Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the budget and policy committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the discussion.

As the budget and policy committee starts now.

It's a beautiful spring day.

But before we get started, let's get um with introductions.

I don't see any virtual participation.

Is there okay perfect?

All right, let me start on my right.

Chris Hines, Denver's perfect day.

Kevin Flint, South West Denver District 2.

Stacey Gilmore, District Alone.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5, Chantel Lewis, District 8.

One of your council members at large.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Rora Alvidres, Lucky District 7.

All right.

For the three council members, take it away.

All right.

Councilmember Gilmer, you want to start?

Well, thank you.

Excited to be here back in budget and policy.

It's been awesome working with Councilwoman Sawyer and Lewis on this charter change and the discussions around more transparency and accountability within the budget.

And so let's see here.

Can we pull up the presentation producer?

Thank you.

Only we've got the agenda in front of us.

Won't belabor this.

Which, if you've been following following along media wise or uh city uh wise um the woes of the Denver's general fund has been wide um widely covered and talked about.

The uses of the general fund um is what most people think of as Denver's budget.

Uh it's the largest city financial fund uh funded by uh sales tax revenue, and there's flexibility in what it can be spent for and how it can be spent.

But um just to remind folks, it was approximately 1.5 billion in 2024 and close to that uh this year as well, and staff salaries benefits uh city programs and general operations.

And then I am going to turn this over to Councilwoman um Sawyer because she did a cut and paste project on this one, but I would hate to um not do it justice, but um we'll dig into it a little bit.

I'll start it out.

Um the required um fiscal policies, excuse me, is that it's a calendar year budget, it must be balanced and uh it must include short and long-term planning.

Uh capital improvements, we're all very aware right now.

City agencies should be talking to each one of your council offices around the six-year capital improvement uh plan for the city.

That's both Department of Transportation and Infrastructure and Denver Parks and Rec.

A quick reminder, um, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is responsible for building everything in the city.

If it's a parks project, it is still managed by the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

And so I think that's important to note.

Um, contingency must be at least two percent of the general fund and an unassigned fund balance of 15% is required, and then of course we have um the state required taper emergency reserve.

And Councilwoman Sawyer, do you want to chime in any on this?

Or you'll mention it as you go through your mention it.

Yep.

Very good.

Very good.

Um, and so you know, the constitution and uh charter, the required reserves, uh, we have contingency of the two percent again.

Uh you can see the contingency uses and then the unassigned fund balance uses as well.

And as council members, I would hope that we're all very, very well well aware of this, but I think for the public, it's important for them to really understand what these different uses are allowed for and how uh myself personally as a third term um council person.

But I think for the public, it's important for them to really understand what these different uses are allowed for and how uh myself personally as a third-term um council person.

Um I really think that this will make city council stronger in elevating the voices of the constituents and the people that we represent.

And so that's one of the main reasons um that I'm involved in this.

And so I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to take us through the rest of the parts of it.

Um yeah, so when it just when it comes to contingency uses and unassigned fund balance uses, I just want to kind of give you guys a reference point and the the public a reference point.

So there are three sort of quote unquote savings accounts that we are required to have by charter.

Um the first one is that contingency fund.

So in my seven years here, I think the lowest it's ever been is about 32 million dollars is two percent of the um covered expenditures.

And then unassigned fund balance has a goal of 15%.

You can see the unassigned fund balance by going back to the Schedule 100, and you can look at it, it's in bold about two-thirds of the way down.

It says ending budget unassigned fund balance.

So there's a dollar amount, and then below it there is a percentage amount, and that percentage should be at approximately 15%.

That's our goal.

And 15% is where our fiscal rules start to kick in.

Um, and then the third one is our state required table emergency reserve, which is 3% of all covered funds that that is required by the state constitution, it must always be there.

Um so contingency uses, I like to explain contingency uses.

Um all council members at this point have been through this a couple of times, so you kind of know what we mean.

But um, it's things like snow plows.

So we don't know how much is gonna snow in a year.

It could be like this year, the worst snow year on record, and we could have budgeted the you know, 10 million dollars for snow removal and not spent a dime of it because it hasn't snowed.

So instead of doing it that way, the way it works is that we um take that money out of contingency.

So, as a general rule, the Department of Finance doesn't like to move um any supplementals until closer to the end of the year when uh agency budgets are almost fully expended, but they track those dollars all the way, bless you, all the way through the course of the year.

So um so something like snow removal would be a supplemental that would come out of the contingency fund and into the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Fund um closer towards the end of the year.

But that's why we keep those contingency dollars in there for things like unappropriated retirement payouts.

You don't know when somebody is gonna retire or when somebody's gonna leave and you and they have accumulated a full bank of vacation days that we then have to pay them out for, things like that that you just like cannot budget for.

So we keep this contingency pile of money to the side for those different kinds of things that you can't budget for.

And then unassigned fund balance, that 15% is the goal threshold.

Um our fiscal rules were redone and re-looked at um, I think about 12 years ago, 15 years ago.

Um, and they so the fiscal rules have been updated 15 years feels like a long time ago, but it's actually relatively recently in Cityspeak.

Um, for funds above 15%, those are unappropriated dollars because uh we you know we're budgeting for it to hit 15% at the end.

If there are funds above that 15%, those are unappropriated dollars, and the charter actually says those dollars then come back to city council to be reappropriated or to be appropriated in the first place, not reappropriated, sorry.

Um funds between 10 and 15 percent get a little bit hairier.

So um funds that are between when the when the uh fund balance is between 10 and 15 percent, that is where our fiscal rules kick in, and there have to be mitigating circumstances that manage what that looks like.

So that would be things like what we experienced at what we're currently experiencing, things like um hiring freezes, things like furlough days, those different kinds of things that um preserve the dollars where because we know our goal is to get back up to 15%.

So um that's kind of between 10 and 15 percent.

Below 10% is a real problem.

That is when layoffs kick in.

That is what we saw last year.

And this is the the kind of um concern that Council President Sandoval and I brought forward when we um you know got a call from the Department of Finance that said, unfortunately, it looks like we're gonna have to do layoffs in summer of 2025.

Uh and that was the first time any of us had heard about there being a challenge or concern.

And that was the first time any of us had heard about there being a challenge or concern.

So this is why Council President Sandoval and I moved forward the ordinance.

Thank you all for your support that just passed that will just be quarterly financial reporting for city council so that we can see and track those trends a little bit better across time so that we're not hit with a surprise.

But our when we had to do layoffs, that trigger is that we're our fund balance was below 10% at that time.

So current budget timeline, you all live this.

Um you're about to see on a slide coming up an incr, an incredibly busy slide that has our proposed changes in it.

So we've split that slide and the appendix out into two different slides, year one and year two, in case it's a little bit easier to look at.

But just wanted to kind of make sure that you know we level set by kind of showing what the um what the budget timeline looks like right now.

So you've all lived it.

I don't need to explain it to you, but for the public wanted to make sure that we added it in there.

Um, and there are benefits and challenges to having an annual budget as opposed to our proposal, which would be an optional two-year moving to an optional two-year budget.

So the biggest benefit when it comes to having an annual budget is flexibility, right?

