And welcome back.

We are in part two of our budget hearings for today, the expanded budget finance and audit standing committee for the purpose uh purposes of budget hearings.

Uh Madam Clerk, good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Will you please call the roll?

I will.

Thank you.

Councilmember Scott Benson.

Councilmember Letitia Johnson.

Present.

Councilmember Denzel McCampbell.

Councilmember Reneta Miller.

Member Miller indicated that she is addressing a family issue.

Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero.

Present.

Councilmember Mary Waters.

Councilmember Angela Whitfield Callaway.

Council President Pro Tim Goldman Young.

Here.

Council President James Tate.

Here.

Mr.

We have quorum.

Thank you so much.

We have a quorum, which means we're now back in session officially, and we are ready for the budget hearing for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer OLCO's office.

Come on now.

And good afternoon to you.

Please introduce your team and you may proceed when you're ready.

I'm Tanya Studemar at the CFO for the city of Detroit.

To my right is Deputy CFO budget director Donnie Johnson.

And to my left is our Chief Deputy CFO Regina Greer.

Other presenters will include Deputy CFOs Alvin Horn and Sandra Stahl, who are sitting behind us.

The Office of the CFO directly aligns with the mayor's rise higher vision.

The OCFO will continue to create and implement a financial infrastructure that results in a structurally balanced budget for each fiscal year and long-term plan.

In partnership with other departments, the OCFO will align funding with the priorities of the Sheffield administration, supporting stronger neighborhoods, economic opportunity, population growth, public safety, and equity for Detroit residents.

The position of the CFO was established by state law under the Home Rule City Act in 2014 to oversee all financial activities in the city.

So you will see that this budget actually has a new financial function that is part of our presentation.

Some of our accomplishments include Moody's bond rating upgrade with a positive outlook.

This indicates that if we stay on course, we could potentially get an upgrade this year.

The city received awards for both our annual comprehensive financial report and our four-year financial plan.

We ended fiscal year 25 with a 105 million dollar surplus.

Also, after five years of waiting, we finally received our 21 million dollar COVID reimbursement from FEMA.

So that's also part of the mayor's budget.

Also, we have just over a hundred million dollars remaining in ARPRA funds that need to be spent by the end of the calendar year.

Next, Mr.

Johnson will provide an OCFO budget details overview.

All right.

So OCFO's budget generally, we're going to focus obviously on the general fund component.

As you can see, not a large change year over year.

Um considering the nature of our department.

So you will see the increases to OCFO's budget are really attributable primarily to the typical annual wage inflation.

So that's really the biggest driver of our in our year over year increase.

So you know, having less than a two million dollar overall increase to our budget.

In order to accomplish this, we did find efficiencies in a number of places, as CFO Sodemeyer indicated.

We do have a new division in OCFO.

While most of that is not in the general fund, a small portion is, and in order to make sure that we did not completely exceed our baseline, we did make efficiencies accordingly.

On the next slide for positions, you can see where we accomplished that.

So we went through and diligent diligently went through each of the divisions budgets with the deputy CFOs of those divisions and worked out you know how to right size their head count.

Like a many departments, OCFO did have some vacancies, and so we were able to take some vacancies.

So these reductions did not affect will not affect our operations or our ability to do our job.

They were just efficiencies that we thought would be manageable for us to allow us to absorb some of the additional items that we are absorbing in fiscal year 27.

On the next slide, you can see just a graphic that kind of shows that trend in our budget.

As you can see, our budget has grown each year, but it has grown almost exactly with the wage inflation for staff.

We again try not to grow our budget too radically.

Um and generally, as we are a personnel driven organization, um, that is our biggest pressure is the general wage inflation each year for um uh uh both our bargaining units and our non-union staff.

Um, and you can see our head count um as it had been trending up a little bit has now dipped a little bit as we achieved those efficiencies in our budget.

Uh next um I will be passing it over to Chief Deputy CFO Greer to talk about the treasury highlights.

Thank you, Donnie.

Just to um highlight a few of the treasury um items for the fiscal year.

Um, on the left side of the chart, you will see the senior citizens' solid waste fee reduction program and the number of approved applicances, applicants year over year.

You will see in 2024 there was a large spike, 2,472, and then a dip of 750 applicants approved in 2025.

And then in 2026 to date, um, you will see that we're already at 444 uh senior citizen applicants approved.

As uh this honorable body knows that there's no um there's a one-time application for the senior citizens who are 65 or older, they can apply for the 50 percent solid waste fee discount, and uh the qualification is that they are a Detroit uh resident uh with a principal resident in Detroit.

On the right side of the chart, you will see the property tax collection and those percentages year over year.

And when looking at fiscal year 24 and 25, you will see uh 84 percent of property current property taxes were paid while they were current, uh which is actually a really good number of the the change uh that uh continues uh to stay on trend.

Looking at the bottom of the chart, you will see the number of uh clearances and the applications that were processed in 2024.

You'll see 7,516 uh tax clearances and 6,499 in 2025.

That is due to a change in the ordinance where we um are seeing that that slight dip, and for the the application clearances that is for the validation of individuals and and businesses to certify that they do not owe any funds to the city of Detroit.

On the next slide, just some information regarding our Office of Development and Grants and our active grant portfolio under the leadership of Terry Daniels, the deputy CFO for development and grants.

We are managing the over $3 billion in federal, state, local, and private funds.

And looking at the chart on the left, you will see uh over 81% of our funding, our federal funds that uh the team under OCFO manages the entire portfolio with 8.6 as uh 8.6 percent as state grant funding, and the remaining percentages are federal private foundations and some corporations and county funds.

On the right side of the chart, you will see our ARPA spend.

That is the original 826 million of the ARPA allocation that the city was awarded to date uh through uh through March.

We have spent over 87 percent of the ARPA funding, and we are on track to ensure that that spending is complete and in full by December 31st of 2026.

And I will now turn it over to Alvin Horn, our city assessor, deputy CFO.

Good afternoon, members of council.

Uh Alvin Horn, Deputy CFO and Assessor for the City of Detroit.

The first slide you see is our transformation of the assessor's office from a manual labor-intensive model to one that's based on technology, multiple regression analysis.

We are the second, we are in the second year for three-year proof of concept phrase.

This model has allowed us to will allow us to comply with Mayor Sheffield's order earlier this year to complete the reevaluation of all residential neighborhoods.

As most of you know, um, 85% of the sales in the city are quick clan deeds or land contracts.

They do not meet the definition of market value.

So we're forced to look at other attributes to determine value, and that's what multiple regression allows us to do.

We are looking at traffic counts and streets, the quality of schools and neighborhoods, recreation areas, parks, everything we can think of that that helps a person determine where they want to live is going into a model for our valuation purposes.

As I said, we're in the second year of a three-year proof of concept phrase.

We brought in uh the former mass appraisal manager for the city of Philadelphia, which we're modeling everything on.

They went through the similar process about eight years ago.

And we've worked with the state tax commission, the county equalization director.

Everyone is on board.

This will allow us to move forward in a way that is financially responsible.

