half a million dollars when we kind of started this process, and then through some of looking at the revenue side, we came up with this looking at interest, especially, which we're gonna have a conversation on, I guess, this afternoon.

Um we realized the baseline when we went through kind of setting the baseline of those volatile revenues that we talked about.

Was it like five and a half million?

But to kind of from a budget standpoint, we felt like six and a half was a good enough spot.

So that million dollar delta got added to this line.

So that 1.5 was a half a million up to when got up to 1.5 later in the budget process.

And what that allows us to do is say we know what the whole bucket is, and then we get all the asks, and then we can kind of help manage where that money's going as opposed to we don't know how much to give each department at the outset of kind of the budget process until we go through some of this, and then we say, okay, here's the bucket, and then we kind of manage it this way, and then it gets broken out in the book.

million but to kind of from a budget standpoint we felt like six and a half was a good enough spot so that million dollar delta got added to this line so that 1.5 was a half a million up to got up to up to 1.5 later in the budget process and what that allows us to do is say we know what the whole bucket is and then we get all the asks and then we can kind of help manage where that money's going as opposed to we don't know how much to give each department at the outset of kind of the budget process until we go through some of this and then we say okay here's the bucket and then we kind of manage it this way and then it gets broken out in the book I think it's actually broken out it says R and R dash police dash wherever it gets spread and then when we meet with them every month we meet with the departments monthly to go over their budgets we always touch on that way it's it's on the sheet that we go over hey where you got in your R and R how much have you spent what are your plans to do with it and we kind of we look at it all together it's just in this process it lives kind of separate because it's just easier for us to manage it that way.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions we move to city attorney I'm just gonna go down the list I don't know if you have a separate city attorney's budget is this slides just kind of a graphical representation of of the budget but you can see the bulk of it is is salary infringement services and other the bottom right chart is the cost centers but all that is in in the book as well so the city attorney's budget in total went up 200,000 dollars benefits was salaries and benefits was 29,000 of that and you can see the breakdown of that there but the bulk of it is they moved a position over to risk a kind of a compliance officer that was in their office now is more aligned kind of with what risk is doing so they've moved that person to the risk office and then um count uh salaries and benefits increases and then we see this a couple times um last year if you remember we did uh kind of a three month hiring freeze at the beginning of the year um and so departments budgeted that so there was a reduction in in salaries and wages for that three months well we didn't do that this year so you'll see their budgets will have gone up by that amount right so last year they had sixteen thousand dollars budgeted vacancy they don't have that anymore so their salaries would have gone up sixteen thousand dollars over for that purpose um and then operations went up 1700 we've listed some of them not all of the differences but some of the the differences here including um additional legal service outside legal counsel um decrease from warehouse storage and delivery library supplies went down because DTS is covering some of that now and so why did the risk allocation increase so the risk allocation is done based on head count and so we take kind of the total risk and divide it out by head count last year what we when we stood it up the risk fund it was our best guess it was kind of based on what departments had budgeted for those items mostly OJI and we took the budgets for the departments OJ on job injury IOD sorry I always call it wrong uh injury on duty and so we we took what each department budgeted put it all together and kind of spread it across based on head count I think what happened is the budget departments just budgeted less than probably what they should have and so this year when we're actually looking at actuals and figuring it out we kind of I think got the number closer right this year than it was last year so it went up but it's more a function of last year I think was just too low and this year is probably the correct baseline to kind of start with and so the total went up and so it gets spread by based on the head count um in each of these we also included a a position change kind of summary so we can see hopefully help us uh again the one officer moved or the compliance officer uh moved over to the risk uh couple bigger questions um based on the the narrative the executive summary um so first of all it says that um 27 should be using utilizing the office for advice on housing challenges for its citizens um can you elaborate on what that what does that mean well speak uh whatever housing disputes we get into here I guess we're dealing with the aspect of that's one of the mayor's priorities here connection with providing low and moderate housing if there's some sort of dispute about individuals that are uh in property that are are uh uh the the housing is not maintained properly uh whether land development office is going in on those cases we have been in uh handling a whole bunch more cases in city court regarding land development issues here and property maintenance issues going on so uh we have two people in our office that are going every week to city court so this is about code enforcement yes okay okay um and then um there are there's quite a lot of information uh noted here about the um limitations due to pay rates and on an availability of advancement for long-term attorneys what

So this is about code enforcement, yes.

Okay, okay.

Um and then there are there's quite a lot of information uh noted here about the um limitations due to pay rates and on an availability of advancement for long-term attorneys.

What are you doing to address that?

Like I was kind of surprised there wasn't a request for a a different position code or salary increases or some type of stipend or sign on bonus, or where where are you in problem solving with that and where's the administration in being useful in that discussion?

We have discussions ongoing about trying to fill the position of deputy city attorney here since Valerie left our office.

That's an ongoing dispute.

Uh we are trying to at least make sure we've got enough money to be able to handle the uh that position whenever it comes in, and we're trying to at least make sure we've got someone that is associated with uh having real property experience and contract experience in that position.

We have interviews scheduled for that here in the next two weeks, I believe, for that position here.

It's been difficult to try to find uh someone here in the range of pay that we've got.

But uh we also have one more attorney who is leaving here at the end of the month, so we will have another attorney one absence in our our group here that we're trying to maintain.

So, what's the gap between what you currently have and what you need to be able to recruit the person?

Um they uh you know people tell us that they want to have a larger um rate depending on the position for attorney ones.

So we did get an increase here uh this past year for some of our folks, which really helped in that regard, at least get them to talk about it.

Uh but you know, somewhere in the range of about 10,000 dollars, I believe.

So 10,000 for attorney one, and what about deputy?

Uh in that same range, I think would help.

Just 10,000.

It would be nice to be able to do more, but I'm trying to deal with you.

Um I guess I'm surprised that that's not in this budget.

Yes.

Well, we're we're trying to work with what we've got in the budget this year and not go for any increases more than we needed.

We're trying to at least make sure, at least on our end of it, we can keep the folks we got.

Well, yeah, but um and part of the issues this year as well is there's a paralegal position that we're trying to fill at this point in time, it's not been filled to this point, but we are expecting to make on that to help out a little bit on the attorney load.

But the attorneys are still the ones that are having to go to court.

So that's and what about your office manager?

Office managers working well at least to be able to handle uh issues back and forth here.

It's it's good to have Rusty back in our uh office, he knows something about it.

So that's okay.

Great.

Um, and then the other thing, could you just speak to us briefly about the potential of the tort liability reform?

I think we talked about it last year.

It feels like it's a massive risk hanging out there.

It is uh in that regard.

At some point in time, y'all are gonna have to think about uh do you want to get into an insurance pool or not on here?

The the aspect of doubling the amount of the tort liability act last year, which was floated in the general assembly was a big big number.

But um, we currently have still the 300-700 limits.

Uh, we just recently were involved in litigation of a matter where the attorney wanted 300, and we told him no, we weren't going to give him that.

We ended up getting a lesser amount here with the assistance of the courts.

So that's the way that that goes.

But that that could be a much larger number for y'all to consider about in your judgments and cost aspect of it in the future if that number goes up.

Is that something that the risk department is looking into insurance for us?

I do not know.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yeah.

Um, Bill, would the court's addiction retention program?

Could they be of assistance with this code violation stuff?

I don't know how busy they are, but I'm just wondering if that could help offset some of the work that you all are doing since it's kind of it's still a landlord tenant thing.

Yeah, as long as they can resolve issues here with between the landlord and the tenant, that would help, yes.

So, how do we how do we bring is Emily still over that program?

I think land development would have to get in charge of them and talk with uh Emily's group regarding that if they're having issues going on, and we can try to at least uh facilitate that.

Yeah, I mean I don't mind connecting with Emily either, but I'm just wondering if if you're asking for an increase because you need to supplement or provide those services.

I'm wondering if there's a service that's already out there that could that's already in that arena, and it seems like that that eviction retention program with the courts is already in that arena.

That would be helpful, but we're we're still having to go uh on quite a few of increased numbers of cases here uh uh to city court in those matters because they don't get resolved outside city court.

So it's city court like for when somebody has um trash their entire house and they won't fix it, but then they're going to stand up and say you need to find them and make them clean up their house.

It's a little bit different than the eviction prevention.

Well, I know I know, but I'm just thinking since they're already in that arena working with landlords and tenants that it would just be another avenue for them to take on to get it out of the hands of the city attorney's office.

If it will get to the point where it does not get to be totally trashed, yeah, that will work and it's a situation of are the landlords actually maintaining the property too.

Well, I think on both sides, yes, they could represent the tenant in the landlord piece of it if the landlord is not taking care of the property, and if the tenant is not taking care of the property on behalf of the landlord.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, so would there a role here for our administrative hearing officer to hear some of these cases as well?

Yes, and and we we are participating in those AHO hearings as well on there.

Uh our folks are are handling those whenever the AHO schedules a hearing for property in that regard, and the purpose for that is there's a larger uh penalty potentially for that, or there's the potential to get the property maintained better, and we're we're doing that as well.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Yes, ma'am.

Do you have a question for city attorney?

No, we'll roll into all the in your room.

All right, internal audits budget.

Um is pretty much flat.

Uh they had an in total increase of 21,000 just on almost 22,000, but the bulk of that is increases in salary, the colour and the change in benefits.

Um, and then the different the other rest of it is just the additional uh risk allocation.

Um changes in positions, so all in all, pretty pretty much a flat budget.

Nothing too too crazy with Stan's budget here.

Stan, anything you need to add to this that we need to know?

I mean, we're it's it's flat, it's the colour, and then that allocation at risk.

They said that that's the only real change, it's a static budget.

Um we're we are you know, I have an aging staff, um and we are definitely been up below market for where those staff positions are.

Um but uh so at some point, you know, it's I'm just gonna be kind of like Phil where he's looking for loggers and the pay rates that we have, and so as I have turnover, you know, I year over year we come in and generally our budget's just static, but there's gonna be a point where um I'm gonna have to we're gonna have to look at I'll get with HR and look at where we are, you know.

Our senior auditor positions are required to be CPAs or CIAs, and we we tend to be in a classification where they're they're comped against auditor positions that that are a lower level than that.

Like I think we have some comp issues we've got to deal with there right now.

We're we're okay.

I know I have one that's that's uh a tick and time bomb that's gonna be he's in his mid-70s, and Richard is still he's still producing, but he's he's ready to move up to be with his grandkids in Knoxville.

Um so uh and that's probably gonna happen soon and we'll deal with it.

I'll get with HR and we'll do those things.

So I I guess all I would say is nothing now, but but yes, it's it's tough out there when you get in that professional market.

You know, you're looking at attorneys like Phil is who are licensed, and then you're looking at certified public accountants, and it's you know, these kids are coming out of school with a four-year degree in accounting, and they're making almost what I've got CPAs with you know 25 and 30 years of experience.

So they'll be an ask out there coming at some point, is what I'm saying, but not not right now.

Are you doing anything?

Um tell us about what you are doing to train new folks.

Are you do you participate in the internship programs that the city does?

So we're a very small office.

I have four auditors and myself.

Um so there's just there's not a lot for opportunity there for um you know bringing in someone new and working them up and through a system or just a small office, and so luckily we've been we've been relatively static.

I mean, you know, I've had the auditors that I've had there, you know, Lisa has been with the city for probably over 30 years now.

Um yeah, Pam, uh my four auditors and Pam.

She left briefly to be an assistant city auditor for like Coral, Cape Coral, Florida or something like that, but then they end up back after a couple years, and she's probably got 15 years with us total.

Um, and and Jeff now is is I think at 10 or more.

Um Richard's probably pushing 15, and he's the one probably know where his parents have probably gonna go.

Um they're just I don't I you know we're not structured and have the size where we have this lower level that can just build up and you can train up.

So the bigger concern that I have is, and I and I uh want to be very clear, like I'm not I'm not looking to leave or retire next year, okay, or the year after, um, or the year after that necessarily or whatever, but you know I my biggest concern honestly at this point is that I have to find someone who has the potential to take over when I leave.

And I need someone to be in that position for several years because they need to be familiar with the city as it operates as a whole and have some history and some experience.

And the folks that I have in there right now, um they're they're you know, they're they're they're Gen Xers and a boomer, and um we're none of them are gonna be when I leave, you know, if they're not already gone, they're gonna be close to gone.

And so I just that's my biggest concern right now.

It's not something that's immediate, you know, for this budget year or right now.

I think I think an internship would be great, just knowing coming from that background, I think it'd be wonderful experience for whoever got to do that, but I think you'd struggle keeping that person because when they graduate, they'll be making 60, 70 plus thousand a year just with a four-year degree, and so it's it would be hard to retain that be great experience for them, it might help you in some ways, but it would be hard to like really benefit from that program for the city as far as keeping them and maybe you might find someone that just really close.

If you do it the exact same way you've always done it, yeah.

But if you have a cliff you're facing, I mean, so what I'm hearing you say is like in three years I'm gonna tell you it all fell apart.

And as an auditor, like you, you would be telling me now, hey, in three years it's all gonna fall apart, so you need to do XYZ, right?

It's not gonna fall apart in two years.

Um I have I have we've been really, I feel really stable.

I do have Richard who's probably gonna be leaving sometime soon.

I've actually uh started the process properly about a year ago with with HR, looking at some things dealing with issues about the comps and getting the comps straight so that we get the salary structure right.

Um and it's uh it is sort of this, it's gonna be some preparation over a period of time.

It's not gonna fall apart in three years.

Um that's why I'm saying now, like this is where you know, I'm not in here asking you guys for big salary increases for my staff right now, but um you can expect some incremental changes or things that I'll I will probably be asking for over the next say three years, getting ready and starting to build up for some of those things.

But it I think we're gonna find when Richard leaves, it's gonna be very obvious how difficult it is to find someone with the qualifications we demand for an auditor position here for a senior auditor at the pay that we have.

So that's gonna be there's gonna be some realization there that we work through over this next year.

Okay, Councilman Burst.

Hey Stan.

Well in a perfect world, what would you need to prepare for that succession planning?

Uh you know, I think um like I say, like you have Richard leaving, and it's an opportunity to really focus on in the interview process and application process, and then hiring for that is to be very mindful that I I really would like to take that opportunity to try to find someone who would grow in too far in my position.

There's you know, like I said, the the folks that that we have, the four that I have right now, like they're they're gonna they're gonna age out.

Um they're not going to there's not gonna be someone there when I leave who's been here for several years who's ready to move into it, they're gonna be ready to retire too.

Um what are you talking about, you know, dollar wise?

It and if you had I mean like could you bring uh would you bring somebody in now that could just start training so they're ready to go when Richard leaves or what I mean what's that do you have an idea of what that amount is?

I think it's more of when Richard leaves.

We we were doing the the recruiting process and we're looking for someone and what's gonna be really difficult is I'm gonna need to bring someone at a pay level that is probably higher than what my other auditors are making who have more experience, and that's gonna be a real difficulty that I've got to work through.

And um you have a deputy and that that might be a solution.

It's like four auditors, so now if I have have a deputy and then and then three that's it, but that is a structure that I it would be really good to have, even if it's just for a period of time until we get a transition into that.

Um but again, you know, these are things that I gotta talk with HR about, I gotta work through because now if I go hire a deputy who is going to have less experience than the other auditors I have, and I bring them in at a higher pay and a higher level position than the others, that gets difficult, right?

But but I know that these are you know, these three are not gonna be the ones who are gonna follow me when I leave.

So I do I would need something like a deputy, but I don't have the person there now to move up through that progressive uh method.

It's it it's uh I guess you know there are a lot of things to look at and consider and I gotta work with HR on it, and I I don't have the answer for you right now.

I think it has to be a little bit fluid um so that we can figure out the best way to make it work with I you know I have I think I think I have the smallest budget in the city other than city council might give me a run for my money on that, you know.

With y'all might be just under me, I'm not sure.

Um so uh we're we're just we're small, and so the you know, we'll work with it the best way that we can, but I do have a goal of trying to take advantage of when Richard leaves, which is probably gonna happen this year, um in the recruiting process, having to focus on trying to find someone who so maybe I can bring them in at a level where I don't have to bring them in higher than my existing auditors with it with a mind that over the next several years they'll build up and they'll follow you know they'll they could they could follow and become have the potential, you know, uh with proper demonstrating proper comp to competency and everything.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Stan.

How's the participation rate with the community surveys going?

I haven't checked it uh, but uh I think it's on par.

In the past hadn't checked it like today, so but it's coming coming along, and so we have some good information on that.

We put a new box in uh at the end now, limited it to 250 characters to let people put in some just comments that um we can't analyze that stuff because it's not like in a common format, but you know, we'll capture it and we'll forget.

We'll send it out to you guys, and you know you can you can read it for information purposes on the you can read through it and it's it's just probably not gonna be nice comments, but you know, you guys can see what we get those in our email all the time.

Right.

Yes, we're just gonna consolidate that for you and give it to you in a nice pack of expensive time.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Packet full of email.

Uh West, let's talk about the falls I agencies.

Yeah, all right.

Mr.

Chair.

Yes, but I just wanted to make a statement so West and Dad.

Uh I think you I don't know if that's your assistant, but they sent out a crystal creel.

She did send us out a folder with all the stuff in it.

Well, all of the awesome the um oh so you don't have to keep sharing that, so you'll have to keep sharing purpose.

Great.

So she did send it out.

A little bit after uh council.

She put it in a folder and shared the folder.

Yes, it's in cardestable.

You need to have a bunch that you think.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just one folder for everyone.

Um yeah, so we'll touch on agencies and and kind of external cluster class agencies.

So kind of looking at that middle column, proposed 27.

So Carta um eight point roughly 8.4 million.

That was their request for this year.

So you would see it went up 750,000 dollars.

That's just our continued ongoing support for the work that they're doing.

Uh Enterprise South and the uh Tennessee Riverport, those those are shared maintenance dollars.