It is it is easier to um to track uh you know outcomes, potential economic changes, all of those different kinds of things in a one-year looking one year out than it is looking two years out.

So things like that really are a bit that kind of flexibility that that adds is a real benefit.

It's um it so we can quickly respond to economic changes and those different kinds of things and add some flexibility.

There are some challenges to it, and these are the kind of the problems that we're trying to address here.

Um, you know, especially people like our nonprofit community partners, um, they hire and staff based on the contracts that they have with the city and county of Denver.

And we know that in budget shortages, contracts get reduced.

So we have city partners who have made plans who have built their nonprofit organization in partnership with the city based on an expectation of a set dollar amount that did not come.

And so that means reduced staffing for them and all of those different kinds of things.

So being able to work with our city partners to say, barring some sort of incredibly dramatic change in our economic outlook, we are, you know, this will be your budget this year, and this will be your anticipated budget next year, which allows our community partners to just sort of staff and plan a little bit better and a little bit more strategically than they're able to right now.

Um I will also point out as as we've all lived capital improvement projects take more than one year.

I don't think I've ever seen a project in the city of Denver that construction that took less than a year to get done.

Um so being able to budget uh, you know, a little bit longer and sort of over two years because capital stacks sometimes include operational dollars, they sometimes include budget uh bond dollars, they sometimes include capital dollars.

There's a there's kind of a lot that goes into creating a capital stack, grant dollars from all different levels of governments and and organizations, they're complicated, um, but they never exist for one for solely one year.

Um, and then you know, I think our biggest concern and sort of why we started having this conversation in the first place is about the community engagement piece as it comes to developing the budget.

The only opportunity that our residents truly have to have a conversation about the creation of the budget and their tax dollars comes when we at City Council open up a hearing for people to say something about it, and that hearing comes very late in the process.

If you look at the timeline, one week before the budget is approved.

So there's, you know, of course, we try and do as much community outreach as possible, and there is always opportunity for people to come to city council at public comment and comment on different things that they are concerned about in our community.

But at the end of the day, when it comes to the budget, there is not a ton of public engagement.

I know a few council members got together last year and really did some targeted outreach and engagement.

Um, and I have heard nothing but positive feedback from the community on being included in that conversation.

So props to you guys who set that up.

Um the other sort of challenge we're trying to solve for is our time, right?

If we could get three weeks more and split up that time a little differently so we could have more than like five days to look at a thousand-page budget document before our budget hearings, if we could do our budget hearings over two weeks, half days instead of full days, so that our brains were not mush by the end of it.

Maybe that's just me.

No judgment if it's not you.

I'll just use I statements if my brain was not mush by the end of it.

And then the amendment process, where we are trying our hardest to put forward in good faith, amendments to the budget to execute on the things we have heard from our residents are important to them.

But sometimes we put them together really badly because we don't have the time to have those conversations, and we don't have the time for our attorneys to draft all of them up that we want.

And it's just the time crunch really sort of is a is a dramatic piece here.

Um and that gets to the last point, staff time for ROI analysis and process improvement on the Department of Finance's end.

They close the books at the end of March, and they start the next year's budget at the beginning of April.

So there is no time for reflection, there's no time for analysis, there's no time for kind of any of those things to determine if the programs that we are using here in the city of Denver to help support our residents and execute on running a city are successful or not.

And that is, I think a real challenge because what we've run across is that many of them have ended up not being, and we didn't know it until it turned into a mess, as opposed to kind of doing that analysis earlier in the process so that we can determine whether return on investment is for these programs, and we can determine whether it is something that is valuable and whether we're getting our bang for our buck for that.

So those are the proposed changes that I just talked through, and council member Lewis is going to go through each one point by point.

And then you're gonna see the big old timeline slide at the end.

And I I apologize for that.

Thank you.

Um, to talk about those proposed um changes.

After we gathered some feedback as council members um from city agencies as well as as well as from community, um, this is what we came up with to move to an optional biannual budget cycle to require a public process to get residential feet residence feedback during development of the budget to simplify to simplify the budget process timeline and provide council a bit more time as councilwoman sorry just meant mentioned more time to analyze the proposed budget budget prior to hearings and then to define what a balanced budget um you you're ahead one.

Go back.

I can't multitask here.

You want me to do it?

Just see next slide, and I'll I got that for you.

Okay, am I ahead?

You're good.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're on biannual budget cycle.

You're so real for that.

Thank you.

And so, okay.

So for the first proposal, we would like to move to the biannual budget cycle, and this would be a two-year cycle as opposed to the single one-year timeline graphic that you were just showed earlier.

Um, so there would be a main year, which the budget would be passed in an off-year where the agencies and council would analyze how to propose budget, how the proposed budget appears to be meeting the needs and passing of smaller adjustments to the main budget if that were necessary.

The biannual budget cycle would be modified under this proposal in times of uncertainty, as we talked about what we went through last year to a shorter time frame to allow for better flexibility as needed.

Um, the benefits for this one are pretty simple.

It gives us more time to plan for longer-term projects as well as longer-term agency priorities used for the development of larger projects.

Additionally, the additionally, the added time will give us time during the off-year to better understand how our programs are spending allocated funding and evaluating how budgets look for agencies over an extended period of time instead of the compressed uh snapshot that we see now.

Next slide, please.

So I pushed the button to turn this.

I got you.

Thank you.

Um, feedback, just making sure.

Uh, so the next proposal is to require a public process to get residential feedback.

Um, this would create a requirement for the development of a two-year strategic plan informed by the community input as the basis for developing that budget.

This would be a substantial upgrade to the way that community input is collected now, as you spoke about earlier, which is largely limited to the efforts of individual offices to gather feedback in in the charter requires public hearings the week before it comes to council for amendments, so it's not a lot of time for communities to engage.

Um, this would also empower communities to give direct feedback on budget priorities through surveys and community outreach.

And of course, speaking for myself, this is the most important aspect of this proposal change because this will better ensure that community budget priorities are truly grounded in the needs of our communities.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

The next proposal is just to simplify the budget, the process timeline before, which means two things here.

First, remove the July 1 date, which requires a preliminary budget estimate, move the September 15th date a few weeks earlier to allow council more time to review budget um here to review before our budget hearings.

And as you can see, the Department of Finance has offered some times and dates, and we want to hear from you all as council members because you live through this on what you think might work as well.

The benefits are pretty much self-explanatory.

It gives the Department of Finance and the agencies more time to actually better be able to plan the budget in July, and it gives us uh more time as council members to review the budget as well.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Finally, this proposal would add a definition of a balanced budget.

Currently, the charter requires that we have one, but it doesn't define what that means.

And um, here's what we are proposing in terms of a balanced budget to define what a balanced budget is, excuse me, in the event that unexpected revenues will be less than total appropriations from the prior year's long bill, the mayor shall propose and city council shall reduce appropriations by ordinance to balance the budget.

Um this would require city council approval for approval, excuse me, for expenditures out of the unassigned fund balance below that 10% threshold that that was mentioned earlier when economic changes occur.

Um, and then we're also interested in hearing your feedback on the right threshold for this proposal to the balance budget to balance the Department of Finance's need for flexibility flexibility and for council's need for information.

Um this bit the benefits of this include it ensures projected expenditures cannot outpace projected revenue and you don't have to do an art project.