It will comply with the mayor's directives, and it will produce a model which I think everyone in the city can be proud of.

If we go to the next slide, please.

This ties directly into the multiple regression analysis work that we've done.

There are seven uh council districts in the city.

In 2025, we modified the neighborhoods in seven of and four of those seven districts.

When we start the year, there were 208 residential neighborhoods that we value.

At the end of this process, there were 280 287.

We anticipate by the end of this year, when we've completed this process, there will be some 335 residential neighborhoods that we value.

This is how we are focusing on the question of overassessment.

We are taking as as deep a dive, we're going as far into the weeds as we possibly can to understand the differences in value among the neighborhoods.

Uh, next slide, please.

And this one simply shows the workflow in the office of the assessor.

Our residential property division, as you can see, looked at some 40,000 properties last year in compliance of the city council's requirements that we review all 20 percent of houses every single year.

Most of that work was done in support of the multiple regression analysis.

Our GIS and data analysis division, they supported that work by reviewing the sales, the attributes, every single uh billing permit we could find, every water bill, everything we could simply we could possibly find that helps determine value into a model, and our DIS analysis division support our residential property appraisers in doing that.

Our commercial appraisers, they're responsible for all the income-producing properties in the city.

Um commercial properties right now make up about 55% of the of the wealth of the city's real estate market.

So that shows the breakdown of work that they did, and finally our operations of the administrative service to the division.

That's our forward facing, that's our public-facing office.

So it shows the the interactions that they have with the public, either through the phones, through email, or through personal visits.

So that's the end of my presentation, and I will turn this back over to the CFO.

Um, through the chair.

Um OCP actually has a couple slides uh that I want them to review as well.

Good afternoon.

My name is Sandra Stahl, Deputy CFO and Chief Procurement Officer for the City of Detroit.

I'm pleased to share about the work of the Office of Contracting and Procurement.

We have a small but mighty team, around 30 to 35 buyers and managers, and a small group that make up our tech and data team, financial analysts, auditor, and supplier outreach and support team.

I also would like to recognize three of our staff, Erica Crawford, Tamika Williams, and Valerie Massey, who just hit their 30-year service milestone to the city of Detroit.

Um the purpose of a centralized Office of Contracting Procurement is to ensure that we have a consistent process with integrity to prevent favoritism and to ensure compliance with all the different levels of procurement and funding regulations, state, local, federal, and to maintain the public trust that doing business with the city is fair and open.

Over the last several years, OCP has awarded hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars worth of contracts each year with large influxes of special funding from ARPA to FEMA to the pandemic dollars to UTGO bond fund dollars and so on.

As those dollars wind down, we've awarded uh a smaller volume of dollars, but the volume of work is still high.

Our staff has also gone through many changes in pursuit of continuous improvements to make procurement a better process for everyone involved, from the requesting departments to suppliers, and I'm so thankful to our team to working through all of that change, as well as our key partners in our other OCFO divisions in CREO, do it, and especially the law department as we work together to protect the city.

I'm also thankful to the city council for your unanimous support of the procurement ordinance uh amendments that were passed last year.

So you can see on this slide, we were able to streamline four million dollars worth of awards across 108 small dollar contracts, 47% of which were awarded to Detroit-based businesses, and 55% to vendors located in the city.

Um not every vendor in the city is certified, and some of these awards are to nonprofits providing recreation programs who are not eligible for certification, which is why we provided both numbers.

In terms of volume, we're on track to uh beat last year, last fiscal year's number of requisitions processed and number of contracts awarded.

Um I want to highlight in the next slide our efforts in supplier outreach.

Thank you to the city council members who we regularly partner with, um, as well as CREO and area business support organizations to market our bid opportunities.

Over the last couple of years, our team has made extra special efforts to partner with departments to do more targeted outreach around specific opportunities.

Um CP Tate, I don't know if you recall how hard it was to get enough vendors to remove the trees and trim the private trees, and over uh huge efforts made by our team in partnership with your office and uh GSD, we were able to get a record uh number of bids in our last bid, and uh we're so excited to support GSD in responding to this huge demand for um tree services.

Um thank you to the city council offices who supported us in our outreach for summer camp host sites.

We have um gotten record number of responses.

Umy vendors uh uh reached out uh looking for how to bid, saying that city council um had shared the bid opportunity, so thank you for uh for that.

Um then finally uh or I want to say that in addition to the outreach efforts, we launched a new bid platform called Bonfire or UNA in December.

And in just a few months since we've had over 3,800 vendors registered.

We've uh published 114 solicitations, so I really thank the team in working through that transition.

And um so that combination of really targeted outreach and a user-friendly bid platform has resulted in higher than ever uh bid participation rates.

Finally, I want to note that we have one additional position noted in our position budget.

This is for a supervisory contract procurement specialist, and we're specifically seeking a supervisor with deep experience in technology.

We are finding that the technology procurements have grown to be the highest volume of any commodity that we procure, and it crosses all departments, and it's an area that is constantly evolving.

These are the most complicated bids with the longest negotiation timelines.

And uh we're we're really thankful to the partnership with law in making sure that we are protecting the city while we get the best that technology has to offer.

Uh thank you, uh, Ms.

Stall.

So, as far as our fiscal year 27 priorities, a lot of these you've seen before.

We will continue to maintain balanced budgets and maximize federal, state, and philanthropic funds.

We will also uh continue to prioritize our retirees and contribute to the legacy pension funds with assistance from the retiree protection fund.

We will align our budget and resources with the mayor's priorities, housing, neighborhoods, safety, youth, and economic mobility.

We will also implement the mayor's executive order by adopting IAAO ratio standards.

This is what uh Mr.

Horn talked about earlier.

Um I want to end the presentation with a quote from one of the economists from our February revenue estimating conference, and he indicated that Detroit's economy demonstratable resilience.

Our residents are resilient, our employees are resilient.

We are prepared for the uncertainty that we know is ahead.

And with that, we'll take any questions that you all have.

Thank you so much.

We'll start off our line of questioning with uh member Benson.

Thank you.

Uh, thank you all for being here today.

And number one, I want to start off with accolades for what you all have done at the OCFO side of the table.

You all are very responsive, you all are partly and largely responsible for 12 years of balanced budgets.

And some of you can show your history with the city of Detroit five mayors back, which just shows the type of experience and the vagaries of our financial fortunes that have been seen by this municipality, meaning we have seen ups and we have seen downs.

And in fact, some of us here got on this elevator when it was at the floor immediately following our forced entry into bankruptcy court, and we've seen the elevator rise moving forward.

And you are responsible for that.

So I want to say kudos to what you all have done and for helping us to show financial discipline, fiscal discipline with having balanced budgets annually and understanding that we need to live beneath our means, not at our means, beneath our means.

We should annually show some type of savings.

We need to have that cushion.

The cushion was necessary during COVID when we were not forced to take on additional debt, as many municipalities around the country were because they were ill-prepared for a catastrophic incident of any kind.

No one knew it was coming, but it did, and we were prepared and we came through it in great shape.

Thank you, President Biden as well, for being very helpful afterwards.

