All right, good morning, everybody.

It is 8 30.

We'll go ahead and get our fiscal uh committee meeting here underway.

We've got um nine different items before us, one of which will um probably have some discussion that came to us um from committee of the whole.

So uh we'll have our interim city attorney share some more information once we get to that.

But um kicking things off, item number one.

We've got a resolution asking uh an extension of contracted services with Ovell Rome and Associates doing business as uh ask OVEL for interim human resources leadership and an amount not to exceed 100,000 uh for total authorized contract amount of 200,000.

Support.

All right, support Matthew Well, assistant city manager.

Uh you know, normally this is an item we'd have the HR director bring forward, but uh under the circumstances, here I am.

Um as you all know, we've been in the process of finding a new permanent human resources director during that interim time.

Uh Oval Barbie has been serving in the role and doing an extraordinary job.

We anticipate uh let's see, we're gonna be seeing those uh initial candidates next week.

So we're hoping to be able to have somebody on board at the beginning of the year.

This will provide ongoing leadership as well as some transition time in between the new person coming on board where um he'll be able to share what he's learned over the time that he's been here.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Any questions or discussion, colleagues?

All right, hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye, those opposed, the motion carries.

Item number two, we've got a resolution authorizing a joint use agreement with ATT regarding shared use of the utility wood pole infrastructure.

So moved to support.

All right, moved and supported.

Morning.

Morning, Commission.

Uh, want to take an opportunity to kind of tee this one up for our new ELC manager, uh, Ryan Timmer, who was recently promoted into that position.

He's gonna talk about it, but I wanted to introduce you all to him.

Thanks for being here.

Congrats on your on your new role.

Thanks, appreciate that.

Good morning, all right.

Um we're seeking approval for a resolution, uh joint use resolution with ATT for the shared use utility infrastructure that we share with them in the right-of-way.

Um Grand Rapids and ATT.

We both own polls in the right-of-way, and we've been using each other's polls for many years now.

Um the city has two thousand two hundred seven polls that we attach on ATT and and ATT has one thousand eighty-six polls that they attach to the city.

So this proposal of uh this agreement um establishes a collaborative work for the shared use of the utility pole infrastructure.

Um we have something similar with consumers energy that we passed in 1980.

And uh this proposed joint use agreement will streamline operation and formalize formalize a long-standing cooperative relationship between the city and ATT.

Great, thanks.

Any questions or comments, colleagues?

Commissioner, could I add additional?

Yep.

I really appreciate Ryan and his work and Bruce, along with that, and the city attorney's office.

This has been a long-standing issue of just chasing bills back and forth when we both share a facility.

This is an outstanding agreement that mirrors the other ones that we have with utility providers, and I'm fully supportive of this because it it really was a burden on us trying to fight back and forth, trying to collect monies that really we shouldn't have built in the first place because this is a really a partnership agreement with our utility companies.

Awesome.

Nope, thanks for adding that.

All right.

Uh hearing and seeing no other comments.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the motion carries.

Item number three, uh, we've got a resolution to authorize the city treasurer to do business with RBC Capital Markets LLC as a broker dealer.

So move.

Support.

All right, moved and supported.

I'll turn it back over to you.

Good morning, Commissioners.

With this item today, we look forward to working with RBC.

They are one of the larger providers of underwriters of large municipal bonds.

In fact, they just did a large one uh with the state of Michigan.

And by having them as one of our broker dealers, when they're the lead underwriter, we will be able to get a larger chunk of our investment choices available to us.

And so we really want to partner with these types of organizations because um when you fall to the second and third tier of underwriting, then your your pro rata allotment goes down.

And so this is gonna give us a lot more flexibility to get some of those bigger issues.

Um really, we they just issued over 575 million dollars uh for state of Michigan, and they were actually housing units.

And those are the things, those are the social bonds, the items that we want to participate in and gain more of because that we really want to elevate that in terms of the housing within the state of Michigan.

Okay, thanks.

Cugs, any questions on this one?

All right.

Um all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the motion carries.

Uh brings us to item number four.

We've got a resolution authorizing a budget substitution uh in the amount of one million five hundred ninety-six thousand one hundred fifteen dollars for uh the city match portion of four DWRF funded capital projects.

So move support.

All right, moved and supported.

Good morning.

Good morning, commissioners.

Tiver Bruggy uh utility financial officer.

This is a budget substitution.