It increases transparency in the budget process, and it maintains strong contingency and reserve fund balances.

Next slide, please.

Okay, this is a very busy slide.

This is like classes.

It's a very busy side.

Um but this is what it looks like in practice, and so there's a lot of information on here, and I'm not going to read all of it here, but I wanted you all to note that year one represents the main year where the budget is developed with community engagement and pass, representing the strategic plan for the next two years.

Um and then year two reflects the evaluation of the first year's budget and the need for adjustments in line with the strategic plan.

And next slide, please.

Um, so we've held two.

Are we okay?

It's too much.

So we've held two community town hall event town hall events for this proposal, one in November of 2025, um, and then one not last month.

What's the last month?

It was last month.

Oh my god.

I know.

Okay.

And here's what we heard from communities.

The mayor's office outreach team ought to lead the strategic bid the strategic vision process.

The process for development of the strategic plan should incorporate the input and in involvement of advisory boards and commissions.

We should add more time of public comment during the process, and city council should hire their own budget analysis to help with our oversight.

You're here.

Yeah.

That came directly from community.

We did not say that, although we may have.

Why did you?

Um, here's our legislative timeline, and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for helping me.

Great.

Thank you all.

This is great.

Great information.

Presentation is really thoughtful and put together well.

Thank you.

We have four council members in the queue.

I have council member Alviderez, Flynn, from Romero Campbell and Heinz.

Am I missing a new one?

Just before you get started with questions, I also want to just acknowledge the Department of Finance is here.

Um so is Mayor's office to answer questions kind of on their end what might be um available for them.

They're uh not a hundred percent sold on this proposal.

I think um they have outstanding questions.

I'll just give you an example.

Um we kind of proposed that 10% threshold being the space where um you know council would need to to lower or would need to reappropriate the dollars to a lower budget amount.

Um, they only calculate it, turns out once a year.

So uh, and it's right before they hand us the September budget, so like that's not a good mechanism for them.

So that was some feedback we got from them that we just haven't like figured out what to do with yet.

There should be a mechanism, but our suggestion wasn't really the right one.

So um, we're still working on some things, that's why this is budget and policy, and you don't see any language yet, but um just flagging up for you and appreciate these guys being here too.

Thank you.

Council Member Viewerais.

Thank you so much, committee chair.

Thank you all for another presentation on all your work here.

I feel like one thing that I'm hearing changed is that it was more a two-year process, and now this is an optional two-year process.

Can you tell me about that change and the thoughts there?

Yeah, the Department of Finance gave us some really good feedback that um Lisa Martinez Templeton, our um chief economist sometimes really struggles with you know determining an economic outlook two years out, because sometimes economies are uh shift more rapidly than in other times, and so the the flexibility to do a two-year budget, um, but the flexibility to do a one-year budget if needed seems reasonable to us.

So that discussion would be in the mayor's office.

It would be with the recommendation in the Department of Finance, but if you feel like you would like city council to acknowledge that via ordinance, that's what they do in Fort Collins.

We could do something like that.

We could write that in.

Okay.

Um, and so if they chose to do a one-year budget, would the calendar be the same as the first one instead of that second one?

Or would we still be changing the dates?

No, the dates would still change.

Okay, that's good to know.

I think that's one of the things I like most about their proposal because it is, you know, I'm not gonna say my brain turns too much, but it doesn't not turn too much.

Also one of my questions is around the capital projects.

You brought up projects lasting more than one year.

Totally agree.

However, my understanding is that those projects that are budgeted in 2025, for example, stayed with that funding, and that funding exists somewhere, and it's not reflected at all in the 2026 budget, whether or not it got finished in 2026.

So I'm curious if would that stay the same as far as that money not showing on a 2026 budget, or would it show that half the spend down was half in 25 and we still have half that money for 26?

That's a great question that I think we will kick to the Department of Finance because they're the ones who book all of that.

Yeah.

Do we need to repeat the question?

Uh yeah, council appreciate the question.

Um yes, capital funds are non-lapsing, so their funding roles to introduce yourself.

Oh, I'm sorry, yes, Jackson Brockway, capital planning and budget manager for the Department of Finance.

Uh capital funds are non-lapsing, so that funding will roll to the next year.

And so in the budget book is standard financial document reports actuals and then um estimated budget and then the budget for the next year.

Um so in terms of what the budget book would look like, it wouldn't look terribly different in terms of how the the capital funding would show up.

It would still um it would still just highlight the appropriated funds for for that year, um, and then rolled funds will will would need to be reflected um in a different way, simply enough.

So those funds are not reflected right now, right?

Not in the budget book.

Okay, and when this would would it be in this theory of a budget book?

Um I is that yeah, I do I don't think it would be reflected any any differently.

The appropriations uh budget book simply as a appropriation document would would still show capital funding the same.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then my last question is more around the uh definition of a balanced budget.

When you say a balanced budget ensures expenditures don't outpace revenues, are we including the one-time fund balances as revenues?

What do you mean by one-time fund balances?

So, for example, the reserves and all of those other funds that we're counting on using.

When we're balancing the budget, are we allowed to use those funds to balance the budget?

Or are we defining that those funds cannot be part of balancing the budget?

Yeah, that is a great question and gets exactly to the heart of what we're trying to look at here.

So the answer to that is right now, the way it has worked in the past, those funds from those required 15% and below reserves have used have been used to balance the budget.

So for example, in 2025, in November of 2024, City Council approved a 1.7 billion billion dollar budget for 2025.

That is the amount of money that the mayor's office and city agencies had appropriated to them in the long bill in November of 2024 to spend in 2025.

Or have any conversation about that, but it became clear at some point in 2025 that the amount of money that was coming in was not going to be 1.75 billion dollars.

But instead of reducing expenditures to a certain amount in conversation with council, what happened was they were approved to spend up to 1.75 billion dollars because that's how the charter works right now.

And then they had to reduce those expenditures and do layoffs in the middle of the year because it became clear that the amount of expenditures were going to match appropriations but not match income.

And that was gonna take us below our 10% reserve rate.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Okay.

And so does this change, how would this change that?

So the language that we are hoping to write in again, we need to figure out what the right threshold is.

Um because that 10% threshold isn't the right one, according to the Department of Finance, and that is totally fair.

Um, but that uh trigger, whatever that ends up being, would then trigger a requirement that there be a conversation with council and that um expenditures be reduced to anticipated revenues via ordinance via an you know essentially what we do with the long bill in reverse.

Thank you.

Thank you for answering that with so much detail.

It's really confusing if you don't, and I want to be really clear because we're talking about important stuff money, right?

And like it's public, and so I just want to make sure we're like very careful about what we are I mean.

The producer pull up it's slide 13 and it's more point two.

And that's what they're saying.

If you go to 13.2 fund balance below 10 percent, they're saying that the Department of Finance doesn't agree with that.

10 percent, and that's something they have to figure out.

But that's that change that would require.

That's the answer to your question.

That makes sense.

Yep.

I'm such a visual person that I have to see things.

Um we have Councilmember Flynn.

Hang on, President.

Um just uh off the bat, uh at Budget Working Group, we have already discussed, and we're in a holding pattern on a budget expansion request to add a budget analyst to the central staff.

