A little bit of a lighter agenda, but we do have one briefing today.

We'll jump right in with it number one.

We are starting with a resolution approving Grand Rapids Community College Higher Education Television Authority, H E T A Grant Reimbursement.

So moved.

Support.

Alright, moved and supported.

Ooh, yeah, this one.

Okay.

I guess I guess I can pick this one up.

We don't have anyone here today.

But yeah, this is just grant reimbursement for related um equipment purchases, things like that, and for our, you know, with with our communications department.

Um funded off of the um the program, it's Peg access, so it's reimbursable, you know, through the cable stations, things like that.

So that's how we're thanks.

And I missed the amount on that.

It's 81,044 and 20 cents.

Awesome.

All right, colleagues, any questions on that one?

All right.

Hearing seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, it carries.

Item number two, we've got a resolution authorizing expenditures for uh drone-based parking data collection in accordance with administrative policy 15-03 surveillance equipment policy not to exceed $30,000.

So move.

Support.

All right, moved and supported.

Welcome, Smith.

Good morning, Commissioners.

I'm Jessica Smith.

I'm in the mobile DR director.

This item is brought forward to you as part of the surveillance policy 1503 to um go through a public process whenever we are using surveillance equipment.

So we are looking at using drone-based parking data collection for on-street and surface parking occupancy um data and and numbers for about a three-week period.

And before you hear is the approval to use these funds, about $30,000 of the entire parking investment strategy project for the data collection portion of this project.

Great thanks.

And I know we um discussed this one at length.

We had public comment on this previously, um, and it gave the the public an opportunity to voice concerns and ask questions if if need be.

Um so with that, I'll see if my colleagues have any questions.

All righty.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign, it carries.

I number three, we've got an ordinance amending section one of the budget ordinance 2025-11 for fiscal year 2026.

And this is amendment number one.

So moved.

Support.

Alrighty.

Moved and supported.

Good morning, commissioners.

Uh just a few items this morning.

Uh, number one, this is setting up the appropriation in order to pay debt service for the soccer stadium and ample theater bonds.

As you'll recall, we issued these bonds back in May.

Um, that was well into our budget process.

So uh setting up the appropriation for fiscal year 26 uh going forward, we'll include that appropriation as part of your adopted budget.

So you'll won't have to act do this kind of action again, but our first interest payment is due October 1st of 2025.

Um it's uh April, October.

So in April we'll pay principal in interest, but um October's interest only.

Um we did the report of bond sale on these proceeds back in on June 10th.

Uh it's for 5.2 million in the capital reserve fund.

And again, no effect on fund balance.

I'll also include that the funding source for this is from that uh Kent County Um hotel levy, uh that extra three percent where we um voters increased it from five percent up to eight percent.

That delta is the source of the um how we pay these bonds.

Uh number two for the police department, a generator replacement, miscellaneous expenses.

This is a hundred and um one hundred and seventeen thousand in the federal forfeitures um fund, uh using that fund balance.

Uh number three for the parks and rec report department.

This is an environmental justice grant, uh appropriating five hundred thousand dollars of revenue and appropriation here.

And then um number four, we have the Roosevelt Park and Plaza Roosevelt grant.

Um this is two or five million um being appropriate revenue and appropriations in the parks capital fund.

Uh number five, this is sixty-first district court, drug and sobriety court, thirty-eight thousand um into their fund, no effect on retained earnings there.

Uh number six, um uh Office of Oversight and Public Accountability, Community Base Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant.

Um, this includes uh the addition of one administrative analyst um into the other grants fund to support this work.

Um also an appropriation of two million dollars.

Um I will note that any time we um talk about a grant funded position per our policy work last year.

Um we do include the language that uh should this grant expire and we haven't secured an alternative uh funding source, this position will be removed from the roster.

Uh number seven, the 2020 cops hiring um program grant.

Uh, this is the final year of the cops grant.

This uh will be for 200,000 with our local match of 449,000, appropriating that in the police grants fund.

Um it being the final um I'll just note it's the final year of the grant.

Um, what you'll see is this is a great program for um onboarding police officers where at the beginning of the grant, um, like in year one, the grant is pretty much well, almost 100% of the of the funding, whereas the local match increases year over year.

So now in the final year, you'll see that local match has increased dramatically.

It's how helps this municipalities scale in to um taking on positions.

So I'll I'll just note that.

Uh number eight, we have uh the executive office, the city commission's meeting, streaming, indexing, and captioning system.

Um, Mr.

Luke Hanfield from the executive department's here to briefly talk about that just because it is um how we operate for commission meetings.

So, Luke, go ahead.