Um just moving some money around back in July.

We issued a bond through the state's drinking water revolving fund.

Um that the proceeds from that issuance are going to cover the majority of these four projects.

However, there are certain expenses related to these capital projects that are not eligible for that funding, and so we're just moving some of the city's cash, some of the water department's cash around to cover those portions of these projects.

Okay, thanks.

Any discussion, colleagues?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, it carries.

I don't number five.

We've got a resolution authorizing uh budget substitution for phase two of the grit tank improvements at the water resource recovery facility and the amount of 700,000.

So support.

Moved and supported.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Good morning, commissioners.

James Ootz, environmental services manager.

Uh, what you have before you today is a resolution uh authorizing a budget substitution for $700,000 to complete phase two of the grit tank improvements.

Um this will be uh a transfer of funds from the sewer capital projects, and we'll not have any uh impact on our final sanitary sewer budget.

Great, thanks.

Uh colleagues, any questions?

All right, hearing none.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the motion carries.

Uh that'll bring us to item number six.

We've got our bid list resolution for October 7th, 2025.

So move support.

All right, moved in support.

I'll turn to our CFO, Miss Claren.

Hi, good morning, Commissioners.

We only have three items this morning.

Um, well, one item that might look a little bit unusual as you're um paging through the the items is number two, neutron holdings.

This is our um mobility uh provider Lyme.

Uh you'll see that it's just a contract extension.

It's four and no cost for a year while the department puts together a request for proposal to go back out and see what the other options are.

So I I just wanted to note that one for you.

Yep, thanks.

And I know um that's something we've discussed in city manager, has kept us posted on just for uh continuity of services to extend that.

But um, of course, always want to be you know offering up to um you know other organizations that can provide you know better services or even better pricing um if possible to us.

So happy to see that extended.

So colleagues, any other questions or comments on those?

I have a comment.

I would like to share uh the perspective of my colleague in the third ward, Commissioner Purdue wanted to table uh the Lime Scooter contract.

Uh due to she's at uh last year around the annual review time, she requested that we talk more about helmet and you know, head safety uh for all of our riders and uh neighbors, visitors who uh use the Lyme scooter, so that was a concern of hers.

I don't share that same concern, but just would like to hear from my colleagues and see if anyone on this committee would like to uh table this until uh Lyme can provide us with um uh uh a plan of going forward about what they will do um to ensure safety for uh folks when writing.

Okay.

Um can I ask the department or maybe Tony uh by tabling it?

Does that mean we stop service or if if we're not approving this today, what does that mean?

Just so the commissioners understand.

We're gonna die.

Good morning, Jessica Smith, uh mobile DR department director.

Yes, so tabling this.

We're at the end of our contract, and I am bringing this to you all at the last minute, but the um this is the end of our contract with uh Lyme, and so this is an extension just to continue those services for now.

Um and but happy to speak to any safety implications or any questions that you may have.

Sure, yeah.

I once again I don't share these concerns, but I'm wondering if we can take this off of consent so we can have a bigger conversation at Cal.

So Commissioner Purdue can share her concerns.

Yeah, I guess I'll turn to our city attorney.

And you take one thing off of there.

Yeah, I think we had this last week, a similar situation arise where um because there's just three items on here.

I wonder if there's a benefit to just removing the entire bid list from cow, or I'm sorry, from consent or uh city clerk from uh agenda management perspective.

That would be what would you prefer?

That would be fine.

So a couple uh so a couple options is you someone here can make a motion to well, we already have a motion on the floor to approve the bid list.

Correct.

So any commissioner can ask to have anything removed from consent.

So Commissioner Purdue at the two o'clock meeting could say I would like to remove the bid list, and then if they want to have a split at that time, then that can happen too.

Yep.

Um, I guess from uh this board standpoint, I would prefer to keep it, you know, approve it.

I I don't share in those concerns either.

If if um commissioner perdue wants to discuss more by taking off consent, uh we can certainly cross that bridge um at that meeting, but I'd prefer to just pass as is with the given motion, and then we can we can do so then.

Is that so unfair?

Yeah, and I'll follow up with saying, you know, I I am I'm hopeful that we can continue as we I believe we have more of that annual uh review today um at Cow.

Um and you know, talking about uh by bike safety, uh pedestrian safety is really important.

So um I'm hoping that we can have multiple conversations on this.

