We'll resume finance committee once again.

This is ordinance number one seventeen as 2026 by Councilmember Griffin by Departmental Request and Emergency Ordinance to make appropriations that provide current expenses for the daily operation of all municipal departments of the city of Cleveland for the fiscal year from January 1, 2026 until December 31, 2026.

And what I believe I would like to do, can we do about uh read about three departments at a time so that we can try to move into this or three other divisions at a time?

So we'll start off with administration accounts and assessments and licenses.

Page one hundred forty-two finance administration, Director Paul C.

Barrett.

Page one hundred forty-three, twenty twenty-five unaudited total salaries, one million one hundred and sixty-five thousand two hundred and sixty-five.

Twenty twenty five an audited total expenditures, one million seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand six hundred and forty-five.

Page one hundred forty-four, twenty twenty-five staffing level, ten, twenty twenty-six budgeted, eleven.

Page one hundred forty-five division of accounts, Commissioner Lonia Mosswalker.

Page one hundred forty-six, twenty twenty-five unaudited total salaries, one million three hundred and nineteen thousand nine hundred and four.

Twenty twenty-six budgeted, one million eight hundred and forty-two thousand four hundred and forty-eight.

Twenty twenty-five unaudited total expenditures, two million six hundred and thirty-five thousand seven hundred and forty-five.

Page one forty-seven, twenty twenty-five staffing level nineteen, twenty twenty-six budgeted twenty-two.

Page one hundred forty-nine, twenty twenty-five unaudited total salaries, one million five hundred and nineteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-six.

Budgeted thirty-five, Sir Chairman.

Thank you, Director.

Yeah, through the chair to the uh committee, we just have a real quick presentation that I'll do for all of finance.

Um then we'll we have all the commissioners behind me for the different divisions, so we'll bring them up as needed to answer any questions.

Um just a little background of what finance encompasses.

So um typically, you know, you've had a lot of divisions up here that make widgets and uh provide certain services like sweets uh street sweeping, snow plowing, that sort of thing.

Well, finance is responsible for uh financing everything across the city.

Um, obviously.

Uh the only real division that I believe has any kind of widgets would be the printing and reproduction shop.

Uh the rest of it is either related to insurance with risk management, uh sinking fund is is debt management, OBM, um, you know, with the the budget creation, CCA income tax administration, and and so on and so forth.

So um our budgets tend to be pretty straightforward because we don't create those widgets.

Um and head count tends to stay relatively stable.

So uh compared to the other budgets you've seen tend to be somewhat boring.

Uh so here is our org chart.

So again, the different we've got 12 different divisions here.

Um, you know, that that fall under the director of finance, including finance and admin, which does a lot of the administrative uh management type functions for all of finance.

Head count.

So just to give you an idea of how big uh finance is, it's about 258 employees, about 174 vacancies.

Many of these are actually in CCA.

So when we do get the CCA, you'll see there's some challenges with civil service requirements and that sort of thing, keeping them staffed, and they are a bigger division in finance, so that's where a big big bulk of these are.

We also have a few challenges and assessments and licenses, things that we're working on, positions we're trying to fill.

Uh just wanted to highlight uh a few things that we got done this year.

So contract digitalization.

I know accounts had a big hand in that, but specifically look shout out to Ann Tilly.

She really took the ball with this and um you know, changed the way we did contracting.

Again, over 300 contracts executed using DocuSign uh with a turnaround time of of eight days, about eight days when previously we were doing, I would say it was even more than three to four weeks, it was six weeks.

And again, that's after a law has created the contract, so I just want to be clear on that.

Um another thing, and thank you to council for having a special session last year.

Um I know assessments and licenses and commissioner Stevens specifically worked incredibly hard to get the Gordon Square and downtown SIDS uh renewed.

Um so that was completed in 4.4 months.

Usually it takes twice the amount of time.

They worked late nights and really worked hard, so I want to make sure that we recognize them.

And again, thank you to council for having the special session during your recess so that we could we could get that passed.

That's gonna add about six million dollars uh in revenue to the city because we were able to get that done quickly.

Um I wanna highlight OBM and financial reporting and control with the awards that we've received year after year for our budget book and our ACFER.

So if you don't know, ACFER stands for annual comprehensive financial report.

Um, and it's a good thing if you don't know what that is because we're doing such a good job that we tend to not get any write-ups, and it's just on released on time, and um, so really uh a shout out to Leslie Camargo, the commissioner of financial reporting and control.

I think we're on 40 years of receiving the award.

Uh and the budget book, of course, Nicole, everyone's familiar with.

Um, you know, I think we're on 33 years of uh earning that award on the budget book.

So um really really good job by both.

Uh grants management system.

So again, you'll see when we get to the OBM section, I've I'm requesting two additional head count for uh to assist us with grants.

Amplifund is the new software that we're implementing.

It's almost completely implemented.

I believe we're in a soft launch phase uh where we're testing it, and that'll help us to uh go out and um you know obtain more grants and be more proactive.

I've mentioned that several times.

Uh EMS billing being outsourced QMC, so again, 31 to 32 million in collections recouped uh and the backlog is almost completely cleared.

Uh something headed up by by Risk and uh Commissioner Romero.

Uh and then the new debt program.

Again, thank you to council.

Thank you for the summer workshops.

Thank you for the discussion, the thoughtful questions.

Um literally, we kept a 68 million dollar liability off our books this year by by changing the debt program, and I hope we can continue to move down this path uh and save the city money.

So uh again, thank you to council for being open to change um and this idea, and hopefully more to come in 2026 on you know various other topics.

So some 2026.

So anybody that's been in my office lately knows I I had a whiteboard installed, and I made sure to put about 20 or 30 initiatives on there.

I don't have all of them listed here.

Um, but there's some very important things I want to get done this year.

Uh at the top of the list is you know, uh the travel policy essentially we've we've looked at, we've had some policies that haven't been looked at in years.

So it's um a priority of mine to go in, make sure that our policies are up to date.

Uh so the travel policy um has has been updated, and and shout out to Meredith Baumgartner uh and Rita Powell in my office for working so hard on that.

Um for instance, there were things like cabs mentioned, but not Ubers and ride shares, and so it was definitely an antiquated policies.

That's almost essentially done.

Um streamlining accounts receivable invoicing.

We've talked about a vendor self-service uh program that we're looking to implement this year as well, which will change the way that folks do business with the city, hoping to speed up the um you know that process, the invoicing process, like we did with contracting, uh make it more efficient, and also uh pet peev of mine is um all the checks that we mail out.

So um, you know, we're we're looking to gear more towards payments, electronic payments, whether that be wire or ACH, ACHs tend to be cheaper.

So uh that goes hand in hand with the uh self-service program.

Uh new debt management software, so we're looking at ways that we're not keeping track of our debt and spreadsheets and that sort of thing, um programs we can use to you know for record keeping and and to run an our own analysis so we don't always have to rely on our FA.

Uh the new debt program I've already mentioned.

Um all contracts digitally.

So the only exceptions to those right now that aren't in DockSign are those where you need a um notary.

So at this point, um, you know, the electronic notary, we're still working that out, but for the most part, you know, I've gone to having stacks of paper for me to sign every day on like on my desk to just having to click buttons.

So it's been it's been great.

Uh new budget book software, you all have seen that in the budget book.

Um, just in the the way it looks and being able to add the new column um, you know, for the prior year.

And then uh I I've already mentioned the strategic finance unit, which will be uh specific to grants and OBM.

So again, I just wanted to keep this quick.

I know we've got a lot of areas of finance, um, but you know, that's essentially my overview.

And then uh as council president said, right now we've got administration accounts and assessments and licenses up.

Um, you know, I'll have all my commissioners come up as needed to answer any questions.

All right.

Um before I proceed um and give um how we're gonna move forward.

I do want to take a very brief moment, if we could.

I've been notified that we lost a division of streets employee, um a gentleman by the name of Jamar Parks Bay, uh, who was uh transported to Metro and unfortunately passed away.

So I just want to make sure that we acknowledge the family of uh Jamar Parks Bay, who uh reason who just passed away a city employee today.

Um I think it's very important for us to always acknowledge all employees whenever uh they die in the line of service.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh how we're going to proceed is we're gonna do these three departments.

I just talked to our team over at uh over at our policy team, and they've advised me that it would be better if we just do individual departments because all of them are consecutive until we get to internal service, and because internal service, once we get down there, then we'll combine those.

But we'll go ahead and hear the first three, and then we'll go from there, okay.

All right, so did you guys read into all three of those already?

Okay.

So once again, we're doing department administration, division of accounts, and division of license and assessments.

Um Michael Pelesi.

Okay.

But I hope the director can talk to about this or we go through one division um one section after another.

Is the is the a high number of vacancies.

Man, you're right up there.

You're next to the police and vacancies.

And so if you would you could you'd care to give us some explanation as to why there's so many vacant positions, and uh, and then I'll I'll wait for printing and production.

Yeah, so through the chair to the councilman, and I think this discussion um will be beneficial when CCA is up because we do have a lot of vacancies in in the taxation group, and a lot of that has been related to civil service rules and the exams that folks have to take to get those uh positions, and then just finding bodies to get in there, and that's also an aging workforce.

So that that's where the majority of them are.

There's some spread out in other divisions.

I know assessments and licenses has some.

Um so as we go, obviously, in admin, I don't think we have a whole whole lot of uh, if any, um I think we have one vacancy there, and uh yeah, we we can address those as we come, but the majority of those are CCA.

So of the 84, the majority of those are CCA.

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman, we estimate between well over 60 are probably related to CCA.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Um and the other question I and you can't give it to me now, but we've talked about this in the course of these discussions.

What was very helpful with utilities when they listed uh the number of people that were over 55 years of age in each division, uh that was very helpful for us to get a really good picture of what we're dealing with, because you just mentioned now.

And then the other thing that they prevent provided to us uh was the number of employees that are Cleveland residents.

So I'm gonna make that request, you know, as we go throughout this budget, and again, it might not we're at the end now, but for next year, those were very helpful to me and for all of us to get a real picture snapshot of what's happening in somebody's departments as you saw yesterday.

The majority that are in each division, the majority of employees are all over 55 years of age.

And we got to come up with a game plan here, because if not, we got a problem.

Well, we got a problem.

It's not it's not coming, it's here or now.

So thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you.

Uh Councilman Kevin Bishop.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, I just want to take a brief moment to um express my appreciation to the director.

Uh you bring in new innovative ways for us to look at our debt plans and and how we do things around City Hall.

You know, you just don't know what you just don't know.

So uh just want to say thank you, Director.

And uh over the years, I think you will save the city a lot of money.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you, Councilman.

Appreciate it.

Councilman Christopher Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I'm just wondering on these departments.

Um, I think uh Department of Finance and the total expenditures on page 143 is doubled in the last three years.

Um department division of accounts and total expenditures on page 146 has gone up 40 percent in the last three years.

Um what's the reason for the those departments?

Um overall costs going up uh by so through the chair to the councilman.

If you look, a lot of this is um you know full-time permanent salaries.

So uh if you go back to 2023, you'll see that salaries were 590,000.

Um, you know, this year we're budgeting 1.3, and that includes the three percent um you know increase uh for non-union folks in addition to the do we double the staff?

I mean, did we do a bunch of hiring in this department?

Because it looks like I mean I I don't have the 2023 numbers, but there's only 10 folks in the finance administration.

So through the chair to the councilman, I'll let uh Jim Gentile, he's been here longer than me discuss staffing levels over time.

Yes, there's been an increase in staffing and finance admin uh over the last several years.

Okay, and is it the same case then in division of accounts?

I mean, it went from one million salary and twenty-three to one point eight million next year.

So it could be almost double.

There's nineteen people there right now.

Page one forty-six account.

Yeah, I mean, through the chair to the councilman, we did add one this year.

Uh I'm assuming again, we'd have to go back and look the history before I was here, but I would assume that a few positions were added too to those as well.

But you know, there's also things like the modernization and um you know that sort of thing that add into these budgets as well.

So we want to invest in um you know, new modern system like DocuSign uh to get us up to date and more modern and more efficient.

So that's another I'm I'm sorry, I'm just looking at the salary line.

It's up 60 percent in three years.