But our fiscal discipline is what allowed us to get through that quickly and effectively.

Um for me, I don't have any questions for you all today.

I'm gonna put those into a memo, but I do just want to say thank you for kudos and to the small but mighty team of uh what Ms.

Sandra Ustall identified as her team, the assessor's office, very responsive, very helpful, and just the ability to help guide us financially.

And what many people forget is that a municipality is a very unique business.

You have to, your credits have to equal debits, but you also have to take care of your constituents, your bosses, the residents who live within your city, and they can make or break you as well.

People who don't have to live in the city of Detroit.

And we want to make this a place where they do live.

And our revenues as a city are a direct result of them paying taxes, and we have to have residents and business owners to pay taxes for us to thrive and grow as a city, which we have.

And over the last 10, 12 years, we've seen over a 50 percent increase in our revenues.

That that's not by happenstance, that's not by luck.

That is by careful and very methodical and thoughtful policies and logistics of the city, which you all are part of.

So I want to thank you all for that, and to make sure we continue to live beneath our means, not at our means.

We need to have a savings, and it needs to grow, and we need to have a level of fiscal discipline that we show the last 12 years moving forward.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon to you all.

Uh, thank you for being here.

Uh I I get the pleasure of hearing deeply about all of your efforts and work um in the budget finance of all the committees.

So I want to express the gratitude and all of the uh the accomplishments that you have and and just keeping us on track and financially, so thank you.

I have a question around taxes, thinking about the taxes, and you know, we've heard uh our presentation and the research around uh sales tax and and entertainment tax and such.

Uh, but has the CFO's office model a scenario where Detroit reduces the reliance on property taxes and shift towards a cell tax model like Chicago and have you all seen like any have you all did the research around the trade-offs to the uh approach or anything like that now that we're getting more and more uh data around uh local officer sell tax and such?

So through the chair, uh we have assisted others who may be modeling.

I know when the CRC did their um their presentation and their analysis, they did come to us for some additional information.

Uh so we are helpful to anyone who is in the process of modeling.

Uh and we support whatever the outcome is.

It's like we also agree that we need to have more diversified revenue streams.

So right now, everything is on the table.

Everything is being looked at, but in terms of a final decision, I think everybody is still just trying to model it and see what would really work best and really quickest for the city of Detroit.

Absolutely, and thank you for that.

And I know as we think about those, definitely want to make sure we are clear on what like also in those taxes who have benefits and making sure that it doesn't disproportionately uh negatively impact um the folks that are uh already struggling to get by.

So I appreciate the work on that.

And as we had this conversation in our uh committee earlier today, I know there's been an emphasis on the wager and tax and how we've gotten more revenue from that, but also we know that is very volatile, and we also know that um in economic conditions, habits around wagering and gambling changes, so don't want to um I agree with having multiple streams to make sure we're not uh subject to things that happen there.

Um in the mayor's uh presentation for the budget, we talked about um participatory budgeting.

Um, and I know you all are uh is uh a priority of the mayor, and also that you all were mark working on that moving forward.

So I don't have a question on that because we have talked about that, but I do have a uh motion for the closing resolution if we um could just uh continue to urge the administration to um continue on plans to figure out what's the best method for participatory budget in the city of Detroit.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Uh Mr.

President, if I can join Member McCampbell.

Absolutely.

All right, any objections, colleagues?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Mr.

Corley, if you can note uh member Santiago Nero would like to join as well.

Thank you.

And if you can note that we've been joined by member uh Callaway.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And my second question is just on the for the retirees and and the funds there.

Um, do we feel that that is on par and that we can continue making the contributions there to um make sure that our retirees have their benefits funded?

Uh through the chair.

Uh so following our hearing will be non-departmental, and they will say the same thing that I'm about to say, which is I can assure you that we are on par, we are on track.

There are no concerns there.

You know, this year we're also able to add the 10 million dollars so that they could have the prorated 13th check.

So, you know, we're definitely making sure that our retirees are all always, you know, first of mine.

Uh, we want to make sure that we are taking care of them and you know, keeping our promises.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh Pro Tim Young.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And uh I also just want to say kudos and congratulations for all the work that you've done.

Really appreciate it.

I I wanted to further first start off by saying um I think you guys do great work, but for me, I would like to see in terms of your key performance indicators.

Um I would like to see more emphasis on the debt to GDP ratio.

Um, I would like to also see more emphasis in terms of the amount of debt per capita and the amount of debt per household.

Um I also think it's important for me to also see the amount of dollars that we have that go to services and the amount of dollars that we have go to debt.

I think probably the reason why we went bankrupt in the first place is because for every dollar that we were bringing in the dollar and some change was going to actual debt.

And so I think the people can see that they can actually see the work that you've done in terms of reducing that number long term over time.

I think that's something that is important.

Um also I think that your um I think it's your total factor.

Hold on for a minute here.

Let me make sure I get this straight.

I think it's called the total factor production, if I'm not mistaken, which I think is absolutely critical in terms of us just being able to track how the dollars that we spend convert into the services that we provide.

And I'll provide you a list of what I'm asking you for so that you have it.

I think if I have those type of numbers, and I know it's kind of grandular, but if we could break that down, I think it'd be a lot better for me to be able to understand where we are and where we're going and how we're reducing that debt over time and where it gives us a better financial picture and how that relates to the citizens.

You know, more investment in the services that you want because of the work that you're doing.

So I really appreciate that.

Um I wanted to ask uh Mr.

Horn a question.

Uh, first of all, I want to say, brother, thank you so much for uh adopting technology.

You uh you understand the assignment and the plot, most people don't.

So thank you.

I appreciate that in terms of algorithms.

I just wanted to ask you, does it just stop with algorithms?

Or also are you also looking at artificial intelligence?

Are you looking at drone technology in terms of being able to see and actually appraise these properties?

How does that work?

What are you doing?

How far have you made an investment in that?

And then if you have not invested artificial intelligence, I will tell you why you should.

Um through the chair, thank you for the question, sir.

Um I can assure you that it is a continuous process, the technology upgrades in the assessor's office.

We're moving from a model that is less reliant on day-to-day people going up and down the street, and one that is technologically advanced.

AI is part of the software that we use.

It's the software we know we use is called SPSS.

It's a a uh analytical statistical software by IBM.

It's used for high-end calculations, high-end modeling.

It does include an AI component, which we hope to take advantage of going forward.

But as I said, we're in the second year of a three-year proof of concept.

So we're we're a little past baby steps, but we're not running yet.

That's the best way I can describe it.

Thank you for the question, sir.

No, I appreciate that.

And I and I really think that that would be important for you because I know that you're doing you're dealing with you're asked, you're always asked, it seems from my opinion, to have to do more of less.

And so I think that if you had our artificial intelligence, I think your valuation time per property would go is like two to four hours now, it go to five to fifteen minutes.

Your assessment accuracy, which we get complaints about all the time about being overassessed, would go it's about 70 to 8%.

That would increase to 90 to 97%.

And your appeals time pro your appeals processing time is 30, 90 days, it goes to 7 to 21 days.