So I but I will I plan to vote yes and let me be clear because I'm I'm not like against it, but to be clear, if we take it off consent and it comes to cow, then we can vote on it then.

Oh it would go to the two o'clock meeting at the two so we can vote on it at the two o'clock meeting.

Okay, because I just in respect of you know her thoughts and concerns.

I personally we've had a conversation about it.

Um I think we've we've all talked about it in the last couple of weeks or so.

Um yes, that is a concern, but I guess it's more around what what is the data, right?

What are the numbers showing what what incidents have happened, how many fatalities have we had, what have they done to actually up to this point mitigate some of those because you they can't do everything, yeah, right?

And so what have they done and and what is the data look like in in the safety of utilizing these scooters?

So I'm I'm okay with I I think being respectful and and allowing her to share those thoughts in this us having that conversation.

Um if we can vote on it at two o'clock.

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, and and I know I don't want to um short side.

Mobile GR has done some some great work on this when I served on that board.

I know we had a ton of discussions about safety when it comes to scooters and um so I don't know, maybe Miss Smith, you could provide some information at um that meeting about just I don't know what mobile GR has talked about or um what efforts have been done.

So thank you, colleagues.

Thank you.

Yes, of course.

So um, so with that, I'll call the question on the bid list.

If all three of you vote in favor of this, it'll go on consent.

If anyone votes no for the purposes of this committee hearing, it'll be off of consent and and commission will uh view it independently from the consent agenda.

But Commissioner Purdue could make a motion to remove it from consent at two o'clock meeting.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, awesome.

So with that, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

I'm an aye.

Those opposed, it carries.

All right.

So that brings us to number seven.

We've got uh resolution referring proposed changes to uh the committee of the whole for city commission policy one hundred-zero six, adding fiscal disclosure requirements for elected officials.

So support.

All right, moved in support as I mentioned.

Um, this came to us from COW originally, so I'll turn to our deputy city attorney here, and he could give us some background and overview of what this consists of.

All right.

Well, first of all, let me say this is not personal to me, so I will accept whatever feedback you say, and I encourage you to provide as as much or as little feedback as you think is appropriate.

Uh, this was this also does not replace the current state law and our current policy that requires conflicts be disclosed in real time.

So if you know you have a conflict on an agenda item, that's always going to be the case that you must disclose that, and you can seek uh advice from the city attorney's office to determine if you do have a legal conflict on a particular item in front of you.

So that will always be the case.

This is an additional layer of annual disclosures that help that would in theory help the community know uh what sort of income and where that income comes from and what sort of liabilities or debts you might have outside of the ordinary course of uh debts like medical debts we've excluded and some things like that.

Uh I'll remind you that this is not going on the consent agenda today.

This is a referred to the fiscal committee by Cow to do some work here and to try to figure out what the content of this proposed change might be.

Um the idea would be that this committee with a vote of two or more members would make recommendations back to Cow, and then that would give a broader uh ability for the committee of the whole to discuss and decide what the final content would be.

If we come up with final content to recommend to the committee of the whole, what I would intend to do is then bring a red-lined policy together with a sample form to the committee of the whole so they could see even more uh clearly what this might look like in operation.

But to remind you, we had a COW session on July 29th where this concept was kind of presented, and the mayor has been especially excited about this.

Uh it mirrors some of his work in the state legislature.

On September 9th, after the July 29th meeting, you had asked the law department to do some research uh regarding model policies or uh alternative policies across the state.

We brought to you four different samples of policies, and the feedback that I heard was let's kind of start with the state policy that uh clearly kind of hits on some of the categories that the commission was interested in and then go from there.

In the meantime, I heard uh feedback from the mayor and from some of you that um perhaps some commissioners might not be interested in this level of additional reporting.

Uh I heard some concerns that this might invite misreporting or invite underreporting, and what does that mean moving forward?

So, in order to try to avoid some of those pitfalls, we did increase the thresholds of the dollar amounts that are uh required for disclosure.

So if you own a $800 mountain bike, that isn't necessarily an asset that you need to disclose.

Um, but for those more expensive uh real estate holdings or income that you earn that is a meaningful income for your annual uh reportable income, those things uh are included in this uh potential fiscal disclosure um document.

The the mayor had suggested that spousal income was again something that he thought was important, so you'll see in the first section.