So I assume I I I can't see the total staff budget from 2025.

I'm sorry, the total number of FTEs in 2023.

There's that 19 now.

Um was this department down in the dozen folks range, and we've we finally got it staffed up or a million in salary for 2023 and 1.6 million next year.

That's a 60 percent increase the chair of the councilperson.

Um they had some vacancies, they still have a couple vacancies, so that adds into us budgeting at full rate.

Um we did add one position this year.

Um did add the three percent cost of living uh this year, and then what year?

How much was that?

And 20 and through the chair to the councilperson in uh 2024, they were budgeted at 18.

So that's a total of uh four additional since 2024.

Okay, and then through the chair to the councilman, just looking forward to the um yeah, the other division that we read in the uh assessments and licenses, they do have 11 vacancies as well, even though their head count is is holding steady.

So we budget as if we're gonna fill those vacancies.

Okay, okay.

Okay, that's all chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions regarding the three divisions that we mentioned, department administration, division of accounts, and assessments and licenses.

Um, just real quick assessments and licenses.

Uh who writes tickets for garbage cans or dumpsters that are out there.

Is that who who do you guys collect fees or anything on that?

Thank you.

Uh, through the chair, that is totally through uh waste collections.

So if there's a dumpster that somebody continues to put out on the on the on the line I mean on the on the sidewalk or the streets or anything else that's waste collection.

Yes sir.

Okay.

All right.

Um councilman Casey.

Thank you Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman to the direct to the CFO on page 149 in division of assessment and licenses under contractual services we went from 88,000 to 572,000 can you explain the increase actually went from 48,000 to 5720 budgeted.

Page 149 under contractual services for professional services through the uh through the chair I can um assess with that question.

Last year we were extremely busy um either doing uh see it which took up nine to ten months out of the year and we didn't have time to implement the uh programs that we were looking to uh implement in particular we're looking this year um in order to get a in which we were budgeted but weren't able to spend it we are looking to get a um building um as well as see it's our growing um and get a software to help us manage that as well as other permitting software yeah so through the chair to the council if I could just add um to the commissioner's point uh we have a Snyder Black uh Snyder Blake contract uh tied up in that as well for for temps to assist with some of this work and I will point out last year we did um you know we budgeted 57000 we only ended up spending 48 uh but we are keeping the budgeted level the same um because of the intensive work uh you know related to the SIDs and and other items Mr.

Chairman to the CFO isn't Snyder Blake under public works through the chair to the councilman it's a citywide contract so uh my understanding is if we're gonna use that then we need to use it out of our budget.

So Mr.

Chairman to the CFO is there any money in public works for Snyder Blake?

Through the chair to the councilman I believe there is yes so Mr.

Chairman of the CFO what's the total contract for Snyder Blake through through the chair to the councilman I don't know that offhand but we Mr.

Chairman of the CFO do we know how many how much of this 5720 is being allocated for Snyder Blake through the chair 3000.

So 30 thousand all right so Mr.

Chairman to the CFO in 2025 you on unaudited was 48,000 it jumped you spent 597 correct no through the chair to the councilman we budgeted 5000 we spent 4800.

Okay and so where did the other five hundred and ten thousand dollars go Mr.

Chairman to the CFO is it still sitting there through the chair of the council person that would just fall to the ending balance for the city it kind of it's in the rollover that makes up the 90 million that rolls forward to 2020 and this this is interesting to know Mr.

Chairman to the CFO so any any money out of professional services and what I'm just using we're on licenses and assessments right so you budgeted for 497 48000 is what you spent so we've got more than more than a half a million dollars just out of licenses and assessment that rolled into that 90 million dollars that you want to use for for bond stuff and whatever it is you want to use it for.

Yeah so through the chair to the councilman you'll see things like this across the city and it doesn't always roll to the ending balance uh we'll do transfer ordinances and supplementals if it's revenue uh and we'll move those things around because there are other things that come in above budget that we need to cover um so that's you know that's what we do at the towards the end of the year Mr.

Chairman to the CFO did any of this half a million dollars end up in a transfer order okay you can you can you can look at again Mr.

Chairman of the CFO to me this just raises a red flag right not in license and assessment it just happened to be the book that's in front of us because now we're learning you know how many other professional service contractual services under professional services in this book and I don't think anybody would was putting two and two together haven't been spent that ended up is this how we're we're is this how we got to the 90 million I know it's not the main reason that we got to the 90 million but as we're going through reconciliation and everything now it's something that we can look at uh five hundred thousand dollars is an awful lot from one department to not spend to budget for and not spend so through the chair to the councilman we wouldn't have budgeted this way if we didn't think we were going to spend it this year and I think the commissioner talked a little bit about what he's looking to use it for.

Uh 500,000 dollars is an awful lot from one department to not spend to budget for and not spend.

So through the chair to the councilman, we wouldn't have budgeted this way if we didn't think we were gonna spend it this year.

And I think the commissioner talked a little bit about what he's looking to use it for.

Uh, you will see throughout the book, throughout these hearings, we pointed out areas where uh people did not other divisions did not spend their budget last year, and we actually lowered the budgeted amount to better reflect that.

Um, so it's not like we consistently over budget certain areas so that we have savings at the end.

That's not that's not what we do at all, and that's not efficient at all for the city.

So we do budget according to what we think we'll actually spend.

We think we'll spend those funds this year, and we'll need them in assessments and licenses.

Um, but you will see, like I said, throughout the book, in other divisions, those amounts lower.

And then my last question, Mr.

Chairman, to the CFO.

You say that Snyder Blake was in here because it's a citywide contract, right?

But it's also in parks, you know, the parks department.

We know 30,000 of this.

If you could get to us how much the how much we spend on Snyder Blake, because I'm under the assumption that we use Snyder Blake for seasonal summer help in our parks.

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman, we can get that for you.

I know several divisions use them, and we take it out of each division's budget because it's employees.

And then with 30,000 going to Snyder Blake, what was the other four five hundred and sixty thousand for that assessment and licenses planned on spending, but didn't through the chair to the councilman.

I'll let the commissioner uh expand on you know what he thinks he's gonna need for professional services this year.

Uh through the chair.

It is uh last year we had planned to do a uh building and collection software.

We weren't able to do that.

We're going to do it this year, as well as um, we're also doing um our special improvement districts and our energy projects um on Excel spreadsheets.

Uh, we need a um we need software to help us to manage that because that is growing at a tremendous number right now.

It's about 79 million dollars of projects uh for the energy projects um last year, um, between last year and the end of 2004 that haven't rolled on, it's another three hundred million um coming aboard.

We need software to help us manage that as well as for our um a seller permitting.

All right, and then Mr.

Chairman to to the commissioner, if we could just get a breakout of what you spent.

Well, you didn't spend money last year, but what you spent intend to spend the professional services money on this year because I have a hard time believing that department of assessment and licenses doesn't have Excel.

No, they have I'm just saying, I'm just saying thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Yeah, through through the chair to the councilman, just want to be clear.

When he said spreadsheets, he meant Excel, uh not paper.

Uh so they have that, but there's more efficient.

Like I know we implemented Salesforce with economic development, just more consistent.

Right, thank you, Councilman Michael Ponessa.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, what section handles procurement um contracts through the chair to the councilman that would be the division of purchases and supplies?

Okay.

So my question is this.

Um for the bids, I'm assuming they were bids.

We'll find out very quickly.

Like for the $500,000 for the signage here in City Hall.

Did that go out for bid?

Who can answer that question?

I mean, through the chair to the councilman, if we could wait until purchasing and supplies is up to address those.

I have my commissioner here.

Okay, I'd like to know that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I'll wait, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you.

I think that concludes the first three divisions.

I do want to say, Director, um, I want to thank your commissioners that are here too.

Um, I don't know if you want to announce or introduce all of your commissioners that are here.

Some new council members may not know who they are.

Yeah, so through the chair to the council, it's a lot of people in this room.

Um I know we have put the ones at the table, and then we're so we've we've got Commissioner Lanya Mosswalker uh and Al Nazario who backs her up.

And we've got Commissioner Dedrick Stevens from assessments and licenses, and I'm sorry, Commissioner Walker uh and Al are both from uh division of accounts.

Thank you.

And just um want to commend them as well.

A lot of people in the listening audience may not know this, but commissioners are very, very essential to city operations, and I've had the privilege of watching their work over the years.

So uh thank you so much.

You got a great team.

Just want to make sure I had not a good question.

To the council president, I agree, it's one of the best I've ever worked with.

So appreciate everybody.

Thank you so much.

All right, that concludes Department of Administration, Division of Accounts, Division of Assessments.

Uh team, can you guys go to Division of Treasury?

Page 152, Division of Treasury, Treasurer Natalie Banks.

Page 153, 2025 and audited total salaries.

474,448.

2026 budgeted.

723,816.

Page 154, 2025 and audited total expenditures.

753,609 2026 budgeted 1,131,498.

2025 stopping level 7, 2026 budgeted 9, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um to through the chair to the committee, just want to introduce uh Treasurer Natalie Banks um coming to the table who uh heads up our treasury division, and we're here to take any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Uh are there any questions for the division of treasury?

Just briefly, Mr.

Chairman.

Councilman Palency.

Mr.

Chairman, to um to the director and to the commissioner.

Nice to see you again.

Um, all of the financial institutions that we are depositing funds with, are they in compliance with the CRA requirements?

So through the chair to the councilman, and I can let the treasure city treasurer chime in.

Um my understanding is the CRA specific requirements or federal requirements, and those institutions have to be uh in compliance with those.

Uh we also have sub-CRI um requirements as well that are more city specific.

Okay, I know there's been challenges there uh with code, um, you know, with actually obtaining that data from the financial institutions.

I know Key Bank, I believe, is in compliance, fully in compliance, but um, I can let the treasurer expand.

All right, any other questions?

No, the treasure was gonna respond.

She was gonna respond.

Great.

Through the chair to the councilman, as far as the requirements under city ordinance, it is the department of community development that is responsible for determining if a depository is compliant.

So our latest communication with them, they indicated that key bank was compliant, but I'm not sure about the other depositories, but that is handled out of community development.

God help us, okay.

Um that's a shell.

That's a that's what's left up there as a shell.

So again, Mr.

Chairman to the finance director.

Um obviously, community development um has to be accountable to you, their budget, correct.

Through the chair to the councilman, I know they've had challenges this year.

They're not directly accountable to me.

Uh they report up to um Chief McNair.

Uh but we are working with them in the best of our ability.

Well, I would just hope that we drive this.

You know, you've I you've heard the course of this uh budget hearings, the concerns we have about lack of investment in our neighborhoods, issues with building and housing, abandoned homes, people cannot get loans, can't get mortgages.

I mean, again, I I want to just continue to stress we should not we should not be putting any city money in any institution that does not comply with the community reinvestment act.

We work against ourselves.

We gotta support those institutions, and I don't care who they are, that are willing to supply loans and mortgages and car loans and everything else, home improvement loan, the people in the city of Cleveland.

I I'll rest my case.

I've raised this in the past.

I'm gonna continue to raise it until we have insurances out of the administration that somebody's bird dogging this though.

If if I have to really on community development, if we have to rely on community development, we're screwed.

Okay, because they don't have the greatest track record, so that's got to change.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Any other questions for the division of treasury?

Councilman Christopher Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, the revenue uh through the chair, could you tell me why yo-yo so much?

28 million, then 39 million, then 32 million, and now we're projecting 27 million.

Why does that I think if it's the interest, why does it go up and down so much?

So, through the chair to the councilman, there's a lot of factors that go into that.

Obviously, interest rates.

So we have money with our financial institutions that earn interest.

Um interest rates have fluctuated over time.

Um you've seen them go up, I think, above five percent over the last few years, and now they're down to about three and a half to three point seven five percent.

So that's part of it.

Also, we had 511 million dollars years ago in ARPA funds.

So having a higher cash balance uh adds to our interest, and then as that's getting drawn down, um, that's why you're seeing a budgeted amount that's lower.

Uh because interest rates are trending down as well as that spend down of the ARPA funds, which should be completely spent this year.

Okay, and through the chair, I heard you say earlier in the budget hearings that you're also projecting lower interest rates because that's where the Fed seems to that's where the president wants the Fed to go.