So the county gives us kind of they go in and estimate what they think it's gonna cost to maintain those two pieces, and then they we split the cost with them so they invoice us for half of each of those.

So that number those numbers come straight from county.

Um and then going into kind of the quasi agencies, you see the pollution control board, um, the Bessie Smith Cultural Center building maintenance.

Again, that's the number um we get from public works, and then we share that with the county.

So that's the number that public works half of the number that public works thinks it'll take to kind of maintain that building for the year.

Uh the Chinese public library.

Um then some small grant supplements and then RPA, and then Karen will be here next week to kind of go over with city planning, and so she'll also touch on kind of RPA in a little more detail at that point.

But that is our um allocation to RPA.

Again, the county cut there, they were about eight, nine hundred thousand dollars uh funding to that agency that they decided not to do this year.

So um Karen and the staff, as you guys have heard, have done some good work kind of make that up.

Um but she'll be here next week to to speak to us more to that.

Um sorry, are you at one here you go?

Yeah, uh so uh so the bestie Smith Cultural, you said that was for building maintenance, that's our portion.

Correct.

Okay, because then we've got another 90 suggested for an agency allocation.

Right, so that is not for maintenance.

That's operations.

Operations, okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

In the past, I think we've called this Heritage Hall, but I didn't know what that was when I started, and I think just this is just a little more clarity of like what what we're actually talking about, so we changed it to actually say the Bessie Smith building maintenance.

Yeah, they're having a lot of trouble with their building uh uh humidity in particular, I think some of the other agencies that we fund um from some of so most of what we're looking at is is fund 1100 general fund, it's the main operating fund of the city.

We have some of these other funds uh that fund external agencies, so you'll see uh economic development fund.

There's a department in 1100, but there's also this just fund that's set aside um to fund a handful of economic development related um agencies, and those are listed here, no significant change really to any of those, just small changes.

Um and then hotel motel, that's the money we get from the occupancy tax.

Uh Chattanooga Tourism, their request uh is in line with last year, or what we're giving them is in line with last year.

And then you'll see we're giving them another 600,000.

That is to help with the uh World Cup FIFA team that's gonna be here this summer, so that's to help um with the operations of having those folks here in town, and then the 250 is going to the Songbird Foundation for a Chattanooga Hamilton County history experience that Kevin can help me remember, but it's it's working with kids uh in in music history, I think.

Is that right?

Yep, so we were approached by the the county asking for a 50-50 partnership to find what they're calling a pop-up history museum that's gonna be a temporary installment that's gonna be um created in in conjunction with uh the folks at Songbird and then Hamlet County School System Kids, and it's I think it's gonna be four or five interactive video productions that they're gonna put together.

Um basically the idea is to roll it out and make it accessible to the public as part of the 250th uh celebrations this summer, and so that's a 2500 thousand dollar ask that we are uh proposing to fund from hotel motel.

Um so we have we're gonna have one FIFA team in Chattanooga, right?

And it's gonna cost six hundred thousand dollars to protect them for how long?

We did, yeah.

And so they do just require the heavy security, it's part of kind of the FIFA contract obligations and six hundred thousand is an upper limit threshold estimate.

So it it uh I don't want to speak out of turn.

I would need to just follow up with uh Susan Harris at the tourism company just to get a fresh okay estimate, but 600 was the the placeholder number.

So will that be our police that will be doing that or will it be private security?

So I I think that it's gonna be through the extra job framework that CPD uses where when they're not on shift, they can go and and work on a contract basis.

Okay.

Wow.

For two weeks.

Harry and Megan have such a challenge in their security on that.

Geef, what stay right there just a minute?

You know, we're I I guess we're contributing to tourism, and I understand that part.

One thing that we do we don't seem to go after is the sports side, and I know they branched off into two.

We don't contribute anything to that side.

Um it looks like to me we're we're missing out on the big eco economic opportunity by not going after more sports events than we do.

And of course, and I think we have a uh uh a study basically that breaks down showing kind of where gaps are in a in the city.

Uh I'm a little bit concerned that we're falling behind.

We as the city or we as a community.

Well, we as a city are falling behind in this in capturing a lot of this force revenue that's that's out there.

Um it's a big industry right now.

It is completely changed probably in the last decade anyway.

And uh at one time summit was you know, we captured and still do uh captured a lot of revenue there.

We were sort of the softball capital of I think you know the United States, but uh but a lot of that is changing, and I don't I don't see us looking like we've got a vision towards that.

Yeah.

So uh Mayor Kelly and Mayor Wamp are working together, they pulled together um a working group of about 10, 12 people, and then we're working with um PFM, taking a look at our downtown tourism and economic development ecosystem and talking with those organizations.

So the convention center, the tourism company, um the sports events corporation, Tim Morgan's new group, uh River City, DCA, the chamber, toward making sure that where we ultimately want to go is is figuring out the best way to optimize how those groups work together and how those things are funded, recognizing that sports events are a tremendous opportunity for an economic driver.

Um I say that just to say that I feel like while there isn't anything reflected right now in this budget.

I do anticipate that as that effort evolves and lands in a place of of clarity around what we think might work on a go forward.

Um I anticipate that we're gonna be coming back to both the city council and the county to the commission to talk about what it might look like on a go forward.

So I think it's still evolving.

Um but I I affirm what you're saying that it is a tremendous opportunity.

There's a lot of conversation going on uh regarding it, but we we actually did not get a request from the sports events corporation for this budget, so um that's kind of what I mean.

I uh I think to be forward looking, I'm I'm not sure that we know we don't need to have something in there, you know, to start addressing that.

And uh even if it's of course I don't know what these talks look like, but um even from our park standpoint or um our special events or or programming, you know, having a partnership with the uh sports events corp.

Event sports, yeah.

Um I I think I think there could be a partnership had there that would be beneficial to both bodies.

I think so too.

And a meaningful revenue stream.

Okay.

Um we're open to that as well, and and want to figure out what the most additive approach would be.

The county contributes about 500,000, I'll take to that.

Yeah, but they just started in as you know, kind of midway through their budget.

Yeah, 2000.

And they did they reduce their tourism company?

Yeah.

Yeah, they took it from the tourism company and reallocated it to the what the uh to the sports what are we what are they calling it?

It's the it's the sports events corporation.

Okay, sports events corporation.

Uh and I think it's T SEC, is it not?

I think it's the the as a part of that B.

I don't think I recognize it.

Um so did they reduce by 500 or did they pull out completely?

The way that the county funded it is they reduced the previous allocation to the tourism company by 500 and redirected it to right.

So, how much are they currently funding?

The tourism company, trying to go tourism.

Uh I don't remember.

It's I was under the impression they had pulled out a lot of the.

No, no, no, no, no, just the sports.

They were around 10 million dollars, the tourism company, so they just poured a pulled out a portion of the yeah.

Yeah, I think it's nine.

Okay, yeah, nine and a half.

Yeah, there's still a significant amount.

Got it.

That's right.

Okay.

Thank you, sir.

Chair, I have a quick question.

Sure.

I'm sure it's in this book somewhere, but off the top of your head what we what we collect in hotel motel tax.

It's around that ten million dollars.

Okay.

What was your question?

I mean how much we collect annually in hotel motel tax.

Oh, okay.

10 million.

And so this this 850 comes out of that 10 million.

Okay, correct.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And that's a quick uh huh.

That's annually we collect it.

What if we don't what do we do with the residual pay for the river front?

Go goes to pay for the river front.

Yeah, so there is a there is a tab in the book, uh hotel motel towards the back somewhere.

Um that breaks it down.

But yeah, so 10 million, part of it is capital for riverfront uh or other tourism infrastructure capital things.

Um and then part of it is debt on the riverfront.

And then part of it is in the rest of it.

And then there's a small amount that goes to fees to the hotels and to the county.

So I I mean, I don't know how much history you know understand about this, but uh the hotel motel tax was created to funding source for all of the development on the riverfront.

I mean that that became the revenue generator for the debt.

Okay, that's all yeah, and this is just kind of a breakdown of that of the last three years.

And that's paid off the debts pay off 2032 or something like that.

Somewhere around there.

Okay.

Does the hotel motel text have a sunset?

Tied to that?

Great.

It was originally when it was established was for that purpose, but since then it's been expanded more broadly to be tourism and tourism infrastructure, not specifically.

I think what opened up the door for us to be able to spend more broadly rather than just in a specific area.

That's right.

Yeah.

Um as long as it relates to tourism.

That's right.

Okay.

Well, it looks like we need to move to HR.

Are we not doing DTS today?

No.

Uh Gerald.

I'll move that up today.

Uh I was at the start of start.

I missed the uh we're moving that to uh 10 o'clock Tuesday, May 19th.

That should be do you have an updated uh copy of the budget sessions?

I don't, but I've been making notes, so I'll check I can double check against it.

Okay.

Yeah, Cheryl was I think out of town this week and wanted to make sure you see if that's all right.

So HR.

Um their personnel total budget up 168,000.

Uh salaries and benefits is is pretty much the bulk of that.

Um and again, that goes back to they had a last year budgeted 161,000 in vacancy savings.

Um that was part of that three-month kind of hiring freeze, and so that went away this year.

So that money got added back into their budget.

No changes in positions for them.

But nothing too tremendous here.

Any questions?

I did want to add in that I followed up with HR.

We had 17 tuition reimbursements last year.

So far this year we have seven that have been submitted.

Okay.

I did have a question about employee training.

I know that we we had some challenges this year where when you were in HR, you would set up so many processes, and here's the exact policies that we follow.

And then the wheels slowly came off.

So I imagine this employee training line is different than I I would think you would be very thoughtful about making sure that they're very well trained and ready to.

Can you talk about that just briefly?

So employ there's two buckets of employee training.

So employee training would be whether we do it citywide or whether it's done in the department.

So the department training is virtually free because it's done by myself and whoever we have or legal if we have legal questions about that about how we do our processes and based on my past experience now because I'm all knowing by any means that's best practices in HR.

Um so we've gone through that for the individual department for the individuals in HR.

First, they're allowed to go out to training, we do investigation, we set them out to investigation training, things like that.

Citywide training that we do, we do have multiple trainees that we offer radical candors.

One of them, we have a manager training that we do now.

We had a new hire orientation that was one day, then we moved it to two days during the time I was here, and now it's three days.

The third day is for managers specifically to learn how to be a manager at the city.

Um so obviously we put that on ourselves.

We don't outsource that um for them to do that, but we also offer these other trainings throughout the year that they can do if they're interested in learning something else.

I did want to, if you don't mind, we do have a career ladder process.

So you would ask about internal audit and how we do these things.

We have apprenticeship programs, we're doing interns, career ladders where we allow people to move up without having a position open based upon their certifications and their training.

So we've been doing a lot of different programs, institute employee development.

We also offer a um class that's called um, I call it Peace Camp because that's what was at West, but basically it's how to move if you want to interview practic interview practice and to learn your skills to be able to move up for internal employee development.

So we're really big on enriching our employees and making sure that they stay with us and that we give them opportunities to be able to move up within the city.

So the staff employee training costs have gone down, not huge, but $5,500 down.

So what's changing?

That's just available.

That again, that's how many trainings that we're putting out.

Uh we did actually lose a trainer this year, and so that is one of our vacant positions currently.

Um, and so we're we're gonna be hiring for that here pretty soon.

Um, and then uh, like I said, internally, it's just what's available.

So if there is a class that's available and we go, um, then we send somebody to it, and then they utilize that training opportunity.

Sometimes MTAS puts them on for free, sometimes they're not free, so it just depends on what we have available to us during the year.

Okay, well, with regard to audit, I'm just gonna make a note in my list of follow-ups, then and I'll get with you about that.

Yep, thank you.

Great.

Nobody else wants to talk HR.

All right.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Congrats on getting somebody chosen.

Thank you.

Good.

Uh we'll hit finance real quick.

So we've left it off the list.

Uh finance budget went up 1.6 million, but uh as part of the bulk of that uh 1.4 and some changes.

We moved purchasing from a budget perspective into finance.

Before it was kind of broken out like DTS.

Umperationally, purchasing is always been, or not, was since I've been here, it's been under finance.

Um, this is just moving the budget to kind of align with that.

So that's the bulk again, 1.4 and some change of that is just their budget coming into ours.

The rest is uh primarily the salaries and benefits changes.

So no nothing crazy there.

So the 12 new positions moved in from purchasing, and then we did add one new position in payroll, and it's a part of our kind of effort to more centralize the payroll function in the city.

Um the way payroll had worked in the past is in each department there may be multiple folks that deal with payroll, and it's usually an in EA or somebody where it's one small piece of their job, and it led to a lot of issues where things weren't being submitted right or on time or whatever.

So what we've done is try to take those posit at a position in payroll and then take those responsibilities off of those folks to allow them to do other EA things or whoever it is to focus on their other and allow us to kind of focus on the payroll piece and hopefully cut down on the errors and the and the issues we were having in payroll.

So we've already we had some existing positions that we were able to work with and bring folks in, and this is just one more person they add to the staff and help with that process.

But other than that, that's all it's running on.

Any questions?

No.

No.

There you go.

Thank you.

So then we have uh finished up pretty much right at 11 o'clock.

My time is unprofessional.

So we're ready to roll.

Roll right into uh Councilman Elliott uh in the legislative committee.

Absolutely.

Okay.

You want to move over here?

It may help if when I see people put our hands.

Yeah.

Well, I started pushing my stuff.

Hello, how's everybody doing?

Good.

How are you doing?

How are you today?

Well, pardon my tardiness.

I have stuff wrong with my business today to help me up.

Um Judge Patty sends her regards.

She was unable to attend.

But uh if we have any questions around the courts, uh, I can make sure we collect those now and we can send those off at a future date, and if we really want to have them come in, I guess we can coordinate with you.

Yeah, and then we can go from there.

So we do have um Tuesday May the 26th for uh any kind of follow-up that we may need.

So if there are questions and we need to squeeze them in on that 26th weekend.

Okay, perfect.

Um starting with that.

Are there any pressing questions now as far as city court that we would like to capture while we're here?

Basically flat.

Yeah, no, no rule changes.

Okay, all hearts of miles clear.

Yes, okay, good deal.

Um, well, let's transition into the mayor's office, Kevin, and then we will take it from there.

Come on in.

All right, um, again, this is just uh graphical kind of representation.

The top left is kind of the the buckets that their budget falls in, the bottom right is cost center uh breakdown.

We'll kind of go here.

Um so total budget for the executive branch decreased 441,000.

Um salaries and benefits dropped uh 232,000.

Um biggest reason for that is they transferred three positions over to economic development, and we'll kind of there's a slide after this that'll hit the position changes, and then the operations side uh dropped 28,000.

We moved uh again uh part of this budget in last year.

There were these four-year RFP contracts that live within each department, those all ended last year, so that they're not in this budget.

So we moved essentially took all the money out of the department's budget.

So when we told the flat, it was flat less the RFP dollars, right?

And then we put all of that in that four million dollar line item that was in in the slide earlier.

So you'll see a couple different departments where you'll see that RFP agencies removed, and that's what that is.

Um, and then uh a small reduction in the innovation fund.

What is the innovation fund?

It's marked here multiple times, and it's pulled out as important, but I don't remember us ever talking about an innovation fund in the executive frame.

So I'm not sure when it was stood up, but it was since before I I mean since I've been in the mix, it's it's been um an annual budget line item, and it's it's used for different things.

I think originally it was leveraged with respect to ideas that employees would put forward.

Um, and then there was kind of an incentive program that still happens.

Uh and Jeff Mills, who is one of our project managers, uh helps facilitate that.

Those requests have have diminished a little bit, but there's still some volume there, so we we continue to evaluate those, and then uh we also use it for kind of like ad hoc opportunities that that come up that make sense for it.

Um trying to think of an example.

Well, I mentioned in the previous session how Mayor Wamp and uh Mayor Kelly are working together on this tourism slash economic development endeavor.

We're we're gonna fund some of that consultancy work out of the innovation fund.

Um just kind of a little slash area a little bit of flexibility there, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

It um I think for context, it started under Ryan Equal at CLO when we launched it.

I don't know what it looks like now, but yeah, it started under the IDE department was the sphere head of that innovation.

Yeah, and so employees submit their ideas and we look at them and evaluate them, and it's good, then we use the money to help implement the idea on like a pilot basis, and then there's also a small incentive depending on certain criteria that gets paid on.

Yes, ma'am.

Um did this the innovation fund reduced where is it on this summary?

What category does it fall under?

D in service and services, okay.

So it didn't get moved someplace else, it just got reduced.

That's right.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well uh again, they they moved three folks out of the executive branch over to economic development.

And then we had clarify what the positions as listed are our FTEs as they were in the mayor's office.

We didn't move a deputy chief operating officer over to economic development.

We gave them that FTE, as you'll recall, um when Steve departed, we decided to combine the deputy chief and the deputy deputy operating officer into one Darren Ledford.

Um and so he he kind of straddles the fence between those two, and so it's a net reduction.

And so what we did with that FTE is we gave it over to uh economic development as part of moving Monica's group over to economic development and providing some additional capacity for her and her team around arts and creative economy.

Go ahead, Mr.

Chair.

Oh, you so I have a question.

So when Steve was relocated, was that not done in through reduction in force?

I think Steve moved over into an already existing project manager role.

And so it it was a reduction in um because we we combined the deputy chief and the deputy chief officer.

The mayor's office reduced kind of like the number of actual people, but that FTE did not disappear, so it's not a reduction in force because we've moved that uh FTE over to economic development.

So do we only define reduction of force as the job title going away and not the salary?

I think a reduction in force would be when we're eliminating an occupied position and the position and its salary and the person occupying it goes away.

Okay.

That's the councilman Clark.

Uh thank you, uh Chairman Elliott.

Uh going back to the notable variances with the budget decreases versus some of the position requests.

Uh the 311 operating customer service represented position is going from a CSR one to a CSR2.

Is that a variance increase in their the amount that they get paid or is that a new because it's not a new position, it's a D it's a classification of an RS CSRS2, which is more additional money for them.