I'm going into number three on the proposed recommendation back to Cow Spousal information and income that a spouse would earn would be reportable, employment income over five thousand dollars in the annual reporting period would be reportable roles with organizations, so service to nonprofits or other community organizations would be something that you would disclose despite it not necessarily being a conflict.

Um this is a level of transparency that uh the state elected officials uh are required to disclose uh assets, uh real property valued over ten thousand dollars, investments over ten thousand dollars, and other assets or business assets exceeding that ten thousand dollar threshold would be disclosable, liabilities uh during the reporting period, mortgages, loans, or credit lines.

You may exclude medical debt, unsecured debt from a financial institution or federal government, or revolving debt for a business, a regular business debt.

Any employment agreements that are reached and offered to extend after your term of office with the city would be the final category of disclosure.

Again, these essentially mirror what the state elected officials have codified in the state law.

We have increased the thresholds a little bit to make the uh reporting hopefully a little bit easier and more meaningful for for commissioners and elected officials.

And um that is what's before you today.

Happy to answer any questions or hear any revisions.

The timing of this going back to cow, this isn't necessarily time sensitive.

So if this committee requires more time to do work on this, you're you're welcome to do that.

But this is the first work session on this particular policy change.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Um I want to note too.

I mean, this isn't an attempt to be like a gotcha towards you know any elected official, it's more or less just uh our our way to show um you know additional transparency, just like many other elected officials do um as mentioned at this day.

So with that, I'll turn to my colleagues and see if there's any questions or comments that they have, um, general thoughts on that.

I just had a couple small procedural questions, but other than that, I'll I'll let you both go first if you'd like.

Um, yeah, I I take issue with a number of things that are listed in here.

Um first of all, just for clarity, um, the difference between the state and city is vast in how they do business.

Um there is opportunity at the state level for lobbying for specific things within that boundary that they may have access to certain funds or certain things to move in a way to help a person do a thing, right?

It's very different here at the city because we have a lot of parameters in place and guidelines.

We don't have access to the engineering funds, we don't have access to executive department funds, we don't have access to those things.

What we do as a body is vote on the things that are presented to us as a commission and talk about what those things are, and our responsibility to me as commissioners is to engage with community to get their voice.

We're we're the conduit for their voice into this body to help make decisions as it pertains to policy.

So I I feel like what we had in place was sufficient for that.

I don't remember a time, at least myself personally, where there has been uh anything that has come up that either the city clerk or city manager has not said we're bringing this, you're a part of that.

You might remember, so when this comes up, make sure to recuse yourself.

And I I feel like that has happened.

I think we are digging into the weeds when we start asking for people's you need to know how many houses I own, you need to know what you know what other income because I do a lot of things in the community.

But if it's anything that pertains to the city, I have already already removed myself from that.

So when the GRO 1000 started, I was the one that helped them start that program and do the mentoring piece and was over that mentoring piece for young people.

Once I became a commissioner, I stepped back from that.

Right?

And so we hold people to a higher level of integrity and character in this position, and I think it just doesn't apply.

So that's my opinion.

I'm I'm a no on it.

Okay.

Nope.

Appreciate you sharing your thoughts.

And and too, I want to reiterate I totally agree.

I think as a body, we do a great job of um, you know, being forthright if there is some sort of you know, even perceived conflict and just going above and beyond to um to make sure we're not putting ourselves into a funky situation.

So I do agree with that piece for sure.

Um any thoughts, Commissioner Kilgore?

Yeah, thank you, colleagues.

Um, I'm very supportive of these measures.

Uh, you know, in 2015, the state as a whole received an F grade from the Center of for Public Integrity and Global Integrity.

So, you know, it's been 10 years since that not much has changed.

We're still an F is an F.

And I think this is a really uh awesome opportunity to model to our state of how leadership looks and how there's nothing to hide.

Um, and just continuing to show state lawmakers as well.

Um, I was very supportive of the Bright Act, so that's bringing reforms and integrity, transparency, and ethics.

Uh, this hasn't really passed through the state house.

So this reform that is trying to happen at the state where um, you know, you make rules for bad actors, and that's what I'm hoping we do here.

Um both my colleague in the third world and myself ran against folks who uh had a lot of money in different places and were supported by very wealthy people.

Um and I wonder sometimes once folks get here, uh, some of the uh folks who they're beholden to.

And I much rather have folks not be beholden to let's say big developers.

We are constantly passing things, yes or no, to big developments in the city.