So to be conservative, pretend he wins, get lower interest rates, we get less money.

Through the chair to the councilman, it's the general idea, it's obviously more complicated, but yes.

Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions for division of treasury?

Any comments?

Okay, once again, had the privilege of working with Commissioner.

Um thanks for years doing a great job.

Thank you.

All right, we'll move to division of purchases and supplies.

Page 155, division of purchases and supplies, Commissioner Tiffany White Johnson.

Page 156, total salaries 2025 on audited, 515, 476, 2026 budget, 684,003.

Total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 782,980.

2026 budget 1,47, 168.

Page 157, staffing levels, 2025 actual seven, 2026 budget 10, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, new sheriff and town.

Uh through the chair to the um to the council.

Uh, just want to introduce Commissioner Tiffany White Johnson who does a stellar job for uh purchases and supplies, and uh I think this budget is pretty much flat with a flat head count.

Um, but we're we're here to take any questions you may have.

Councilman Pelasnik.

Uh director and commissioner, good to see you.

Um how is the bid process?

How do we how do we do how do we go out for bid here through the through the chair, uh to the director and to the commissioner?

To the chair, to the council person.

Each department and division is considered a subject matter expert.

They would prepare a requisition in our financial system with the specifications of the actual items that they need to purchase.

Is that it's routed to the division of purchasing supplies with the funds encumbered already.

Once it gets to the division of purchasing supplies, we actually go out for a competitive bid.

We post it.

Umce the bids come back in, there is an evaluation process.

A vendor is selected, and a purchase order is awarded.

Okay, thank you.

Um the um and you would do this for all departments and divisions.

Council chair to the council person, yes.

So then on the half million dollar plus that was spent for new signage in City Hall.

Was that a bid?

Was there a bid that went out for that?

Council chair to the council person, yes.

It did go out to bid.

Okay.

So through the chair to the director, um, to staff, I'd like to see who who bid on that on that on the 500.

I cannot believe we spent 500,000 on signage in City Hall.

I'm just, I mean, I I gotta I gotta see the uh the proof of being a pudding.

I just um when I saw that figure, I said, that can't be right.

Um, but I want to see it.

I want to see that.

And and the reason I'm saying that, because I'm gonna uh my own experience.

Um I was in the Collinwood uh to the chair and to my as in the Collinwood rec center last year.

Well, I go there all the time, but I happen to be in a I walked in the kitchen and I saw this little rinky dinky white refrigerator sitting there in the in the um kitchen.

Um and I just said I said to staff, what is this?

I said, because everything in there was stainless steel and commercial grape.

They said the commercial rec center is 15 years old.

Uh the refrigerator gave up uh gave up, and um they felt uh to get it fixed it would have cost more, da.

So I said, okay, fine.

We we have summer um we have summer lunches here.

We got we got kids in here all the time.

We gotta have a big refrigerator in here to support all these programs.

And I said, what else needs to be fixed?

They said, Well, we got two uh tread mills that are not working.

I said, Okay, give me a get I'm I'm I'll pay for the treadmills and the refrigerator.

When I got that bill, I have a I almost had sticker shock.

It was just under 50 grand.

And I said, what the frick is that refrigerator made out of platinum?

Um, so that's why I I cannot understand why some of these prices that we're paying for for equipment and get things done around here are so high.

Um, I'm trying to think, is there's and there's something in our bid requirements that um you know escalates the prices.

I mean a refrigerator.

I'm talking about a commercial refrigerator.

That thing was a fortune.

out of platinum um so that's why i i cannot understand why some of these prices that we're paying for for equipment and get things done around here are so high um i'm trying to think is there's and there's something in our bid uh requirements that um you know escalates the prices i mean a refrigerator i'm talking about a commercial refrigerator that thing was a fortune and i i i said to myself something ain't right here maybe there's something is right here but and that's what i need to understand what do we do we when are we going out we're we're putting bids out to everybody who sells refrigerators or what do we what how do we do this council chair to to the councilperson yes we actually posted on the the city of cleveland's website as well as we ask departments to provide us with vendors that offer that service and then inside the the division of purchase and supplies we have vendors that we work with that we'll send items requests for um invitations to bid to as well so we try to send it out as to as many vendors as possible I was just like that I couldn't believe what we paid for a refrigerator and two treadmills um and now they want me to place some other equipment and I'm figuring if I have to go rob convenience stores in a neighborhood okay to pay for it um so at the fact of the matter is um I just didn't understand what the bid price is so everything is online posted we try to get the lowest and best bid possible council chair to the council person wired vendor yes so nobody could do better than 500 g's out here for signs then huh council chair to the council person I don't have the specifications right in front of me but we did put it out to be for a complete competitive bidding process man okay that's all I'm trying to find out thank you madam chairperson councilman polentic councilman casey thank you madam chairwoman madam chairwoman to the commissioner director commissioner commissioner have have you ever gotten a request and said no we we can't do that it's too expensive or whatever uh council chair to to the council person um not that I know of that we would actually deny a department if they have the funds and the specifications to actually put it out we would put it out for them all right um madam chairwoman to the commissioner have you ever gotten an invoice and said wow there's no way we're not gonna pay this that it's overinflated council chair to the council person absolutely and we would um go back out for a rebid which we do quite often or we would uh reach out to a vendor and ask them to match our current pricing all right madam chairwoman to the commissioner the mayor the the mayor's chair for over two thousand dollars when that came to you did you ever think wow that's probably a little bit too expensive to be paying for a chair council chairperson to the the councilman I did not see that particular one it was um it did go through a complete competitive bidding process but I did not see that one in particular and then madam chairwoman to the commissioner just to piggyback off of what councilman polensic said I would really like to know who took a bid for a chair like that how much more of the bids that came back what the bids were two thousand dollars for a chair is just a lot just like councilman polensic with the refrigerator I'd love to know how much that refrigerator was if you walk into Home Depot you're gonna pay $1500 for a good refrigerator I think I don't I don't even know right but if we're gonna if we're turning around and through our bid process paying five six seven eight thousand dollars I don't know how this goes but it does seem like anything that the city purchases is over inflated and we we pay that price compared to what the average person would could be able to get it on the regular market.

I don't know what the rules are because we're using public funds but I know my residents would rather see me go to name a furniture store and pick out a chair right and pay 200 bucks as opposed to going through the bid process and paying two thousand dollars same with the refrigerators or whatever it is that we're that we're purchasing I mean why is it that when we go out to bid for something these bids come back so overinflated and then yet we still purchase them to the commissioner the CFO anybody and anybody in the back wants to raise their hand I don't care to the trade of the councilperson I mean we're required under state law to take the lowest and bus.

So it it boils down to who bids on these items I will say we're in the process of implementing something called vendor self-service that's part of our advantaged financial package that we've had since 2010 it will allow vendors no matter where you're at to actually bid on our items so what we're hoping when we open this up to more competitive bidding uh across kind of everywhere we should start seeing some better prices when we do that so um we're in the we're we this year we will be implementing that we're starting with bids under 5000 at some at some point later on this year we'll be going over 50 and the competition's much better I mean we're under an old system where all the people that bid have to physically come down there if you ever go down by purchasing or hanging around the hallways for the bid opening this will be an there will be an electronic drop box that people can bid on this without going here Mr.

We're starting with bids under 50,000 at some at some point later on this year, we'll be going over 50 and the competition's much better.

I mean, we're under an old system where all the people that bid have to physically come down, or if you ever go down by purchasing or hanging around the hallways for the bid opening, this will be not there will be an electronic drop box that people can bid on this without calling here.

Mr.

Chair, did you want to add did you want to add on through the chair to the councilman?

I think I think Jim told it correctly.

I mean, this is part of the part of the reason why we're trying to modernize City Hall.

Um, I mean, the the modernize city hall with $50,000 drapes, $2,000 chairs, $500,000 in signage, and then you're talking about modernizing City Hall.

And I'm not just talking about the mayor's office.

Mr.

Madam Chairwoman of the CFO, this is across the board.

So what it costs somebody in the 50-50 sidewalk program, you can just do it yourself with the contractor for a third of that.

What it costs us to put in an ADA ramp on the on the corner when when we redo a street, four or five times more than what a regular contractor to even to get a street redone.

Three, four times.

So it's a scam, right?

And is what it is.

So through the chair to the councilman, yeah.

What I meant by competitiveness was you know, our modernization is to increase competitiveness so that we get more bids.

Um I see some of these RFP responses in, we may only get a few.

Uh we're hoping to up that and by making the process easier to get more bids to make it more competitive to drive down prices.

So that's a big um, you know, initiative that we have this year.

It's one of my primary initiatives to get this VSS, make it easier to do business with the city and make it cheaper for the city to do business.

All right, and madam chairwoman's a commissioner, this is not this is not a knock on you, but and I don't want to dip in somebody else's war, but if we could see how much we Councilman Polencick paid for that refrigerator out in Collinwood, I'd uh for the price he paid for it, it should have come stocked for a whole year.

Um but we would like to know exactly how much he paid for that refrigerator.

Um, just to see, maybe try to prove my point.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

But I'd love to see the price of that refrigerator.

Thank you.

And the two treadmills.

And the two treads and the treadmill, whatever you paid for that.

How much whatever because we know how much it would cost us to go out and buy refrigerator or buy a treadmill, or we want to see how much the city pays for that kind of stuff, because maybe we're all in the wrong business.

Thank you, madam chairwoman.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Councilman Slife.

Thank you.

And I kind of want to build off what Councilman Casey's saying by just asking kind of in this circumstance where you would reject a bid because it's too high.

What uh you know, I used to work for uh uh a construction company and they had estimators.

Like, do we have estimators that are going out to figure out what the market price is for a treadmill so that we can how do we analyze what's brought to us for uh 88 ramp against sort of market rate and and make decisions from there?

Because I think our fear obviously is that we are people are overcharging us, and and in our need to get stuff done, we are overpaying.

So is there an estimator or some other process that allows us to get a uh baseline of what things should cost so that we can negotiate on behalf of ourselves?

Council chair to the council person.

So we actually have a two-part process.

We rely on the department to do the actual market research as well as the division of purchasing and supplies will do some research as well to find out specifically if we are paying too much, if we feel like we're paying too much, or if we feel like um the market offers better pricing.

So there's a two part to that.

It's actually the department as well as the division of purchasing and supplies.

Can I I would add to that?

I'm curious to know also how you diversify vendors, right?

I mean, is it always based on the price or could it be just you know, do they get extra points or they're from the city of Cleveland?

Council Chair to Council Chair, yes.

So we actually it's uh awarded on lowest and best, and so best could be delivery, best could be um a number of factors.

So no, it's not always just the pricing.

I thank you, Chair, because I think the other aspect that's not intuitive is if I if I needed a desk in my office, I'm not gonna go to a vendor and pay an intermediary to find me a desk.

I'm just gonna go to Levin and buy a desk.

And and is are there opportunities to buy things directly rather than through vendors?

And that that seems to be at a place where price could increase because now we are paying someone to do.

I can go to I can go to Staples and buy paper, you know, and we can just reimburse ourselves rather than having to go through vendors who obviously have to add the cost of their service into the price that we are then having to pay.

So council chairperson to the councilman, there is a small opportunity for that.

It's through petty cash, but because that these are public funds, we actually require that the vendors uh abide by state laws and rules and regulations of our codified ordinances.

So no, there's really not a large opportunity to do that.

That's what increases costs.

There you go.

Thank you.

Councilman Jones.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chairwoman.

Um Jasmine Santana to um Commissioner Johnson.

Um looking here on page 155, you have output metrics, uh, and this is a request for information.

Um would want to know before I get into my questioning, a breakdown of uh these columns in terms of you know the competitive bid process and who so if I can get a list breakdown from the columns one through five.

Um, and that's information that's requested later once you can gather it together.

The next the next set here is looking at Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Chairwoman, um, to the commissioner is the competitive requirement contracts process was 136.

What does that number represent in terms of of uh of dollars and cents?

So, council chairperson to the councilman, I do not have that exact number with me, but I can provide that to you, absolutely.

Can can I is it can you give me a rough estimate?

You don't have to be exact or preliminary estimate of what it could be uh unless unless the the CFO, I see he waving it.