So there's already something on the table for that.

Uh of the uh four proposed changes, um, I like very much two of them.

Uh the public process and the uh pushing back of the timeline to give us more more time.

There is a definition of a balanced budget in the uh in the charter already, so I'm curious how yours might differ from I mean, what are you proposing as a definition that's different than what's in the charter?

Well, exactly the language that's on slide 13 is the current proposal.

The top bullet is the language that we are proposing to add into the charter.

Okay.

In the event that expected revenues will be less than the total appropriations from the prior year's long bill, the mayor shall propose, and city councils shall reduce appropriations by ordinance to balance the budget.

Is that in the second year?

No, that would be in any year.

Well, right, because remember, we approved the long bill in November of the year before.

Are you do we still adopt that?

Yeah, we have to.

We're required.

Yes, we're required to by a state constitution.

By the way, I hate the term long bill because the legislature uses it, and I always thought we were different.

So I was I always say appropriations work.

Yeah, no, Councilmember Flynn, that's a really good point that I want to be very clear about.

We are required by state law to approve a budget every year.

Okay.

Nothing about that changes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um the uh as far as a biannual budget, I am just simply not supportive of that at all.

Um I don't uh I looked at slide eight, the challenges and the benefits of an annual budget, but I don't see any uh analysis of the challenges and benefits of a biennial budget.

More cities in the U.S.

that more cities have moved from a two-year budget cycle to a one-year than have moved from a one year to a two-year.

And there must be some reason for that.

Can I just respond to that really quickly because that's not a hundred percent?

The uh it seems to me that the challenges of the annual budget are magnified, are made worse by a biannual budget, and the benefits are diminished in a biannual budget.

So that's uh can we have some have you done analysis of why cities have moved away from it?

Yes.

Yeah, so I I want to be very clear, it is not that cities have m like gotten rid of a two-year budget.

Their budget has their two-year budgets have the flexibility option that is that we're talking about writing in here.

So they could go back to a two-year budget.

We actually had a um conversation with Seattle, who uses a two-year budget as well as their county, King County, Washington does, and Fort Collins, um, Colorado.

So uh their optional two-year budgets, but because they have um seen such economic uncertainty since COVID, over the last few years they have gone back to doing one-year budgets to make sure that the um economic outlook uh which is shaky, um, is clearly defined.

But they have the flexibility to go back to a two-year budget should they want to, which is exactly what we've written in here.

That's me.

That says that we should stay with a one-year budget.

I believe it gives us more flexibility to respond annually.

It uh it reduces chaos.

Uh just in our time here, uh, Councilman Gilmore, you know the chaos we've gone through in uh with the uh Great Recession and with COVID, and um it just seems like a recipe for more chaos, but more importantly for me, I'll be gone, you know, eventually from here and eventually elsewhere.

Hopefully not soon.

Well, I'm I'm not planning on it.

But it seems to me that this reduces our ability to carry out one of our primary missions, which is the city budget by making it every two years, even though we can adjust it in the off year, uh, that reduces our takes away from our primary responsibility of financial oversight.

If you take those other two things that I like, like the community input every year into the annual budget, um, and the uh uh simplifying the timeline and then the public input, those two things put them into the annual cycle in a charter amendment.

I could I just vote that to the ballot today.

But uh the two years, I just think we're gonna be going back to we're gonna be doing too much adjusting in that off year.

Um but last question then, because the rest was a statement, you know, my position on it.

But when would this kick in?

Because I'm concerned about uh an incoming administration being saddled with a two-year budget adopted by lame ducks.

So when would you think this would be effective?

Well, it can't be effective until 2030, like just the way the transition works and whatever.

So that will get where the effective date will get written into uh a companion ordinance that goes along with this.

Um but I think why 2030?

Because of if we if we oh gosh, you know.

If we vote in November of 2026, right, the 2026, 2027 budget will have already been passed, which means the 2028 budget would be the first opportunity to do it.

Right.

2027 is when the mayor, uh mayoral race and city council races are, so there will be a transition of at least some council members at the very least, right?

Um, which means that uh having to do the whole public outreach process when you uh you know, starting in July when you are inaugurated, just there is not enough time, right?

Which means exactly starts before that.

Right, which means like your your sort of first realistic time to be able to do that as an administration would be January of 2029 for the budget approved it for 2030, right?

January 2029, so the outreach happens all year long, and then in November we approve the 2030 budget.

Okay, but I'm I'm confused.

You why wouldn't you start in 28 for the 29 and 30 budget?

Why wouldn't it be kicking in 29?

Because if in 27, when you're planning the 28 budget, a new administration or new council members are not inaugurated until the third Monday of July.

Which then means if we are asking to move the timeline for when the budget comes to council up, that leaves like a month for community outreach, which isn't enough time.

So if you did it budget adopted in 28 for the 29 and 30 budget.

Is that what is that not what I said?

No, you said it would kick it in 2030.

So I was picturing 30 and 30.

Sorry, no, 29 and 30.

Yes.

Sorry, I meant the second year budget would be 2030.

Yes, so it's 29 and 30 would be the okay.

Thank you.

I I guess my my last remark is we can't even get a one-year budget, right?

On a two-year budget.

So it actually frightens me to move to a two-year cycle.

Well, I think I think, Councilman Flynn, you make um really good points, and the chaos piece um looms true because I can only say um, and I'll use I statements from when I um you know was concerned about the spend of this administration in the fall of 2023, there was nothing to point back to as to what is the strategic plan that was developed by communities, and is this the actions that they want this administration to take and all of us as elected representatives?

And so there was nothing around how many times did we hear we're flying the plane as we're building it, and if you talk about chaos, I don't know how much more chaotic that can be, especially for the constituents and the taxpayers into the general fund, having tracking what their government is doing, and you know, the two-year budget process, especially around nonprofits and even small nonprofits are well versed in writing multi-year grant proposals.

So I think it begs the question if uh half a million or even a $50,000 a year nonprofit has the financial oversight and expertise to have a two-year budget and know that they're maybe spending dollars, but they're leveraging other grant dollars, other capital improvement dollars, other bond dollars for projects.

Nonprofits do that all the time.

The city, I think gets off easy, and they can allow that chaos, especially when it's a nonprofit that expected multi-year support from the city and wrote grant proposals like healthy food for Denver kids, other programs, and then all of a sudden the city decides to go a different direction, and we've seen that anks that goes on in our communities.

And I would love as an elected representative to have something to point back to and say, well, remember when we did all those strategic plan meetings with the mayor's office?

It would basically be a replica of what the Johnston administration did in that fall of 2023, going out to all our community, um, you know, asking about mile high, all in mile high, we're gonna put shelters in everybody's district.

That's how they garnered public input.

Why don't we garner public input as to let's plan what is best for our entire city, working together, and then we've got the plan, then let's work the plan and keep the voters along with us.

And so I see it from that different perspective.

I like that.

I like that, but I don't think that depends on having a two-year budget.

I think we should do that every year.

So I will I will say in the mayor's office defense.

I think Dom died a little inside right now when you said that, because it is a pretty extraordinary lift.