Your backlog will be reduced by 50 to 70%.

I'll send all this to you because I don't expect you to remember all this top of your head.

And so then uh for my for my final question, um, Mr.

Thank you so much.

You have been nothing but a professional working with you.

I appreciate you, Director Stahl.

But I just wanted to ask you, even though the amount of steps that you have to go through to bid on a contract is where it needs to be, and it's like the golden standard, even though we're a medium small city, it's where it's supposed to be for larger cities, which I appreciate.

But the steps to start a business are so incredibly great.

I think it's about like 183 steps to start a small business.

So even though the steps for the bidding process is where it needs to be, the steps to start a business to be able to bid has done that.

Has there been conversations at all about how that impacts uh people who come in for contracts?

Because a lot of times we have people who will come in, you send out a lot of bids, a lot of bids, and you don't get a lot back.

And I'm thinking a lot of that reason for people I talk to is because I could just go over to the suburbs because it's easier for me to be able to start up a business because the less amount of steps I have to go through.

Has there been a discussion about how you can lower those steps so that you can how many more businesses would start up, how many more people would bid?

Do you have the?

I mean, I know you're not supposed to be able to break this down racially.

I wish you could.

You get racially, but at least in terms of just from a resident standpoint, how many or more residents would be able to participate, and then how much more money we would be able to receive, the velocity of the dollars, the amount of money being spent in the city, and the and the tax leakage, that's the amount of money that would we'd be spent here, but it's going out in the suburbs would be reduced because you had those reforms.

Have you had that type of analysis at all?

Um through the chair.

I think you make a very important point.

Sometimes when we look at the bids that come in, and it seems like the services or the widgets are simple, but we keep getting bids from Ohio or Coquitlam BC, multiple vendors from these places.

When you look, these places are extremely business friendly.

And so I think you have a really important point there.

Um, that there is a relationship between the uh number of eligible suppliers in the city and the ease of setting up business in the city.

Um while it is not within my uh jurisdiction, um I am excited that we have a COO who's working really hard with the various departments on improving those steps for business licensing and permitting in the city.

Well, excellent.

I really appreciate that.

I don't know if there's I don't know if there is some sort of coordinating council or intergovernmental discussion needs to be had, but I think it does because I think it's impacting us tremendously.

Because that's always been the case.

How come we don't have more Detroiters?

How come we don't have more people who are here from the city?

Well, it's because it well, if you gotta go through 180 steps start business, I mean it's not gonna happen.

Uh I also just wanted to say to Mr.

Horn, uh, please do your best to make sure that the city parcel viewer can be available again, because it's been down for the last past week.

So if you can get on that, I really appreciate it.

Um, other than that, I have a lot of other questions, but I will submit those in writing.

I will also submit my analysis that I have for you in writing.

I think it's very important that you're able to be able to take advantage of artificial intelligence just so you can because this this what I'm asking for is very grandular, it's very detailed.

It's a lot, you probably have the contract out to ask for most of what I'm asking for in the detailed manner which I'm asking you to deliver it.

So I just think from an operational standpoint, it would be better for you.

I mean, I could tell you the statistics and the numbers and the savings, but I'll say that for another time that we gotta move on.

So I'll send you what I have.

Thank you so much for all your work.

I appreciate you.

Go ahead, Ms.

President, I'm done.

Uh, through the chair to Pro Tem.

So I actually reached out to our director of ERP.

As you know, the city is on Oracle for financial management, and there are a multitude of AI agents that are now available on Oracle Fusion ERP.

Uh the city is currently planning on implementing specific AI agents, which will help our departmental procurement users and suppliers.

So uh there's actually a conference uh next week that we're gonna send them to so that he can get even more information only in Chicago, uh, so he can get more information.

Uh, but we are starting to venture into that zone.

No, I appreciate it.

And I'll send you the potential uh tax revenue and savings that you could have, and if you could get that from them, you know, we could compare numbers.

I really appreciate that.

But thank you.

Thank you for all your work.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon to all of you.

Um appreciate the work you all do.

It's great now being on BFBFA trying getting a greater understanding of uh the numbers and and how the numbers um are estimated and and everything that goes into that.

So I do have a couple of questions.

I know there was an email that um I think went around yesterday relative to ARPA, but can um CFO Stademeyer can you just share?

I you indicated that it's about a hundred million dollars that has to be spent down by the end of this year.

Can you talk about where we stand with that?

If there has been any reallocations that have taken place, um what is it looking like a hundred million dollars significant?

Um maybe well, I I will say that it is significant within the short time frame.

Um can you give us some indication of where we are and and what we're expecting over the next nine months, eight months maybe now.

Um through the chair to Member Johnson, I'm probably gonna ask Terry Daniels to uh join us at the back table as well.

But we're confident that we will get the hundred million dollars spent, but we also know that there are some projects where there is a need for them to have additional dollars, and then there are some projects that are done and they didn't spend all their money.

So at some point we do need to reconcile.

So what we would like to do is at you know, give us another because we've been pretty busy right now, but if you can give us like another four weeks, we want to come back to this honorable body and indicate these are the projects where um there are shortfalls, and a lot of these are projects that you're all gonna be very familiar with uh because you know we can't create new projects, so there's won't be anything new, uh, but there are significant uh shortfalls in some of the projects that we would like to then find other dollars to fill the gap.

So we want to come to you all with that, and it's gonna be a little bit different than what we did um last year, where when we have more time, we could come to you and say, you know, we have this pot of money.

Uh what do you want us to do?

I think our ass is going to be a little bit different this time because we're running out of time.

So we want to come to you like, okay, we have this pot of money, but then we have these five projects that we really you know want to make sure can continue at least through September of this year, or maybe even longer.

Um so I I just you know want to kind of make you aware of the fact that we want to do a different approach this year just because we're running out of time.

Um and then we will have a list of projects and uh that you can then kind of choose from, but we're really gonna probably give you a prioritized list of the ones that really need the money.

And then we'll have other ones, and they might even be some of your favorites that haven't spent their money that we may have to pull back.

So we can have those tough discussions.

Uh I'm hoping like next month, if not yeah, next month be good.

We can at least start them because I think it'll be a couple sessions of that before we get through it all.

Thank you for that.

Um, and I'm not sure, Ms.

Daniels, if you have anything to add.

I was just going to say um I I would imagine and assume that conversations are being had now because the vendors who are doing the work will certainly need to know so they can ramp up or be sure that they can actually spend the dollars if there are any additional dollars provided to them.

Good afternoon.

Uh, through the chair to council member Johnson.

Um yes, a hundred million dollars does seem like a lot uh left to spend, but uh a great portion of that amount is affordable housing uh and construction projects, which are sort of seasonal in nature, and so we're coming up on a time where they will be ramping up again.

And so we're looking for most of these types of projects to be done by the end of June.

Um a lot of our projects will be done in June.

We have um just a few projects that will creep into um July and August, but we anticipate that all of our projects will be wrapped up no later than September.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for that.

Um I see Mr.

Horn gave you his seat.

My next question is actually to him.

So thank you.