It it is an incremental compensation for that position because they're moving.

So why is it a position request and not just if it's an incremental computation from the because we still have CSR ones, is that correct?

We do, and okay, and so but but every position that we have has to be authorized in the budget ordinance, and so because this individual is is moving from a CSR one to a CSR2, we have to that that change has to be reflected in the so it's just one individual.

This is not a reclassification of all CSR1s.

Okay, just changing the the mix of CSR1s and CSR2 by reducing ACSR1 and creating a new CSR2 to accommodate that as that um I guess that promotion.

Gotcha.

That's what it was not reading to me.

And I also want to go back to the C the decreases.

Sorry, I let me make sure I'm doing go.

I don't who's be on the records.

Um the salary uh decreases when we when it explains that it goes from COO.

I'm sorry, someone could who's who's I'm driving.

Okay.

Yeah, but it was your um the slide deck, it was the slide deck where we were.

Please, yeah, if you could keep it there just for a second, thank you.

The three positions transfer to economic development.

So the the position transfers were from for lack of a deputy CEO and an assistant, correct?

For to the COO.

So what we did not replace those pos like, so is she like Lone Ranger in that department or that's right.

So we so that that executive assistant.

Stay right there, Weston, please.

Thank you.

The executive assistant role and the deputy chief operating officer role both were vacated, and instead of rehiring, we combined CO deputy COO with deputy chief of staff, and and and thereby could free up that position to transfer it over to economic development.

So but we're not adding an executive assistant back to the like that those positions are gone for that division altogether.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

And when we're transferring them to economic development, what are those comparable roles?

Like, for instance, the salary for a deputy chief operating officer to economic development.

I I think you mentioned that was going on in Monica.

Were the salary ranges comparable, or what was the equilibrium in the transfer since those positions no longer exist in the budget?

Yep, so there was a reduction because the deputy chief operating officer position costs more than the position that is going to be occupied in economic development, and so that's part of the savings or the reduction in the overall budget for the mayor.

So if if like uh just simple.

So like if the deputy chief operating officer is $100, but this position over an economic development was $75 because if they're not the same level, then the $25 is what is is part of the reduction to the mayor's overall budget because we're well actually it would be the whole thing.

Yeah, I'm sorry, the city budget, yes.

So the mayor's goes down 100 and economic development goes up 75 citywide realizes the 25.

Sure.

So what support staff does the chief operating office have?

I mean, that's a staff that I know that police, public works, yeah.

So I mean it's a main functioning artery of our government.

Um and I know you have a deputy and an assistant, and like most so Darren is both the deputy chief of staff and the deputy chief operating officer.

I did not know that.

So that's what that did.

Is that something that we were notified of or we combined it um last year and and decided not to backfill to see if we could do more with three people, if we could do the same amount of work that needed to be done with three people that was being done previously with four, and and we've been able to successfully do that, and so we are happy to eliminate that position from our budget and move.

And that makes sense to me now because I'm thinking of myself like in the hierarchy or the org chart for most departments, you have an executive assistant, a deputy chief operating offer, and in some cases you have an operating officer, you know, it's it's tiered that way, and I know that that is a fun that's a portion of government that I deeply depend on, and not speaking for the chief operating officers who is not speaking, but whatever.

You're telling me that Darren has a dual role as a deputy and supporting both the chief of staff and the chief operating officer.

That's right.

Okay, and that is the cost saving by eliminating that role and transferring it to the economic development department.

That's right.

Because their capacity.

Yes, sir.

I just want to be sure there.

I'm I'm not that you can't advocate for yourself.

I know the functionality of your division, and you know, I just want to make sure that the support is there.

Um, and I do know that Darren does a great job in helping in some of those functionalities.

So I just I was just curious in the reorg as not a reduction in force, but a reorgan the fact that we moved it over into economic development.

So I just wanted to see what the equilibrium was with that and the transfer, so I'm good.

If I might add something a lot of it, yeah, for sure.

I'm so sorry if I'm over stepping.

I just wanted to add in that so we did some other, we did another transition where Miles kind of had a different position.

We made that into an office manager position, which is a executive assistant anymore, but she got promoted to office manager position.

Uh and so the reality of not two people to support anymore, like we didn't have an executive assistant that had to support two people.

So that's why we were able to eliminate that position.

The office manager does help me with scheduling.

Um that so I have I do have that support with the office manager helping me with my poll.

So she does lend it, and she loves it for everybody, but she loves it for me as well.

So I do have I do have support.

It's okay if you need to wink twice to let me know.

I just find that really interesting that in most organizational organizations when you have a chief operating office quite different here and how we have restructured that.

I've never seen that uh paradigm before, but if it works, you know, it works for you all as long as it's not lacking for uh service delivery.

Thank you.

Okay.

Council Hart.

Yeah, just wanted to ask what what are the functions of the director of design and mental health clinician.

So the director of design was uh what Steve Homecker did while he was here.

This was part of the rebranding effort.

Um and he really helped us with kind of the launch and the proliferation of the new branding and helped it just kind of reset and rebuild templates and all of that work.

He a lot of that work kind of turned it from like um trailblazing to just maintenance, and then eventually it just really slowed down, and so he moved on, and so um I'm a little bit confused about why we're calling it out as a director of design because I thought you you you speak into it.

So it just it says new positions, but but the brackets it's we're getting rid of the director of the process.

Okay, that's what I thought.

All right, that was my talk to you.

I think I got confused about that.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah.

So the the the brackets around the one.

Director design.

It's going away.

Yeah, so it's a net zero new position.

It's finished, it's going away.

Okay.

And we what we did with um the funding that was for that position is we used a portion of it and gave that funding over to RPA to help offset their reduction and help preserve uh a staff member.

Okay, who is going to do a little bit of the branding work that Steve was doing in addition to the work that she was already doing for RPA?

Because there's comparable skill set there.

Who is that person?

Melody Collins.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

We love her both.

All right, are you good, council?

Yeah, uh well, uh, mental health clinician.

Okay.

Is that for early distance?

Okay, it's okay.

It's at the FJC.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, that's that's good.

Okay, thanks.

Um council McHill.

Thank you.

In the executive uh summary, there was a statement that I found interesting.

That inadequate funding is one of your most significant challenges in the executive branch.

So what is your inadequate funding?

Um I think that we're probably talking about just like in the aggregate that that every year we're finding opportunities to do things more efficiently in recognition that we can't just keep hiring and bringing on additional people in a way that we could if you know revenue or resources were not a limiting factor.

Um and so I think that the purpose of that line was to kind of speak to this continuous commitment to doing things more efficient.

While the cost of doing business in general continues to go up, we are recognizing that we're resource constrained and are committed to efficiency.

Stephanie, would you add anything to that line?

Oh yeah.

Oh, all right.

That's it for executive.

Any other questions about executive branch colleagues?

All hearts and minds are clear.

All right, thank you, sir.

Are you presenting that was under yours?

I thought I was just chairing it.

I mean, um, actually the chair usually does, but is this for city council?

This is city council.

Um City Council has uh roughly 75% of the budget is salary and frames.

Um two cost centers, kind of the admin cost center, and then there's one call center dedicated to you guys district expenses.

And if I'm correct, nothing really has changed uh from last year to this.

But colleagues, I will I will advise you of this.

Chairman Davis has an email in the inbox if he shall approve it where I'm requesting to place our policy position on the agenda next week for consideration.

Um then that will probably uh I've talked to Kevin and Weston, they have agreed to try to work with us and we'll also within our budget to make sure we have all the funds necessary to fund that role if we decide to move forward with it.

So uh you'll see it uh if the chairman approves it, it's been tweaked for suggestions.

I got suggestions from Councilman Hill and Councilman Burr and Redden, so that's the one thing that may uh look different for this budget after we make a decision on that one.

Yes, sir.

Do you want to point out it looks like we did change a little bit that we uh saved $32,000?

So correct.

So to be pointed out and celebrated?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Is there a line in here about we have inadequate funding anyway?

I don't think there is um but council, does anybody have any questions regarding the city council budget?

I did council yes, ma'am.

Yes, so just wanted to confirm we still maintain the increase that we um each district got within the year.

Yes, that's right.

Okay.

I think that was stated uh with US chair's budget last year, and that's still reflected.

That was yeah, 10,000, I believe.

Yes, ma'am, per district.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Um Chairman Elliott, I do have a question going back to your uh fiscal note request that it when we do move over that position if it goes to our agenda.

What had those discussions been like for the amount?

Because right now what we have budgeted for to supplement a position like that comes out of our consultant uh fees of a hundred thousand dollars.

And so my question is is that uh do we have the intentionality and maintaining that amount but requesting that they move additional funding over to support that role?

Is that how those conversations have been going?

That position that position and what amount there's a formula based on if it passes as is there's a formula that HR has to account for benefits as well.

And so we'll count both of that together on that form.

I don't generally 30% markup for that.

There you go.

And so we'll take that account if if there's no changes to it, we'll go with that, but if whatever reason, if there are changes, we'll have to adjust it as actually as necessary.

So we'll talk about 70, 30, is that what that means?

I was requesting.

I'm gonna be I'm gonna be for transparency purposes for this particular item.

I am planning if it does pass in the hopes is that this council will work with the administration to figure out what the movement looks like.

There's been a commitment to help find the funds, but I have been cautious about moving forward with locking them in because I don't want to preempt any potential changes that can happen on that diets.

Oh no changes happen.

But I'm just one of nine.

And so if someone comes up and amends something for whatever reason, they get enough votes, and it could potentially change the cost of the salary range.

Does that make sense?

Like we have extra room in our budget that there was conversations last year, uh we could potentially look to use our consulting budget.

If not, we can also look to see uh how else we expand um and fill that those monies make sure we get what we need for the position.

So questionnaire, Ms.

The Chair.

So uh for the policy position, your you send a request to our chair that that position gets voted on by us prior to the budget or within this added two days.

The request is that it's uh put on next week's agenda.

Okay, next week's agenda for the position.

For the position.

And then we'll have the amounts, the benefits, all these things included in that if it's approved by the if it is approved.

Okay, and then from there.

And if it's approved by council.

Go ahead.

Okay, and then from there, if that position is approved, then we would amend this but this year, this budget we're looking at now to include that amount with the free is benefits and all of the things.

Correct.

Okay, just that is correct.

Okay, that works then.

Madam Um Chairman Burr.

I apologize, and you may have already said that I had to step out and take a phone call.

Um so did we receive, did I miss an update of that uh job description?

I know I'd sent back to you a bunch of questions that I had when we last discussed this in strategic planning.

So where are we on the where are we on that?

I got a written um suggestion from yourself and council mahill that I update it and reflect as best as possible.

Is identical, no.

Um, but if chairman Davis agrees what to call the agenda, I'll make sure we all get that copy going into it.

So there have been changes made to the scripture.

There has, okay.

So I haven't missed a response from you to my email about the questions I had and maybe some suggestions that I've made.

No, you can't do that.

Okay, and when might I expect that or when might be if I get confirmation that we're fine to move forward for this next the request, I'll send it out to the council's office.

What's the hold up on that?

I just said it today.

Oh, there's no hold up.

And he hadn't even checked his email, I think.

So this is a budget hearing about this budget line item.

So why can we not discuss what we intend to move that?

I I don't know why we're belaboring this discussion on this, and we're here.

And that's not a critique towards you.

I mean, is it gonna be on the agenda or not?

Um we're here.

Um, and what is the what is the intent to find that position?

I just mentioned that I don't I have no intention on touching the hundred thousand dollars that we have set aside for consulting because I think we would need that, and what we're doing, which is perfectly fine, if we need to add an additional amount to fund staff for our council, they do it, we're no different as the legislative branch.

And so I would like for us to have that discussion now.

Um, because I that's what we're here for.

I don't please do not kick this.

Uh is it gonna be on the agenda or not?

I mean, I I haven't seen the email yet.

Um I I see no problem with putting it on the agenda and discussing discussing it now.

Um I know we also have time built in on the 26th, if we need to come back and look at anything.

What I would like the first I've heard of it, so gotcha.

So what I would like to propose for an amount uh for to be moved over into the executive branch to fund this position is to cap it at 110,000, which would which I think is comparable for the position that we're seeking for the talent that we are requesting, even if it's someone that is moved that it would be moving in moving over internally from a different department.

Um so that is that I'm gonna put that on the table just for transparency for discussion purposes when it does hit the agenda because I think we just need we're all here, so we just need to discuss it uh as such.

Um and not to be aggressive in that.

I'm just like this is why we're here.

So let's discuss it.

Sorry, thank you.

Councilman, then your next council dollar.

I guess I've got a process question and this goes back to budget.

So we're talking about voting on this position before before this budget's voted on.

Okay.

That's correct.

Because he wants to find the money.

So the it would not be an amendment tax budget.

No, not a technical amendment.

It would be a we would be changing it, but not an actual.

We're probably gonna get some more papers to put in your budget book before we actually.

I'm just wanting to make sure my terminology is right.

Yeah, we're talking about now because this is what we're here for.

I mean, we're not this is not an amendment.

Would this be considered Phil and alternate if we change this budget?

Can we just change it now and it's the budget or we have to list it as version two or one or no?

You're do not presented it in a budget form.

No, it's not correct.

Correct.

That's right.

In the form of an ordinance.

Yes.

In the form of talking through that's not that.

I mean, but obviously the public is aware of this budget.

So we can go ahead, we can make this change to this budget.

Okay.

That's right.

Okay.

You go, Councilman.

Council maybe.

Councilman Dollars.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you to Councilman Henderson and to Councilman to Councilman Clark, because I agree.

You just kind of just throwing me here a little bit, but we have been discussing it.

So I do understand that.

Um, and to the point of the 110,000 salary, uh, I'm all about paying people what they are worth hands down.

Uh, but does that include would that include French benefits, or did you have ideas?

That's the cap that I'm recommending.

Total cap of everything, French benefits.

Correct.

And and being so what is comparable to that position and other portions of our government.

So in that case, and then we look at the uh like three percent each year.

That is correct.

Okay.

If this position existed in the executive branch, which it does, that would be what the comparable rate would be with a cost of living adjustment.

If we because what that if I'm not mistaken, Councilman Elliott, that proposal with that policy position, which includes some legislative functions, which includes some constituent service stuff.

If you has it you're not you're shaking your head, go with constituent services uh items have been removed.

Okay.

And I I have not I'm not aware of that.

No, no, none of us know.

Okay, I was the only one that's oh, you're the only one that knows what's happening.

Okay, that's probably so for context, and we're gonna toss it back to you because you still have the floor.

For context, um this I got some heavy suggestions from Councilman Hill and Councilman Burrs, and just feedback in general about the constituent services piece.

That piece has largely been rolled back as request from that, and it's solely a legislative affairs position at this point.

Uh to help us focus on our policy.

That is that is a variant of I'm from what was initially proposed to us.

That is correct.

Uh I'm gonna toss it back to Councilman Dollar.

Uh that was it, that was all my questions.

I think y'all for breaking that up to the rest of the year.

Anybody else seeking to be recognized?

Councilman.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Reason for removing the constituent services, I had gotten just a lot of feedback from uh the two conversations we had had previously.

Uh I think we had this last May or June, and then even in our most recent uh conversations, we had a lot of folks who were resistant against the having dual roles.

If I recall correctly, there were concerns about duplication of work with what um Kim Strong did in the mayor's office.

And so that was highly suggested for multiple people.

Now, my original proposal, I wanted to have both.

Now that was that was the raw uncut version.

And so what I am presenting now is the compromise version to hopefully get something over the hump.

But if there is a desire to put some of those items back in there on the floor, I am open to that.

But this is something that I've worked with and got feedback from colleagues, and this is the consensus I've gotten so far.

So when it was brought back before us, what was the top-out salary on that?

What was it?

The original top out, I couldn't remember the top out, but originally I'm sorry.

But do you remember Chief Green?

I believe when we initially started this, that 1.5 with the benefits was what was suggested, or as a salary.

I think y'all are comparing this to Dylan Rivera's position.

He's the director of policy and implementation of the mayor's office.

He makes 85,671 currently.

Um look at this, let me see.

He's a not he's an MPAP, so if he does not have a range, because if they're appointed, MPAP means that they're they're an appointed person, so there's no range for that, you're designated a salary from the mayor.

So for context as well, when I embarked on this, we did get a pay study from uh HR to compare it to like positions across uh other municipalities of our size, and they had a range.

I can pull that up again or have it ready for next week for discussion.

Uh my original proposal, I think it was a GS 22, if I'm not mistaken, and that starting salary, the starting salary was 105.

But after feedback, what you'll see, and this is I believe this is what I presented last time, the um salary was rolled down to GS 17, and the base for that is 91.

Okay.

Okay, one second.

Oh, councilman postful has to fall.

Oh and councilman Clark wants to top it out at 11.

As a part of a compromise, but I I was not aware that the constituent service component have been taken out.

And that's again I don't know if it's an email that was and I probably have missed it, but I I do believe that we need to go.

We have not gotten it, that we need to go back and revisit that.

And I although I do respect the opinions of my two colleagues, there this is a nine-member council.

Um and I'd like to have that conversation about how that could possibly be a hybrid uh to encompass those skill sets that we need in both legislative policy and constituent services, which is possible those roles do exist in other legislative municipal bodies throughout the country.

It's not abnormal.

Uh but what is abnormal if we do not pay them the comparable rate, especially if we're willing or trying to fill that position internally, meaning that someone would transfer into that position, then the 110 I thought was a compromise to the 125 to Dillon's, but it has changed.

And so my proposal, which is I think should be opened up for discussion, is that one that component the constituent service component should be added back in there, and that we should top that salary out at 11 is my proposal.

I'm one of nine.

So I'll just say that.

And um really quickly, are you you good on that one?

I am thank you, Mr.

And I'm good too.

Thank you, sorry.

Councilman Harvey.

And then go ahead.

Um yield.

Councilman Henderson.

Councilman, when you're saying one ten.