And so I think um it that you know doing it every two years is a little bit uh more realistic in terms of staffing and bandwidth and dollars and all of those different time, all of those different kinds of things than doing it every year.

I mean, it's a that's a kind of a compromise piece.

Next up we have Council Pro Temer Campbell, followed by Heinz.

Thank you, um Madam Chair, thank you for the presentation.

Um a lot of my questions have actually been answered.

Um I appreciate the question that you had about you know our threshold and when would we find out?

Um how do how when would we find out during the year?

I know we said who, like from the office, but what would when would we know that it would be a one-year or two-year budget?

Um well, that I think is still to be determined.

Um, but the Department of Finance would need to, I mean, alert us.

This is none of us can do what Lisa Martinez Hamilton can do.

Like, let's just be real about that.

So I think it would be um a conversation, you know.

DOF comes to us in April every year, and they present in Finance Finbiz or whatever we call it now.

Um, uh, you know, as to what the pro but the economic outlook is gonna look like for the following year and what the kind of anticipated changes to the budget are gonna be, and and they look back in reverse as because they just closed the books on the prior year.

So they come and do that every April.

So by then they should kind of have a very clear idea of whether it's gonna be need to be a one-year or two-year budget.

That's what they do.

I mean, and we trust them to do that.

Um, thank you.

And then uh for the community engagement, I was actually thinking that I don't know if we'd want to make it more prescriptive because it feels like we could say you need to do community engagement, but if we don't have some structure underneath it or some expectation of what that threshold is, it could just be a very light touch, and I'd want it to be what I think our intent is is something very robust.

That is a question for the mayor's office, because this would be a duty assigned to the mayor's office, and therefore it would be their decision on what that would look like.

And that's not something that's appropriate for council to determine because that's outside of our lane.

So I think that's here making sure that one yeah, yeah, anything and it could be for the future.

I just think that intention of really wanting to have that robust community engagement.

I feel like we we talk about it in so many of our different forms of how we are engaging across the city.

Uh Dominic Moreno Mayor's office.

Um I think we would agree with having a really robust engagement uh plan for uh soliciting resident inputs on budget priorities.

Um the only thing that I think the administration would have concern about is whether that prescriptive nature belongs in the charter.

Um and I think we're open to conversations with the sponsors about what that looks like, but we would share the interest in making sure that it is a robust process.

Um thank you.

I don't have any other questions.

Thank you.

Next step we have Councilmember Heights.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um and uh President Pro Tem, thank you for your uh your comment about uh uh specificity.

Um I I think if I had one pain point about the well hi.

Hey uh one pain point about the budget, it would be just the the knowledge disparity, the lack of information until we get the floodgate.

We get this big book the same time, sometimes after the press gets it, we get it.

Um but you know, sometimes uh you know sometimes the same time uh the public gets it, we get this big book, and then we do the show as best we can.

Um, but there's just a a knowledge disparity.

And uh I remember one year I um you were talking about the July 1st announcement, um started asking questions of agencies um about the uh July 1st uh forecast.

And um I got an email, well, all of us got an email saying stop making any sort of uh decisions or even analysis based on the July 1st, you know, we're doing it because it it was my interpretation that we're doing it because the charter makes us, and uh, and that's that's why that's why you got an email on July 1st.

So I I think for me the biggest um pain point is the knowledge disparity.

Like the governor um pro presents his uh budget on December 1st, and here we are April 13th, and the budget's still not um through the um uh through the General Assembly.

And um and they at the state they have a committee that if you're on the joint budget committee, that's the only committee you're on.

And there's a you know, JBC staff of 30 people who helps um you know with that budget.

And I understand that the state budget's 40 three billion dollars, and ours is 4.4 billion, including the airport and you know, pass throughs and whatnot.

Um but I think that's my that's my biggest uh pain point.

I'm trying to figure out how a biannual bi-annual budget helps that another kind of thought is um I'm just the sum of the experience that I've had on council.

I don't know a standard year.

We thought 2020 was gonna be a standard year.

So I don't know when so to finish that.

It wasn't um, but I don't know when uh the the mayor or the administration or you know the department of finance would say, well, yeah, this is a a time when we could do a two-year budget.

Even before us, it was the you know, the um 2008 um global meltdown.

So I I'm trying to figure out how this helps.

I see you know, moving rid of getting rid of July 1st, okay.

That's more a figurative thing anyway, but um, you know, I see that moving some of the actual process back some, I that that helps me with my core pain point.

Um I I wonder so you've got King County, uh you've got Fort Collins.

I wonder if there are other municipalities.

I don't know of any business that does it biannually.

Not that we need to start running more like a business, we're government, we shouldn't be a business.

Um but I I just I wonder um like I I wonder if operational things could be annual.

We're gonna be doing these things like we do every year, and then maybe some of the strategic projects, you know, the white capital project took takes less than a year.

I wonder if some of the strategic projects could be forecast farther out on two years or or whatever the answer is.

I I'm just trying to figure out how my pain points saw I don't think it's just mine, but you know, I'm trying to use my um I statements, how my pain point is solved with a bi-annual budget.

And when would that even happen, at least you know, in the seven years I've been here.

Um was that a question?

Okay.

Yeah, I wasn't sure.

Like what's to keep the mayor's office from choosing one year every year.

I don't know why they wouldn't I I think one one piece that we want to make sure that you all um are taking from the conversation is that it's it's also a strategic plan.

And we talked about the main years versus not tweak years.

What did we call it?

What did we call them?

Off years?

Thank you.

The main year versus the off years, that there's an opportunity to be able to make changes in the off year.

And so that's what we're proposing.

I'm not sure that I quite understand what your pain point is.

Didn't know if I'm can answer the question about what um how this solves for that pain point.

So if you could state that thank you, and I'm um let me try to get how I'm behind council member Flynn.

Um hopefully I'm not too far away from the microphone.

Okay, now I'm gonna get towards the microphone.

Um I'll move out.

All right.

Sorry.

Uh so the the pain point that I have is that we get the information as late as we possibly can, and then we get flooded with you know the all the um the meetings with the agencies, and um, and it's like more than a fire hose, it's like we just get drowned with you know budget water, and uh, and so I see to your point about moving back some of the required starting steps, that helps me with extra time to get more knowledge to be um more on par.

We're not totally gonna be on par with the Department of Finance because this is the only thing they do, but more on par with the knowledge that they have.

Well, I don't so I see moving, you know, like I see value in some of the stuff you're talking about by moving some of the dates so that we have more time and more uh more ability to get the knowledge, but I don't know what a two-year, I don't know how the a two-year cycle helps me with my knowledge disparity.

I I think one of the things so going back to the two-year strategic plan one, it gives us more time.

So if you're not doing this full um budgeting process every single year, uh it gives you more time to be able to grapple with those things, but also remember that council members are going to be working alongside of communities as we're receiving that input, and so hopefully, as you're working alongside of communities, you're learning what community priorities as well.

Um, and the point of us to not have this big budget at us every single year to have the main year and to have the off year is so that it's not so heavy.

And so it actually addresses what exactly what the pain point is that you're concerned about is you get flooded with information.

This gives us an opportunity to be able to have that information not be from floodgates, but over time, and that's the intent.

I guess I'd be concerned that they would flood us every other year instead of every year.