Morning, welcome.

Good morning.

Thank you, uh Ms.

Claren and commissioners.

Um I'll be very brief.

Uh the reason this is necessary is because it's full year funding for something we procured during the budget preparation time for that upcoming fiscal year.

So it fell through a gap, but it won't be necessary to do this in future years.

Um this is uh an innovation that supports our organizational value of accountability and our uh strategic priority of an engaged and connected community.

And I just want to show you very briefly because uh uh the visual is more powerful than me describing this.

So for previous city commission meetings through our meeting portal, there is now this little video icon off to the right.

Um if your window is narrower than mine, you might have to click on these three dots to see that.

And I'm just gonna click on that for um the most recent uh fiscal committee meeting.

So you can see the um agenda off to the left here, and um you can see actually I'm gonna go to one meeting prior, excuse me.

Um, so you can see the uh the agenda is indexed, so you can click on any agenda um item and jump directly to that point in the video.

And also up here you can see uh a transcript tab, and this is a full word-for-word transcript of the meeting, and you can click on any word and go directly to that point in the video.

So hopefully that's a sense of um what this innovation is and what the requested funds are providing.

Any questions?

Colleagues, no questions, just a comment.

That's awesome.

That's great.

I appreciate your work on that.

Thank you.

Okay, and then uh our contingent balance remains unchanged at 1.5 million for the year.

So if there are any questions.

All right, thanks.

Colleagues, any questions on any of those other items?

No questions.

Um, but I'm wondering if you could um give a layman's description when you were talking about the bonds and um setting that up and the payments, how it's coming through the from Kent County.

Excellent.

Because you was like here and yeah, we've we've yeah, no, it is every time we we talk about it, and and yeah, we we have um addressed this I know with our committee of the whole, but uh for the benefit of this group, uh we issued bonds on behalf of Kent County.

So the funding source is received by Kent County.

Um that funding source, as I said, is the hotel motel tax uh voters approved specifically for the ample theater and and soccer stadium projects.

Um they may have you know plans in the future for other uses of that money as that revenue stream grows, but we have first rights to that three percent.

Um I see Miss Barons is in the audience too, but she helped secure a contract associated with those bonds where in essence um you know it sets up the payment of that.

We the city invoice the county about six months in advance for those for that money to pay the next six months of debt service.

So we have it in hand well in advance of needing to do that debt service payment.

Um, should something happen economically where uh the hotel motel tax, you know, is less than expected, and we don't get quite as much money and it can't secure it can't pay that debt.

We also set up the contract somewhat of a rainy day fund.

So uh Kent County has also funded this where uh we have that money to draw from if we don't have enough coming in from the county.

Um in that contract, it also has provisions for the county continuing to make that rainy day fund whole if we ever had to tap that.

So again, we have these checks in place um to to make sure you know the city is protected.

So what we're doing today though is we have a um interest payment due in October, um, as well as um payments due next April for principal and interest.

So we have to set up an appropriation in order to do that spending.

So it that's what that 5.2 million is is uh commission acknowledging yes, we have this debt service payment, and we're we plan to make payments in October and in May, and you know, yeah, so that so that's that's mechanically what what's happening here.

Uh when we do our um because we issued those bonds while we were going through budget adoption, this appropriation wasn't set up annually as part of the budget process.

You'll see the debt service section, and I can I could make sure I I point that out for you in the fiscal plan when we when we do the next adopted budget that shows here's all the debt we're gonna have to pay in the next year, here's where the appropriation is at for that.

So we typically would do this as part of the budget process.

It was just the timing that it didn't get worked into the budget at the time.

Um you know, that's for a variety of reasons, mainly because of we didn't know how we do for pricing, so we didn't know the exact amount of what to appropriate when we went through the budget process.

So that's the that's the longest short of it.

It is it is um it's a lot, and this was a a huge issuance.

It was 122.3 million, but um we did we did ensure that the city was well protected as far as um you know making sure we get that revenue stream in from the county.

So yeah, I just want yeah, because sometimes people get caught up in the language and they don't know what it means.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely bring it back on down to you know Crayola level.

Um we are holding something for the soccer stadium, helping them achieve what they need to achieve, and the money to pay that is coming through the county, but it's coming through us, so we're kind of the loaners.

Like yeah, the conduit for all this to happen.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Just absolutely thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question.

I I think the biggest thing people just want to know is like is this coming out of my income tax?

You know, those kinds of things.

So the community feels like we're paying for this, they're doing this thing, it's supposed to be ours, but we're not gonna, you know what I mean?

So helping people understand that it's not.

Yep.