So are you gonna take it all through the chair to the councilman?

We just want to you know avoid just throwing numbers out there, so we want to get you something accurate.

So then we'll we'll wait for it then um uh Mr.

Chairman.

Um so let's let's just stay there on on on number three for a second.

Um these contracts that come in, I want to make sure I'm I'm on the same page.

The staff that you have, do they go through the the process and say who gets it and who doesn't?

Who or or is it a committee kind of approach with the various different departments?

How does that process work?

Council chairwoman to the councilman for bids over 50,000, the subject matter experts, which are the departments actually complete the evaluations.

The division of purchasing and supplies takes their own recommendation, comes back to it and just confirms that the vendor that they selected meets all of the right criteria and our laws, and then from there it goes to the board of control.

The the board of control actually makes the final award.

And and who who are the members of the board of control?

Uh council chairwoman to the council person.

The board of control is a group of directors here at the city of Cleveland that meet every Wednesday to approve all purchases in amounts greater than $50,000.

Through the chair to the councilman, I know this question came up earlier in hearings, uh, and these are the meetings again that are on uh at Wednesday o'clock at three o'clock, or when's every Wednesday at three o'clock and are live streamed.

Great.

So uh I'm gonna have to jump on some of those those meetings.

Um, one of the things that's really important to me, Mr.

Chairman Chairwoman to the commissioner, is embedded racism and discrimination within systems and institutions.

And it doesn't matter who uh becomes the the the leaders, so to speak, the system still will do what it's doing.

And we've been sitting here at this table for a long time, and as an elected official representing citizens in my neighborhood and just knowing about various different business owners and African American business people uh throughout this city.

Um it's been very difficult for them to get a niche into the system and get work.

Um so I would like to know a little bit more about those processes, how that process works, and do we how do we you know uh look at uh and how many credits or do we give any points to African American business owners in the city of Cleveland as well as businesses?

So it doesn't technically have to be just African American businesses, but people who have business in the city of Cleveland, how do we get them uh at this table and delivering services and goods to us?

Well, council chairperson, um to the the councilman, that particular role is actually driven by the department of equal opportunity.

We work very close with them to ensure that we are utilizing those vendors and those particular vendors receive our invitations to bid, but that that function is actually monitored by the Office of Um Equal Opportunity.

And that's what the the so they work with you and uh in terms of dealing with that.

We just know that there's certain outcomes, and you may have certain situations that probably there needs to be a little bit more education, a little bit more awareness about how your process works to uh be able to get contracts and and to to bid in this entire process.

Do you guys have any kind of uh Mr.

Chairman uh chairwoman to the commissioner?

Do you have any kind of training formats or forums that if if businesses want to do business with the city of Cleveland, there's there's some kind of uh uh seminar uh of how and what to do.

Council chairperson to the uh councilman, yes, we do every first Tuesday of the month.

We have an open house.

We consider it our one stop shop where our office as well as the office of equal opportunity, we get together and we train vendors on how to do business with the city of Cleveland.

I think that's great.

So um, you know, it's really good.

I really appreciate the work you do.

Um, and um, and I'll say I'll go back to my colleague Mike Palencick.

Um, and this is several years ago, probably uh about at least uh uh six years ago, uh there was water coming into the city of Cleveland flowing in, and it was messing up the mural inside of Cleveland City Council, and um it was really quite bad.

Uh this is before uh uh Justin Bibbs administration got into power.

And City Hall, technically speaking, was falling apart.

And um, and the place look dreary.

Um since this administration has been in, I'm a council member who um believes that we should always be constantly investing into the people's house, that we should be constantly investing in to making sure that our staff and the people who do work for the people of the city of Cleveland have an environment that is conducive to work in and um and has the bright energy that has been brought.

I like the signage that has been done throughout these hallways, I like uh the seats that have been established, um, and I hope that we can get some more art up and down the hallways like we did.

Um I think that all of that helps to lift the spirits when you walk into this to this to this hall.

And I've been coming down here since 1978 when I was a kid.

So I I really like the improvements, and um I think we should continue to invest in that.

Um if we can give, and this is to those who are sitting at the table, um, if we can give 20 million dollars to the rich people with their sports franchises and all that kind of stuff, and then we're gonna probably have they're gonna come back to us again.

Uh, we should be able to give that kind of money to our neighborhoods as well.

We should take that kind of money and invest it uh in ourselves in this in this city, into people, into creating jobs, in to making our city safe and improving our educational systems.

So um, with that being said, I'm gonna get off of my um uh yield my time to the chairwoman.

I really appreciate your leadership, and I look forward to having somewhat of a discussion and a tour and uh understanding how your department works, and I just want to thank you for doing a good job that you're doing.

Thank you for staying within time.

Um, hearing no other questions.

Can you read in Bureau of Internal Audits?

Page 158 Bureau of Internal Audit Manager Natasha Brandt, CPA Esquire, CGMA, page 159, total salaries 2025 unaudited, 449,985, 2026 budget, 627,946 total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 859,833 2026 budget, 1,414, 138, page 160 staffing levels, 2025 actual for 2026 budget eight.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Manager, or do you want to introduce yourself?

Yes.

Um Natasha Brandt, um manager of internal audit.

Um, I'd also like to acknowledge my staff who is um watching.

Yeah, uh, they are uh Tamar Jensen, Don Roberts, Leda Gersha, Angelina Lagoonzid, Ann Fox, and Joseph Callentine.

Um they're great to work with as well as dedicated employees to uh the city.

Got it.

I love when um directors give shout outs to their staff.

Um so I'm not sure if you're gonna present on this or director.

Uh so through the chair to the councilwoman again, this is not there's not a whole lot to this budget.

This is not there's not a whole lot to this budget.

Uh the one thing I will point out is the increased head count.

So this is one of those, this is a smaller division.

This is one of those divisions that we have had a few challenges with filling roles.

Um we are adding an additional auditor uh to help to assist with the work, so we're going from seven head count uh to eight.

Um but I can let the um the manager you know talk a little bit more about that.

Got it.

And I would just ask, I know that this budget nearly doubled um from 2023 to 2026, started at um 604,000, now it's at 1.4 million.

Um I can address that.

So internal audit manages the external audit, um, which includes two SOC reports.

Um we then pay the entire bill on behalf of the city for the entire financial audit as well as the two SOC audits.

Um, and then later on in the year, we then stop.

Sorry.

Okay, allocate those costs to the divisions and departments as um necessary.

So we have to budget for 100%, but then um reallocated to enterprise divisions grants that are audited as well as you know for the SOC1 reports to CCA and Department of Water.

Got it.

And then I do see professional service went from previously zero to 175.

So the SOC one uh audits are housed in the professional services area, so that's the one that um I need the funds in order to pay the bill, and then once it's allocated out, then it goes to zero balance.

Got it.

Thank you.

Um councilman Jones, any any other questions?

No, okay.

Councilman Jones, 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Chairwoman, um, to manager Natasha Brandt.

Um looking here at this, what causes the audit?

We have an audit plan where we actually uh determine what areas based on a risk assessment, which is based on the financials.

Um we have normal audits that we do annually.

Um we audit every payroll uh that comes out every two weeks.

We audit petty cash at 100%, we do inventory audits, which you can see the statistics on our front page, um, and then we have requested audits, you know, that being uh whether we're helping out a certain division in a certain area, we also answer all fraud complaints for the city of Cleveland.

Um so that can require a lot of work.

Uh we may have management requests.

Um lately it is uh participating in work day in order to make sure that uh that would be running smoothly when it is up and running.

So um probably 60 percent of our work is planned, and the other 40 is unplanned.

It could be higher depending on the year.

So you have uh showing here on page 160, um, madam chairwoman, um uh to Mrs.

Brant, you have uh two auditors and they do all of this work.

Um through the chair to the um councilman, uh we do have audit staff who is currently in um the budget of uh public utilities.

Public utilities, correct.

Okay.

So uh what is I know we have a total here, it is eight.

So when you bring public utilities in, I presume that is that the only department that you have, or um that's the only other division or department that funds internal auditors.

And how many auditors is it total?

Total three three, yes.

Okay.

So so Madam Chairwoman, um I uh thank you for uh to the manager for doing a good job in the city of Cleveland.

Have you been here alone with us for a while?

I have been with the city for uh over 15 years through the chair to the 15 years?

Well, well, I'm quite sure we you know being here 15 years, we you must be doing a great job.

And um really appreciate uh the time that you uh do.

I know that doing audit work can be uh uh doozy.

Um and you certainly have to have an analytical mind to be able to go through all of that paperwork.

Um and just want to say thank you for uh serving the citizens of the city of Cleveland.

Madam Chairwoman, I yield my time back to you.

Thank you, Councilman Jones, thank you, manager.

Um that concludes the question for the session.

Next up, um, can you read in division of risk management?

Right, that's the way you guys were doing that.

Oh, I'm sorry, okay, division of taxation, CCA.

I don't know.

Page 393.

Total expenditures 2025 unaudited.

2026 budget.

15 million 32,272.

Page 394 staffing level 2025 actual 68 2026 budget 112.

Madam Chair.

Director.

Introduction to Danielle Clark.

She's only been with us a few months.

Reason being is that Kevin Preslin was the former head of the CCA and was promoted to assistant director.

So he's now an admin.

So this is a success story.

Very very proud of Kevin and uh where he's come.

And um, you know, excited to have Danielle here.

So just wanted to make those introductions.

Thank you, administrator.

Would you like to share through the chair?

Um, I just want to say thank you to the director for the introduction, and I'm happy to be here to serve the city of Cleveland.

Um, just to give a little background.

I come from the Cuyahoga County Office of Budget and Management and the Adams Board is their previous director of finance.

So thank you.

Got it.

Oh, Mr.

Preston, right?

President, uh, correct, yeah.

Uh to the chair.

Um, for those of you that know me, yes, uh Kevin Preslin uh was the income tax administrator through the end of last year for approximately five years.

Um just a couple things I wanted to note it relate to the division at taxation or CCA uh responsible for income tax administration for the city of Cleveland, as well as approximately three uh dozen municipalities across the state.

Um as a result, that makes our budget an agency fund.

Uh and that can speak to uh Councilman Polenzic's questions previously related to open headcount um as a result of being an agency fund.

Um we have additional headcount to be prepared for retirements, uh to be prepared for shifts in work, uh to be prepared for anything that comes our way, and those are head count that cannot be transferred to other departments or divisions throughout the city.

So just because we have additional headcount does not mean other divisions or departments have a lesser headcount.

Um it just provides that flexibility uh for us to hire on a moment's notice for various reasons, and happy to answer questions you may have.

Okay, I have councilman Casey and then Harsh.

Thank you, madam chairwoman, and madam chairwoman to the assistant director or new commissioner.

Can people file their taxes yet with the CCA online?

Through the chair to the councilman, yes, that opened up at the beginning of the year through e-file as well as the standard uh paper forms that we have on our website.

Right, but uh through the chair of the councilman, I just want to add one quick thing.

There is a new CCA website that went live uh last year.

I know the last one was pretty clunky, um, so I would invite you to go out, take a look and give us any feedback.

Yeah, but when I get my taxes done every year, he files everything except the city, but we can do that now, correct?

Through through the chair to the councilman, correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Harsh.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, I believe that the majority of Cleveland's general fund is raised through income tax, right?

So uh through the chair, why does that not reflect it in this department?

Because there's only like 10 million or 15 million in revenue.

So through the chair to the councilman, this is what offsets the operations for CCA, so this is not total income tax.

Uh it's just what offsets the everything else goes straight to the general.

This is just covering the cost.

Through the chair of the councilman, that's correct.

Okay.

Uh I say it uh every year, and I'm gonna keep saying it every single year.

Uh filing city taxes is the most magical experience I have as a taxpayer.

Uh the federal is weird, the state is weird.

I pick up the city one, it's one piece of paper.

I answer a few questions, and it's always within a penny.

Collections is always within a penny of what I paid.

It's just it's perfect every single year.

Like you pull the exact right amount of money.

At the end of the year, everything is flush, and then it just once again, it happened again this year.

Um last year, I'm sure it'll happen again this year.

So job well done.

Thank you.

That's all.

Are you done?

Yep.

Okay, councilman.