You're talking about a that for the base salary.

That's for the base and the fringe, because the c I'm sorry, go ahead.

110 plus fringe, or that would be all in fringe and base salary.

That has to be up the way.

Wait, I'm sorry.

Well, because I think what I understood them to say if people I'm saying one and the colour.

And so whatever that tops out at.

But you just confused me.

Plus the colours cost of living.

Right, I'm saying like that's for when you're considering future budget-wise.

I'm trying to figure out.

I think what Councilman Henderson is asking, are you also including the benefits?

Is that what you're asking?

I'm trying to figure out if we're all in at 11 and the base salary is 30% less.

Yes.

85?

No.

No.

You're saying one tenth is the base, and you add the 30% on top of those 10.

That's like 148.

Okay.

So what I understood.

Ms.

Green to say is that Dylan was at 85 as base.

Which is I thought was a comparable role here.

No.

I got you have a list.

Well, but let me back up.

Okay.

We are using Dylan now because he changed it and we don't know that it was changed.

Before we were using Dylan, the comparable role was Cam Strong's uh director of constituent services support.

Is everybody on the same page with that?

So when I when we were initially presented this, it was presented with the constituent service support role in there.

Okay, is that correct?

Am I not?

Okay.

And so when we look when we're talking about comps of the person that's already in that position, and I'm so sorry to do this to Kim.

That position, I think was that one oh your 105 or 104.

104.

And so those were the comps that we were using.

Now today we are being notified that it has changed.

And so what I'm saying is that I am open to that discussion.

If we need to reconsider if it's the 104, 510 with the comps with the French, I'm open to that, but I'm saying I think we need it to be a hybrid of the policy and the constituent support like we had initially discussed, and then we can have the conversation about what comp we want to use as far as if it includes the 110 plus the fringe, which in this case, if we're using the comp with Kim, it does not, if that makes sense.

Did I?

Yeah.

Councilman.

Yeah.

I think we just need more information clarity about what this position was.

Right.

Um because I mean I yeah, if you're gonna throw if you're gonna throw constituent services in with policy, you're you're talking about a hybrid, I guess, positional portion.

And I want to be on the record, I would not support the position without I'm just gonna put it out there.

I'm not gonna kick the can down or all next summit.

I'm just gonna let you know I'm not supporting it without the constituent service.

So next on the list is Councilman Daly.

I already asked my question.

You're good?

Yeah, yeah.

Councilman.

Thank you.

Um I think for me, as I studied this, um, after our last strategic planning when we discussed it and we were asked to provide feedback to councilman Elliott, that's exactly what I did.

So I agree, we're each we're each one of nine members, and part of getting work done on behalf of the city is providing feedback, and councilman Elliott sounds to me like he's trying to get to five votes.

And he knows, and you all know, I'm not going to vote in favor of this if it's a position that I think will be overpaid and underutilized.

So I feel strongly that this needs to contribute to our overall city council office functioning and not create some kind of confusion as it has in the past.

So you know, uh Mandy talks a lot about how HR, you know, you're moving people up and things like that.

Like the HR policies at the city are very thoughtful in that way.

So as I consider this position, what I think about is we have we have two different types of work.

We have legislative research support.

We need a what I think we need is a researcher.

I don't I'm not looking for us to hire a lobbyist right now.

You know, we need a researcher, and a researcher is not somebody who it doesn't have to be somebody where I mean we've said in this we want three years of experience.

Well, just about any poly sci graduate coming out of college has three years of experience in research that if they've been doing internships, right?

The other piece is constituent services, or an enhanced um council member support service is what I that is what I see.

Our staff, our top staff is a GS11.

I do not think it is appropriate for us to hire anyone into our office at more than our current leader who is doing an excellent job.

Nicole is doing fantastic work for this department.

Um she is a leader within the city, and I want to be fully supportive of her and respect the way that she says she manages the department.

Our other two staff are at GS6 and GS4.

So my suggestion when I looked at this, and I I gave a lot of feedback on it.

I would like to see something that what I asked Councilman Elliott to consider was bringing to us a legislative researcher only position.

I believe what I I called it a legislative support specialist.

Um's primary role is to provide research and technical support to council persons for their legislative priorities with strong research skills, organization and project management being some of the key things.

Um, that meet the council, we do have council people I recognize who are very interested in additional support services for constituent needs that we offer an advancement opportunity to a high functioning, a high performing employee within our own office.

Because right now, and I'm happy to share GS11, GS6, and GS4 with you, but I think you will see that there is real opportunity for greater greater um salary.

Uh I think a raise would be appropriate to say if you would like to take on, if you would like by choice to take on these additional responsibilities, then you would get a raise with that responsibility.

So we would effectively get both.

We would add one person in the legislative support specialist role, and we would add additional support for the council in the form of giving um giving a person within our own office an opportunity for advancement.

That is what I suggested or what I shared as feedback with Councilman Elliott in a timely manner after we had the last strategic planning session.

So I personally yeah would would be able to get pretty excited about some folks at a GS 6, GS7 level for this work.

Thank you.

That's all.

Councilman Hart.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, or appreciate respect what you're saying, Councilman Clark and Council, Councilwoman Hill.

Um I think you know, Councilman Clark, you and I have talked a lot in the last few weeks about how many legislative things that we've got on our mind that we want to accomplish.

And it's a lot, and you multiply that by non-council members, and that's a big undertaking.

Then you add constituent services to it, and then you know that's that's a ton of stuff that this one person's gonna have to do.

And I fear that adding that will take away from what we want to accomplish legislatively.

Uh it's gonna take away from their time because as you know, I mean, we're inundated with uh constituent requests in both works, and it's it's almost all that we can handle uh doing just that.

And so I think uh with the the excellent work that Kim Strong does letting her handle constituent services and it mainly uh another point is we pretty much rely on the administration 100% to get these constituent services and public works things done.

We we just it's the function of the executive branch of government, and so keeping that with Kim Strong, I think would take would allow this person to have more time, uh as Councilwoman Hill said to research these things and help us draft these pieces of legislation and push them through quicker than if they have to deal with getting a road paved somewhere and calling a constituent falling up on uh a request of stormwater or whatever it is, and so um with that proposal.

I I tend to uh uh agree more with and and I like councilwoman what you said about giving opportunity to our current staff for advancement.

Um so so again, I think it it it it opens the door um if it does become you know too much for for Kim to handle all of that that if we want to offer that to a another council member who's currently with us, not only if it's it's advancement, but it's also meeting in the middle a little bit uh because then they can handle some constituent requests.

So I I like that idea.

Um if we do go with uh just this person being a legislative aid, I have to agree.

I think meeting it with what Dylan's making at 85 is is very comparable.

Um, and again, even at that level, um, that person will be making more than our council clerk, and we don't want that to be a uh an issue.

Um I just shared uh the the pay with everybody.

I just oh okay, all right, very good SETA GS11.

So I like this idea, I like this idea.

I think it's something we need uh as a council because again, we've we've talked about a lot of things that we want to accomplish legislatively, and uh to have that person focus on just that, I think uh would be an extreme benefit to us.

So um that those are my thoughts.

You good, councilman?

I'm good, thank you.

Councilman all.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

First of all, um I guess I missed the memo where this has become a competition between Nicole and the office staff that we have here now.

Uh should not be.

It is totally two different skill sets for this position and what our council staff do now.

Now to put extra work on the council staff that we have now, whether it's um allowing them to uh say I want to do this or not, there's nothing wrong with our three staff that we have now, so there's no need to go and fiddle with that because it's not broken.

The position requires different skill set than what our council people have now, and why?

Why I mean who's to say that whomever this person is cannot make more than the other three people that's here.

I'm confused on that.

It has nothing to do with our three ladies we have here now, nothing to do with that.

That person as a legislative person, as a constituent service in there or taken out, it is still different skill set.

We do not want to overtake.

If we want to do anything for our three ladies here, then give them a raise now for what they do.

Because they do a lot now without adding anything on to it.

I don't understand what it's come want to break your back type of thing.

It it makes no sense to me.

So it is no competition, it is a position.

A position for legislative and or constituent services.

It has nothing to do with what job anyone of the others are doing or not doing.

It has nothing to do with that.

So stop making it a competition.

It it does not need to be there.

Just vote on it, put it in there, and I along with Council McClark, the constituent service part should be in there.

It should be in there.

And and the fact that we always want to lowball any person that has a position, you want to lowball them.

I know nobody, I wouldn't want to come in here and do all that for would you do it for 110,000?

Yeah, would could could you would you do it for that?

Yes, ma'am.

So then I mean, then you can have it.

But I'm just saying the struggle is real.

Uh death prices are high.

Foo is high.

So no, you can't uh don't just don't make it a competition between them because it's not.

It is an added position.

That's all it is.

It's an added position.

It should not be compared to the other three individuals that you must chair.

Council for context would have 10 minutes.

I just want to then councilwoman burst.

I will be very brief because I want to respond to some of the things you said, and and I agree with I agree with you and Councilwoman Noel, but I want to put this in its proper framework.

Um that it is supply and demand.

Meaning that this is a position that this council after the election, some of us felt maybe less than, I'm not sure what the what the road to five is, I don't know.

But as a part-time council person, our roles, we are here part-time, but as you all know who are in this role, the demand on us is a full-time responsibility.

And I think Kim Kim Strong was with me yesterday at Washington Hills.

Um, and she shows up with us in those constituents because we get overwhelmed.

We walked away with 10 support items.

In my role as a part-time councilperson, unless we want to have that discussion to make us full-time.

This is a capacity request to help us do better at our jobs as council people.

Not saying that we don't currently, but this is a supply and demand request, and it may not be Kim, it may, I don't know who's gonna be in the position.

I don't really care.

But what I'm saying is is that it is not abnormal, Cody, for councils to have the type of support staff in comparison to some of our peer cities.

Most council people have three or four people that work for each of them.

This is I believe that as a council, we are understaffed for the work that we should be doing, that I don't think some of us are doing.

That's just out of dig.

What I'm saying, there's more support that we can give, but I don't want to compare that to something that's completely unrelated to the fact that our support staff only gets paid 21 dollars per hour.

I don't know if you knew that.

So I don't want to put this in the same boat because I think we still have a task to figure out why our support staff is comparable to the workers at Walmart or Amazon in their full time.

That's a different conversation that should not be cobbled with this capacity request to help us do our jobs better.

So that's a secondary conversation I think we should be having in our council budget.

And if the position is approved, and one of those support staff people wishes to apply for, then they could.

I'm not against that, but the clerk position is the clerk's position.

And it is comparable to what clerks in our state get paid in our region, and it would be a comp she would not be getting paid the same as someone who has a different skill rate because she's a clerk.

So I don't care if it if she if that position tops out above the clerk, because a clerk versus this skill set would be totally different if she were in another city or state.

And so my request again to put this in a framework has nothing to do with Nicole, has nothing to do with the clerk's pay.

It is has everything to do.

We're asking for an additional position, no different from the executive branch, by the way, which we can have that conversation if y'all want about positions that we could use from the executive branch to support us in the legislative branch, but that's a different committee time.

But I just want to make sure that in this hearing or this budget hearing that it is clear that we're requesting the 110 in conjunction to what's going to be on the agenda, so that because we've been we've been talking about this position for a long time, and we need to move it across the goal line and make a decision and go from there.

Councilman Burris.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I think that um just as we consider this, it would be helpful to look at the job descriptions for the positions we already have, because in my comments to um in my comments back to councilman Elliott was let's look at what we already what the job descriptions say for our three staff currently because a lot of those things, not a lot of them, but several of the points that were brought out in the job descriptions, job description for this position are already spelled out in the job descriptions for our staff.

So revisiting their district descriptions so that we're not bringing in somebody to do work that's already been spelled out in another job that's already on staff, and and if we need to look at their pay to increase it so that it's so I'm kind of mine my comments are kind of a hybrid of everything, and I appreciate the conversation.

So for example if I look at I'm just pulling out the the job descriptions for here's here's the clerk schedules meetings appointments social obligations and interviews notifies individuals and groups of meeting dates times and purposes so some of the things that were in the job description for the constituent services piece of that are spread out over the three job descriptions for our council staff.

So I think I think we need to bring that piece into the mix and if if the right call is to bring in another supportive person whether it's legislative and or constituent services that were that we're taking into consideration some of the responsibilities that already are on our council staff staff that we just don't take advantage of.

So where are we not taking taking advantage of the resources that we already have available to us and that we just weren't aware you know for us five that were you know thrown in not thrown into this we chose this position five five you know a little over a year ago we were thrusted right into budget and then into doing our job and to tell you the truth until councilman elliott brought this before us I never went back and looked at their job descriptions and I was kind of like okay I've got to rationalize this so I think that um as we continue this conversation over the next couple weeks I'm happy to share with each of you I went through and highlighted the areas in on those job descriptions that parallel the job description that councilman Elliott uh proposed to us so where we see where we could pull away from one and and again if it's a pay increase maybe that's part of the mix so that we can get the right person to supplement what we need and maybe it's at not at as a higher rate but we're making sure that our current staff is being properly compensated.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you Mr Chair um councilman I appreciate everybody's robust conversation council budget um I didn't expect it to go all in this deep dive and count Chairman Davis I'm sorry because I didn't blindside you on that one either so that take my fault but I think it's called work as well no I want people the tent for this is for people to be prepared as to what to expect and potential changes that could come to our council budget I appreciate everybody's robust conversation I'm sure we're going to continue this next week or whenever the chairman allows us to have this on the agenda um if he approves this ahead of time you guys will get uh information including the proposed job description and some of the other items that are mentioned today well in an advance of the meeting just so you can have kind of have your head wrapped around what to expect and we can continue this robust compensation from there.

But uh aside from this policy position are there any questions on our council budget as it stands okay um I appreciate you guys and with four minutes to the judges uh I think we covered that earlier um council for spare time unless you guys have any pressing questions regarding city judge and what they have going on I'll forego that and as Chairman Henderson mentioned earlier if we need to circle back and reconsider it there's the appropriate time then but lesson thank you for that but we're good from city judge from after uh if all he's lines are clear that go and read it we are adjourned until 1230 and then we'll pick up what community vote okay

Alright, council.

We'll go ahead and get started with community development.

Excited to have this uh to be the chair of community development this year.

If I open up with my little opening remarks, and then I turn it over to I knew uh well, not new, but administrator uh Cedric Hansen.

So good afternoon, uh chair and colleagues.

When people think about core city services, they often think first of fire police or public works.

But the community development department represents something just as essential.

The people center work that strengthens the foundation of our city every single day through the Office of Community Health, Office of Family Empowerment, Community Engagement, and Community Center.

This department touches the lines of Chattanoogans in ways that are both visible and deeply personal.

Community development houses some of our city's greatest amenities, while also providing critical support services, workforce development opportunities, youth and programming and initiatives that address both the physical and social needs of our residents.

These teams are often the face of the city and our neighborhoods.

They understand the pulse of our communities, the challenges of our residents our residents face, and the opportunities that exist to create lasting impact.

Under the leadership of our new administrators, Cedric Hansen, with a strong focus on quality programming, efficiency, accountability, and measurable outcomes.

We are continuing to build a stronger Chattanooga by creating an ecosystem of holistic support that empowers individuals, strengthens families, improves public health outcomes, and creates safer, more connected communities.

This department is still in a building stage, so please get that in mind.

But the momentum and impact are clear.

As we move forward, it is important that our investments remain intentional so this work can continue to grow and meet the evolving needs of our city.

With that in mind, I turn it over to the community development administrators to present the FY27 budget.

And I'll kind of run through the slides that we've been doing to color.

So their their budget in total was a decrease of 100 and right around 134,000.

And then they also had the COVID and the benefits.

In 27, that line is gone, and now that has been moved to kind of personnel and other areas where they anticipate using those funds, right?

So the money's not gone, it's just been reallocated to instead of having it in one line item, like it was in 26, it's now in salaries or in employment agencies or in other operations programs services.

So you'll see the 500,000 going away.

It's really just a reallocation of that money.

Because when we booked it in 26, we didn't know exactly where it was going to be spent, and now we have an idea of where to put that in the budget.

And then you'll see employment agencies increase 250,000, and a portion of that is related to that gun violence prevention expansion.

Again, position changes.

We have three new positions in this budget, uh, three assistant directors of community centers, a lifeguard, and a manager of community safety and community safety and gun violence prevention.

So I'll pause for a minute.

All right.

So councilman Elliott.

Cedric, can you describe a little bit more the um the scope of work for these new assistant directors?

Yeah, thank you for that, councilman.

Yes, and so so these positions, it's while in this year's budget, it will look like new positions.

This is something that a level of leadership that has historically been inside of the Department of Community Development.

Um it's it's right now what we have uh we we had uh some positions that were there that have been pulled, and what we've saw is essentially a 19 to one ratio to where all of our community center managers are reporting directly to the deputy administrator.

Uh and so what this is what this is essentially has done is is really took uh you know executive level and strategic leadership, you know, the why, uh, and now has the deputy administrator really into the tactical day-to-day firefighting of the how uh things are getting done.

Uh and so what we're trying to do is just right size through this realignment.

Uh, we we kind of I spoke about it uh in in a previous um in a previous uh discussion with you all at council on what the reorganization of the or of of community development looked like, and this was a critical piece of it because uh what we're end up doing is it's just really slowing down some of the operational efficiencies inside of the department by not having this level of leadership uh and now bringing that back.

What it'll do is basically put uh two community resource hubs and four community centers uh in a region, and then we'll essentially have three regional managers throughout the city that are that are managing the uh community centers as well.

So if I can if I'm describing the org chart, all the centers fall under the deputy, correct?

Correct.

And then under the deputy, there will be three new assistant directors, correct, correct, each representing X amount of community centers.

Okay, and so currently, and for for many of the organizations within the city, the deputy administrator controls division directors across all of our all of our departments.

The deputy has divisions, uh the deputy has divisions and community development, but oh, by the way, this level of leadership was stripped out in a previous reorganization, and so now it created to where you have division directors and this long line of managers that are also reporting to to the deputy administrator.