Yeah, it it's not uh, but you know, it's it's something to be concerned about because it is against the city's full faith and credit.

So that's that's something every time I talk to a rating agency, things like that.

Um this is this is something that is on the city's books in a sense that you know it is against our you know, debt capacity, things like that.

So it is um for that car for your child.

Absolutely, absolutely gonna pay that bill.

Yeah, yeah.

Because if not, you're the one that's responsible.

That's that's right, but great energy.

I doubt the county would want me to call them their little little brother or something.

Yeah.

We'll use mine.

We'll use it.

I like it.

I like it.

I like it.

No, thanks for that.

Yep.

Um cool.

Any any other questions?

All righty.

Uh I'll call the question then.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, it carries.

Uh that'll bring us to um item number four.

We've got our bid list resolution for August 26, 2025, and I'll hand it back to Miss Clarem.

Uh just largely the routine items.

If there is any questions, though, myself or um the departments are here to answer.

So sorry, I need a motion.

Oh, sorry.

Support.

Thank you.

Continue things.

No, but we are here if there are any if there are any questions on the bid list.

Fairly routine.

Yep, thank you.

And uh, I wrote down that starts on page 29 in the full agenda pack.

If anybody wants to read through that.

Um, any questions, colleagues?

Discussion.

All righty.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the motion carries.

That'll bring us to uh item number five.

We've got our briefing this morning um from our deputy comptroller Kirkland.

So we'll we'll welcome her up here.

Uh this briefing will be covering our internal audit plan.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning, and thank you.

Thank you so much for having us here this morning, just briefly to go over our 2026 uh audit plan, internal audit plan.

So the internal audit department, as you know, is a part of the compontroller's office.

We're here to provide support for city's operations by providing an independent objective insur assurance and insight into how well the city is operating.

We're here to help the city, help the departments to make sure they're following policies and procedures and provide improvements or recommendations for improvements where they need to be.

Good morning, commissioners.

My name is Erica Bills.

I'm the city's internal auditor.

Before I jump into the plan, uh the details of the plan, I just want to talk a little bit about the methodology that went into developing this plan.

So as you're all aware, um, back in April, I sent out an email across to all city commissioners, city leaders, department heads, and supervisors asking for their input into the plan.

I asked them to focus on four things city strategic priorities, financial and economic factors, public implications, and operational efficiencies.

And this could be anything within their department or just from a high-end observational process.

We got about 30% response rate, um, so we hope to build off that in the future.

So, in addition to those responses, as well as my own observations and experiences, and um working with the uh governmental financial officers association, the association of local government auditors to find best practices to build and develop our plan.

So, as things were identified to potentially audit, everything was put through a risk assessment, which is a best practice in internal audit.

Um, the risk assessment uh is performed to prioritize audits and identify and prioritize very operational and system-based threats that may create risk for the city.

So, again, I focus on four things.

What is their impact financial impact?

What's the impact on the operations of the city, if there's any ethical or compliance implications, as well as reputation and uh appearance to the public, any risks there.

Every audit was then subject using those four categories to through a scoring mechanism, and this scoring matrix uh looks at the likelihood of the um risk occurring as well as the impact.

If it has a lower risk or impact on for the financial example, um it would be scored a one.

If it had more of a broad impact on budget, on financial implications, it would be high and it would rate a five.

So you multiply the five by the five and you get 25.

So every category was scored using this matrix, and then I narrowed down the top priorities to focus on this year.

So with that, um, these are the three primary projects that I'll be focusing on this year.

This is a working document, it's not set in stone.

Things may come up that uh may need to be addressed, or departments can reach out to us and ask for assistance in reviewing things.

For example, the fire department uh reached out to me recently.

They've had some staffing changes, um, some retirements, and they'd like us to come out and review their processes just to make sure everything is where it should be, look for opportunities to improve efficiencies, um, things along that lines.

But these are the specific projects that I'll be focusing on in addition to providing support for other departments.

Um, the PCARD policy and usage.

Um, we have a current um purchase card guideline, um, and I'm gonna review that policy to ensure that it's aligned with best practices as well as review samples of purchase card transactions across the city to determine that we're following that policy and look for opportunities to improve that process.

I'll also be looking at the travel policy.

As many of you know, we um have travel reimbursements and a travel policy.

I'm gonna be reviewing that policy as well as reviewing travel for various employees and ensuring that we're following the travel policy and making sure that um we're adhering to best practices as well.

And lastly this was a department specific request um mobile GR reached out and uh in their survey and asked um for me to come out and review their parking agreements with the DDA the convention and arena authority the county to ensure that there's accuracy of the revenue share calculations and that everything is being adhered to and followed in that manner.