I mean, yeah, councilman Jones, and then I have councilwoman Hudson.

Mr.

Chairman, um, Mr.

Chairwoman to uh Mrs.

Clark, if we would move over to page 391, uh, can we get a breakdown on on the different um administrators?

Uh you got the income tax administrator and you bring it all the way on down.

Um we'd like to have a listing of that through the chair of the councilman, yes, that we can provide that.

And then um looking here on page 392.

Um there can you tell me about professional services?

What that is through the chair to the councilman, uh, yes, we have a few contracts within the division that are uh annual.

Uh the largest one is our data processing support services.

Uh a large chunk of that is our IT staff uh that allows us to uh be nimble uh in terms of uh not not uh having quicker turnaround as it relates to any people that may be moving to different positions, needing to ramp up, needing to ramp down.

Uh it also was uh utilized for our e-file upgrade a few years ago.

Um in addition, we have scanning and data services through there.

As you can imagine, we have a lot of paper, we have certain requirements through Ohio law, so that it helps us get everything organized, make sure that we keep the records that we're required to keep.

Uh we also have some web uh design services in there as mentioned by the CFO.

Uh that was a project last year with some residual residual into this year.

Uh we have shredding and purging services through that, and lastly, uh we have some uh security guard services that help man the 205 West St.

Clair entrance and rear uh entrance.

Yeah, and the reason why I asked uh Madam Chairwoman um was as I'm looking at this to our administrator, um it is 1.8 million uh and it's identical to the what we spent last year.

So it's nothing is increased, it's all the same, it appears to be.

And if you could uh madam chairwoman to um the administrator, if you could give us a breakdown of that, I'd be appreciative of that.

Through the chair to the councilman, just want to be clear the 1852 is what was budgeted last year.

We spent 1.5, so we're actually a little bit under budget.

Um but for you know what the um assistant director uh mentioned, you know, for those uses, we believe that we'll spend all of those funds.

So we'll get that list to you.

And I appreciate that uh, Mr.

Chairman to our CFO.

Um, you know, I'm I've I've always been a fan of Cleveland, and being a fan of Cleveland, you want to make sure that Clevelanders, if they are eligible to get some of these contracts, have an opportunity.

How many of these businesses in the 1.5 million spent um uh actually are in the city of Cleveland?

Do we know?

Through the chair to the councilman, I don't know off the top of my head, but we can get that to you.

And so uh that that would be important, you know, uh to uh always be constantly changing how we do business to make sure that we support people who are paying their taxes in the city of Cleveland, who are doing business in the city of Cleveland, who do this kind of work.

Um we want to try to do everything we can uh to make sure that they're aware of these opportunities.

And and then I don't know how that's done.

How is these jobs let it out?

How do we choose these to give these professional contracts out?

How does that work?

Through the chair of the councilman, we uh work through the division of purchasing similar to any other division or department.

I I presume so I I will be sitting down with her and having a conversation.

So uh Madam Chairwoman, I have no further conversation.

I yield the floor back to you.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hudson.

Thank you, madam chair.

Um, through the chair to um CFO, uh Councilman Casey asked about e-filing returns.

Is it possible to e-file returns not just through the cities through the CCA website, but when you're using other tax prep software like turbo tax or tax act?

Through the chair of the councilwoman, uh some of so when we're dealing with different tax platforms, that since they are all different competitors, they're all one-off solutions, particularly on the local level.

Um, there are a few that we work with that have us review their forms each year.

Um it isn't a straight electronic filing, but it will print out information uh via whatever is inputted for the federal and state return.

Others uh we've attempted to work with and just aren't interested given you know the federal platform that they have and the additional cost that would likely be added on.

Um so the short answer to that is e-file our e-file is the only way to directly electronically file, but we do work with a few others.

Okay, thank you.

And through the chair, is it possible to e-file if you are a small business owner and file a schedule C through the chair to the councilwoman, not at this time on the business side?

Can you through the chair, can you file electronically through the website if you're filing a schedule C as a small business owner?

Through the chair to the councilwoman, not file the form is on the website as well as an interactive version of the form.

So the there's calculations embedded into a good number of our forms that will calculate out the tax, but you it would still require uh mailing it in, dropping it off, uh methods like that.

Yes, thank you.

Um do you through the chair, do you have plans to um change that in the future?

I've you know, I've been a small business owner, and my husband and I file schedule C's for many years, and um unfortunately the city's uh process for filing a tax return for small business owners is extremely burdensome through the chair to the councilwoman.

So again, this is uh our initiative to modernize city hall when we talk about this.

So we've already I know Kevin was on the under the helm when uh you know we set up this new website, uh which has been it's a big improvement over the last website, but we do uh understand that there's other things that we could be doing to make it more efficient and easier for taxpayers to file.

So we're constantly looking at those things and we'll continue to look at them.

Um, you know, the system that we previous had was pretty old.

So at this point, we're trying to modernize and update and we'll look at all of that.

We're happy to work with you on that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

That's all.

Councilman Casey.

Thank thanks for allowing me back on.

Uh just one real quick question, Mr.

Chairman, to the assistant director.

A couple of years ago, we had the discussion at the table about when you send the estimates for um taxes that are owed to the city, and a penalty for being late or a fee for being late, which would incur before the April deadline to file your taxes.

Did we correct that situation?

Through the chair to the councilman, uh partially uh to in terms of the amount of the fee, uh, it has been decreased for tax years 2023 and forward.

It was previously up to 150 dollars per return.

It is now capped at 25 per return.

Uh the deadlines itself related to payment are still in place and are uh centralized throughout this the state of Ohio.

Uh for most taxpayers, it isn't an issue that have withholdings from their employer.

But if you're going to owe after withholdings or non-withholdings more than 200, um there are rules in place to have that payment in by the end of January.

Uh either ninety percent of what you believe that balance is or a hundred percent of the previous year if you're in a profession where that can be uncertain year to year.

Um those penalties are still in place.

All right, so Mr.

Chairman's the assistant director, when does the city send to somebody what their estimated taxes that they owe would be it's before January, isn't it?

Through the chair uh to the councilman.

Uh taxpayers do have the option when they are filing uh their previous year's return to fill out a section in our on our return, so that they will get basically mailed coupons or slips to them.

Uh that usually starts with the the second quarter, uh, because as you can imagine, people are filing and we're processing, so it takes us a minute to get to it.

But there it there does need to be an action taken by the taxpayer to proactively get that.

Otherwise, it's on the taxpayer to look at their forms or attempt to estimate what they may or may not owe because we might not necessarily know that information in advance.

All right, so let me let me just see that I get this correct, right?

So my bill, Mr.

Madam Chairwoman to the assistant director for we'll just gonna use 2025.

That bill to the city is due by January 31st or something like that, correct?

Correct.

Even though I'm not filing my taxes for 2025 until whatever the filing deadline is when April something, April first, April 15th.

So the city wants me, and if this is a state law or whatever, to pay what I owe for 2025 by the end of January of 2026, even though I'm not doing my taxes and don't know the exact amount until I file my taxes April 15th.

Correct?

Through the chair of the councilman, that's where the optionality of if you using your example, if you owed something for 2024, if you paid 100% of that amounts, whatever it may be, that will uh stop penalty and interest from accruing.

Uh, or if you know your 2025 number is going to be significantly smaller, so long as you pay 90% of that balance by the January dates, you're also good there.

So we run into situations where even though you might not have withholdings or estimates in, you might have a consistent income.

Then you might pick option A, but if you're you know, if it's year to year where you might have losses or large amounts of income, you might just take the consistent approach of whatever you paid last year.

All right, Mr.

Chairman to the assistant director, is that state law or is that city law?

Is that your policy?

Through the chair to the councilman, it is in state law reinforced in our ordinance chapter 192.

Okay, I just I because I just want to make sure anybody who owes money in 2025 has to pay 90% of their estimate by January of 2026, even though they don't file their taxes until after after that, correct?

To the chair councilman, that is correct.

Okay.

And then if the city thinks that they owe somebody money, do you send that money out by the end of January?

Even though they haven't filed their taxes.

Of course.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Thanks, Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Um Casey.

So here are no other question that concludes the CCA taxation.

Um can you read in division of risk management?

Page 164, division of risk management.

Commissioner Eduardo Ramiro, page 165, total salaries 2025 unaudited, 427,864, 2026 budget, 587,755.

Total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 2,283,928 2026 budget, 2,450, 789.

Page 166, staffing levels, 2025 actual six, 2026 budget six.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Director and director, right?

Oh, Commissioner, Commissioner, sorry.

I don't know if you want to introduce yourself.

I don't know if you have an intro for this department.

Sure.

Um, thank you, madam chairwoman.

I'd like to also uh introduce uh two of my staff that are here in person.

Uh April Bucci, who is the administrative manager for EMS billing, and project coordinator Sierra Gorby, who's our revenue collection specialist, and virtually we have uh the rest of my staff as is uh watching and that's watching, and they are um Patrick Mangan, who is our emergency preparedness manager, uh also um Keisha Hill Watkins, who is our project coordinator risk officer, and uh our systems administrator for a huge project that we're undergoing right now in with a software called origami, and then Sonia Brown, our extremely competent workers comp manager, who I'm proud to say we had the second lowest number of workers' comp claims in the city's history in 2025.

Thank you, Commissioner Director.

Through the chair to the council again, uh pretty straightforward division, uh six head count, fully staffed.

We're not asking for any more, any less.

Um, director, I do see though that the um expenditure is doubled, right?

From 948,000 to 2.45 million.

Am I seeing this right?

Yeah.

From 2024 to 2026.

Uh to the chair, that's primarily the contract that we have with QMC who does the uh EMS billing.

That is so the other contractual which jumps to 1.5 has to do with that.

Okay.

Any questions from my colleagues?

Councilwoman Hudson.

Thank you.

Um to the commissioner, um, so your department deals with with risk management.

And um, when the division of safety was at the table, I asked about purchasing blocker vehicles or possibly retrofitting um vehicles with attenuators to to be used instead of expensive vehicles like our um fire trucks to to um you know block the scene of uh crashes on highways um because it's it's difficult and very expensive to replace those types of vehicles.

Um you know, this is an obvious cost to the city.

What are we doing to protect our investment in vehicles and keep our first responders safe?

Uh to the chair to the councilwoman.

Um this is an endeavor that I initiated in 2009.

We had a 1.1 million dollar fire engine that was one month old that was hit on I-480 as we were blocking out near the airport.

Uh the um trucking company did have insurance, but we had to ship that vehicle to Minnesota for five weeks and put it in a engine truck that was out of service.

I've tried since 2009.

Uh we had some assistance, but not only do we have to get the the blocker vehicles, but we also have to have the budget to then staff them.

My recommendation historically has been one for the west side, one for the east side, and one downtown.

We cover 90, we cover 77, 176, 71, 48.

Um the issue has been do we have the staffing?

And that's one of the pushbacks I would get from chiefs regularly is we don't have the staffing to man those 247 365.

Um we are very close, and I know that we've had some assistance from city council, specifically councilperson um SLIF in getting Haas systems, which is another um quality safety system that we can transmit to all the uh our first responder vehicles are out there.

We've had obviously uh council's well apprised of the fact that we lost a firefighter in November 21, Johnny Tetrick.

And so we've tried to escalate that, and we are cognizant of it.

We have actually uh researched it well, I've had 17 years of research this, and we've done the job.

We're prepared to try to move forward with it.

Um I know that we've identified through the assistance of Director Drummond uh vehicles that do that.

And so, but we have other systems in place that we can do, and there are other revenue opportunities that I believe that we can uh look into that I've initially vetted that may be able to sustain this moving forward.

Thank you.

And what can what can we do during this budget session to make sure that this is the year that it happens?

Uh to the chairperson to the uh the counselor, uh I just believe that you know your knowledge of it and you know the fact that you are in support of this, um, you know, we'll see you through.

We came very close to having this happen um a year and a half ago prior to the CFO's arrival.

Um, but unfortunately at that time um some capital funds were it was necessary to go in a different direction, but it is something we want to look at in capital again.

We did have support of the uh previous chief, and I'm sure previous chiefs, because this is also for police.

We've had a police officer where a car rolled on him and crushed his legs.

