Welcome everyone who's joining us this afternoon in person and online.

Could I get a motion on the minutes from our previous strategic planning meeting?

So move.

Second.

And the minutes will stand as published.

And so on our agenda today, we have a few items.

First of all, we have Dr.

Acuff here who provide us kind of an update on the budget analysis that he had started previously, and also to talk to us about I think how we compared our pure cities.

And likewise, we have a few minutes for Councilwoman Hill and Councilman Harvey to kind of introduce to us an idea for a vape store ordinance that they've been working on.

So without further ado, we will turn it over to Dr.

A.

Cuff.

And I guess my idea was we would spend about half an hour, Dr.

A.

Cuff, if that's all right.

Sure.

I can fill up as much as little time as well.

All right.

Don't drop me with a good time.

Okay.

So last time I was here, this was part of more of the budget side of things.

Um, but I know I don't know if I can pull up the um presentation on the screen.

Is that possible?

No, it's possible.

Um so a lot of this was related to the the fiscal health outcomes and um and budget projections and things like that.

Um whenever I can I could get up on the screen, I'll I'll kind of show you the overview of what I was gonna talk through.

Um but several of the questions that came up um last time in the in the budget session is uh or were related to um you know certainly longer term projections and what that means in terms of I'm on the HDMI.

Um what that means, particularly relative to property taxes.

So obviously back in the spring in the legislative session, there was discussions over limiting property tax um revenue for local governments.

Um that bill ultimately didn't go through, but that obviously would have been a big um you know hindrance to all local governments' ability to to raise local revenue.

Um but again that didn't go through.

So uh to some extent that's a little bit of a moot point for now, but um certainly the possibility of that still being out there.

I think if you all remember back um uh several months ago when I present in the main council room, um and you all know from from the budget discussions this year, you know, a a plurality of your budget comes from from property tax revenue.

So obviously that's a hugely important component of it.

Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

Um there you go.

Okay, I was I was kind of just vamping there until we got this up.

Um so um anyway, but but the question came up last time I remember that that council Henson raised um over some of the longer term deficits that showed up relative to the property tax revenues.

So that's one of the things I included in um in the update that I'd done.

Um, you know, again, the the challenge with a lot of these is that you know, these are based on the last few years of trends.

That does not mean that that's you know deterministic as we say going into the future.

Um and so every year obviously you have to pass a balanced budget, and you've done that, and essentially you passed a flat budget, I believe last two fiscal years essentially.

Um so you're not exceeding um expenditures over revenues.

Uh but I think the the main takeaway from this is again considering uh the potential for incremental increases in property tax revenues year to year and not just necessarily every four years as you go.

Obviously, everybody has different priorities um in their districts, but also similar priorities citywide.

Um and so I think considering those as you balance those out going forward, you know, fiscal year to fiscal year are things to keep in mind.

Um so anyway, I'm happy to come back to that if you want to.

But I know the the big thing was kind of delving into the um the peer cities analysis.

So this was what we kind of ended on last time I was here.

Um again for audit purposes, the uh 10 cities that were identified coming out of fiscal year 25 or these um over the years, the office internal audit has has used you know several different cities, some of them have been similar, I think.

We're always compared to Knoxville and uh in similar cities like that.

But a few have changed over the years.

Um I think as we can, you know, happy to discuss with you all kind of wrapping up later um or in ongoing meetings.

But I think the the channel, you know, essentially the the big issue over these is want to see um when comparing yourself to other cities or comparing ourselves to other cities.

Um, and obviously the Office of Internal Audit is mostly looking at financial indicators, you know, which is what you know, kind of we and I started with, but I think going forward, it seems like there was a an appetite amongst the council to look more at other indicators and other outcomes related to what other cities are doing and and what we can learn from other cities along the way.

Um so I think kind of broadening that into some additional um indicators is is you know is obviously a good idea, and a lot of cities do benchmarking, and we can talk about those as we go.

But that's where I kind of started with the baseline of what we use for for peer cities.

Um those of you that are in the the budget meeting last time where I was here, um, I won't read all this off to you, but I'll give you the the 30,000 foot view.

The the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has uh developed what's called the peer cities identification tool, and they grouped all these factors along four different themes.

You can see equity, resilience, outlook, and housing.