Um through you, Mr.

Chair, to Mr.

Horn.

I am wondering um if you're seeing any trends within the number of property transfer affidavits that um get registered that helps us to identify and this my my questions are always thinking about how much we coordinate internally, because some of this is you, and then some of it is uh other agencies.

Um so as you see PTAs increasing or decreasing, I think it helps to identify how much property tax revenue um is coming in.

Are you seeing any trends?

It I think it also says a lot about properties, property conditions throughout the city of Detroit.

Um so I'm just curious to know if you if you look at that, if you see any trends, especially now that it's state law that requires people to file them within 45 days.

Yes, sir.

Uh through the chair member Johnson.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, if I understand your question right, we are the city is still in the solid um position as far as this real estate uh market.

We are still seeing strong sales.

Uh certainly they decline from their highs of a few years ago when we're seeing 30 percent increases.

But our projections, and we do a four-year projection.

Our projections for 25, 20, sorry, for 26 and 27 is that the residential property market will still see between a seven and ten percent increase in valuation, which is consistent with what uh happened in 25 and with some of the market indicators of some of the the private market indicators, they're all predicting somewhere between eight to ten percent increase in residential properties.

Detroit is still an affordable place to buy a home compared to some of our sister cities.

You can still buy a solid foundationally secure solid home in the city for less than six figures.

You can't say that in Southfield or Nova or South or Roseville or anywhere else.

Even though that supply of of the housing market is shrinking, it's still there.

People can still buy a solid house in a a neighbor a stable neighborhood in the city.

That's why our values are still strong in the short term.

We believe they will remain strong.

And when I say short term through 27 through 28, we believe the residential market will continue to increase.

Thank you for that.

My question was really just more about how many properties are changing hands.

Um, like within a year, calendar year, fiscal year, what have you.

And I'm not sure if you actually track that.

Yes, but we do.

Okay.

Are you seeing an increase or decrease?

We we under state law, we're required to do a 24-month sales study.

So we we look at every transfer of property that occurs every year.

Uh we have seen a 3.1% increase in transfers over 25 to 24.

Based on the trends we've seen through March 1st of this year, we expect there's still to be anywhere from one to two percent increase in the number of transfers that have actually occurred in the state of Detroit.

And those are transfers of all types quick claim deeds, land contracts, warranty deeds, every type of transfer we keep track of.

Thank you for that.

So um, Mr.

Chair, I'd like to make a motion um recognizing that we are seeing property uh sales um and also seeing property values increase.

I'd like to make a motion to add in to the closing resolution.

I'm going to add it to the executive session and closing resolution um for us to evaluate requiring pre-sale inspections.

Okay, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Thank you.

Any objections?

Hearing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you all again so much for your work.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Member Callaway.

Mr.

Chair and good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

Um I've sent my questions on March the 12th.

Haven't gotten a response back yet, but I anticipate that I will be getting those responses soon.

And thank you so much.

Um so I'll just pull two of my questions that I've already sent, um, but haven't gotten a response to.

Um, if the state of Michigan enacted legislation allowing municipalities to have a local entertainment slash amusement tax slash fee, and such a tax slash fee generated 47 million dollars.

Could the new revenue stream allow the city of Detroit to reduce its operations real property tax, reduce its operations real property tax, and by how many possibly by how many mills uh through the chair um to member Callaway?

So we had an opportunity to uh address a similar question from a few months ago.

So we do have the information as it relates to 30 million of unrestricted revenue, and that would be about four mils.

Um so we have done the research on that.

You know, we could probably do some math and come up with a guess as to the new number, but that one is something that we actually have detail on on how we did that analysis, but it would be about four mils.

That would be that's wonderful.

If you could provide that information, um that's that's amazing.

Um I'm still in um conversations with um our um state senator, and um she brought in a lot of people about a week or so ago at a meeting in Tech Town, and it just sounds so promising.

And um, it looks like we're going to get some support um from some individuals at the state level, and I'm really excited about that.

Don't know if we'll have enough to get kick it across the finish line anytime soon, but we're still in the race to get this amusement slash entertainment tax slash fee.

People don't like the word tax, and I'm one of those people, so I like to call it a fee, even though we know what it really is.

So thank you for that.

And my lectur my next question is please determine the amount of loss revenue if the city of Detroit reduced its operation millage by one milk.

So uh through the chair that amount is about seven million.

That's not a lot of lost revenue.

Seven you said seven million?

Seven million.

Yeah, it's it doesn't sound like a lot, but remember seven million is what we had to put in the budget for the livable wage, you know.

So it's it's a lot when it's hard to find, you know, five hundred thousand extra dollars in the budget.

But yeah, yeah.

I think that would be um that's one of my questions to you in writing.

I think that would be worthy of um just looking at and researching and and and and considering um I am going to make a motion to put the um, and I know we've gotten um some official reports back from um, I guess it's the Michigan Citizens Research Council may be getting that um title wrong, but I'd like to make a motion to put the whole conversation about the inner entertainment slash amusement tax slash fee into the closing resolution so we can just figure out what we need to do in terms of next steps for this body as a whole instead of it going out in a fragmented area.

I'm out there doing this, and other people out you know, trying to make sure that it gets that it gets across the finish line, but that would be my motion, Mr.

Chair, to put the whole conversation about the um the state um role, not the state's role slash that, um just the entertainment amusement tax slash fee into the closing resolution to further discuss it.

All right, thank you, Member Callaway.

There's a motion on the floor, colleagues.

Any objections?

See none, that action shall be taken.

Okay, and thank you so much.

And um this is one of my questions just about the risk management.

Um we uh you know, chairing internal operations stand committee this go round even today, just lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, settlement, settlement, settlement.

And it's primarily against two departments that would be DPD and D DOT.

And I don't know how, and it's been going on for decades.

I just don't see a change or reduction in the amount of lawsuits.

It's just if we can I don't even know how to to to ask the question, it's just out of control.

Um our residents call in slash taxpayers complaining about the number of lawsuits that we continue to settle that we consider that we have to pay.

We have to pay slash settlements.

So how do you how do we what do we do with the risk management component of all of that?

Because it's just out of control for those two departments.

And I and I remember um member Benson through the chair um about um some action that may break the bank.

We had that conversation last week.

What will break the bank are these continued lawsuits and settlements that will drive you back into bankruptcy because they are huge and it's every single week.

We've never had a break from suddenly lawsuits.

One came up today, four million dollars.

And we just like it's no big deal, just so anyway.

Um, my question is about the risk management component of it all.

How do we improve that?

What measures can we take to work with these departments to improve the risk management through the chair?

Thank you, Mr.

So through the chair, we can continue to work with DPD.

Um, you know, as it for us as it relates to more so the vehicles that also have to be, you know, that are part of um those costs associated a lot of times with the risk management fund.

Uh then we also have with D DOT and I think you indicated previously that we only have like 12 million dollars in the budget to cover their uh their lawsuits.

Uh so we're looking at all of those things and seeing if there are some changes we need to change in terms of how we budget for those things, but in terms of what the departments are doing, I think they're fully aware of the things that are occurring in their departments, and I think everybody wants to figure out what's a better way to handle this.