So this goes EMS is have paramedics who've lost legs by being hit on the highway.

So it's something we we know ultimately you cannot measure the value of a human being in dollars.

So we need to do everything we can to protect them while they're out there.

Thank you.

I just want to add uh through the chair.

This was brought to my attention by when I rep when I met with representatives from the care union, and in particular, a a uh care union, um, a former EMT who can no longer um you know follow through and hit he's you know still part of the uh he teaches, but he cannot no longer be an EMT because of an injury he sustained um by being hit by a vehicle while on the job.

So um this is this is extremely important, and I believe you know, in addition to saving lives, it will also save the city money in in the long run um and make us more effective and our safety forces more effective and keep keep people safe.

So thank you for all the work you've done the past 17 years, and um we'll keep pushing for it.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Councilman Casey.

Thank you, madam chairwoman, madam chairwoman and commissioner.

With risk management, we were told at the table um from Chief Todd that police overtime for the mayor's travel, there's a risk assessment that they um evaluate and then determine what type of security he may need.

Ms.

Madam Chairwoman to the to the commit commissioner, right?

Commissioner, yeah.

Um that decision making to the chair person to the councilman.

No.

Okay, thank you.

So they don't use the risk management department of the city of Cleveland.

All right, thank you.

Through the chair to the councilman, I believe that's a safety assessment through public safety.

Okay, thank you.

That's it.

Oh councilman's life.

Uh thank you.

And I don't know.

Do you want G do you want to respond?

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

And I'm excited for the Ha system to get online.

For those that don't know, this is a system that will help your in-car GPS inform you that there are first responders ahead so that we can try to increase visibility, slow cars down.

Um this is I think it'll go a long way, and it's a part of the answer, it's not the entirety of the answer, certainly.

Uh I just want to make sure though that through the chair to the commissioner and uh commissioners of civil service, to say what you gotta say.

Uh I want to make sure the what I heard is that there's a reluctance from safety to staff.

Is it that the issue is that safety isn't identifying the staff for such equipment?

Uh through risk risk management is advising to use this type of equipment, and another aspect of city hall is not adhering to that recommendation.

To the chair to uh councilman, no, that was the initial when I first brought this up back in 2009, and it was like a two to three year deal that where I was trying to uh convince safety they needed this.

Uh at that time, the it was a reluctance on the part of that at that time their chief who said, you know, I need staffing, uh otherwise I'm not going forward with it.

Um today, Chief Luke and Chief Nada, uh they they're they're on board with it.

So uh it's a matter of identifying the positions.

Um but um they I don't know in intricately uh what there's how their staffing setup, but they're on board.

They they they worked with uh firefighter Tetrick directly, they knew him, they knew his family, and they're very open to this.

When I presented this in 2009 to then Chief Stubbs, uh they had no law, so there wasn't that tie-in that there is today.

Okay, it's and it's unfortunate that we had to come to this conclusion the hard way.

Um I think that this body needs to push that conversation in safety, identify those positions.

We heard during the safety hearing that not only does a fire truck cost like two million dollars, but there's also a three-year lead time.

So this is uh this is a a a lot of this is a lot of money uh that we are throwing out the window when there's a more cost-effective way to not just save money but more importantly protect people.

Uh so let's let's make sure they identify those positions when if we have to find a budgetary solution for that right here and right now, I think that it would save us money in the long run, it'd be worthwhile.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I do want to talk about the workers' come um numbers.

I know that we have we lost uh lost time claims, that increase medical claims decrease.

I'm just curious to know what is driving that increase in lost time claims, and are there any prevention um strategies to reduce workplace injuries?

Um to the chairperson, actually that number uh is incorrect.

So, well, actually, that's a 2005 number.

I let me pull out the the latest numbers I have.

Okay, here we go.

So through uh those were number of claims filed.

So there's a difference between filing and actual claims being allowed.

Uh, because not everything that uh gets filed is a pertinent workers' count claim because the state has you know uh uh Ohio Revised Code 4123 stipulates what constitutes a workers' complain.

And sometimes if you're ill at work, that doesn't mean necessarily mean it was an employer's responsibility.

It was you know the person was inherent, the their own person, so it's uh idiopathic.

So we have about 50 some claims usually a year that even though they're filed, they get disallowed by the state, either through the state acting, because the state is the first arbiter of the claim, but what they do is they get evidence from both the employer and the employee, and they make their decision.

Now both other parties, the employer and employee have the right to appeal that and say no, I don't think you have, or to submit further evidence to say this is why we think you you know we disagree with your opinion.

And so those 50 odd claims a year are the ones that get overturned.

So our actual numbers for 2025 were in allowed claims.

346.

Talking about a set of the 405?

Yes, because 405 is the all claims that were filed.

Okay.

Got it.

And from those 405, how many are appealed or denied?

Um there were so it went down to 46, so it was it was about 50 some.

Councilman Jones?

Madam Chairman, one does these uh just to make sure I have clarification.

The lot of the questions I had earlier has already been talked about.

Okay.

Um but what I wanted to ask was was this concerning the actual claims coming in from the citizens?

Uh to the chairperson to the councilman, no, these are for city employees only.

I see.

Well, where's the number where it talks about the claims that come in from the citizens who have do we have that number?

Your de does your department handle that, madam uh chairwoman, to um commissioner?

Uh to the chair to the councilman, uh no, we don't.

What we're implementing though this year is a system called origami software, it's risk software that is tied in citywide, and that will have a platform for um, for example, Sergeant Pesta, who is the officer in charge of City Hall, for him to log in all the activity that occurs where the system say falls on city property, uh, all our external ADA, not internal ADA, but external ADA, uh, we'll be able to start tracking all that.

Our expectation is that by year three of the origami implementation, we're in like uh seven months into it, but by year three, we'll have enough data in there to be able to do predictive analysis going into the future.

I see.

And then, Madam Chairwoman, lastly, workers' compensation, you opened up with your introduction.

Can you tell us you know why we're doing so well and why those numbers are so low?

So to the chair to the councilman.

Um, so when I came here in 2002, the city had had uh 1,800 claims a year.

Um what basically we did at that time was with you know, anything that happened, we didn't train our employees in employee health and safety.

You know, uh, I think we we were tacitly involved in following OSHA and PERP regulations.

PERP for everyone's edification is the public employers risk reduction program.

Ohio is one of 26 states that does not have OSHA and OSHA inspectors oversee their public employees.

They oversee federal and private sector employees, but state, county, municipal, and township employees report to the state of Ohio.

And so what we did is we robustly decided we started training people.

We started training our management staff.

We made sure to look, have toolbox talks with your staff that are going out there.

If you're gonna go in out there, have a strategic plan and cutting those trees down.

Don't just go up there and try to get get them because you got another job to run to, do it strategically.

And so our we um and with Jim Gentiles assistance in 2005, we did a beta test program where we charge back in the past, prior to that, we had it we just spread whatever the cost was citywide.

What we did at that point through Jim's assistance, and then we implemented permanently in 2006 was to do a chargeback to every department division.

So Edward Mero has a claim, but he works in parks, but then he transferred the utilities.

That responsibility still rests with parks budget, because that way we know parks will always pay attention to saying, hey, you know, we gotta make sure that we continue with the safety, continue trading our employees, and making sure that everyone goes home in one piece.

Well, you know, I listen, I must commend you for you know being a part of that and um and saving the city a lot of money.

Uh with that, do we do we show a column how much we saved?

Will we get a refund?

So to the chair to the councilman.

No, the the refunds unfortunately, our workers' comp system in Ohio, which is only one of four that are monopolistic, all the other states have open markets where any private insurance company, but there are four states, Ohio is one of them, that run it out of their uh out of the state of Ohio.

That particular fund is 28 billion dollars.

And they do not, it's not like a mutual company that everyone when the insurance company has a good year to give money back.

That's left to the discretion of the governor and the CEO of the beer bureau of workers' comp.

I I remember, Madam Chairwoman, um uh to the Commissioner Romero that um in years past we were able to get worker compensation refunds.

So when you said that we were had these numbers were down, is what was it the same uh back then as it is now?

Were we open to the market then?

Was so they can give us a refund.

To the chair to the councilman, uh that's correct.

So right now we're uh we've always the state of Ohio has always been monopolistic.

Um at least for the last seven sixty years.

And um the way the reason we got the rebates were because there was a clamoring um statewide by uh either public or private entities when they saw what the budget was for uh for the Bureau of Workers' compensation, and they saw that that 20 billion dollars.

You get to think they have to keep some of that uh in reserves in case of catastrophic events where like say someone couldn't pay a company goes out of business and can't pay their debts to their injured workers, so you have to keep some of that money, but the a lot of that money they invest in Wall Street.

And so when they get a lot of profit, then they come back, and then that's where all like the 275,000 employers, both public and private in Ohio, clamor for hey, Governor DeWine, how about a rebate or refund for on some of our monies?

And usually there are they are accommodated.

They are talking about one this year.

We don't know because it has to be voted on.

I see.

Oh, the I'm quite sure.

You know, I'm I'm biting at the the bit on what that could potentially be.

Um what are some of and then this would be my last question, Madam Chairwoman?

And before I end it, I want to say your department does a wonderful job, and I appreciate your longevity with the city and the service of serving our city and um having all of this institutional knowledge that you have.

Um in years past, how much have we got refunds for?

So even prior to my um time here at the city of Cleveland, which started on January 7, 2002, um, in 1999, the city of Cleveland received a 21 million dollar rebate from the I remembered that one.

Yes, um, that was the last time we're receiving.

No, no, we've we've gotten them since then.

Um they have gone down because the way they determine how much each entity gets a refund is based on the the volume and the premium.

But when we do a good job, then our premiums are lower.

And so if our premiums are lower, then the percentage of money that we get back is lower.

So actually, in the days that we were not as well managed, uh, we would get a couple million back.

But you know, recently, because we have been managing our claims well, you know, it's been in the you know, sixty thousand, a hundred thousand.

So, but it is you know, in the long term, I believe it's obviously better to manage better than wait for a refund.

That is I maybe this is the wrong term, but capricious because we don't make that decision that's made by the governor.

Thank you, madam chairwoman, to um the distinguished gentleman.

I yield the floor.

Oh, you're staying right on time.

I love it.

Thank you.

Um hearing no other questions.

Um, can and thank you, Commissioner.

Can you read into the record division of printing and reproduction and storeroom and warehouse?

Page 381 printing and reproduction, Commissioner Michael Hewitt.

Page 382, total salaries 2025 unaudited, 714,239, 2026 budget, 807,534.

Page 383, total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 2,308,909.

2026 budget, 3,5187.

Page 384 staffing levels, 2025 actual nine, 2026 budget 12, page 385, division of mailroom, total salaries 2025 unaudited, 53,740.

2026 budget, 57,361.

Total expenditures, 2025 unaudited, 454,067.

2026 budget, 723,667.

Page 386, staffing level 2025 actual one, 2026 budget one.

Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, director.

Through the chair to the committee, just a few things.

Want to introduce Commissioner Mike Hewitt, who's been here a while.

Also the uh the future of the department, Randy Porch and Lisa Hart, who back him up and her senior management over at the print shop.

Uh, there's one thing I do want to clear up before we uh get started.

So I know there was some discussion uh specifically with the council president and uh councilman polensic about including the logo for city council on documents that are sent out.

Uh I want everyone to be aware that I have had those discussions and gave something in writing to the to the council president outlining that uh we will commit to going forward from from here on, and I've already talked to the print shop crew of anything that is a uh citywide distributed uh distribution pamphlets that sort of thing that we will be sure to put uh city council's logo on that uh alongside the mayor's.

Uh I understand um you know that was an area of concern, so we wanted to make sure that that got addressed before we uh went into the actual budget.

Got it, thank you, Director.

Um Commissioner, do you wanna share anything before we ask questions?

To the chair, I'm gonna defer to the uh new face of the division of printing, Randoline Porsche and Lisa Hart.

Good morning, Council.

Move it closer to you.

Okay.

Good morning, council.

Good morning.

Good afternoon.

Okay.

Um I do have a question um before opening it up to my colleagues.

One is the maintenance um from 2023 to 2026.

I I'm this is probably maintenance um contracts tied into aging, maybe equipment that's taking place, and I'm just curious to know.