So you know the deputy administrator currently has 24 direct reports, and just from being able to truly wrap um uh arms around our community centers and provide you know good oversight and leadership, that there's a there's a gap there that has to be shorter.

What is their responsibilities going to be?

And how many roughly will each one be managing in terms of assistant directors?

So three will two will uh have six and then one will have seven to include the senior center uh of community centers.

So that's that's how many direct reports they'll have, which is by HR business practice what we what we look to try and have.

Okay.

What is the responsibility on the so their responsibilities will really start focusing in on you know that that overarching programming, you know, being able to ensure as we look at building out how we do programming and turn that to where it's really more outcome-based programming, uh they'll they'll be able to really drive that home.

They're also looking at you know the daily maintenance, partnering with facilities management, being able to make sure that you know all of the projects that are happening inside of the facility, uh, they're doing those as well.

It's it's still leading and guiding you know those community center managers from one-on-one perspective, uh, and and then taking those, you know, just being that strategical bridge of what we're doing in terms of of big projects and and uh um strategic guidance that we're bringing down, being able to translate that into the how into those centers so that everybody's all on the same sheet of music.

We've we found that we've created some silos by having so many community center managers, you know, 19 community center managers directing up to one.

We've created some silos within community centers as well, and so this level of leadership will help kind of dissolve some of that.

Just for clarity, this these assistant directors will be driving, not the actual center managers, correct?

Uh no, that they'll be driving, they'll be driving the work that the center managers are doing as well, or supporting you know the the center managers in their work as well.

The reason I asked a series of questions, no, we were in a position a couple years ago where this department had a ton of bureaucracy, and just a lot of positions with not a lot of clear work product, and I just don't want us to fall back in the position where we have a whole lot of folks with a lot of I can I know what the center managers making, and I know these positions are probably gonna be knocking on six figures or close to it.

And those roles, I just want to make sure that if we're gonna support the the work that there's work to do, and you don't have a whole bunch of people with six centers sitting back, have nothing to do, or even micromanaging even more the people we've entrusted to leave the actual centers.

You see what I'm saying?

I do, I do, and I and and I I appreciate that, councilman, because you know the pace that the department is is going uh going towards and the trajectory that that I'm saying, this is where we this is where we need to be.

Uh I I think it's important to understand that community center managers are going to be asked to do more than they've done.

They've had to be asked to do in a long time.

Uh and and because of that, being able to create some of that, you know, support structure is going to be important for us to be able to do uh because they are they are really going to be what they're great at being able to look inside and handle the day-to-day, uh, but but how we bring in partners, how we bring in uh, you know, Blue Cross Blue Shield has a great wellness program that we want at this community center, uh, and and keeping those and keeping those partnerships intact and keeping those more uh partnerships built, you know, who's doing that?

Me having the expectation that one of my community center managers can manage the day-to-day, at the same time be able to, you know, build some of those relationships, keep those going, understand what's going on inside of the high schools, uh, you know, in their areas and being able to have that that communication piece there, all of that is going to be kind of built in and shared in the responsibilities of different leaders.

So it just allows us to be able to again take those, you know, strategic you know, initiatives and objectives that we have, and then build that bridge to translate that into the what and how that's being that that's being handled on the ground level.

Okay, last thing, I just um this manager uh community safety and gun violence, is that grant funded?

No, that will be general funded.

Okay.

And so though those are the dollars we talked about, the reallocation, those are the dollars from that reallocation to uh pay for that position.

And that manager position is in support of uh us expanding the violence interrupters uh throughout the city, just taking them out of that typical corridor and then spreading it out.

That manager will be in support of correct.

Thank you.

Right, council, any other questions?

Councilman Harvey?

Is that with the 423 chain breakers?

Correct.

Okay, yeah.

Right?

Yes, Council I'll yield to uh councilwoman.

Okay, councilwoman heal, followed by council McClark.

Thank you.

So Weston, I'm I'm confused about our community health and our gun violence prevention because they they've been moved out of line items.

Tell me what the administration's vision is for this and where they live now.

So the community health lives currently in community development.

That was done in an amendment last year in that 26.

Okay.

Okay.

So does that is that it's not considered a division anymore of community development, like as I look at this list, community centers, office of community of family empowerment, and community health is a division or no?

It's a division.

Okay, okay.

And then the gun violence was in community health.

You see community health.

Okay.

Okay.

Moving from administration all over the place.

Okay, that's very helpful.

So the growth then in the administration line, the 388 in that growth, that is because of these three new middle managers.

The um the I sorry, I didn't have the exact name of what you're calling them.

Are you on I'm looking at the B 177 broken down?

Because when I look at the when I look at the general, I studied the entire ordinance first to kind of get the bigger view.

And so I saw that administration was up almost 400,000.

And so what I think I'm understanding is that that is for the three new middle managers.

And and it's it's also some of this, what you'll see changes is also bringing personnel from the reord from last year's from FY26 budget, uh, bringing those individuals inside of our budget as well.

So it's it's some folks that had moved around internally that we we shift, for instance, um executive assistant and Kim and Kim.

Uh, you know, she's my executive assistant now.

She was under community engagement, moved her over into administration, and so now she sits her position rest inside of administration as well.

Okay.

So the line, the community safety and gun violence prevention has gone down by 225,000, give or take.

And we said that we're moving 500.

We brought our community engagement line down by 410.

So you were saying that y'all were piecemealing it into different things.

So Cedric, can you help me understand?

Yeah.

So where the uh community safety and gun violence dollars ended up uh being spread out, that 500,000 allocation specifically went to space costs.

There's some space cost lines that that have now increased uh by that uh employee agencies, uh temp employment agencies uh got the bulk of those dollars, uh, and then we also um uh put the the about 117 for the actual gun violence present uh prevention manager position, uh and then the remaining of it went to program expenses that they'll be doing inside of so how will our gun violence safety gun violence prevention team how will they use temporary employees?

Uh that's what that is how we'll hire.

So it will be no new positions added for that that uh though those violence interrupters, they will be hired through the TEM agency.

That's part of it.

I maybe it's not in here and Kevin might be able to speak to it, but I think they're the city has some rules around background checks and different things when we do hiring, and so some of the folks that we're employing in these roles don't quite meet those because of just the timeline of their their pat because of their past, and so we have to go through this employment agency process.

Okay, that makes sense.

Okay.

That's correct.

Okay.

And then in the um individual line items for the centers, what do those costs represent?

Is that utilities?

What is that?

Yes, it is, it is.

Um councilwoman, that is a makeup of not only utilities but also program expenses are inside of their uh both recreational equipment and recreational services are included uh in those numbers as well.

Okay, the other thing I wanted to thank you for that specifics.

The other thing I wanted to um better understand is what you're thinking about for um how you want to evolve because certainly how our community used a community center 40 years ago is different and 50 and 60 years ago is different than it is now, and I thought I I'd like to better understand which are the six community centers that will be community resource hubs, and then what this um virtual classes is all about.

Okay, uh yeah, thank you for that, councilwoman.

Uh and so you know the department of community development, you know, we we I've had conversations with folks, and when I ask what do you think when when you talk about community development, some will say, well, you know, that's the place where we go cheap basketball, some says we'll go hang out, you know, and then what what the staff is doing inside of those buildings.

Um and and so you know, I've charged the team with one simple mantra, community support reimagined.

And so what we're looking at doing is really going back to human-centered services.

Uh, and so for community development, you know, there's there's a couple of things that we're laser focused on.

Uh external for us, it's it's the power and partnerships.

We understand that we don't necessarily have the capacity to be able to come in the building, do recreation, and then turn around and give a resume class and then turn around and give a cooking class.

Me having a program uh uh specialist that can do all of those things is not realistic.

So the power and partnership is going to be the way that we really model and shape our resource uh or our uh community centers moving forward.

And so it's it's about going out there and finding what we see as a resource rich city and nonprofit and community action agencies that are chomping at the bit to do good work in the city.

Uh and so bringing them into our community centers is goal one to kind of really get give well rounded uh well roundedness to our um our community center programming.

Uh but but then when it comes to programming, what we want to be able to do is be an outcome-based organization.

And so, you know, I I've I've had several conversations uh with folks, and what we need to be able to do is say we didn't just do a program because it brought a lot of people to it.

We need to be able to do a program because it had a real impact.

And so, you know, uh we've revamped how programming is submitted uh to the administration.

Uh and so now, you know, community center managers have the responsibility to really spell out first in understanding what the community needs.

You know, what are the desires and and what are the needs of that community?

And then when we see the need, what type of program can fill that gap?

Uh, and then once we're able to do that, be able to say, after we do this, how does it better that group that we that we attempted to target?

And so those are some of the things that that we really need to wrap our arms around uh and be able to produce in a more uh efficient manner within the department, and we've kind of laid out some strategic milestones to be able to do that.

Um, and then ultimately for the community resource hub, what we want to be able to do is create a model.

We understand that that because of physical constraints, just space constraints, uh, all of our community centers can't be community resource hubs.

So the way that we started this and being able to say, let's pile in the community resource hub is we look for some of our larger centers, and that we're in demographics that definitely needed, you know, a lot of that human center programming.

Uh and so right now we have you know, in uh East Lake is currently being piloted, uh, South Chattanooga, uh, Avondale, Carver, uh, Hickson, and then uh uh the Chris Ramsey are all going to be, you know, our initials as community resource hubs.

Uh but we're looking to expand them.

I want to be able, we we're taking a uh uh a close look at John A.

Patton.

Uh it's it's on an island.

So being able to, and they they got the space to do it to be able to say, okay, let's let's invest in in John A.

Patton as being a community resource hub as well is is what we're finalizing now.

And so that community resource hub, the big difference between a community center and and a community resource hub is simply consistency to the public.

Uh the community resource hub will be required Monday through Friday, that there are four categories that we looked at in community development, four buckets, if you will.

Health and wellness, uh, community support, social service, educational workforce development, and then recreation and quality of life, something we've been doing great for for years.

But out of those four buckets, what you'll know is every day you walk inside of a community center, a community resource hub, that will be happening.

There will be a program specifically for one of those four categories.

So very robust uh programming that's gonna be happening inside of our community resource hub, and then on top of that, we're going to invest in what we call resource row.

Uh, you'll see some dollars in our capital uh that that we're we're looking to uh invest in resource row.

And what resource row is, even with the physical constraints of a community center, what we're able to do is tap into the virtual space.

And so resource role will be a makeup of kiosks, uh, you know, computer stations and so on and so forth, uh, that we're able to activate and provide services through that virtual space uh whenever you come inside of a community resource hub.

Uh one of the greatest you know benefits and and and um partnerships that we have thus far is uh with the state of Tennessee and a driver's license kiosk.

And so on out of community resource hub.

You don't have to go all the way to you know Bunny Oaks or wherever to get your driver's license done.

You can come to the community center and get your driver's license done right there.

uh that we're able to activate and provide services through that virtual space uh whenever you come inside of of a community resource hub uh one one of the greatest you know benefits and and and um partnerships that we have thus far is uh with the state of tennessee and a driver's license kiosk and so on out of community resource hub you don't have to go all the way to to you know bunny oaks or or or wherever to to get your driver's license done you can come to the community center uh and get your driver's license done right there and so that's what resource role will look like you know uh bringing things like that inside of our community center to really give more teeth and backbone that separate kind of separates you know what that looks like uh from a standard community center to to our community resource thank you so one other question so you mentioned Monday through Friday and uh this is something that that I often hear from community groups um in my district about access to the community centers um you know great great majority of our community is committed in some other way from nine o'clock 7 30 to 6 o'clock at night um and and so they're looking for activities on Saturdays and Sundays and and even later in the evenings um for a typical salaried employee or hourly employee I would anticipate that we would run into some type of overtime situation is there a different way that you're able to hire people so that they know that their job is working uh Tuesday through Sunday or Wednesday through Sunday that is their work week yes yeah and and so I say it Monday through Friday comes we we're actually open on Saturdays uh a long period four hours on Saturday and that's what really makes our our uh personnel uh how we have to schedule very interesting because you know we're we're already operating off a six day work week uh and then because of that uh all of our centers at a minimum are open for eight hours some of them are open up to 11 hours so we we it it becomes a it becomes a moving target on how managers have to flex people's time in order to say hey not only are we you know our normal operating hours of Monday through Friday uh we we have to stay open but oh by the way who am I flexing this week to be able to to to be inside of the community center on Saturday as well we definitely can explore how we do that better and additional hours on a Saturday uh love to be able to to look at uh being able to do more of that and we I guess that that's one of the things that really comes to mind for me about how I I hypothesize how we use our centers has changed you know I mean my two centers the two centers in district two were both um probably packed with kids um after school and in the summer um 25 30 years ago and just what children do and how they spend their time is different now I would I would think that is similar in other parts of the city as well um and it feels to me like we our hours need to reflect community support reimagined and work backward from when our community needs them not from our how we've done it you know just just some thoughts um I know that um a previous community development chairperson was was frustrated at um getting solid feedback on like progress so are we headed in a better direction now to get good feedback from community development absolutely you've been in the chair now more than a year right well I I was confirmed in October but I've been I had a I had a little time to be able to uh run say I gotta run and start to see what was what was going on uh but but yes um councilwoman we we we came in and and and being able to look across you know uh different files and how we've done it in the past and um and really what I was looking for was where's the meat on the bone you know I I mean we did a great job in being able to say how many people came through the door you know we did a great job and and you know uh some of the numbers that we have uh just attendance uh but again you know shifting to to become an outcome based organization is a cultural shift it is you know I I was uh talking to a a uh uh a council person and and and was telling them about you know after this meeting today I'll be meeting with an individual that that's that's looking to bring some financial uh readiness workshops inside of the community center um and what outcome base uh looks like is when we're done I want to be able to say how many people increase their credit score that came that came to this that that's that's outcome driven program right and so so how we do that full transparency it wasn't it wasn't it's not there current um but but how we do that moving forward how we submit programs and designate outcomes for it is the standard for for community development moving forward we've also taken opportunity to to create what we call a community's community center uh report card and so it's it's just an assessment that quarterly every community center will be graded uh and inside of this um that those community centers uh a makeup of subject matter experts within the city risk and safety will be on the team uh as well as community advisory committee members so

Um but how we do that moving forward, how we submit programs and designate outcomes for it is the standard for for community development moving forward.

Um we've also taken opportunity to create what we call a community community center uh report card.

And so it's it's just an assessment that quarterly, every community center will be graded.

Uh and inside of this, um, that those community centers, uh, a makeup of subject matter experts within the city, risk and safety will be on the team, uh, as well as community advisory committee members.

So our constituents will also uh be on that team coming in and saying how we're doing inside, you know, what that looks like from an HR perspective, from a programming perspective for cleanliness of the facility, all the things uh we'll be able to say uh how we're doing, not to say gotcha, but just continue to better ourselves uh with inside of our community centers.

Thank you very much.

That's all Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman Hill and Council McLaren.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um I did have the pleasure in sharing this um committee, and thank you, uh, Councilwoman Dowley for taking over.

And I do have questions and concerns.

Um, I do want to take us back to last year.

Um, and to kind of give you all a caffeine boost here.

Last year, Chairwoman Hill to piggyback off of your statement about efficacy, right?

And we know what that word means when we have a desire for a particular amount of results.

And if you guys remember, Chair, I had the epic walkout, and they channeled and I was like, oh my God, it was over community development.

Um, and it wasn't because there was this perception that we wanted to cut community development, but we need community development to thrive.

I am a my family, we are victims of gun violence.

I don't know if you guys recall that my brother was murdered on Glass Street.

And so for me, it's a little personal, and serving as the chair in this position, I am a little disappointed by some of the outcomes because we don't have them.

And I remember in my epic walkout, if you guys recall even from the dais and chairing the committee, which sometimes y'all would gripe when we had those consistent uh monthly meetings jokingly, I know, but that was done on purpose so that we could highlight the wonderful things that you all were doing, but in order to do that, you are you have to show the wonderful things that you're doing.

Um, and what we call in in some of the public I work in public health, right?

We have to show what we're doing through evidence-based practices.

It is not uncommon to ask for OKRs or to ask for key performance indicators.

And I remember last year, Jenny and everybody when we talked about this, I was like, when we get back to this budget year, you all are going to have to show us the efficacy.

Like, what are the results?

And you, yeah, you were conformed, confirmed in October, uh, but we are in uh now May.

And so I just want to set that up as a framework to some of my questions because I'm not I'm not I do support community development.

I know there's sometimes this, I was at a one of your community centers last night, one of your staff people came up to me, goes, You trying to cut community development?

I'm like, no, not in a community where we need more community development, which is my concern.

Like, what do we do to make sure that the efficacy, even if it's a change in leadership, if it's a change and whatever, the dynamic, the reorg, this department has to work.

And I know councilwoman Dotley, uh thankful for her chairing this.

I know she's doing a tour of the community centers uh because we need community development work.

And so that's where my line of question is about to come at you with, and please keep them short and succinct if you don't mind.

Um my first question has to do with, and maybe this is a question for Weston, and this is probably just some lack of knowledge on my part.

In the budget, do these numbers include grant dollars?

Like, for instance, let me give you an example.

Please give me a short succinct uh answer.

And community safety and gun violence for proposed FY27, that's 1.257.

Is that and I think Councilman Elliott asked this number, does do any of these numbers include grant dollars?

Okay, gotcha.

So my second question then goes to the community safety and gun violence prevention manager, which is an added position.

Is that correct?

But we currently have a position that I think we just did a hire on, is that correct?

And what is that position and what is the difference between that position and the proposed community safety gun violence prevention manager?

So um Chris Sands, who was the executive director um for uh the team had the had that position.

We just recently hired that position, uh, and that position encompasses the entirety of the team.

This manager position uh is is just helping with the expansion of the violence interrupters team.

So that position, there's a director position, and now under that we are adding to the reorg and management position.

And what was the justification for that?