In addition to these specific projects I also plan we also plan on doing uh annual audits um so for example we just went out to um all the departments that handle cash and performed petty cash audits making sure that cash is being kept in a secure location that there's controls in place to make sure that cash goes from um our safes or our storage operations and gets to the bank to be deposited I also recently just performed inventory audits we went out to various warehouses um and stock rooms and did inventory audits to verify that we're managing and tracking inventory in an appropriate manner.

I also plan on doing account code audits um we have a lot of different account strings and account structures and it's very important to make sure that we're properly coding um purchases and uh items to the appropriate codes I'll also as we get more into our um ERP into our new ERP system I hope to do payroll audits as well as financial system user audits to make sure security is in line and I'll be working with various departments on those as well.

So with that I'll hand it over to Desri to talk about what happens post audit thank you Erica so at the completion of each one of the audits a formal report will be prepared.

But just keep in mind also all through the audit process there's communications taking place.

There's no surprises as to if there's any weaknesses or anything that needs to be improved on those communications are being done all through the process.

By the time you get to the formal audit report the scope of audit is stated in there any results of the findings and recommendations are there and also response from the manager.

There's meetings with the department heads city leaders and any anyone who may be interested to s uh to see the work that has been done.

And after that the reports are published on our website on the city's website.

And that concludes our presentation are there any questions.

Thanks so much colleagues any any questions all right I have just two really quick ones the 30% response rate so that's what comprises that little chart we saw with the red green yes it is okay okay and you said that there's uh a plan looking at best practices to to get more departments to respond to absolutely we've been having conversations and the city manager allowed us to come in to the cabinet meeting on last week uh to also do the same plan to present and so we've been having discussions with them and with department has to get more of a feedback and build relationships because you know you want to build that trust that we're here to support them.

Yep no that's great thanks and then um just real quickly too I guess what sort of communication is there to um publish this plan just to the public for community members because I think that's an important piece too is just having citizens understand what we do internally to make sure that we're following protocol.

Absolutely once this is done once is we've gone through all of this we we will put the final report or audit plan on our website.

Okay.

So the not just the findings of the report but the the protocol to get from point A to point B as well yes awesome awesome cool well that was my only other question so um hearing no other questions we can move on to our uh Comptroller's warrant report here but appreciate you both being here to share that uh commissioner robbins if I can make one comment go ahead just want to uh thank um desire our deputy comptroller and Erica our internal auditor for um this valuable work that they're doing uh for the city I think I think I just uh appreciate the fact that they put time in to bring uh some good visibility both uh to the commissioners here uh and the general public so just want to thank them for the the work that they're putting into this.

Yep could not agree more.

Thank you for saying that awesome all right so item number six we've got our Comptrollers won't report uh this is for the period of July 22nd 2025 through August 11th uh 2025 the amount of 48 million one hundred and seventy thousand eight hundred eighty five dollars and seventy nine cents uh in the monthly travel report I'll hand it over to back to you all right good morning commissioners uh for the period referenced uh cash payments were released totaling approximately 48 uh point one seven million dollars uh which includes five point seven million dollars for payroll and approximately three hundred and twenty thousand dollars for income tax warrants in terms of quantity one thousand five hundred and seventy seven income tax refunds were issued and one thousand eight hundred and seventy five um accounts payable checks and electronic uh payments were issued uh the funds that were issued were issued for payment by individuals uh not in the city controller's office and uh not in accordance uh with the terms uh of the city charter uh there was additional uh information as you know that's been uh added to this uh report after it's been submitted um I just want to make clear that that's not information um that I've author authored and I have requested uh additional information on that

Uh the funds that were issued were issued for payment by individuals uh not in the city controller's office and uh not in accordance uh with the terms uh of the city charter.

Uh there was additional uh information, as you know, that's been uh added to this uh report after it's been submitted.

Um I just want to make clear that that's not information um that I've author authored, and I have requested uh additional information on that um from the interim uh city attorney, and so I'm hopeful to get a response uh on that here uh in the near future.

Also this morning uh I have for you our June fiscal year to date uh travel report.

So this is summarizing travel spend by department for the basically the full fiscal year of the past prior year, and that is uh showing that a total of 1.9 million dollars was spent on approximately uh three and a half million dollar budget or about fifty-six uh percent uh of the funds.

And that concludes uh the reports that we have this morning.

Okay, thanks.

We'll go ahead and receive and file that one.

And then lastly, we've got our treasurer's report for the period of July 31st, 2025 through August 11, 2025.

Good morning, Commissioners.