And so yeah.

I I think you so much for um that councilwoman Lewis, and um, and so councilman Hines, um I talking about the the six-year CIP list specifically.

So we're presented with um whatever projects um parks and DOTI think um that they want to have as the six-year CIP list.

They tell us, you know, they've already met with us, they're telling us what the projects are gonna be for 2027 because they're trying to prep us for the 2027 budget.

Well, there is nowhere in the city budget book, and clearly from what was answered earlier, there is no place for constituents or council members to go and see specifically what the budget expansion requests are for each agency, and that weigh into directly if our CIP projects are going to get done on time or not, and so having some mechanism either in ordinance that those CIP projects need to be better explained and accounted for in the budget, because otherwise, if you are a constituent and you're trying to go look at uh a special project, um, let's say the 5280 trail, and you're trying to figure out how this is getting done within the city, they're gonna come to your office and they're gonna say, why isn't this getting done?

And you're trying to cobble together, well, this is what the um CIP list or the bond dollars are gonna be used for by parks or by Dotty, etc.

That is not clear anywhere, and so the two-year process would allow you to track year one, there's the strategic plan, this is what the administration is committing to get done based on community feedback that gives you then the responsibility as the elected to track that that is getting done, and then the second year or the second year of the budget, you better be seeing some expansion or continued work on that CIP project, or there's gonna be questions because we know that there are sometimes CIP projects that get um taken off the very important list and they lag longer versus if we were being transparent and the administration was being transparent, we could keep a beat on that and keep it going forward because who as an elected wants to at a four at the end of a four year term say, Well, I couldn't figure out what Dottie or what the department.

That gives you then the responsibility as the elected to track that that is getting done, and then the second year or the second year of the budget, you better be seeing some expansion or continued work on that CIP project, or there's going to be questions because we know that there are sometimes CIP projects that get um taken off the very important list and they lag longer versus if we were being transparent and the administration was being transparent, we could keep a beat on that and keep it going forward because who as an elected wants to at a four at the end of a four-year term say, well, I couldn't figure out what Dottie or what the Department of Finance was doing exactly, and we aren't able to get that project done.

Now you would have something to point back to as an elected, as the body having the fiscal responsibility for the taxpayer dollars to say, well, this is the two-year plan.

We might have to move it around, but you know what?

I'm gonna tell you exactly what that looks like and give you an opportunity to weigh in on it.

And so if that's helpful to look at it from some of those examples and the second part, you know, I would say that 2015 to 2019, my first term was one of those times because it was a heyday as far as bill, bill, build, spend, spend, spend.

I would have loved to had a two-year strategic plan because I'm going on year 10 and a half now, and I'm still waiting for some CIP projects to get done in my district, and that's not equity, that's us not knowing exactly what is the plan.

And really now at this point, it's the Department of Finance, it's the mayor's administration, and it's their agencies that really know what the two and three and they have a six-year CIP plan.

They are planning out at least six years.

They're just not telling us, and that's the real crux, but thank you.

And I will just add one more thing, um, Councilmember Hines, and that is a question back to you.

Um because we're writing this, right?

What if uh the determination of whether it was gonna be a one-year budget or a two-year budget was made jointly by council and the mayor's office with um you know, with information and discussion from the department of and a recommendation from the department of finance with something like that?

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, but because we might be able to do that, I don't know.

No promises, but we can we'd ask.

Yeah, for sure.

And speaking of know your audience, um, Councilmember Gilmore, will this asking the CIP list will we also get the list of the one budget expansion of each agency that was not approved?

It would be great.

That's all up to this body.

So yeah, the the language is not written yet.

So thank you.

Councilwoman Tars.

Oh, thank you.

That's I think the question that I had.

I'm looking at the charter language under budget and finance.

Is that the only section that references this process?

I'm gonna look to Bryan for that one.

I think yes is the short answer, but thanks, Bylan.

Uh Brian Augusty Assistant City Attorney.

Um, yeah, I believe so.

That is the section.

And what I'm assuming is the goal here is to go for like an omnibus overhaul toward the skull in order for it to be like the single subject situation for charter, as opposed to Councilman Flynn, who liked two of the four, but not all four of the changes.

That's the goal.

I mean, I because I think um part of the our conversations and the feedback we've heard from the mayor's office and the department of finance is around bandwidth and staffing and timing, right?

And that like while this might be uh, you know, while while it might be a great in theory idea to have an entire mayor's office outreach plan every single year that they're creating the budget, like there just isn't the staff and bandwidth to do it, right?

Um that there are you know things happening that we never see in the Department of Finance that like just to do this every year, it's too much.

So to do it every year during times of economic uncertainty, but you know, every two years uh when we're sort of in a solid space, like 2015 to 19, um, that that would make the ability to get all of this done a little bit easier.

It would be kind of more stressful in one year, but then a little bit less in another year because um there would still be the opportunity to tweak different things in the budget based on changing economic conditions or based on projects you know falling through or based on all the different things that we see happen here.

Um that doing all of that work every single year is too much.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Um, I have a couple questions.

So in the slide find it now.

Um slide on one of the for earlier slides, you define if it can be a one-year or two-year times of economic uncertainty.

Do we have a definition for that?

No, um, but when we talked to Seattle and uh and Fort Collins, there was that the kind of idea of that flexibility really bubbled to the top, and um, we're happy to share the white paper with you that shows a number of different cities that do this.

This was these were just kind of the two that we spent the most time engaging with to understand um more in depth kind of what what they do and why they do it and how they do it.

Um, but the I I think that the um determination of whether that should be a one-year budget or a two-year budget is entirely dependent on the circumstances of the moment.

Yeah, okay.

Because I was thinking about um our class just in general, yeah.

Um, I think when the administration came in, they have we had one already declared state like official emergency that had been declared under Hancock and under Hancock, we had COVID.

We kept extending out, and then when we had the migrants, I think believe it was Hancock, and when you all got elected and it was already a state of emergency, and then the next day after this administration, we we had two, right?

We declared the state of emergency, and that one stayed all the way till 2023, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, I mean 24.

So just wondering like to Councilmember Heinz point of um we've never been able to have a time where I think the two-year budget cycle would have been able to work.

But I do agree I was a council aid in starting in 2012, and under that, it would have been nice to have a two-year budget cycle with some of the work that I was doing in Global Learning Consia around the um I-70 and a lot of the things that were going on in other parts of the city.

So I can see um pros and cons to having both, right?

Um so I I appreciate slide 13 where um we're sure that addition to require city council approval for expenditures out of the unassigned fund balance below 10%.

I appreciate the addition of that.

My question on that part is is the 3% table the requirement is that part of the 15%?

That's a it's separate, I think.

That's a whole separate, yes.

It's also Stephanie.

Do you want to stay?

Stephanie's nodding.

If I had to find if you introduce yourself, I have a question.

Certainly.

Stephanie Kiralis Adams, I am the city's deputy chief financial officer.

So where do I find that 3% in the budget book?

It's in the uh budget highlights in the front of the book, it's actually outside of the schedule 100.

It is outside of the schedule.

Totally completely different, and and the majority of that requirement is met by property value.

In fact, there's very little cash in that particular fund.

And so it can meet and is and that's required by state.