Like, did we expand the team that the manager would be managing?

Do we have more 423 chain breakers?

What is the justification to for the capacity build of that?

Yes, that that is that is the expansion.

So uh again, the 500,000 that was in the FY26 amendment uh was based on growing that team, and so now this is just this is just doing that.

This is more violence interrupters and then a manager to leave that.

Gotcha.

So there is you are hiring more violence interrupters.

Does that included in the 1.257 or in the additional grant funding for that or it's it's it's included in that some of the things that they will have will be supported by grant dollars, but it's it's included in that as well.

Okay, gotcha.

And my other question has to do on B179 as it relates, it's under operations, it's an expenditure that says services at 2.452 million.

What is the breakdown of those services?

Uh, because it's your it's one of your more larger expenditures outside of salary and wages.

So it's even higher than what we're doing in community safety and gun violence prevention.

Um if you go to let me make sure I'm on B1's uh B179.

If you go to B 181, there's a kind of a breakdown of of that larger number, starting on B181 and 182.

Thank you.

When I saw the crest, I thought that was the end of the of Oh, sorry.

Sorry, it's okay.

Sometimes y'all's presentation format throws me off.

Okay, my other question for you, Cedric, I have a list, infrastructure needs for the agent community centers.

Where in the line item does that address the capital needs for that?

Um our capital requests here are are the dollars that that we have.

Uh separate from this, when public works come and brief their budget, they will have community developments maintenance budget living inside of public works.

Gotcha.

So just for clarity, like when I look at some of the expenditures for because my my follow-up question is going to be what is the algorithm and how we come up with some of the uh price, the the amounts for the community centers, but for community center, it's gonna be clear on this for community center deferred maintenance or whatever you all are calling it, it has been spread out through different portions of the capital budget or public works, is what you're saying?

Correct.

Okay, gotcha.

All right, and my other question is if you go back to B 177, where for instance Chris uh Chris Ramsey Center, their FY27 is at 91,500, which I'm very fortunate for because it's in my district and has the highest allocation.

Um I would like to know how do you what is the algorithm in which you all come up with that number?

Is it based on the needs and services of that center or the capacity or the size of that can that center?

So right now uh our programming dollars um have been basically been basically have been fixed for individual centers in terms of just recreational services.

Utilities shift based on you know what you know, depending on the center.

Um you'll notice Chris Ramsey and Both Chattanooga have a higher um amount simply because they also are the ones that have pools.

Uh and so uh you know, realistically, when it comes to programming dollars, uh we have equally distribute those dollars between all of our communities.

Gotcha.

And has the the new reorg has that been sent out to council members?

I know I've seen it, I did not send it out while I was chair, but has that been distributed to council members where they see the the three assistant director positions with in within the org chart?

Okay, no, it has not.

Okay, can you send can you send that out?

I maybe councilwoman Dolly, Chairwoman Dolly.

If you could send out I would like for people to see that framework and that request um just so people can see how that factors into this realignment.

I I think it's interesting you guys are calling a realignment when it's really an increase.

But I would like for people to see that flow chart for your organization as a justification is why we need it alongside our because I think currently community development in that org chart will maintain its deputy, of course, you're you, the deputy, and an operations manager.

Is that correct?

Director of operations, correct.

And then the three assistant director positions.

Correct.

Okay.

Do you feel, and maybe this is where you can kind of go to a little bit more detail.

Does that seem a bit top heavy to you given the efficacy of the programming needs for the department?

No, I do I don't, you know, and when when you look across the board, I I guess, you know, um fire.

As a community center, we have a fire station that that are that supports our community.

That fire station has a fire captain.

That stations in your neighborhood is supporting your community.

Um in between that fire captain and the deputy for fire is three levels of leadership.

And so, you know, we're asking for the one.

Uh there is no difference in parts and outdoors currently has a division manner manager in between, you know, who's in charge of their different parks and how that feeds up.

So it's it's really not a level of leadership that that I see as you know, uh something that's overkeeled.

I think it's something that's absolutely a necessity for us to be able to take some strategic and then being able to shift that over to it to a tactical aspect.

Yeah, and I just want to say for the record, in comparison yourself to the other departments who also think are top heavy, as we get through the budget for those departments, I'll be asking them the same question as to why we have those extra layers of leadership that in my opinion, when we are asking our taxpayers to cut um and to be good stewards of our dollars, is this a time to be adding positions which for me seems might be a level of inflation in some of our leadership and just not for your department, but through across across the board, and and that is my budgetary ideology that when we can streamline things, especially when we're budgeting for outcomes or we're looking for evidence-based practices.

One of the things I would like to be comfortable with in supporting your budget requests is one, finally seeing what program results are.

I would love to see some of the grant um, I know and applying for some of those grant dollars for the community safety program that they're required to report some of those outcomes just for compliance with that grant.

Um, for me to be comfortable with this, and it's not a cut, but I think we I like the fact that you guys use the word realignment twice.

I think that is very much so appropriate for your department, but I would like to see what efficacy looks like or not.

Uh, but until then, you know, I'm not as comfortable with adding those positions.

Um, and I think we need to really look at where there's been areas of inflation to see if there could be some savings on that.

And that's just you know, my outlook from just looking at your budget proposal.

And that'll be it for me, uh council.

Okay, and just a little bit as a response to that, uh, because that was the issue, and I think that has been an issue across community development for quite some time.

What is the impact as opposed to numbers, just people showing up because we can all just show up to a center and sign in and be counted.

So what they've created uh with community engagement coming over into their department is there's a team of about two or three that actually are creating a program quality, what is it called?

Quality insurance quality.

Quality show quality program where they're gonna train all the center directors.

This is how you do your programs, these are the results we want to see.

They also are in the process of hiring a grant writer because you can't hire write grants if you don't have the data to support what you need the money for.

And so they are in the process of getting that rolled out, they're finishing up that now, the quality program assurance team or whatever they are.

So they're finishing up that now, and then they're gonna roll that out and train the community center managers how to do how to actually do it, uh, how to actually fill out the form and do all the different things they need to do for the program and being able to submit that back, because again, to your point, you know, grants, at the end of the day, they want results just like of course our taxpayers do.

And so that's one of the pieces that I'm I'm excited about.

I didn't know that until we we met a couple weeks ago.

So that is a place where I think in years of community development, we hadn't really seen, you know, that type of impact or whatever.

So we so we are moving in that direction.

It's just taking a little time um to get that programming done, but they're working on that, should have that resolved in Jessica.

Right, and I support that, and I think, you know, I think Cedric, you said something earlier that matter of fact, uh, Councilman Dowley, you said it, that you know impact is I think you use the word evolving, and I get that.

I'm I'm a certified grant writer for the you know, in order to do my job for the state, and I review grants, and part of when you're reviewing that you have to tell them what you're measuring and how you're measuring.

And what I'm saying is I I get that it is ING, it's go it is happening, but I also wanted to reflect on the fact that you know we've been in this, we're in another budget year.

Um, and what I expected to see as far as like how we measure that I have not seen, and I would like to see that moving forward in this year.

I'm glad to know that it's something y'all are thinking about or implementing.

Um, but I think we need to be a little bit more serious about what tool we are using to measure what success looks like for your department to justify adding, you know.

My mom used to tell me you can't, you gotta do what you have before I give you something more, and I feel like that that is um where how I feel with this department right now.

It's not to cut, but to look what strategic alignment looks like, uh, even if that's a realignment.

So anyway, that's it.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

And Council, I do want you to note the bottom line of this department is 133,000 cheap lower than last year.

Uh so we'll have councilwoman burst, councilwoman Elliott.

I'm councilman Elliott, I'm sorry, and then councilwoman heel, and we'll go ahead and get this wrapped up.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay.

Uh I just had a uh quick comment and a quick question.

Um Cedric, thanks for all you've done.

You pumped us left in eight months, and I know you still have a lot left to accomplish, but um, quick question.

Um will you just repeat the hubs?

Who which are the hub centers again?

Yes, it'll be uh Chris Ramsey, uh South Chattanooga, East Lake, Carver, uh East Lake, Carver, Avondale.

Okay, and Higgs.

And Hickson.

Okay, great.

And then just my comment, I'd love to hear that you're using uh looking to the nonprofits for what resources they can bring to the centers because that's another way to provide impact within the centers without increasing costs.

So I applaud you all because I know it's a group of people that have gone out and said, what can we bring into the centers that doesn't impact our bottom line?

So I love hearing that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman Burris, Councilman.

I'm gonna do councilwoman Elliott.

I'm so sorry.

Councilwoman Hill.

Uh, because councilman uh councilwoman healed and councilman Elliott.

I'm so sorry.

Um I apologize by Chair Elliott.

Okay, go ahead, Councilman Hill.

Thank you, ma'am.

So I'd like to look you up on the chair.

I do want to point out that in FY25, two budget cycles ago, this was a department with a 9.5 million dollar budget.

And now we're at 5.39 million dollars more than that.

So community development has grown by virtue of putting some other department resources into this department, um, which adds to the call for leadership and and guidance from you, Cedric.

Um, and I'm very I'm hopeful.

Um and something that I'm thinking about is I I do have questions about what's being accomplished with the one plus million dollars we've got for community health.

What's happening in Office of Family Empowerment, what's really going on with our our gun violence work, all of that like to me, all of that matters, but right now we're so concerned about the functionality and getting return on investment in our community centers.

That um I guess my my call to the rest of your department would be get ready because once y'all have your community centers, we're gonna be looking real hard at these others because I think all of this discussion has focused on those 18 centers, right?

Um I'll share some comments to come off after this about some experiences we've had recently that you probably want to know about.

That's all you already thank you, Councilwoman Hill, and Councilman Ely.

Thank you, madam chair.

Cedric, I'm echoing some of the questions uh sentiments of my colleagues, council uh councilman Clark, Councilman Hill, and uh Dotley.

You know, this department's had so much instability for the last several years.

And I don't care who took it over, it was gonna be a large task for anybody.

And so we all have a lot of interests and concerns because it's also probably the department we hear from the most, right?

Um our constituents are always in these centers in some form of fashion.

Um these groups, especially center employees are not uh shy about letting the voices be heard by no means it's good.

You know, I appreciate they feel safe enough and comfortable enough to have those conversations.

The thing that I ask, and I think we're we're all looking for tell the story, right?

Tell the story of what is happening, give us clarity, allow us to see the numbers, and some of it is hard.

I get right.

I worked in OFE for a while.

It's sometimes hard to tell the story of social services work, right?

But figure out a way that we can hear some of these things that some of our colleagues are pushing, so everybody can have a peace of mind.

You're able to tell that story, you probably won't ever hear from us at some point, but you have a lot of people that are interested that we just don't know, right?

I know when this is before Dr.

Anderson even got here, when Officer Community Health was created, it was created with a four million dollar grant that was completely grant funded.

I think Mayor Kelly applied for that before he even officially got inaugurated, if I remember correctly.

And I don't even know what's grant funded, I don't know what's general funded, right?

And we we just don't know, right?

You got thrown into this baptism by fire, and you're trying to drive a department, but help uh help us see it clearly because this is the only department that's probably had so much adjustment and movement over the years, and particularly centers.

It's not even just uh last few years thing.

The these centers have always been in flux for well before most of us probably got an office, and it's it's a it's not fair, right?

I think we have to understand that it's uh the instability of leadership has to fall on us, and I've not just council but administration of people and leadership to provide some type of support and stability for our our teams.

And I know you guys are going into this with the will of trying to do that.

I just asked, tell us a story.

Show us what we what we need to see, but do it sooner rather than later.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, yeah.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair Elliott, and uh we got councilman Henderson, and then we'll wrap up.

I have a few storytelling slides for you all.

Uh you mentioned community advisory committee a few minutes ago.

Could you circle back and make sure that all of them are functioning the way they were intended to function?

Yes.

Yes.

And you know, we with everything else, us taking a look at how we best use community advisory community is just there.

Uh and you know, for me and what I've charged the team with is I want I want that group to not only be that feedback loop, but help with help with how we do things.

Policy and procedure.

I I want their input on how we do those things as well.

Um, because uh ultimately our community centers are just the microcosm of our communities, and so you know uh them being involved in some of that is is important to me.

So we want to stand up our volunteer uh management program and start bringing more volunteers inside of the community center to help with the deficit of personnel and things and nature, maybe get after extending hours and things of that nature, and so I want them to be a part of how does that volunteer program uh look like and how do we want to build that out.

So uh both a feedback loop and and policy and procedure driven is is the way that I'm leaning towards the community uh advisory.

Just just make sure they're all functioning the way they're supposed to or intended to.

Thank you, Councilman.

Okay, thank you so much, Councilman Henderson.

Uh so with that, as any other we're done with questions.

If y'all got questions, email me, please.

We have the 26 to make it up.

Uh so as we close, I also want to take a moment to highlight the impact of our community centers.

Do you have anything else with it?

I just uh we touched on it very briefly, but the capital that lives within community development.

Um a list of those there for you guys.

They're also in the budget book in the back.

Uh just to make sure we highlight that.

And then part of that is kind of the deferred maintenance, and there's a slide in here on that.

Um, but together.

Um again, it's you guys have access to this.

But so it has been my goal since I've been community development chair is to visit all 19 centers.

It's 19, right?

Okay, 19 centers across the city.

And as of today, I have visited six of them.

So I've covered districts one through four.

Uh have not been in Hickson that much in my life.

Uh, but have an end on shoulder.

I don't even know how to do that.

But it is it's the one time every four years I can fit into my genes.

Because I mean, that was going to that Frank, was it Francis B.

Wyatt?

That was a task.

But it is my goal to offer this support to our administrator and the staff to make sure that they know that they, you know, I understand the needs of council.

I've been here five years.

Some of us have been here longer and have seen the shifts in community centers, the community development department as a whole.

And so I want to make sure that I'm offering that support and that feedback as well to our great administrator.

Now, while each center has its own unique character and strength, they all share the same mission creating quality programming and welcoming spaces for Chattanooga of all ages.

So in District One, John A.

Patton, I just want to highlight this as kind of the end of it, just so y'all know there is work being done.

We are out there at John A.

Patton Center, not only serves the community through programming, but also through a community pantry and clothing closet.

I met uh two wonderful ladies, Miss Claudette and Miss Bonnie, and they show gave me a tour of the pantry of the clothing closet, which is my pictures are just my pictures, but it is great.

It's like a boutique.

It is amazing in there.

They're uh probably the best auditorium I've seen with carpeted.

It says a lot about councilman Henderson.

I always say if you're gonna have one center in your district, it better be good.

Uh, and so it is oh, you know, Councilman Harvey.

Uh so but it had it does need work, but it has so much potential, and it is huge.

They have three rain gardens on site that helps with uh the surface, the surface water running off from John A Pat and they have a really good program tutor.

Um, and what we understand they've been helping them.

Uh parents have seen a noticeable increase in TCAP scores from there.

They uh Threads of Hope uh is the store.

I think that's the night they're shooting around with the name, and they have strong volunteer support, and a turf is tentative for June 26th.

I think that thanks to Councilman uh Henderson, right?

You turn it up yes, so that's district one.

So I wanted to tell some of these stories because I didn't know all this was going on in y'all centers uh till I got a chance to get out.

Francis B.

Y community centers, I say off in the cut, is off down a hill to the side, and uh I was like, oh God, but it was so good because it's a pure recreation center.

It is um the facility managers has has 50 years of service across community centers, which is something we wanna see in our community center managers that you can transition to a variety of centers and be impactful in all of them.

They have strong community support.

As a matter of fact, that we went out Friday, uh, and they were having a they wanna block the street off in front of this sign and have uh play street or something to that.

Yeah, so that was really nice and an inclusive pro and so the some of the information I got from the um manager was that you know they have inclusive program participation, for instance, people drive from drafts, Jasper and Cookville to come play Whittle Ball Pickleball and uh and across from and across and on our way in.

Kim Strong has been my uh partner the whole time.

We've been going in on my way in, ran into one of my district seven constituents going into that center, and I'm like, what are you doing?

Uh but I was like, hey, Ricissa, I know y'all live on Main Street.

I thought, uh, uh-huh.

Uh so we got tightened up over there at South Chattanooga.

Uh, but it was really good to see that.

So that's District 2, wonderful center, wonderful manager, North Chattanooga Community Center.

Um, they talked about, and if you see the look, what's the facility manager top priority?

That's what they see, all around inclusion.

They want everybody to feel welcome.

They had a lot of program highlights.

Um, one of the ones I like the most was the uh Carter, uh, that they instead of using um the center vans, they actually use the the free chart, the free shuttle to take the students, the participants to go fishing and to do different things downtown.

Um, Coolidge Park and uh Riverfront Park.

And so that saves us some money and it gives a gives students experience to use that that shuttle.

So that was fantastic.

There's there's no water in Stringer's Red.

It's not the hell where would they fish?

Not fishing at Stringers, they fish on the river, and then Stringer Bridge is where they walk at.

I'm sorry, that was that was supposed to be up there.

But um, and then participants express themselves through t-shirt design, so they do this teens with teens, and they also have at the bottom you see like a little pantry too, a little kitchen that they help can help uh others in the community as well.

So you go to district three Hickson.

This is the first center I visited, so I didn't give many pictures because I didn't realize exactly what I was doing until I got all the way in there.

But that's also an old school.

Uh they have a great walking track, people outside playing pickleball and tennis.

Um, they're one of the few camps that has a senior summer camp that's gonna have seniors at the center.

Uh I am excited, and I shall be out there this summer to see what they're doing.

Uh, inclusive uh participants, so they have a wide array, and all the centers do have a wide array of people that participate.

Uh, they also have strong community support as well.

And you would see that across most of the centers.

People want these centers to thrive and do well.

So I think the goals of the community, the goals of the council all fall into the shoulders of our administrator and deputy administrator Veronica.

And next center, uh North River Community Center, they have a good model.

Um they have a board, they have a board that they started with and they still do that, provide support to the center, in addition to the community advisory committee, which I think is a great model for our community advisory committees to just take a look at what they're doing.