Um you know, I don't want to say too much about it because um I really have to defer to the law department in terms of when is it best to settle versus when is it best to go to trial?

So you know, I'm sure that they have the city's best financial interests in mind when they make those decisions.

So of course.

Um thank you, Ms.

Daldermear.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And uh is it time for motions or at the end?

Oh, okay.

So, Mr.

Chair, I'd like to motion to put um the whole conversation about risk management into the closing um resolution.

There's a motion, colleagues on the floor.

Any objections?

See none that action shall be taken.

And Mr.

Chair, I don't know if I um did this or not.

Um, putting the whole conversation about the entertainment amusement tax fee.

I put that in a closing resolution.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, and that's it for now.

Thank you, sir.

All right, thank you.

Thank you all.

Uh member waters.

Thank you, and good afternoon.

There are many questions to be asked, but I'm next to so um let me see where am I gonna start.

I I noticed that the um compliance is going to be moving into your department.

I just want to know if you have the ability to oversee compliance uh with those HUD grants.

So uh through the chair, thank you, Member Waters, for that question.

Uh so our budget now reflects the staff that was previously in HRD that was responsible for HUD compliance.

So we wouldn't have had capacity uh in our current budget for that, but because we are going to be shifting, I think 20 to 25 people from HRD to OCFO, we are confident that we'll be able to uh continue to um address any compliance concerns or manage those funds.

And I really feel, and I think I indicated earlier in my presentation that you know OCFO really should be responsible for all of the city's finances, and this should have happened, you know, a decade ago.

Okay.

All right.

I I'm just before I get to my next question.

I just want to point out a couple things.

I certainly hope that the procurement department uh continues improvement in terms of making sure that Detroiters can participate in the process.

Uh on deed fraud, I want to say to the assessor's office that uh we are receiving some help real soon from from Lansing there.

There's a package of bills in the Senate, there's a package of bills in the House as it relates to LLCs uh as well, and so we um we should be good there.

Now I do want to make a motion before I go to my final question, Mr.

President, and that is I'd I'd like to put place the um uh remaining opera dollars into executive session.

And the reason that I want to do that because I believe that we should have some conversations ourselves.

Uh I do know that LPD did say that they would provide us um with uh a list of our profunded projects, and so and as we're deliberating, I want to be able to have that conversation.

So my motion is to put the remainder of the outstanding opera dollars unspent into executive session.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Hearing none that action shall be taken.

Okay.

And so then my final question is you know, Madam CFO, you did mention it a little bit um because of the war and so forth, you know.

So I just want to know if we can get some sort of projection of the impact of doing business in Detroit.

Um, the cost of goods and services.

Uh what is it costing us now?

What's the fiscal impact of this of this war?

And because you know things cost more now than they did a month ago.

So, and and that's kind of what what I'd like to see.

Uh, I don't know how much time you need to do such a thing, but I I do uh want you to just give me some feedback on on that question.

So through the chair to member waters, we are also thinking about that and how it could impact our budget.

Uh we've already uh and Donnie, I think we've talked about this the fuel costs.

Uh I think when I think right now we are not on a fixed price for a fuel, you know.

So that's definitely that increase is definitely something that's going to impact our budget.

So we're thinking about those things too.

So, you know, we can huddle as a group and kind of start really thinking through that and provide you with a response in a couple weeks, just in terms of what we see in terms of our budget and how you know it might be impacted.

Okay, all right.

That works for me.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I just don't want all of us to forget it.

We we know what we're dealing with here.

I'll probably soon.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Uh Member Waters, you uh were reading my brain about the HUD compliance that was on my list as well as the ARPA.

Okay, so I'm gonna pass the mic over to uh member uh Santiago Romero.

It's about time I maybe read your brain.

It's a scary place.

It's a scary place.

Leave while you can remember Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh thank you all for being here.

Uh and for the work that you do.

Appreciate the questions around ARPA.

I have the same and regarding participatory budgeting, really.

Um so thank you, Member McCampbell, for for bringing that up as well.

Um, I will share my thoughts and my questions.

Um I wasn't able to talk about this during the DPD hearing because I was not here.

Um, but we are trying to work on a enforcement unit for trucks, and I just want to confirm the amount of money that would be needed to pilot a program in district six, but not only district six, I know district four would like one as well.

Um so if you can let us know what's those numbers look like.

Uh through the chair to council member Santiago Romero.

Um, I think a reasonable number for the to set up the pilot group and get them started and and and let them do their test runs.

I think something around 750,000 dollars, because that's gonna include the equipment they need to purchase, right?

We've got to purchase specific types of scales that are certified and registered by the state and the federal government.

So I think once we get that equipment on top of using some of the existing vacancies.

So this one's an interesting motion that I would uh maybe we could work together to craft what your motion might look like for the executive session because you're not really adding money to the budget.

We're taking we're allocating existing vacancies and saying these are positions we want to be deployed for this purpose.

And so it's it's a slightly unique type of motion because the resources are already in the budget, we just want to shift how they're used.

Um, and and that might be as simple as the motion could be today, is just you know, to prepare a change to the budget that reflects this.

You know, my my plan right now is to set up a cost center specific to this function in police so that they are delineated.

You can see exactly where they are, how many people are in it, and how their expenditures are going, and how their revenue collections are going.

So that's kind of my intention right now.

So your motion could be something along the lines of allocating those resources within police to this new function.

The chair can do so, and just to confirm 750 will allow for pilot in six and d4.

Or would that only be for district six?

I know that we discussed district six specifically.

Yeah, uh through the chair.

Um apologies.

Uh that would really be hmm.

I I don't I would need to get back to you on that.

I'm not quite sure.

I think it probably would only be district six, but let me crunch some numbers and get back to you on it.

It may be enough to cover both.

It depends on how many officers and how many shifts we're trying to accomplish in the pilot.

That's really what's gonna tell me whether that's enough.

So what I'm gonna do is make a motion, Mr.

President, and this can go down.

Uh we can have this conversation and change this number.

But I would rather put a million dollars into executive session for a pilot program for D6 and four.

That might be lowered to 750.

But that is my motion for now, Mr.

President.

Discussion.

There's a motion on the floor.

Or there's a motion on the floor, colleagues.

Discussion.

Uh, with discussion, I think I heard Member McCampbell first, then member Johnson.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I would love for District 7 to be a part of that as well.

If possible.

All right.

Uh there's an amended motion now on the floor if it's been accepted by the member who was proposing.

Oh, right.

There's an amended motion on the floor, colleagues, with further discussion.

Uh, member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just wanted to ask to join.

Um I know Member Santiago Romero included District 4, but would just like to formally be a part of the motion.

Okay.

Yes.

Pro Tim Young.

Yeah, I just wanted to say you're asking for a million dollars, right?

I just want to make sure that's clear.

You you were just trying to say it does lower it lower to $700, but you're asking for a million dollars, right?

Okay.

All right.

Say none that action shall be taken.

Mr.