That is correct.

Okay.

Okay, and then I had one other question regarded to the um fund balance, and then the one percent.

How is that?

Where's that highlighted in the budget book?

The one percent, do you mean two percent for contingency?

Two percent for yeah, um, actually, if you go to slide five, I think, is it on schedule one hundred?

It is on schedule one hundred, and so is the 15%.

And I guess I just I just want to point out do you see under contingency general contingency under use?

Contingency, yep.

So reserves, and I I do want to just go back to councilwoman Alvidre's question, which is a really good one, which is should there be another year where we do in fact have a great year and we close above 15%.

Your question about whether or not the over 15% is included as revenues, uh a question I also have.

So that that is a quite a really good question.

Because um, and I also just want to point out to you right now, every year we do have unspent, and that's the other piece.

I'm not sure, council women if you believe that we should no longer have unspent.

So, do you see how the schedule 100, how we balance the budget?

So to Councilman Sawyer's point, she was concerned because the appropriation exceeded the amount of revenue, and therefore we took steps to put savings aside um so that we can be flexible, right?

So think about it this way.

Hiring freezes, great example.

We don't know over the course of the year how many which agencies might have more positions than others.

HRCP, really great organization, doesn't usually have a lot of turnover, which is fabulous.

Dottie Parks, they do.

Part of I think what the council uh sponsors are asking is that we would actually go through and make rescinds to every single appropriation in the city.

That's a whole budget process.

That's how you do appropriation.

I think that's part of the concern we have is making a rescission in the middle of the year does require us to go to every single agency, have them develop a proposal.

I don't know if electeds would be part of that or not part of that.

I will also say that if we have to do that, it would be an across the board reduction, which is the least strategic thing you can do.

If we have to act that quickly and actually go in and ask you to run an ordinance to reduce every agency.

So I just wanted to clarify the 10% comment that Councilwoman Sawyer made.

That's what our concern is.

This idea that we'd have to come through you.

You'd want to talk to all the agencies, right?

So we do in the middle of the year work with agencies over the course of the year and say revenue's not looking so great.

What can you do?

And then we have that flexibility through the through those months.

So that was not your question.

But should I?

All of these, especially line like page five and page six.

Oh something that are really important to us because I don't think just like I don't think it should be 10%, because I agree, that's across the board.

That's not very strategic.

And city council, even when everyone else had a fight hiring freedoms, we did not last year.

We worked with you.

Yeah, and we worked with you because if that 10% were across, I think that would also include independent elected offices.

I'm not sure.

I I guess that's the thing.

I I guess you know, if if we exclude some folks over the years, you may have noticed we haven't, like, for instance, reduced hosts very much, but that's very intentional because those were the needs.

But if we whatever you can't, whenever you exclude an organization, and I know all you know this, we have to cut deeper somewhere else just to make it balance.

So I guess our my only thing I would just say since I have a moment is we hear a lot of the changes the city council would like to make.

We would just love to have some opportunity to have a conversation, maybe an ordinance, try some things.

My hunches, that a strategic plan for each one of you probably looks a little bit different.

And I would hate to write something in city charter that's supposed to stand the width of time, right?

Um, and then only to find that is actually not gonna work very well.

So our request would be could we just work on ordinances where it's where we want to try some things and we can make some changes along the way so we can at least figure out what we can do and what might meet all of your needs.

Dates, a hundred percent.

Those have to be in charter, they're currently on charter, we'll have to make those changes.

Yeah, so I'll just say I appreciate you saying that writing some ordinances that can make it feel better.

Um I was gonna say I like the July 1st.

I appreciated that as somebody who is looking at the city council overall budget and comparing it.

I liked just so you all know that's the way my mind worked, is I was like, oh, let me see what they sent me in July, and then right when it got dropped, but the first thing I did was went to Benita and sat down and looked at what the comparison was.

So then you all were gonna come and say how's my budget impacted, right?

For the next year.

So I appreciate I I wanted to say I would have kept the July for some something in there.

I wouldn't have liked to get it August 15th and then know that see we're scrambling at as something underneath the an independent agency as the clerk and recorder, independent agency, um, the um auditor, independent agency, how those would be impacted, right?

If we only get it on August 15th, because that's what what we saw last time.

I was not paying attention as council president to the auditor and to the clerk and recorder.

I was paying attention to ours and how did that mail down to all of you for to prepare for our 2026 budget, right?

Um, and then we ended up in budget amendments for these independent agencies.

So when I'm thinking about the the whole entire overall budget, I appreciate the July.

So I would want that kept in there.

I do appreciate having you all come forward earlier.

It's really hard for you, it's hard for us, it's hard for every single person in the mix.

Never seen one council president since I've been here, even as a council aide, not struggle with the budget timeline and the colleague and the back and forth and the amount of time that it goes.

So with that being said, I don't know if you all have suggestions on how to deal with this, because but it is a problem that I do see, and I do see these three council members working really hard to come up with solutions and to meet where the our constituents want to meet have us be at, like what happens with this budget, what what makes of the budget, and so putting this all together and thinking about it.

Um I appreciate both both aspects of it because I think that they we can solve for some of the issues that we're facing.

Can I just say a couple of things?

Um, number one, we had proposed that August 15th date as a date.

Um I have since had a conversation with Nicole where there are some bond disclosure things that happen in the month of August that like maybe it needs to be a September 1st date.

The mayor's office has said we can get it to you by September 8th.

That one week buys us one week to either read it or one week to do amendments, but not one week to do both.

So I I don't think we see how it could be successful before September 1st or with Labor Day, we may need to fix that language a little bit, but like I think there's a there's a compromise there somewhere.

We just haven't gotten to exactly where that is yet.

So flagging that for you.

Um in the same conversation with Nicole, we talked a lot about what Stephanie just said, and um we don't think as a policy decision that council um having to re-appropriate or miss or unappropriate rescind.

Thank you, rescind every single dollar from every single place, like that there needs to necessarily be a conversation about that, right?

Like, what if it is a percentage um space where we where like where when it's triggered um by a certain percentage reduction, then we have to have a conversation about what that looks like, and then the ordinance is crafted and goes through, but it's not necessarily every single agency, every single dollar, every single moment because we are a strong mayor form of government.

We also need to be respectful of that piece as well.

So there's a balance there to be had.

Um I'm still waiting, you know, it was spring break two weeks ago, like everybody was out of town, not me, but everybody else was out of town.

Um, and so still waiting to hear back from the Department of Finance what their recommendation on what that threshold might be and what that process might look like, and haven't heard anything from them yet.

So there's more discussion to come before we you know would head to committee, which I think at this point um there's only one date left, and it's June, June 15th, June 15th, June, something like that, mid-June.

Uh, but for to schedule things for to get for committee to get to the charter in the timeline that needs to come.

So um, so yeah, so there's you know, we've got some time here to hammer that out and and make a determination of exactly what that's gonna look like.

I think we have always said what needs to be in charter versus what needs to be in a companion ordinance.

We are prepared to write a companion ordinance.

Um, but there's like we need to make these policy decisions first.

So we don't disagree, we get it.