Um, because uh we talked to Miss Linda who runs that center, and she was like, Yeah, whatever I need, whatever program we have, whatever.

She goes to the board, the board makes sure they have all the supply, whatever it is, whatever it is.

They have a high volume of rentals, uh they have strong business community support, and they have participants also that come from Chattanooga and North Georgia.

Uh so we have um some amazing centers here, and then the last one, I say this one for last, because I didn't want to rank them, but if I had to rank the centers, and I had to say which one of the four that I've gone to that has been the best.

I'm gonna say Heritage House.

Uh, it is I see you down here.

Um we met with them, and it was amazing from the way you walk the when you drive in to the to Harrison Park, the Jack Bits and Heritage Park, um, and their facility manager.

I said, Well, what is your top priority?

She said, community making, working with a variety of people, and so they have one of the most diverse centers amongst all the centers, all neighborhoods.

I mean, so many different ethnicities, age groups, it is amazing.

They have a high volume of of uh volume of rentals, which puts back into our general fund, so that's one of the places we'll be looking at saying how are these centers also generating revenue.

They have high rentals, North River Civic has high rentals, and we may have a couple other that has really high rentals.

Um, and then they have, of course, robust in your programs.

Matter of fact, when we were waiting on the center director to get in from she stayed over because they had an event, um, but so she came in a little later.

Uh, one of the actual participants in the program told us all about the center, what was going on.

It was listen, it was fantastic.

Um, and they have great outdoor space, and those pictures at the bottom are pictures that the participants painted.

Um, we were um leaving, and um uh the center rector came out to show us that, and we had, and we didn't get chance to see them initially because when we were coming in, they were doing chair yoga, uh, and we couldn't be loud with that.

Uh so I have been respectful of the centers and everything, but it has been the work that they've done in these centers, the way the community centers work, and like uh Councilwoman Hill said, we focus a lot on the centers, but we do still have Office of Family Empowerment that just got a silver tier ward from the National Community Action Um Partnership.

We have uh our Office of Community Health.

We also have civic engagement, so it's so many other things, and so we do want to begin to focus on on those as well.

But I wanted to make sure I told the story as a nonprofit person.

I know storytelling is key and important, and when you all get a chance to hear it from one of your colleagues, hopefully it sounds a little different.

But my this week um we'll be in districts five and six, and then next week we'll be in eight and nine, and of course, I didn't want to add district seven because I didn't want to embarrass y'all centers.

Uh but uh that's just what it is, but uh, because I have three super centers.

Uh but in any case, those are my uh those are my other.

I want to give a big kudos to Kim Strong.

She's been riding out with me for this, and I appreciate her so much for coming to these centers.

And thank y'all so much.

All right, thank you, Cedric.

That is a draft of our spring summer that's brought out.

But I thought it was appropriate when you're looking at the budget and the it's great to be able to do that.

So this says 3,000 downloads, and the budget says 400 downloads.

We have we have really we have really doubled down extra one.

That has to get in the hands of everybody.

That is so but so the app and the budget document says that there's 400 downloads, but this says there's 3,000 downloads.

So which one is it?

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um whichever.

Uh I think police is first on the list.

I don't know if you don't want to bring them all in.

Yeah, come on in.

Yeah, come on in.

All right.

Fair enough.

We call the real deal.

That's what I'm talking about.

Yes, real deal.

The bell from WhatsApp.

Yeah.

Chamber.

Chief.

Yeah, too.

Let's see.

Hey Dan.

It's him.

Yeah.

All right.

Alright.

I have the money.

Okay, everybody.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Count the Family and Far.

Hold these.

And T V C T B R C S.

So thank you all for coming today and being able to present to us.

We want to uh hear about your budget from all of you all.

And we want to thank you for your services and your commitment to keeping our community safe.

And we look forward to hearing what your uh priorities and needs are for um the coming year.

So with that being said, I will turn it over to Weston, and then we will pass the baton off to you, Chief.

Great.

So we'll take a look at police's budget.

You can see here salaries and benefits.

Uh make up the vast majority of that.

In the bottom right, you can kind of see their different cost centers.

Um moving on.

So their total police budget increased $5.5 million.

Uh the bulk of that, 4.8, uh, with salaries and benefits.

Um that's due to kind of the the COLA and anniversary increases, and then um adjustments to the benefit rates.

They did move one position from CPD into risk, kind of like the city attorney's office did.

Um then different to this is different because we've got uh we have a decrease of three million.

Yeah, Wesley needs to speak to the fact that you are preparing light to life you have to be pull out and can you and uh yeah, but his number is different.

Let me know.

I thought it was a little crazy and I was like, yeah, that's what we have.

So I'm here today.

Oh, sorry.

Took a whole week looking at the whole thing.

The difference that other one included the uh 911 and animal.

Yes, so you are you are you're not taking it out.

We're taking it out.

So this is reflective?

Yes, so the budget book is the budget book is wrong.

Oh, it's no, it would be a chick.

So what were we looking at just a few minutes?

A few seconds ago.

So what what what Weston was doing was showing a apples to apples comparison.

So up until this coming fiscal year, both 911 for fire and police as well as McCainy, which was to the tune of close to nine million dollars, was in my budget.

Right, which inflated my budget.

Oh, it was removed, just so it's a true comparison of what my budget really looks like.

But to give you an apples to apples comparison, it was pulled out of the past budget years as well, just to show you what the true budget comparison look would look like.

Does that make sense?

Otherwise, it's it shows a three million dollar reduction, and that's truly not accurate, right?

When you're talking about you pull out something, but it's getting paid somewhere else.

Right.

So, yeah, so that was the the 5.5 is kind of the true police operations taking out the the noise of 911 so the police operations have increased by five million correct is what you're saying.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Right.

So it's the salaries and benefits 4.7 lines have got it.

This is right.

Okay.

Yeah, so yeah, so in reality, when you look at last year's budget to this year's, it's a drop, but that's because we pulled out all that the 911 and the McCaney uh animals.

So this is kind of just a true analysis of their operating budget, which is why we're kind of showing it.

Yeah, this got moved to that general government covered first.

That's right.

So my apologies for that.

I have a question.

Yes.

So F526, that also does not represent McCainy and the rest of it.

That's right.

Okay, just one show.

Your your book does what's on the screen does not.

That's to give you an apples to apples comparison.

That makes sense.

I'm following.

Okay.

Sorry.

Which one down?

Um yes, so salaries and benefits again make up the bulk of their their entries.

Um and then operations, they have money added to fleet, that's to cover um maintenance and fuel, which we're all seeing the the increases there, uh, and the flea lease vehicle operations piece.

Which we're all seeing the increases there.

And the flea lease vehicle operations fees.

The axon contract, the 1.4 million, that's for their body cameras and car cameras.

That number came out of their budget.

It now lives in DTS's budget, so you'll see an increase on the DTS side.

The increase on the DTS side is going to be higher than the 1.4.

I think it's around 2.5.

And so because just the cost of that contract has just gone up.

And so but for the purpose of police's budget, that 1.4 million dollars was taken out of their budget and added to DTS to cover that contract.

And then they have their risk management allocation, just like everybody else.

Moving to the risk group.

And then they have one new police fleet specialist position.

See their positions represented there.

We'll sub there.

We'll we'll pause there.

Okay for questions.

Council Mahia.

Thank you.

Chief, I really I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your executive summary.

Um and the clarity with which you discuss the reality of why you need the fleet specialist and the challenges that have occurred as as we've gotten fully staffed, which is great.

And you I mean that's the headline, right?

That we're we're fully staffed, uh, which then means we we have more resources to manage.

Um also um I appreciate that the way I read this executive summary.

I see that you are thinking about here's where I am today as a department leader, and here's where I see that we're headed, and what I'm already solving for.

Um that is so helpful to me as a as a leader who's got to look at all the departments.

Um so I I want to applaud it here publicly and encourage you continually to make yourself available to other department heads who have challenges, right?

I mean, we know that one of your huge challenges was the salary, right?

And that was a massive hill we climbed.

And I think many of us here want to make sure we never have to do that in that way again.

I don't ever want the police or fire to be pawns and in a political discussion.

Um but you what you've got in the way you think is immensely valuable to our city.

So thank you, and please spread the wealth.

That's all.

Thank you, madam chair.

You're welcome.

Any anyone else?

Any questions?

Okay, go ahead.

Perfect.

What would it be appropriate for me to jump in or just uh you can go now if you want?

You're the children.

Sounds like you just got your regiment approved.

Yeah, no, sure.

So I I do I I wanted to take this opportunity because I you know, since you know August, September of last year, we haven't had this this opportunity, and and I do want you all to recognize as painful as that process was last year.

Um, when I was appointed uh in in September of 2024, I walked in with a 23% vacancy rate.

That means 23% of our department we didn't have people for at the same time at the conclusion of 2024, we had the highest attrition rate.

We lost 45 officers, most of which were to other agencies that year.

And at that that same calendar year, we only brought in 36 new police officers, and it had been upside down like that where we had more officers leaving than we did coming in for five consecutive years.

So that's what led to the 23% vacancy rate.

And I committed to you all that I would give my 110% that one that I knew that we needed to make some changes from a leadership culture perspective, and then I needed y'all's help, right?

And you provided that last year, um, so that we had competitive salary.

And I know some some of you wanted a top salary, and I'd be all about that, right?

Absolutely love it.

Our men and women deserve it, but we have to be at least be competitive, and and we know we never want to go back there, which is that the the need for that three percent across the board for sworn, and that's how we keep from going back there, is ensuring that we're treating that the same from a cost of living perspective.

I'm very happy to report, right?

That as of this moment right now, we have two vacancies in sworn.

Two that's it.

Went from 23% to two vacancies, this is less than a percentage point.

Um, and we have an academy starting in July.

We have 38 viable candidates who have passed background PT tests, all of that stuff vying for two positions.

Wow, right?

And we still hold PT tests for the next two weeks.

So we're going to have 60 plus candidates that are that's where I want us to be as an agency as a city to where we have the ability to compete.

Do you have a pulse and have you not ever been arrested for a felony, right?

That's not the standard for a police officer.

And that's that's where we're at today.

And it is in large part because of what was done at this table.

Thank you all so much for that.

Um the the increase to the fleet, uh, as as we talked about last year in 2021, due to the availability of vehicles because of the um it was actually a chip issue that we're getting shipped over um post-COVID.

We couldn't get vehicles, and we didn't have the cops to put in those vehicles.

Today that's not our reality.

So we lost half of our budget in 2021 for vehicles, and this that's what they're doing now, is kind of putting that money back to get us square to where I've I've kept my word, I'm we're we're getting cops on the streets, and we've got to have vehicles to put them in.

So thank you for for that aspect.

Um thank you for bringing up the the police fleet.

That is an area where um it was in our budget once before.

Um, and when that person retired, it was given up to kind of city general and was turned into an open data analyst.

The first thing I asked for was gonna have it back, but it was filled and and and uh um you know an employee already you know that's already here, works for DTS, so we couldn't do that.

Um so that's why I'm asking for that back.

And and really the the premise of that is I want some ownership into the maintenance and and all of the aspects when it comes to the accounting of my fleet.

And everything has been, I won't say dumped on, but it's been the responsibility of fleet.

And I've worked very closely with with Jeremy and and Weigh in as well as Stan Sewell with Office of Internal Audit, right, to make sure that we're doing the right thing, and we're all in agreement that you know they want us to have some skin in the game, we want to have some ownership of what that looks like, and that's what that position is exactly for is to help monitor not just who's driving what vehicle, right, but also their maintenance schedules, the equipment inside those vehicles.

There are, as you will see with the axon contract, right?

There are tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in every one of our vehicles.

That's important that we keep track of that stuff, and we don't need to let that stuff go.

So that's what this position is for.

Um and then when it comes to the the capital, there's a couple minor um projects that we're working through.

One is a split cost 50-50 between us and 911 for a chiller.

I am not an HVAC expert, but a chiller is a main component of a commercial grade HVAC system.

Um it's my understanding, it's what cools the air and reduces the humidity.

And if we know where we are from a humidity standpoint, that's very important.

Um and then police services center renovations, that's continued efforts, you know, towards what we've been doing to work on our our service center to upgrade office workspace.

Um one of the things that the men and women that work in patrol don't have is a is a break room area at all.

So once the mold reading remediation is complete, those are some things that they're we're wanting to invest in for the men and women that are coming in every single day.

And uh we do have a contract now with with uh with vibrant mills, so they have a small cooler.

We're wanting to have a nice space for men when they can come and eat and actually have a healthy meal, things like that.

That's the environment we're trying to create.

Okay.

All right, uh, Councilman Clark.

Uh uh, thank you, uh Chairwoman Ole.

Have I are we asking questions on the specifically?

I got a specific question about the psychological exams for the uh police department.

Yes, which because I know you're heavily invested into you know health care and for you know, I'm very passionate about that as well.

But it's been a decrease in psychological exams, and I know we've brought in a contractor, uh Dr.

Lamaro, what's Lamar's life?

Henderson.

Henderson.

Um, does that, and this is just for lack of knowledge.

Yeah.

Is she involved in the psychological exams?

And if so, why was there a decrease in our work in that area?

So when it comes to the psychological exams, as you see in our line item budget, that is specific for cadet applicant entry-level psychological exams.

It's a post-requirement that every police officer has to have and pass a psychological exam.

That's what that never number represents.

Dr.

Lamara is not part of our budget, as but her contract is all predicated on grant funding.

Gotcha.

So that's not there.

The reason there's a reduction there to be to be honest, like if we we increased it last year because we were anticipating the number of cadets that we were going to be able to put through, rightfully so.

Um where we're at now with two vacancies, we're we're anticipating this year, we won't have the spots to actually process the same number of applicants as we did this past year.

So we're just trying to make that you know measure with what we're projecting that we're gonna need, if that makes sense.

Instead of just a flat rate, we could have left it the same, but we're trying to be very responsible there.

Gotcha.

Yes.

Uh, Madam Chair, I have another follow-up question if you don't mind.

And this is again, uh I have had we've only had this book for a week, and we're still coming through.

So my forgive me for not being as knowledgeable about where things are in some of the row labels.

Make the question sharp.

Yes, ma'am.

Um the when we bring in special events, sorry.

Okay, it's all right.

And see when we bring in special events, um, I for an example, we would land at the Spanish team that will be here, and the city of Chattanooga is paying a hefty amount of money of security for that.

Where how does that impact your workforce and your budget as far as do we hire do we use that extra money for overtime?

Like can you make that connectivity to your budget?

Because I think we're spending $600,000 to host the Spain team here for the fee for things, and there's a security cost on that.

Tell me what the connectivity is to your budget in your department.

So the the short answer is when there are special events, whether it's the Spain or the Iron Man or the Judding American, whatever it is.

If it is an event of such as such a scale that on-duty personnel can't handle that, which is primarily our special operations group, right?

So traffic, DUI, canine, that that small group, then it does go into an overtime situation where we do bring officers in for overtime that that would work those events.

I can say specific to the example you gave about Spain.

The majority of those cost from a security perspective is actually an extra job format to where they forget.

So that's extra employment, so where an officer is all has to be off-duty, and then they are contracted directly with the vendor to pay them directly to work.

So our office will be making more money doing this.

Yes, okay, perfect.

Um, and that's all I have.

I just want to say you're look- I tell people if I were not a city council person, I would love to work for John Taber's department.

You guys come here and give us I remember your presentation last year, and to come back and say we did it.

Yeah, because of our work, like that makes us feel good as a council, and to uh councilwoman Hill's comment, you know, to help along your other colleagues realize what that efficacy looks like and what it means to our taxpayers to say, you know what?

That dollar ninety-three I voted for.

This is why because our community is safer because of your leadership.

So I just wanted to give you that kudos.

So thank you so much.

Everyone didn't vote for that dollar night.

That's right.

So okay, councilwoman burns.

I just have a follow-up question.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Uh Councilman Clark.

Just to clarify, because I know there's people outside of this room that are watching.

When when the city has special events, it's typically the financial responsibility of this of the special event to cover the costs of uh police officers that help with traffic management and things like that.

It typically does not come out of your budget.

Is that correct?

I feel like we would need to have somebody from that department here to answer that question specifically.

Okay.

Um I know like our role in that is when there's a particular event, something like the Iron Man or the expensive like the Iron Man World Championships that are going all through the city down into Georgia and back.

So large events like that, that requires a significant amount of uh a significant amount of personnel resources.

Um I do pay for those out of my overtime budget.

You do absolutely I do.

Okay, and and and there are events that also privately pay for off-duty police officers, even though it's secured, might be secured through the special events department.

And I've I've been working with with the mayor's staff on because I know I've brought this up last year, and we've been working towards like a model to where there would be um essentially like a matrix that would exist, right?

To where whoever's wanting to have an event, if it required X number of officers, and then it it kind of exceeded our bandwidth and what we could cover on a non-duty basis.

Well, then these metrics would apply and you would need X officers and you would it would cost you X dollars.

Um that's what we're hoping to kind of get to one of these days.

Okay.

Um, you know, this is uh a work in progress that involves multiple departments, so you know, we're we're a little bit out of time, and then of course, when Spain came up, that was a very spur of the moment thing for us.

Yeah, um, and and it there was an immediate push by me as as well as others to say, well, this event organizer, they're gonna have to foot the bill for most of this stuff because we don't have the resources to be able to supply that.

And they didn't push back at all.

Well, and as was acknowledged earlier, that came from hotel motel tax.

You know, we've got a bulk of that coming from that.

But just knowing that I know there are several events that happen throughout the year in Chattanooga that money does not come from your budget to pay for those officers.

I hear some of the bigger ones that in no way could we support it without that extra support.

But there is a large number that they pay directly to the officers for security.

There's a large number of those.

I think it's important for the taxpayers to hear that that their tax dollars are not going to pay for for those events to happen, which sometimes can be confusing.

So thank you.