Corley noting that member Johnson also joined um member Santiago Romero as well as Member McCampbell.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh so with that, we might need the million dollars of vacancies.

We'll see.

Um, based on on what's on what's being requested from city council.

So we can discuss um and just want to make a note on that same uh subject.

We are also working on updating the truck route ordinance.

The tickets that are collected to this unit, we want to make sure that sustain this unit, so it might be a million dollars now, but frankly, it should offset itself moving forward, which is I think great.

But there should be additional money left after.

Would it be possible for that additional money?

This is a question I think to the law department as well, but for that money to go into invest um infrastructure investments.

Um, so I guess just a flag a note that I would like whatever enforcement unit we establish, sustain itself and the additional money that's collected to the ta the tickets, not just go to the general fund, but specifically go to DPW so that we are able to do road repairs that are being impacted negatively by trucks, and not only that, um I know uh at the city we have issues with giving just money directly to people that are impacted negatively by things that happen in the city, but still something that I'm being asked by all of the time is if we can do home repairs for residents that are being negatively impacted by trucks who are having their foundations ruined, um, who are getting the trucks hitting their sidewalks or their their front porches.

This has happened.

Um, and then the city kind of just saying, well, we can't help you.

Um if we have the money, if we're able to agree that we can help, I would like to do that in the future.

Um, but that's just a note.

Thank you for taking that down for us to have further conversations on.

Mr.

President, my last uh thoughts here will be grateful for um the caller calling in regarding the office of sustainability.

This is something that I truly support as well.

Myself, member Benson have added more money into the office to grow uh staff.

So I'm just want to confirm the Office of Sustainability.

Um I see around 700, 750 under administrative cost, as well as another 150 under non-departmental.

So we're looking at 900.

Is this enough for their office?

And do we know how much staff um they currently have?

Uh through the chair, uh I would need to get back to you in writing on that one.

I'll need to pull it up, and I think it's gonna take me a little longer to pull that up specifically here at the table.

Okay, so we can follow up with that one in writing.

Um, but just want to make sure um because last I checked, um, they had roughly maybe seven, eight staff members.

Um they're doing a lot, uh, a lot of really great work in the city.

So want to make sure that they're being supported.

Uh so actually would like to just add the Office of Sustainability to executive session um for further discussion, and if they need more resources that that we have that discussion, but if not um just to keep that conversation alive.

Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor uh with discussion, member Benson followed by Pro Tim Yo join you on that one.

Yes.

All right, uh we'll discuss further discussion, uh Pro Tim Young is the Office of Sustainability within the office of Chief Financial Officer.

Oh, okay.

No, no, I'll uh no I'm gonna ask you because if so, like I have a whole bunch of more questions I wanted to ask you.

I missed, I didn't know it.

Okay, never mind.

Thank you.

All right.

Colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Mr.

Corley, note that member Benson was uh sought to join uh member Santiago Romero on that motion.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

And um two pro time they handle all the money, you know.

No, no, I understand.

So I just asked them any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

All right, thank you.

So um I was gonna wait till later, but might as well ask the question now.

So the the uh general fund surplus.

How much do we currently have right now, and what is the purpose of the general fund surplus?

So um uh President Tay, are you referring to what we anticipate for the current fiscal year?

Currently, right now.

Well, we had right now, today, uh, March 25th.

Yep, I think because I know earlier today we had our FRC meeting on our report, and I think that number is close to like 2.8 uh in terms of what we're anticipating.

Um we know that our revenues will still be short.

Uh, but then we will also um have a surplus on the expenditure side.

And as you may recall, we put the 42 million in reserve.

We're not counting that as being part of the surplus.

So right now for the current year, we're anticipating, I think it's 2.8 or two point two.

Okay.

Okay, so I know in the in the past we've kind of dipped into the surplus to help council execute some of our uh priorities, but it looks like that is being depleted uh in this particular budget in this proposed budget.

Um so help me understand what wiggle room this body has outside of going in and again taking away from various departments and moving uh in one place.

It always helps to have uh some cushion because there's always gonna be movement, you know, during this push and pull uh process, and council ends up having the budget last.

So it always helps to have again that cushion on the front end.

So I'll talk just a little bit about that if you will, please.

And I'll go to you uh afterwards, Mr.

Corley.

So Council President.

Um I think when we look at recurring dollars that are available to council in this budget, we don't see much.

When we look at one-time dollars, there's some things that we could pull away out of our blight or our capital.

But you know, anything we pull away out of this budget will have an impact.

So, you know, during executive sessions, we would like the opportunity to share with you the impact of certain reductions you all may uh want to make so that you know how it would impact you know the residents, the neighborhoods, because a lot of our surplus has gone towards those efforts to really, you know, um kind of touch people where they are, where they live, where they play.

So I just want to make sure that you all understand that when we start pulling from this budget, we are going to impact services that we are trying to provide to our residents.

And I just want to say uh again as the council president, we're doing the same thing.

So none of these dollars that we're pulling out are going in our pockets.

Uh, not in our, you know, for us personally.

This is all about the service of the people that we represent as well.

So I just want to make sure as we begin this process, we're right now having the budget hearings, but it elbows get a little sharpened during the executive session.

Been there, done that numerous times, and got a feeling we're gonna go through that again this year as well, based on this uh budget that we have in front of us.

A lot of good stuff in here, but there's also a lot of good stuff coming from this side of the table as well that we want to ensure that we have an opportunity to execute.

Uh so um again, know that we're gonna have those conversations, but want to kind of plant a seed in advance, uh, Mr.

Corley.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh, to further plant that seed, like to provide some additional information on the surplus.

So in non-departmental, and I know that's the next budget hearing, but since we have the great minds here right now, we can talk about it hopefully.

In on departmental, there's 127 million dollars in prior year general fund surplus.

Um that's broken up into three buckets.

49.5 million is in general fund.

38.6 million is in the blight remediation fund, and 39 million is in capital projects.

The makeup of the 127 million prior year surplus is three buckets, as I can see.

105 million from the surplus for the general fund as of June 30, 2025.

That's based on the city's financial statements.

21 million um from a FEMA reimbursement for COVID 19 expenditures.

That has not officially come before city council, is now before you via this budget.

And so I'm asking for um documentation on that and get the exact figure.

And then the last piece of that is about 1.4 million, might not be exact.

Um there it looks like the administration is looking to take that from the current year um surplus, which Ms.

Sodermeyer just mentioned projected to be about 2.2 million.

Um regarding that last piece.

I personally think that a more uh viable source would be the take taking that 1.4 million rather from the current year sub surplus when we know there's a lot of volatility going on right now.

I would rather for it to come from the 42 million um capital reserve that's in the ACFER.

But regardless, as Council President indicated, and what I just went through, there is no cushion for council's changes.

As of uh Tuesday 2000, I'm sorry, two that Tuesday, March the 24th, 2026.

We see council's changes amounting to about 20 million.

We're going to and the LPD, we're going to submit a uh executive session spreadsheet to you on Friday.

So obviously that's as of um Tuesday.

So we've had some additional items going to executive session today, and of course we have budget hearings tomorrow through Monday.

