Good morning.

And I will call us to order is just after 11.

Welcome to our city council work session specific to the budget.

And I will immediately turn it over to Jay Choppa.

But before I do that, I want to sincerely thank all city staff, those that are in the room and those that are working across the city for your help in passing successfully all of our bond propositions.

I think that deserves a round of applause.

But those of us around this table know that our city staff worked tirelessly to transparently explain that bond election, justify it, and we just really appreciate all your hard work.

So thank you.

Jay, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks for that recognition of staff.

They are hardworking group.

I especially want to thank the Fort Worth Lab, Christiane and April Rose specifically.

They did a lot of the heavy pooling there at the end.

So thank you all.

As far as the workshop today, this is the start basically of the of the overall process for the city council.

The staff started a couple three months ago pulling things together.

As you already know, it is going to be a tough budget year just based on current projections as we're looking at the whole thing.

What I would ask is for you to have patience to work through the process.

A lot of this is information for you to hopefully provide you a depth of understanding and the different areas of the of the budget so that when we actually put together the recommendation and present it in August that you'll have enough knowledge to be able to make decisions and give us feedback as we move forward.

So with that, I believe Christiane's gonna kick off the show.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

I like today.

I like budget work sessions.

So some of you might remember a couple of years ago we made this shift in the way that we deliver budget information earlier in the year.

So prior to a couple of years ago, we'd present the recommended budget in August, and then we'd respond to your inquiries and sort of schedule some work session sessions from there over the next four to six weeks.

Um a couple of years ago we started doing them in April and May, just realizing that the budget's big and even the revenue picture was getting a little more complicated a couple of years ago with some of the appraisal district activities and other other drivers.

And so we decided, you know, we'll start communicating a little earlier and bring you along the way, hopefully give you, like Jay said, a depth of understanding that's helpful um to you and to staff, and as you communicate in your districts to your constituents, sort of what what makes up the budget.

So this year continues that tradition.

It is frankly a little more work for staff, and I always like to give the caveat at the first session.

Um, you know, this is a work in progress.

So we're bringing you really along in real time.

So numbers are shifting and assumptions shift as we get more information.

So thank you for your patience.

We do think the juice is worth the squeeze with the extra early work sessions.

I hope it is for you too.

Um, so I'm going to, you're gonna hear from both of the Fort Worth Lab assistant um budget directors today.

Christy Lemon oversees the operating capital budgets and those associated analyst teams.

Um, and then Brady Kirk, you'll hear from him on revenue.

So I'm going to let us get to work and turn it over first to Christy Lemon, and then I'll come back sort of at the end of her presentation to um introduce Brady's topic.

But we're excited that you're here.

Thank you for being here.

And I'll turn it over to Christy.

Good morning.

Pleased to be here.

Christy Lemon, I'm the assistant director, um, as Christine mentioned in the Fort Worth Lab.

Gonna just the conversation today is really about context as we go forward in the budget process.

So where we're starting, um, kind of challenges we're seeing right away.

Um, so this is our kind of overall timeline that gets us to adoption in September.

So a little more than a month ago, we had a kickoff um meeting with all city staff who are involved in the budget process.

We opened our budget software and then departments submitted their budgets last Friday.

So we're busy looking at those already.

We have about a month in the Fort Worth Lab to analyze those budgets, ask tons of questions, make sure everything is tying out properly.

Then uh the very beginning of June, we'll have our budget blitz uh with the city manager's office.

So those are really just budget presentations that all the departments make for CMO.

Um, and then the city manager's office will be considering all of the decision packages, both reductions and additions.

And then we get certified um tax rolls at the end of July, and then we'll do final balancing leading up to a recommended budget presentation in mid-August.

I think it's August 11th this year.

Um, and then we'll do community engagement throughout the summer and then be ready for budget adoption with a balanced budget uh mid September.