That is very true.

Thank you, T.

Thank you.

So hopefully there is not any more questions.

I don't think for Chief Chambers, because we do have two or three others that we need to do for the council.

Can you do the narcotics?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Narcotics is that okay.

You gotta speak to it.

Okay, so we it's gonna keep you in a chair.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, move forward.

Narcotics.

Um pretty basic.

Yeah, $500,000 in services.

That is the same number as last year.

Um and that is based on their estimated need, no new positions, and then I'll let Chief fill in.

So what this is an allocation of funds that already exist.

So the narcotics funds are funds that are generated through forfeitures and seizures related to narcotics investigations.

It could come from seizing a vehicle to seizing money to seizing drugs.

Um and this has been a a long time fund that's in existence.

It is you know meant or it is uh governed and overseen by the state as well as federal as federal government as it relates to not just the seizures but then also how we spend the money.

The money has to be spent related to narcotics investigations, but it is very open from that point, right?

It can be training, it can be equipment for the homicide and sorry, the narcotics investigators.

It it could be um you know any type of technological advancements that they might need for you know for the investigation.

Um it also could be for storage and of of the evidence related to narcotics investigations.

Um so there's approximately 1.9 million in this fund that exists already.

We're only anticipating to spend about 500,000, and that's about what we're also anticipating that that we would bring in throughout the course of the year, so that it doesn't ever drop below you know too far below that number.

Okay, um Vice Chair Elliott.

I'm good, Madam Chairman.

You are you good?

Okay, all right.

Oh here's what to find about.

Okay, okay.

So I see no other hands of Chief Chambers.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

As always, I know you would not disappoint.

Oh wonderful.

No, yes, come on down.

Well, I hope I don't disappoint us.

You will not set that bar high.

I was hoping I get first.

No, and public safety.

From the chair down.

It ain't no disappointment.

All right.

Go ahead.

Um buyers budget.

Um, you see at the bottom line here, increase at full point two million dollars.

Uh, again, the bulk of it is in salaries and benefits with uh their COA and anniversary increases and then some changes in benefits.

Um they did have 160,000 roughly in operations increase.

Again, they have some vehicle operations, that's maintenance fuel, things like that for their apparatus, they have their risk allocation.

Um we did some one-time funding in the amendment last year for a member for station 21.

We added another crew, so we had to add the all the all the the beds and all the different equipment that goes along with having a second crew there.

So that was what that money was for.

Obviously, we don't have that this year, so that money comes out.

Um, and then every two years they do promotional testing.

So last year they didn't have the 200,000 dollars this year, they will have that.

So um that's kind of just a quick overview of that.

Uh no new positions, and we'll pause for a second before uh Chief Knowles.

So it's my first budget session, so I was excited about it and uh excited to sit down with Councilwoman Noel yesterday and and go over it just with her.

So with this budget, you'll see just the uh the majority of the increase was for the salaries and benefits, like Chief Chambers said um just working with y'all.

I stepped into the role right at the beginning of the budget amendment last year, so stepping into that and seeing how that was gonna reshape our department and help our department.

And so with that raise and with the increase in benefits, we've also in our department seen a positive thing with that.

So from 2018 to 2025, we averaged 12 resignations a year.

And most of those were firefighters between one and ten years of service, and the majority of those left because of pay.

As of today, 2026, we've had one.

And with that one, it was for family.

He moved back to where his family was, and so really the it's it's working, you know, getting increasing those benefits, increasing that that salary, that compensation uh to make us competitive not only in the state of Tennessee but in the region has uh has done exactly what we we wanted it to do, and very excited about that, and thank y'all for that.

Also, ladder 21, just wanted to talk about that just a little bit with that budget amendment with that, putting that truck in service.

We saw exactly the benefit of that the other night in in Councilman Harvey's neighborhood with that two-alarm residential fire in his neighborhood.

Yes, actually.

You know, if that if that ladder, if ladder 21 was not there at that location at station 21, so close at that time, or as we put it there, the next closest ladder would have been coming from Brainerd at Moore Road or from Volkswagen.

And so having that ladder that close, I spoke with the incident commander today, and so he said if it wasn't for having ladder 21 on scene so fast to get the aerial up to start getting water on it, we would have lost both houses and probably damaged another one because the fire was so advanced.

But to have that set up so fast, have that ladder truck there, they were able to you know at least contain the majority of fire to the house to the the the beginning of the house that was that was on fire, and then we saved the other house.

It had gotten into the attic, but they made a good stop and the crews did excellent.

So another positive for putting that um ladder 21 in service with the amendment last year.

So thank you again.

Thank you for everything it is is done, is helped our department tremendously.

But with the the operating budget, uh you see the increase of about 160,000, and uh Weston went over a majority of the services uh with the increase of that about 321,000 was for 200,000 for promotional testing.

This is 2027.

We will do that, and uh, and so then we'll skip another year.

We do it every two years.

And he went over vehicle operating expenses, 351,000, fuel, gasoline, labor, parts, everything, and then the other expenses risk management was uh was that uh positions that we have vacant at this time within the department.

We have 43, and that is all counting the 26 or not counting the 26 cadets that we have in the academy that'll graduate in July.

Once we graduate those, there'll be 17 vacant positions.

We are starting another academy October that will run until April, and we expect to have about 20 uh spots available in that academy, and so as of April 2027, we should be fully staffed in the fire department.

And with those 20 positions uh for the uh academy in October, we had 523 applicants for 20 positions.

Wow, yes.

Yeah, you're paying people because we're paying.

Yes, because we're competitive.

So yeah, so very excited about that, and um and I believe that's it.

Any questions, Council Father?

Uh Councilwalma Hill.

Thank you.

Um Chief, thanks for the points that you made about um planning for future growth.

Um you mentioned that we're going to be needing a fire hall in Hamilton Place Mall area, and then also Black Creek.

Councilman Henderson is bringing us um a proposed budget amendment about getting um water services to raccoon mountain right now.

They're all on well, and it's my understanding that they have very limited fire service because of that.

Well, they don't have access to uh fire hydrants, they have to haul water up to the mountain to extinguish the fire.

Will the Black Creek and you may not have the answer to this yet, but will the Black Creek station be able to adequately service Raccoon Mountain?

Station three and station 20 right now service raccoon mountain.

Okay, so that'll just be another station that's in the Tiftonia uh lookout valley area that would help assist in that.

Okay, and so yes, we have two stations right now that that respond to the raccoon mountain area.

Okay, and then I don't think Black Creek would ever come off of that mountain if it's rarely right.

We would like to keep somebody up there, but if it is a fire in the valley and they're the next closest truck, yes, they're coming down.

We would just shift another fire truck from another part of the city.

We would relocate them up there to make sure that we continued coverage up on top of Black Creek.

Yes.

Okay, so three and twenty have the capacity to continue doing what they're doing, and they'll be happy to have fire hydrants.

On Racket Mountain when the time comes.

Yes, if they're put in, yes, absolutely.

That that hasn't been decided yet.

It has not been decided.

Yeah, that's a little premature.

Okay, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Is that it?

Yes, thank you.

That's okay.

Any other questions?

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, Vice Chair Elliott and then Councilman Clock.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This may be a question for the administration.

Okay.

At some point, there was conversations about the Black Creek community putting up funding for the fire hall.

Whatever happened to that.

Well, I don't think we have landed on the financing solution totality yet.

So that's an ongoing conversation.

Is there still interest in them doing it?

I am not tracking that they're doing that journey on that.

I know this was before a lot of y'all's time in your current roles.

I just didn't know if we're not if you even know.

I won't get out in front of the administration.

I mean, but there has there have been talks now as far as I don't think there's been any kind of final agreement between the developers and us to be able to fire off.

Okay, not bad.

Okay.

But we're working with them, and we're trying to we're trying to figure that out.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good county.

I'm good about it.

Okay.

This is a technical question, which I think is really cool, but uh Chief knows.

Thank you again for your response.

We've been getting a lot of requests in my district about fire hydrates.

And we got one last night.

Uh Kim and I were at the Washington Hill Centers.

Give us a quick education about so the request that we got is that they want to be repainted.

The one in Galen Heights and the one off of Rosemary.

I'm looking at Kim, I can't remember.

Um I'm sorry, Lake Viz, and I'll give you the details, but like what is if I needed to request for those to be checked to make sure they're working, because I've gotten two random requests in the last 30 days.

Or repainted, what is your department's role in that?

Who do I direct that to?

So all the hydrants in the city, unfortunately, we do not own.

So Tennessee American Water Company owns East Side Utility owns some of them and also Hicks Utility.

So they own them and they maintain them.

The as far as checking them, our department checks them twice a year in the spring and in the fall.

And so we will flow them, make sure to clean them out, because you see some of them if they've been sitting there for a little while when you first open them up, they'll have rust and debris and things like that in them.

So we don't want that going into our fire apparatus and clogging our pumps.

So we will flow them uh once a year, and then we'll go through a second time and we will inspect them, make sure they're not broke, make sure they're not leaking, and uh we'd eat around them and make sure we can see them and and and maintain them that way.

But if anything's broken on them, we will send an email to Tennessee American uh water east or Hickson, whichever one owns those hydrants, and they will come out and if the uh is it a required color for it?

Like, but uh people can't just go out and paint them, right?

The colors based on the pressure that comes out of that particular chapter.

Okay.

Oh interesting.

So don't tell people to paint those.

No, please.

I didn't do it.

That's pretty fascinating.

Yeah, I've seen one painted a Snoopy in somebody's yard that did that.

I thought that was in the end, so I may have misinformed someone.

So I thought people could paint those, but there are there's a color code based off pressure.

Okay.

And so if your biggest challenge is be painted.

And then they will come out and rehab it to repaint it.

Whoever owns that hydro will come out and take a look at it and maintenance it.

Thank you for that information.

So I apologize.

Council War McBurray.

Yeah, I just have a quick question.

Uh the fact that you gave about the 500 applications the same time a year ago.

What were the number of applications?

Same time a year ago when uh we started that uh academy this past July, we were 400 before that.

Um so I would say before that we were about 100.

I think 2020 and 2021 were around 100.

I just was curious.

I think that's a fascinating.

Yeah, 178 in 2024, 268, 2025.

We jumped up because we started to discuss that to 400, and then 523 this year.

That's wonderful.

And we have 18-year-olds that are.

Yes, that's the administration and the state line.

And the state line, so we've opened the borders up, we've increased that too.

Do you have the data on how many who applied for the 500 came from across the state line?

No, no, not yet.

We will have that.

Yes, we will look at all that.

I know this last academy that started in July, we had two 18-year-olds, uh 19-year-old, and a 20-year-old.

So we had four out of the uh 29, I believe is what we started that that were under the age of 21 when we started the first class to do that.

And it's worth noting, sorry, that we've seen an increase in minorities, by the way.

You left that out, but I just wanted to say that that we've seen it increase.

All right, and both both fire and police.

And both both fire and police.

I mean, I just can't say enough how you guys are just meeting our expectations and filling those gaps, getting more minorities in those positions.

Like I'm just our recruiting team's job, and uh they're actually they're they're helping the the uh applicants.

So now before because you know somebody might work out lift weights and stuff, but uh firefighting is a lot more cardio and uh oh lifting weights.

So what our team has done now is um about six weeks before the testing starts, every weekend they have an open gym at the training center.

So some of our members will meet whoever wants to come and they will do workouts with them to prepare them for the physical ability test because it's it's not easy, it's very difficult.

And so they will prepare them, and you can see we've had three tests so far.

We've got another one coming up in on Saturday, and you can see the ones that have attended those workouts and then the ones that have not, because they're prepared, they know what exercise they know what muscle groups they're gonna be using.

So though that team has done an incredible job preparing and getting us the best quality people.

Is that open to council members?

Sure, come on.

Okay, any other questions council family.

Okay, thank you, Chief Well, appreciate that you did a wonderful job of both of you get an A plug.

So real quick, I'm sorry.

Right.

Um the fire capital maintenance, that is a sort of a down payment on their self-contained breathing apparatus.

Yep.

Okay.

Um and so you'll see next year the balance of that is will be in the capital.

That's that has to be replaced every so often, so that's just putting money aside for that.

Uh then there's fire station capital maintenance, uh some money in here for that East Brainer to balance out the East Brainer property that we're buying uh for station out there at some point, and then uh apparatus replacement funds.

Okay, thank you.

So if I okay, Councilman Harvey, okay now.

Come on.

Uh first of all, I want to say thank you to you and your team for the response my neighborhood uh two nights ago.

It was devastating uh for the family uh who lost their home, but you saved the ones right next door to it.

Um so I can't say enough.

Uh the the your team was out there uh in the days after and was just tremendous.

So uh thank you for for all you did there.

And uh I look forward to supporting the land acquisition.

Um so we'll work towards getting another station much needed out in our area.

So thank you.

Thank you all.

That's all I'm sure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Knoll.

So if we will have what we have next, um the RCF.

Yes.

Dan on Dan.

Yeah.

Okay, y'all.

This is Dan, my newfound friend.

Yeah, so we're gonna touch on uh T V RCS, it's Tennessee Valley Regional Communications System.

Um T V RC.

It's like this is teaching us something about government.

Uh yeah, yeah, no, no.

This is this is I'm not sure when it was stood up.

I don't know.

It's been there for as long as us.

I don't know the full history of we were the first uh to to set up uh uh uh truck system which is now been taken over by the state, the entire state uses a model.

All right.

Uh so their budget budget is is flat uh for the most part.

Um salaries and benefits change three thousand dollars, operations um entries, uh operations and other financing is 172,000.

The bulk of that is going is funds set aside to replace equipment as it becomes obsolete.

Yes.

So keep going.

Okay, gotcha.

Uh is it's going to replace equipment to maintain the system as it becomes obsolete.

Um and then the money that's transferred to capital, that's based on their estimate of what they think they're gonna need, so they've adjusted that.

Uh no changes in positions, they have nine folks over there.

Um no changes to that.

And so again, their budget is it's mostly flat, but we just wanted to bring it before you guys.

And so go ahead, Dan.

So we're we're an enterprise fund, so uh we uh bring in our uh our revenue from uh uh subscriptions to the radio services.

We maintain uh radio uh emergency uh communications in 11 counties, uh four of them in Georgia.

Um we're expecting uh 3.7% increase in revenues, which shows the increase uh uh for the money coming in.

And as he said, the uh uh expenses are we've got uh our uh DC power plants that hold the battery systems that hold the the sites up uh if they lose commercial power uh they've reached end of life and we're so we're in the process of replacing those and also some uh equipment on the tires themselves that uh just reached end of life and so they're budgeted from uh taken out of the uh revenue.

So zero sum game.

Any questions from the council family?

I guess by shift.

Was this uh originally under the fire department's budget?

Was this part is just kind of popping up?

It is this always been separate?

It was in general services for years under Mayor Burke holding it under the car department.

Interpreted fund numbers up there.

Okay, I'm just excuse me for my ignorance, I just didn't know it existed.

And so when I thank you.

I was packing up because I thought we were done.

I saw that route.

This is a this is a pleasant surprise, and uh thank you for your work.

So those I just didn't know.

Thank you so much.

Okay, any other questions from the council bands?

Now they're all I'm sorry.

Uh Councilwoman Heel.

Thank you.

Um so with regard to the future, um, you said you've got substantial infrastructure upgrade project on the horizon and you're working with state and local partners to identify funding sources.

So how when we say substantial, is that significantly more than your typical revenue?

And are you are there state grants that you're seeking?

Uh I believe he's working on a state grant.

Uh I'm not directly involved in yet.

I do know what the substantial upgrades are due to, they're changing out the uh the base radio systems that are uh reached the end of life and we're going to the new improved digital.

They're already uh part, like I said, we're we started out the uh communication system and the state uh attached to it, so we're small compared to the state effort, but uh so we they share uh in that the already uh fielded and tested all these upgrades, and so all we've got to do is install our sites and run with it.

Once they're purchased, and you're thinking you're seeking a state grant to help with that upgrade?

Working with the state uh with the the tack, the overall state network.

Okay, thank you.

That's all madam chair.

Okay.

Uh council warm of Burris.

Uh yeah, I have just a question of understanding.

So we so you serve the city of Chadiga in 11 counties in other counties in Tennessee and four counties in are they are they contributing to the expenses?

Do you charge them for some at some level for services?

Subscriber service for each radio they have in hand, uh they charge we charge them a fee uh that gets them on the system, maintains them and we get a capital to keep the system up to date for minor stuff, but yes, each each entity provides uh uh source of income.

So does your budget ref your budget reflects the services to those other counties as well?

Okay, and then they're contributing to the cost of that.

Okay.

Do we have I'm sure we have somewhere in here what what the revenue is?

Yeah, uh on page B 463.

That's okay.

Is it the two million?

It is and then it's actually broken down a little further on 463.

Uh gotcha.

Okay.

As to can there's a line in there, other government maintenance questions.

So what are we what so I guess Weston, what do we actually contribute to that amount?

So what how much is coming from?

I can pull the breakdown.

Okay, I'd just I'd be curious to see that.

We can break it down by district.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right, council family.

Anything else?

Are you over uh tornado sirens?

No.

Okay.

Never mind.

No.

Two-way radio communications.

Okay.

And I was Matthew Sadler is the director uh for TV RCS, but he was out of that.

Okay, oh we're good.

Thank you, Dan.

Oh my god, that was awesome.

So uh uh, hold up.

I haven't did miss this, I haven't dismissed this yet.

Come on.

So thank you for your presentation.

And for the work that you do every day to serve and protect our communities, and we appreciate your dedication and your um your needs presented during this budget session.

So now it is our responsibility as the council family to make sure we are positioning these departments for the success.

So we need to make sure they have what they need when they need in order to continue to protect your surplus.

Okay.

Y'all are greatly appreciated.

All right.

Appreciate.

All right.

So if there's not anything else, everybody is good, Cody.

You always bring it up to RID.

Are you good?

All right, great.

All right, then we are done.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank y'all.