Morning.

Uh my name is Levi Bolt, I'm the city's investment officer.

Um has since July 1 has been uh busy collecting our summer property taxes uh due to the efforts of our deputy treasurer as well as others.

Um we are uh we've collected approximately 94% of the uh summer tax role at this point.

Um it uh you know typically that that process uh continues through March 1 when those are turned over to the county under uh state law.

Um dealing with those cash flows is uh uh significant task.

Um uh Ms.

Cahill, our uh deputy treasurer is uh furiously working on uh calculations for the various uh uh capture districts uh within the city uh to make sure that uh uh those calculations are correct and uh everybody gets the all the various component units and districts and whatnot get uh the revenue that they're uh entitled to.

Um in addition, uh we've been our office has been continuing to work on the uh uh Oracle implementation specifically with respect to uh uh module called SIMPRO um, which is uh how we do our investment accounting.

Uh SIMPRO is a system uh that the appendix to today's report is generated out of uh tracking all the investments and and that sort of thing.

So that's been a large project getting that uh fully in integrated with Oracle in order to you know post our investment results and generate our financial statements.

Uh we're very close to that at this point.

Um we're able to um get those uh uh interest and uh capital gain loss uh entries uh into our general general ledger modules.

There's uh additional uh project uh management module called PPM that uh is proving to be a little bit more difficult to get that uh data into, but uh that is uh uh that's a work in progress.

Um looking uh turning to the economy generally, um there are some warning signs on the horizon.

Um generally speaking, um there uh the the Federal Reserve, which sets uh monetary policy and therefore interest rates uh in the United States uh is in a bit of a dilemma.

Um due to uh changes in trade policy.

Um we're seeing both uh some uh increased currency instability as well as uh uh much higher uh significantly higher uh prices at the producer level.

Most of those have yet to trickle through to uh consumers.

Some have um it is measurable.

Um the net result in the economy thus far uh has been negative.

Um of course uh the administration uh has repeatedly stated this is a short-term pain, long-term benefit situation.

It's a political question I'm not going to get into at this point in time.

Um but uh that pass through of um increased cost of doing businesses uh doing business, whether it's from the direct tariff impact or simply higher costs um due to navigating them.

Um will degrade the the Fed's ability to to maintain stable prices, which is one of its mandates.

And unfortunately its tools are very blunt for how it does that.

Um raising and lowering interest rates affects all parts of the economy, um, some more sensitive than others.

And unfortunately, some of the more sensitive uh interest rate sensitive parts of the economy are the ones we really need, like housing and uh affordable housing has obviously been a big issue.

So that does uh create some additional headwinds to uh uh to the goals that we're trying to pursue here in our city.

Uh however, at the moment um economically, um uh Mark Zandy uh the uh uh chief economist for Moody's uh just uh uh yesterday indicated that uh state by state breakdown Michigan is essentially treading water right now, that we're not yet in recession.

Some states are, some are not.

Um so we're doing okay at the moment.

Um the uh there is a risk of what is called de-anchoring uh with prices.

That's if you think about it in your mind, if you're if every time you go to the grocery store, fill up the gas pump, the price is roughly the same.

It's not something you think about.

But once you start to notice those price increases, take that into account, and then the next step is expect them and change your behavior based on those expectations.

That's when inflation really gets pernicious.

Um that is the danger that uh the tariff-driven price increases present.

Um overall, uh we do expect uh short-term interest rates to uh be cut in September by uh quarter of a point.

Um there's uh strong consensus uh in uh financial markets, around uh 83-ish percent likelihood that that's going to happen at this point in time.

Um other than that, uh our portfolio right now is uh close to its annual high water market, 971 million dollars, earning 3.63 percent.

If there's any questions, I'm happy to answer.

Great, thank you.

Um I just have a random question.

Do you happen to know?

So you mentioned um some parts of the economy have we've seen the trickle down of the increase in prices.

Do you know like what sorts of things um we've already seen some of the uh consequences or effects of the tariffs versus not?

It's very hit and miss, and it very much depends, even even within particular product categories.

Oftentimes it'll depend on the degree to which a particular item is sourced from foreign components, foreign main components versus domestic.

So unfortunately there's not at this point there are some statistical trends emerging, but it's not a cut and dry thing.

Okay.

I'm just thinking from uh a city standpoint, like are the things that we do business with as a as a city, or had those things been impacted yet, or is that sort of yet to come?

So most of it's yet to come.

Okay.

Okay.

Um colleagues, any any other questions or comments?

All righty.

Well, we'll go ahead and receive and file that as well.

Uh and then we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting here at 9 02.