Um, we just need a recommendation then on what that like where the where the threshold is and then what exactly that means so that our attorneys can write the language.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say for the department of finance if we could have a if you can opine on like what you think would work um so that we can have that and all understand because I have I have to admit I did not have a briefing with you before this presentation because I have the only the PDF to opine on, right?

Um so but I would like to go ahead.

So I just wanted to clarify the request.

So I think the request is should we have to make adjustments in the middle of the year?

At what threshold would we come to city council to let them know what those adjustments are?

We did you may remember during COVID, we made mid-year reductions.

We did not seek an ordinance to make those changes.

I think probably a really good example is in April or May of 2020.

We put money into, we put money aside within appropriation.

It's called the 98s, it's a sequestered account within everybody's budget.

Stays within their appropriation.

We made a pretty significant reduction for every agency, including um police in May.

And then we had to release some of those dollars when the protest happened.

And we had that ability to do that, but we did come to you in May and said, here's what every agency is going to set aside.

But it didn't require an ordinance, it was just walking through those those changes.

When we have our elections, we have to sequester some of the money, and then if you win, you can have your full balance so that we don't end up situations like when we got elected, meaning our class where council members' budgets were already set spent.

Yes.

So I just wanted to clarify that's your question.

Is at what point in time making changes to a budget?

What's what's the threshold for which we would come and just do a presentation and walk you through that?

Is that the request?

Yes.

And I think uh and I think yes.

For now, yes.

There's probably some follow-up to that.

I think um that we need to kind of just talk through the Department of Finance and like I said, we don't disagree with them.

We just we don't do the money, so we need to know kind of the specifics of what it looks like on their end.

Okay.

And just want to go back to I know Councilman Tar Site, you're used to I'm good.

Are you good?

Um I think that hopefully I can't remember.

I was trying to look up my notes, but I can't find them.

Um the it's coming soon.

The first time that we'll get the reading at City Council for the ordinance that councilwoman Sawyer and I worked on, and we'll be able to have a little bit more preview into that.

So you're not just stuck with that July 1st.

Um because I think that will also I think all these things together, it's like a puzzle piece, right?

You all are trying to figure out the border and then fill in the the interiors all of the budget.

Um, but how does it work better together?

And I don't know any other class of council members who actually worked on train trying to change this budget.

I've always known every colleague who I've worked with since being a council aid.

No one's ever loved the budget cycle.

I don't know one council member who was like this works perfect, this works green.

Um but I will say this class of council members, we started actually proving budget amendments.

When I was working for Judy, I don't remember them ever passing any budget amendments.

I think sometimes when the budget would pass, the council members weren't even here.

They're absent.

Yeah.

And so it was really, I think in 2019 when that class came in that we actually started passing budget amendments to the actual budget.

Um and really using different tools that we had and and everyone's point, building the plane has buying the plane and building the plane as we had it.

Um I guess I do have a question.

Um to uh Stephanie and DOF's request.

Uh there may be some things that can be tested, but I'm curious if the charter allows us to do very many things, because it's only permissive.

So the the one thing example I would say is on or before the 15th of September.

You could deliver an earlier budget, but there are other things that are still baked in.

So that that would just be helpful for me to understand, like where we could not test for a year as opposed to making the policy decisions this year and going to charter changes.

So that might just be something that I'll want to understand a little bit more.

Yeah, absolutely.

We can work with our attorneys to sort of walk through each of those things.

Can I just ask a follow-up question for you?

Um like there are some things that just simply don't exist in the charter.

Right, right.

Like, for example, the conversation around like a threshold um amount that the budget estimates were off by.

Um, like that exists nowhere in the charter.

What exists in the charter is the flip side of that, which councilwoman Kinich brought through as a charter change in 2021.

And it is the charter change that requires council appropriation of new unappropriated dollars.

So this is essentially the flip side of that, right?

The flip side of that where there's a reduction, um, but the approval from the long bill is still there to spend up to the initial previous November amount.

Um there's the charter's totally silent on that.

And when it's silent, you can't just do that.

You can't do whatever you want.

Yeah.

So I I'm happy to kind of walk through with our attorneys and see if we can put together some sort of like clear one pager of those kinds of of what we can and cannot do under the charter.

I think the the um challenge is that it just doesn't or it doesn't exist at all, it doesn't exist at all.

The idea of putting together um, you know, a community outreach plan and sort of creating the the overarching two-year goals or what council member Gilmore is calling a strategic plan, um, that doesn't exist in the charter.

Yeah, so you know it's a it's a tough it's a tough one.

Okay, yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Okay, so thank you.

Um, Councilmember Flynn, go ahead.

Yeah.

That should have asked us in the beginning.

With regard to a two-year cycle, have you factored in or considered the impact of collective bargaining where we may have multiple agreements over that two years that sort of skew our projections?

What would you fall on that?

Yeah, so our thought on that is to deal with it the way we deal with collective bargaining right now, which is not council member Watson's favorite thing.

Um but he's brought up a couple of times his frustration with the idea that we use contingency dollars to address collective bargaining pieces, and um that is the way it works right now, and nothing about that would change because we'd still have to have the contingency set aside every year.

We would still have to have right all of those things.

Whether that is a like the right way to address it, I don't know, but I think that's a totally separate issue from what we're talking about here because the the way it works right now is the way it would continue to work, those those collective bargaining pieces would come out of those contingency dollars.

Simpler all one year cycle, though.

We don't uh we can't budget for it because we don't know what it'll be, obviously.

Uh but I don't know, Stephanie.

Do we have anything in the budget for this for the following year when we have collective bargaining agreements with the safety, uh the three safety uh groups?

Have we ever budgeted something prospectively and then covered any of the rest with contingency, or we just leave it at whatever the current salary was and then appropriate out of contingency the entire settlement?

Because that's we're gonna have probably five at least new agencies uh in the coming year that enter into the cycle.

Yeah, um the answer is it depends.

So it depends on the timing.

Yeah, I know the perfect answer.

I'm not even attorney.

Um so it if we, for instance, are able to close a collective bargaining agreement and it's sp it's fully authorized by city council in time to add it into the budget for the following year, we do add into the budget.

Otherwise, we do use contingency.

I will just also say as a percentage of the total FTE, we've had a lot more flexibility.

As our unions grow, that's sort of probably the place where we get a little anxious if it's a it's a significant portion of our personnel.

So we've had the flexibility.

Sheriff is not a huge percentage, for instance, of our of our uh population.

So thank you.

Yeah, I will just say in follow-up to that, um it's not that you can't that you do not budget at all in the second year.

You have to budget in the second year.

The state constitution requires it.

So just like it exists for collective bargaining now, if they can budget it in because of the timing, they do if it is approved like our sheriffs were approved in I think November of last year, so it had to come out of contingency.

It did.

And then it will be budgeted in for the 2027 budget.

That's exactly the same.

Nothing about that changes.

All right, thank you.

Okay.

So for next steps.

So for next steps, uh, we appreciate all of your feedback.

We um are planning to continue conversations with the Department of Finance to figure out um specific language for a charter change and a companion ordinance, and then we'll see you guys in committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I actually think we're gonna have to move it off of June 30 because um that is the day that Excel franchise agreement is gonna come through.

Oh, lovely.

No other further action we stand adjourned.

I'll see you on 3:30.

Thank you.