I mean, we are printing more.

Is our equipment agent and do we need to upgrade?

I have it on my book here.

Do you want to use this one?

Through the council to the chair, chairwoman.

Um, this is for our mail inserter, the software and hardware, uh, any preventive maintenance that we have on the machines, our postal software, any parts that we need.

Um it also includes our rooftop HVAC units as well.

Oh, it's for like overall department got it.

Okay.

Um I do um so my other question is most of my residents speak only Spanish, and I've always tried to like do the bilingual newsletter.

I think the challenge has been in for us to get like a spreadsheet or something that you could identify Spanish speakers or any other languages.

I'm curious to know if the department has the capacity to kind of help do that so that we're sending you know communication and residence language.

Uh to the chairman, I know that we print a lot of bilingual flyers.

But it just goes out to everyone.

It's not specifically like to a list that you guys have.

I'm not sure if that's something that's purchased.

Well, yeah, uh to the chair, typically we'll do one in English and another one in Spanish.

Those are the most common.

To the chair, if I'm understanding your question, you're wondering if we have a mailing list of bilingual speakers.

Um either Lisa or Randy may be able to chime in, but I don't believe we have one.

Um that's something I don't uh, you know, basically printing in um the print shop is directed to print certain things and uh correct me if I'm wrong, Commissioner, but given a um a mailing list of who those should go to, uh, but I don't know that we always have that breakdown of who's Spanish speaking and who's not.

But um to the commissioner's point, I mean a lot of the communications we're sending out.

I know we've had door hangers and that sort of thing.

We've got the English on one side and then the Spanish on the other.

Uh so we do do that a lot.

Uh but in terms of a mailing list, I'm not aware of us having a central mailing list of uh either Spanish speaking or other um you know bilingual folks out there.

Got it.

Thank you.

Because I know like vote builder gives us that option, you know.

I don't have residents in different languages, and it'll specify what's their language.

So I I don't know if that's a matter of like a software or partnering with an organization that could get us that information, but as our city's getting diverse, it would be great to um send out communication and residents, you know, initial language.

Yeah, to the chairwoman, it's it's definitely a good idea, interesting idea.

I mean, my first thought, and this is just a thought at the table is to get with urban AI and see what kind of analytics they have, and especially when it comes to residence, and you know, we could work with them on that.

Okay, thank you, Director.

Um, Councilman's life.

Uh thank you.

And and they actually did a great uh English uh Arabic community meeting flyer for me.

So thank you.

Um could I'm sorry, can you remind me your names I'm the council to the chair?

My name is Randalline Porch.

Porch?

Yes.

I I heard Porsche and I was like, oh cool.

The chair to the councilman, Lisa Hart.

Did you have something that it almost looked like we interrupted you starting to say something?

Was there okay?

I just wanted to make sure.

Um I was deputized to ask the question about the logo by Councilman Polencick, so you beat him to it.

Uh congratulations, and I have no further questions.

Oh, okay, good.

Councilman Jones.

I'm still laughing over here.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I mean, Chairwoman.

Um first of all, uh, you know, I just want to thank um Mr.

Hewitt.

I you know, when I saw him uh sit down in a chair, I said, Are you still here?

And uh he has been here for quite some time, has done a wonderful job way back when I had hair on my head.

And um, I just really appreciate the work that you guys do.

Uh, whenever we need to have uh something done that is put out of our shop, you guys do a wonderful job.

Um looking at um uh madam chairwoman to uh commissioner Hewitt on page 381.

It seems like when I look at these numbers, uh they're quite impressive.

Um, and you put newsletters, brochures, and those sorts of things.

Um Matt asked, um, Madam Chairwoman, you know, do we to the commissioner?

Can we use your shop to put our own newsletters and mailers out if we want to do that?

I know that oftentimes um for some reason we can't do that.

Why why can't we do that?

Um uh madam chairwoman to uh the director because one of the things is council has a lot of newsletters.

We I know that some of the the stuff that we send out to some of the printing shops are very exorbitant in terms of their cost and and quite expensive.

And so why isn't it that we can't use our own print shop in-house?

Because years ago we used to be able to do that, and it seems like over the time that has changed.

Through the chair to the councilman, I'm not sure if it's a case of you can't do it, but I know that you guys, you guys being council um or contracted out with a different firm.

So you tend to use you know the firm that you're contracted out with.

So we do we have the ability um um the president uh to um the commissioner uh if we choose to use our own funds to keep all of our stuff in-house because I see this happening a lot across this entire budget book is shared services.

Um and so the question is if I have mailers or newsletters and and I want to go through your shop, I should be able to be allowed to do that.

And I don't know why we don't do that.

So can we start doing that?

So through the chair to the councilman again.

This is a kind of a council policy.

Um you guys are contracted out with somebody else, I believe.

Uh what's it?

Um you need to use uh city funds, and we basically have two primary rules: non-personal and non-political.

There's criteria.

I see.

Okay, and that's it.

There's some other rules, and I could share those to you.

Okay.

Well, I don't mind um uh because you're gonna give me that tour, that long-awaited tour.

Um, I I would love to do that.

Um I just want to thank you for the work that you do that you've been continuing to do and and your staff and the great work that you do.

And I want to I can't wait to come out there, so we gotta set up something soon.

Um, and with that, Mr.

Chairman, and then you can tell me all the rules.

Thank you.

I yield Mr.

Chairman the floor to you.

Uh we are now go to Office of Budget and Management.

Page 167, Office of Budget and Management, Budget Administrator Nicole Gallagher.

Oh, hold on one second, I apologize.

Where's is mail room?

Did we skip one?

We read it in already.

Oh, they read it in.

They read it in.

So we're good.

Yeah.

All right, go ahead.

Yeah.

All right, sorry about that.

Please proceed.

Page 168, total salaries, 2025 unaudited, 693, 466, 2026 budget, 891,813 total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 930, 165, 2026 budget, 1,189,476.

Page 169, staffing level 2025 actual eight, 2026 budget 11.

Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Yeah, through the chair to the uh council, we've had our budget administrator here through all of these proceedings.

So Nicole Gallagher, I'll turn over any questions to her or anything else we can answer.

Ms.

Gallagher.

Uh to the council president and the council.

Thank you for having me.

Um I did want to introduce um most of my staff that is here today.

Um, so in the back here, we have um Carter Van Fossen.

He is a project coordinator.

He um really spearheaded our new budget book software um project that you see here today.

And as well as our transparency portal that will be rolling out um in April.

Um we have uh Michelle Reese, she is our budget and management analyst.

Uh she's been with the city uh over 10 years in OBM.

Yeah.

Um and behind her, we have Tammy Tracy, our senior budget and management analyst.

Uh she's been with the city 20 years um with OBM, about six months, eight months.

She came from the Department of Health, and she also worked in public works.

And um in the back, uh, we have David Roby.

He um has been with the city two or three years.

He came to OBM last year, and he has been our grants guru, and he has spearheaded the project with implementing AMPA fund and getting that to go live.

And I am we are missing our oh, where's Savannah?

Oh, there's Savannah.

So we have our deputy budget administrator, Savannah.

She is our deputy budget administrator over operations.

Um she came to us a year ago, and our other deputy budget administrator just uh she had a new grandson that was born yesterday, so she is not here.

And we have one employee that is also out today.

Okay, and I'm open to any questions.

Through the chair to the committee, I just want to point out I've been talking about the strategic business unit that we're setting up.

So if you look on page 169, there's two additional head count.

Uh, and that's what those are going to be for, is specific to grants and centralizing that effort.

Um, so just wanted to point that out as we uh move forward.

So they'll be working under the budget administrator, which would be uh Ms.

Gallagher.

To the chair, that's correct.

Initially, again, we did studies to see what other cities were doing with this.

Some of them had groups of 30 or 40 people handling just grants, others just a handful.

Uh our approach is going to be assigned two new employees to Nicole.

Um, see how this works out, how we can build this out, and then eventually, if it makes sense to pull it out out of OBM and make it its own standalone unit, like a lot of cities do, then we'll do that.

Uh but we didn't want to add, you know, 20 positions that we know we weren't gonna fill right away, right away.

We wanted to see um, you know, get a few head count in here, get them used to the new software and and processing these grants.

All right, thank you.

Uh, we'll take questions now from any council members.

Do any council members have any questions for Office of Budget and Management?

Councilman Charles Slife.

I'll just say good job, Carter.

I think the color ramp is very calming.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh I don't see any uh questions for Office of Budget and Management.

Therefore, we'll move on to the next one, which is in the Financial Reporting and Control.

Page 161, Division of Financial Reporting and Control, City Controller, Leslie Camargo, CPA.

Page 162, total salaries 2025 unaudited, 1,145, 101 2026 budget, 1,353,097.

Total expenditures 2025 unaudited, 1,597,686 2026 budget, 1 million 922,296, page 163 staffing levels, 2025 actual 16 2026 budget 22.

Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh please proceed, Director.

Sure.

Uh through the chair to the uh the council, I just want to point out another question came up from uh councilman Conwell earlier, who is the controller.

So this is the controller, uh Leslie Camargo.

She's the reason that we've had um you know several years of ACFERS uh financial reports without findings and is doing a stellar job.

Uh the only thing to point out in this division is that you know we've got one additional head count and additional staff accountant.

I know her team when they're putting together the financial reports every year.

I mean, they're working over time, they're working nights and sometimes weekends, and uh we wanted to get them one additional head count to help out with that.

Okay, and uh that is uh Mr.

Gentile's right-hand person.

They used to stand him around the halls clearly council for a while.

So um thank you so much.

Do you want to make any remarks?

Commissioner Okay.

Hi, um, I just want to thank you for having me.

Um, thank you so much for the nice introduction, Director.

But I can't take all the credit.

Um, I worked under Jim for over 10 years and like he trained me, so thank you to him.

He is the reason why we have such great um financial reporting.

I also want to take some time to thank the the Office of Financial Reporting and Control for all of their hard work and dedication because without them the office would not be as successful as it is right now.

Thank you.

Now you left one time and came back.

I did.

I him went back and got you, right?

Basically, yes.

I remember that.

I remember that.

All right, thank you.

Uh any questions for um financial reporting and control.

Councilman Christopher Harsh.

Thank you, Chair.

And it's not really specific to this department, but I you know, at the end of a really long movie, when you start to scroll through the credits and you see all the people that were involved in making the movie, I feel like that's the part of the budget that we're on here today.

So we finally get into the guts of like the who does the actual work of putting together the budget and the controller and all that.

Um so thank you all very much for the work you do.

I do have one specific uh request though for next year's budget, and I'll I'll ask it now.

Um could we uh in the future get a an appendix of just the grants that the city is managing uh just in one sort of like printouts that we can look at the various there's grants in different departments and we lose track of them, but could we just create one appendix for grants next year?

That's a good idea.

Yeah.

So through the chair to the councilman, I know this request has come up several times.

We've got info requests for it this year.

Yeah.

Uh and with the new strategic business unit, should council approve the budget.

Um, you know, we can kind of assign that to them to take a look and see see if we can add an append.

Okay, I don't know whose actual job it would be, but so I'll just throw it out here.

But uh uh thank you for all the work you do and appreciate everything you guys do to make the city run.

Thank you.

That's an important question.

I'm glad that you brought that up because I think that that's something that all of us would like to do is make sure we've done it.

Councilwoman Stephanie House Jones.

Uh through the chair, uh to the controller, Carmarko, Camarco.

Um, so one of the things it says that the division also performs performs certain accounting tasks that are not applicable to any outside division or department and issues best practices, um accounting policies and procedures throughout the city.

Um what are those?

Uh through the chair to the council person.

Uh that would be procedures relating to our accounting system.

How to use those uh the accounting system that would also be procedures on how to um reconcile our bank accounts.

Okay.

Um so through the chair uh to the comptroller, does that have anything to do with any practices as it relates to reimbursements policies, anything like that, or is that someone else?

So through through the chair to the councilwoman, so it's general financial reporting.

So um, yeah, end of the year we put together this annual comprehensive financial report, which is all divisions across the city, all the aggregated data uh across the city.

So that's what they focus on.

They focus on making sure we're gazby compliant, uh, that we're following the the proper accounting rules.