So that could change.

So, you know, the bottom line as Mr.

President uh indicated, if council were to fund their council's changes, it would have to come from reducing Mayor Sheffield's priorities.

And that's a that's what Ms.

Steinermeyer indicated.

And so you'll get the list on Friday, and um we look forward to um discussing this during executive session.

We understand that you know, if you're gonna reduce some of the mayor mayor's priorities, it's gonna impact some of the things that she wants to do.

But obviously, you know, council changes is very important as well.

You have priorities, and we've got to take that very seriously.

So uh I want to leave it there, and I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Um with discussion, and then we'll go to any uh motions.

Through the chair to Mr.

Corley, do we have a uses for the budget surplus dating back from fiscal year, the implementation of fiscal year 26?

Are uses the hundred and 142 million, then do we just have the uses for that surplus in a chart somewhere?

No, but we can we can create something through the president.

We can motion for that.

Do I need a motion for that or can you do that without a motion?

I can I can do it.

We can do it.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Mr.

President, as a point of inf uh to you, uh through well, really just I think to you and to the to the body.

Um uh as of council member Santiago Romero's motion, um, we are at we are tracking 30 million three hundred and ninety thousand um in executive session items with a large number of items still waiting for a number to be you know determined and plugged in at a later date.

So just a heads up.

That's as of 10 minutes ago.

That's the total that our tracker in the office of budget is tallying to.

Which is not as bad as we've had in in some years.

I mean, let's be honest.

It's been 650 million.

We'll grant you that.

Okay, so uh give us a little credit where credit is due.

We are being very serious about this budget as well.

Um but thank you for that information.

Any additional motions, colleagues, Mr.

Chair?

Um member Benson.

All right, thank you.

Um, and just I'd like to place into the closing resolution as well as executive session, a sustainability fund for the Office of Sustainability, and looking at how that can be created and with no pun intended, uh funded in a sustainable manner moving forward.

They have something like that in Philadelphia uh as well as Minnesota, both places the Green Task Force went, and we saw that type of funding for sustainable initiatives within those municipalities.

In addition, and I may have missed this, didn't see much, if anything, going into a rainy day fund this year or the growth, like to place into closing resolution, continued encouragement of growth of a rainy day fund, and then into executive session uh the develop the continued support of the rainy day fund discussion there.

All right, colleagues, there's a motion on the floor.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Mr.

Chair.

Um member Callaway, followed by Pro Tim Young.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair.

I did ask this question, um, and I'm gonna ask it of you too.

I do believe I put it in the closing resolution.

Vehicles, we spend um millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars on vehicles.

Then we spend just as many millions on maintenance and repairs.

So we really need to bring in the number of vehicles that are assigned to people, one who live outside of the city, so they should be driving their own car into the city, not less they're like first line of defense.

I know DPD, I know DFD, but a lot of folks are driving vehicles as if they're their own personal vehicles, not living in the city.

So I'm gonna put into the closing resolution.

I I know it's there, but I want the perspective from the CFO because we're spending millions of dollars that we don't have, and we need to look at if we were to sell some of these vehicles or not renew the leases, how much money could we save?

And how many vehicles do we have in our fleet?

They're just all over the place.

And and and I don't even think we know um how many how many cars we have.

I just don't believe we know.

So in closing session, Mr.

Chair, I want from the CFO's perspective, um, an accounting of the number of cars um with the dollar with the dollar amount um that we have um in the city, the number of them, how much, and then how many are coming up on.

Are we buying these cars?

Are we leasing these cars?

Are we at the end of lease agreements?

Do we have to renew the lease?

So that's a whole conversation, and that's a lot.

But I'm just trying to help us get a handle on the uh on these vehicles, and we don't have it.

So that's a closing session.

I mean, that's for closing resolution rather, and I know that's a multiple number of questions, but I don't know how to drill down on it.

So I don't know, it sounds more that that's more memo and and discussion.

Um that's what it sounds like because it sounds like you're asking for information to come your way.

Uh, how soon would you all be able to have that information for my colleague?

Uh so um through the chair to member Callaway.

Um we would have to work with GSD in order to do this.

Um we probably have to pull a few resources together.

So this isn't something we could respond to uh to your point, uh, council president, any time not as soon as you probably want it.

Okay, you know, but is something that we too would like to investigate a little bit further and get a better understanding of what's going on.

Okay.

So, Mr.

Chair, I would just maybe um we'll put in a memorandum for maybe 30 days.

Um, maybe can't go into the closing resolution because I think I did put something in the closing resolution with some brief questions, but it's out of control in the city, and the people that I see driving cars should not be driving cars and um getting into accidents, and then we got to pay for it, who actually live in the city.

So um I will put that on memorandum for I'll withdraw it from the closing resolution because I kind of put it in there anyway, but we'll send you a memorandum and maybe get us the answers back in maybe 30 days, 45 days through the chair to you, Ms.

Daldermeyer.

Uh through the chair.

Uh we can come back in 45 days and give you um an assessment as to where we are at that point.

It may take longer, but you know, give us the first 45 days, see how far we can get with it, and uh, and then we can provide a response in writing after the 45 days, and then we may need more time, but we can talk about it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And Mr.

Chair, I know we just entered a $55 million five-year contract for more vehicles that I that I opposed.

I I objected to that.

But we just did that in the last year.

$55 million um five-year agreement for more vehicles.

And so I'm hoping I'll put the questions together through the chair team, Ms.

Staldermeyer.

Um, because I want to know are we at the end of some of the lease agreements and can we sell the cars back?

You know, we need to do something.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Ms.

Dalemeyer, to you and your team.

Thank you, Pro Tim Young.

Thank you.

Um, I like to put into closing resolution and artificial intelligence municipal public bank based off of what they're doing in North Dakota.

Okay.

Um there is a motion on the floor, colleagues.

Any objections?

Seeing none, then action shall be taken.

And we'll be having discussion because I'm not familiar with that one either.

Well, I that's more for a close committee of the whole.

So yeah, I want to discuss that.

Gotcha.

All right.

I see no additional uh requests uh for motions.

So we'll now go for closing remarks.

So um, on behalf of the phenomenal OCFO staff, I want to thank you all for your um support and patience with us, you know, as we go through this transition.

And when I say transition, I'm talking about this level of uncertainty that we're currently dealing with.

Uh I think it will mean as um Member Benson indicated, you know, we have to make sure that we have that cushion available in the budget.

Uh, and then of course we also have to find a way to make sure that your needs are satisfied as well.

So I think there'll be a lot of um continued uh conversations, and you know, we'll work together, we'll see what we can figure out.

Uh, but we do uh understand that you guys have projects that you want to do as well, and we really tried our best to align a lot of what's in this budget with your priorities as well.

Uh but um we'll work closely, we'll figure this out, and we will have a balanced budget, and we'll keep our cushion as well, because I know we talked about plan B.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate all the work you all do.

This now closes out our budget hearing for the office of the chief financial officer.

OFC O'S office, and then it will transition to allow for the non departmental capital debt budget.

Got some of the same folks sticking around.