And um, you know, as as the controller said, um, you know, she's able to go into our accounting system and pull data uh through what's available in our accounting system.

So no, not anything to do with reimbursements.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions?

Excuse me.

Who would that be?

Who who develops those from the city of Cleveland overall?

The trail of the council person, I we have a reimbursement policy.

I think it comes out of accounts, but account the division of accounts does the reimbursements.

So we'll look for the actual policy and and get it uh to staff.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Seeing no other questions for uh financial reporting and control, thank you, Ms.

Camargo.

Uh we'll now move to uh three departments.

If you could read these three departments at the same time, payroll reserve fund, internal service fund, and rainy day fund.

H285 rainy day reserve fund 2025 an audited ending balance, 70 million two hundred and ninety-six thousand three hundred and five twenty twenty-six budgeted, seventy million two hundred and ninety-six thousand three hundred and five.

Page two ninety-four payroll reserve fund 2025 unaudited total expenditures zero.

2026 budgeted zero.

Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Uh so we'll hear any questions regarding these three departments.

Just a just a very quick question.

Why was it 17 million in 2024?

And then we have not had in payroll reserve fund on page two uh ninety-four.

Why was it 17 million actual spent in 2024?

But um nothing was spent or budgeted in the following years.

Uh to the council president, that was for the 27th pay that occurred in 2024.

So that's in the bank somewhere.

That's just money that's sitting there that we still have, right?

No, to the council president.

Um, so when we created the fund, it was 90 million.

We actually transferred 17 million as an expense out of that fund to the general fund in order to pay for the 27th pay.

Okay.

So that was last year.

I mean 2024, where we had the 27th pay period that we had to pay for pay.

Correct.

And that won't happen again until like 2035.

But I thought that we put rainy day money away, but then I thought we also kept the 27th pay somewhere.

Yeah, to the chair, that is the payroll reserve fund.

So payroll reserve fund is separate from the rainy day fund, and that's what um you know Nicole's talking about.

We had 90 million in there, and now the balance is 73 because we pulled out the 17.

So we so that's what I'm trying to get to.

So there's 73 million somewhere in some account that we have because we put that money into the onto the uh payroll reserve fund for the 27th pay.

Okay, because I I just I knew that all that money hadn't been depleted.

That's why I was trying to make sure that we okay.

All right, so $73 million is somewhere.

Do you we know where it would be located?

Where we listed, yes.

So it to the council president, it's actually on page two eighty-five.

Yeah, so there's no expenses budgeted there.

Um we really only use that when we really need it.

So when you see the $73 million ending balance, that's what's currently in there.

So here's the reason I'm asking that question.

I know that we got to look under um pillow cushions and then you know, everything else to look for dollars in the next year because we have some outstanding payments due for a couple of uh things.

What will precipitate us to use this?

What will what will I know it's best practice to leave it there to try to let it gain interest because it gives us a stronger rating, but if we really needed that money, um, what would be the extenuating circumstances for us to use that money?

So through uh to the chair.

So again, um, if you'll remember this is restricted by law for separation payments as well as the pay.

So it's everybody gets hung up on that 27 pay, but that's not only what it's for, it's also for the liability that we have for uh separation payments across the city.

Uh and I believe last year we looked at that liability was about ninety million dollars.

Um, so I know that it's more now.

So we are somewhat underfunded if you're looking at what we actually have in the bank versus what the liability is.

Okay, so we have about 90 million in liability, but we only have about 73 in the bank.

To the chair, that's that's correct.

90 was the number last year.

I haven't looked at the updated number, but it could only have gone up.

To the chair, I mean, right now, legislatively can only use only can be used for 27th pay or separation payments.

Uh it would take a I mean if we needed to use it for something else.

We had to read the council, yes.

Council would have to change the legislation, which would probably roll some of this back to the general fund if if that's what we needed to do.

But right now we can't currently we can only use it for those two purposes under state law.

All right.

And to the chair, I would just I know we've had these conversations, but I would just caution about what the rating agencies would think if we start dipping into these funds.

I um totally understand and I'm cautious.

I'm also um we got some bills that's gonna come due.

And um we got hit with one a couple of years ago for 20 million dollars, and I made sure that all my colleagues are receiving uh the updates on gateway.

There's gonna have to be some real um tough decisions that are going to have to be made about what we do with some of these uh bills that we have coming up.

So I just want to know where the money is available and what we would have to do if we had to access it so that we could protect um the general fund or the operating budget as much as possible.

So just something that we could talk about further, director, but I just want to make sure we keep that option open if we had to.

Okay.

All right.

Uh any other questions regarding payroll reserve fund internal service uh funds or rainy day reserve funds.

And once again, how much is in the rainy day?

Could you tell me that again?

Is on page two eighty-five is the rainy how much is in the rainy day fund?

So uh to the chair, yes.

Uh that balance is in there, so it's uh a little over 70 million.

Um that's up from 67 million last year because of interest earnings.

Yeah, we didn't put any additional money in there, it's just from the interest.

Okay.

All right, any other questions for the finance team?

All right, we'll move to the next uh the next item, and actually, if we can hear all of these together as well, and that will be the sinking fund commission, the revenue bond debt service, debt service revenues and expenditures, debt service, unvoted tax supported obligations.

Page 355 debt service fund summary 2025 unaudited ending balance, 35,441,508, 2026 budgeted, 31,128,439, page 358, debt service service revenues, 2025 unaudited total receipts, 90 million five hundred and forty-eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, twenty twenty-six budgeted, one hundred and twenty-nine million seven hundred and sixty-five thousand one hundred and sixty-four, page three fifty-nine, twenty twenty-five unaudited total expenditures, nine million, five hundred and forty-eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, twenty twenty-six budgeted, one hundred and twenty-nine million, seven hundred and sixty-five thousand one hundred and sixty-four, page three sixty, unvoted tax supported obligations, total balance, four hundred million three hundred and eighty thousand thousand total due 47,317,976, page 366, sinking fund general operations, Justin M.

Bibb, President, Paul C.

Barrett, Secretary, Blaine A.

Griffin, member, Elizabeth C.

Ruby, assistant secretary.

Page 367, 2025, unaudited total salaries, 203,708, 2026 budgeted, 230,213, page 368, 2025, unaudited total expenditures, 927,412, 2026, budgeted, 1,024,248, 2025 staffing level two, 2026 budgeted two, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you.

Uh Director.

To the chair, I mean, I think everybody knows uh Betsy Ruby.

She's been here a long time managing the city's debt portfolio.

Uh the only thing really to announce, I mean it's basically a two-person team in sinking fund.

Uh Lori Ernest did retire earlier in the year and has been uh replaced by Dan Hinkle.

Uh he's done a good job.

Uh he came over from OBM.

But other than that, we're here to take any questions.

All right.

Does anybody have any questions regarding the sinking fund?

And do you want to announce your another one of our hidden jewels in City Hall?

Do you want to introduce uh you did?

That's easy.

Yeah, I did.

I got fog, man.

All right.

Uh Ms.

Ruby, did you want to make any statements?

Okay.

All right.

Any questions for Ms.

Ruby?

All right.

Seeing no questions, Miss Ruby.

Uh, thank you so much for your service for years of service at the city.

All right, we'll go to the round of third and head at home, non-departmental expenses, county auditor deductions, transfer the other funds, and other administrative.

Page 280, county auditor deductions, 2025 an audited total expenditures, 1,169,629, 2026 budgeted, 2,600,000, page 281 transfers to other funds, 2025 an audited total expenditures, 68,895,704, 2026 budgeted, 147,645,464.

Page 282, other administrative, 2025 unaudited total expenditures, 22 million three hundred and thirty-nine, three hundred and thirty-nine thousand eight hundred and seventy-six, twenty twenty-six budgeted, twenty-three million six hundred and seventy thousand five hundred, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Director.

Yeah, to the through the chair to the committee.

The only thing I want to point out is page two eighty uh with the county auditor deductions.

I just want everybody to know if you didn't know that that's related to the election, so that's why you see fluctuations in costs.

Um, and it's a little bit uh I guess you wouldn't automatically connect county auditor deductions with an election, but um that's what those expenses are for.

Yeah, we uh we learned that uh a while ago, so thank you for reminding us that because uh I think a lot of us asked that question before four years ago so got it.

All right, uh any questions regarding the non-departmental expenses.

Any questions regarding non-departmental expenses?

Um okay, let's move to the last one restricted income tax writ page 285 restricted income tax 2025 an audited ending balance 2,714,892 2026 budgeted 61,039.

Page 287 restricted income tax 2025 on audited total expenditures 67 million three hundred and sixty-five thousand seven hundred and seven twenty twenty-six budgeted, sixty-eight thousand six hundred and seventy-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh Director through the chair of the committee, no real um announcements on this, but we're here to take any questions.

Okay.

Um any questions regarding councilman Christopher Harsh.

I'm sorry, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this.

Um page 282, we have the income tax revenue at 508 million even for I'm sorry, for at 507 million eight hundred and twenty thousand for 2025, and then we've got another income tax revenue on page 287.

I don't understand why there's two different places for income tax.

So through the chair to the councilman, uh one ninth of the restricted income tax or one ninth of our income tax overall is restricted income tax that has to go specifically to debt service.

So that's or capital.

Okay.

Yeah, you said something else, Mr.

Gentile.

All right, any other questions regarding restricted councilman Kevin Bishop?

Uh yeah, thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh Mr.

President to the director.

Um property management is requesting um a facility uh needs assessment and the facility management software.

Have we put this in the writ uh in the budget to pay uh to pay for this for with the writ funds through the chair of the council person?

I I'm not sure if we got that request.

I mean, if we got that request, we would look at that.

So I'm not positive we received that yet.

Okay.

But if they send it to us, we'll definitely look at it as an inclusion for the okay.

Is this something that we can um yeah we can make a request or we can pay for with the rent dollars?

The chair of the council it's eligible to be used for that.

So all right, thank you, Mr.

President.

I would like to submit that during reconciliation.

Okay, okay, thank you.

Any other uh questions for um yes, yeah, through the chair to the to the councilman.

Uh it doesn't have to go through reconciliation if you just send us uh have uh uh public works.

Did you say it was public works?

I'm sorry.

Public works just request of us because once you budget this amount, as long as they send us that request, we will set up that project for them because it'll come right out of here uh if this budget's passed like this.

All right, any other questions regarding restricted income tax?

All right, seeing no other questions, that is actually concludes our budget hearings.

Director, thank you.

Uh you survived.

Mr.

Gentile helped you, and uh Miss Miss U Gallagher helped you.

I'm getting used to saying Miss Gallagher now.

Uh just uh to my uh to my colleagues.

If you have any requests, work through your chairs.

I do want to caution everybody uh that this year's budget is a little bit tighter than it has been in past years.

And uh we already have um several requests, but I just want to make sure everybody recognizes that this year's budget is a little bit tighter than past years, and uh there's gonna be a lot more uncertainties.

So I would ask if any of the chairs to be very, very uh cognizant of that when uh anybody is submitting any kind of request.

Myself, councilman Slife and Councilwoman Santana will uh begin to have a discussion with the administration around reconciliation items, but once again, I'm asking my colleagues to show some restraint this year because um the budget is a lot tighter this year, and we also still have a lot of unused money uh that several council members have from um past years.

So that being said, um when is the second reading we don't have yet because once we do reconciliation, second reading could be as early as Monday um the ninth, because we have to have it three times, and I usually don't like it to bump up until the last day, and when I looked at my calendar, we could do it.

And I usually don't like it to bump up until the last day.

And when I looked at my calendar, we could do it.

I know the following week, many are going to be out from the National League of Cities.

Yeah, but uh the okay, one second.

Yeah.

So if we did it on the ninth, we would have the second reading on March the ninth, and then the third reading passage on the 23rd.

Okay.

So the goal is to try to have it done and have the budget done by the 23rd.

Okay.

All right.

And uh once again, um, any requests goes through the chair of uh of that committee.

And then once again, myself, councilman uh Slife and Councilwoman Santana will um you know look at the final list and then we'll uh submit to the administration reconciliation items.

Okay.

All right, any other questions?

All right, thanks everybody.

This committee uh finance, diversity, equity, and inclusion is adjourned by caller the chair.