And I rather not have our elected officials be beholden to uh dark money or special interests.

So I think this is a great way that we can model this and show transparency, uh integrity and the best ethics that we have here.

So um I'm supportive of it.

Um I'm hopeful that we can bring back to Cal what we currently have here.

I think is sufficient.

I think it goes a little bit further uh than the state law, which is good here, um, and hopefully we'll show the state as a whole um what leadership should look like in terms of government transparency.

So very supportive of it and bringing this towards Cal.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

Um yeah, I I'll just share a couple of my thoughts.

I I agree and I'm supportive of this um as well.

I I think um we've discussed that uh at Cow, just uh, you know, wanting to be intentional with you know, building trust with government and the public.

I think that's you know, obviously a philosophical conversation, but um it you know, in supporting this too, I'm not doing so out of an concern or again, uh, you know, a gotcha against um certain commissioners, elected officials now um or in the future, it's more um in my estimation, just kind of uh like you said, going above and beyond just to show um transparency and and being forthright with uh with the people um that we represent.

So I I guess just kind of had some questions more about like a couple definitions.

So under the liabilities piece, I maybe there's a definition already in the full policy somewhere, but things like the unsecured debt from a financial institution.

Um I guess I don't know if there might end up being some questions like what does that include like a credit card?

Does that include um you know just like a personal loan that's not uh tied to like any sort of collateral, I guess um that's was just one of my initial questions.

Yeah, unsecured debt from a financial institution or the federal government usually is going to be student loans or credit card debt, and you should don't necessarily have to disclose that information.

Okay.

And if there are questions, I think the city attorney's office stands by happy to help anyone uh as we've get into the habit potentially of filling out new forms.

Uh we want to be a resource to you to help uh answer some of those questions along the way.

Yep, and then um just the other one too.

So I know under the assets of Jay listing securities or investments.

I mean, I guess myself is as an example, I don't you know, trade individual stocks or bonds or things like that, but um have just a you know a general retirement account.

So I assume it would just be sufficient to maybe just say um you know general 41k retirement account managed by XYZ broker or something of that like that's that's how I've seen it reported at the state level, and I think that you know that for me as an attorney would be sufficient.

I think if the commission desires something different, you'd have to maybe more fine-tune that definition as you go.

The nice thing about this policy is you can always make adjustments if you find yourself uh seeking clarity or needing some more clarity as you fill these forms out and operationalize this.

It's not uncommon that you might find something that needs to be a little bit more fine-tuned, and we could bring back a simple recommendation to revise the policy again.

You'd like to get it right the first time around, but uh no harm if if you got to do some tinkering along.

Yep.

Yep, no, that's a good reminder too.

We're not writing something in concrete.

We're we're you know, starting with putting our best foot forward and in something that we ideally um you know think covers all of our bases, but always, like you mentioned, have the opportunity to further refine them um over time.

So um that was really all my questions.

Like I said, I'm supportive.

Um so currently the the motion on the table is to refer this as written back to committee of the whole.

Um Commissioner Knight, I you're I know you mentioned you're not supportive, so I assume this will just um uh I guess yeah procedurally what happens then in that case.

The way the agenda item would uh be proposed to committee of the whole would be uh this fiscal committee uh with a two-one vote is recommending these uh proposed changes to the policy.

Uh we can be very transparent in the report back out to committee of the whole, and uh you'll have more opportunities to make some requested changes there.

Okay.

And that comes back today.

No, uh I'll work with the city manager perhaps uh the second meeting in October.

Okay, but uh depending on what the agenda looks like for committee of the whole at that time, uh we may push it to November.

Uh really if this goes into operation, I think the quickest report would be due in May of 2026.

So uh we've got some time.

Okay, thank you.

Um I also wanted to add on there.

Um sorry, city attorney.

There is uh a piece in there about elected officials and just wondering why it didn't include appointed as well.

Sure.

Uh appointed have contracts, so you can hold the appointed officials to whatever sort of disclosures you think are appropriate within their individual contracts.

Okay.

Um you self-govern yourselves in terms of the the disclosures that you're gonna make transparent to the public.

And I I would think that each individual appointed official might want to uh talk to you more about whether or not it would be appropriate.

The appointed officials are bound by the conflicts of interest, state law and the policy with attachment A.

So appointed officials would have to disclose any conflicts of interest in real time.

But this additional piece is uh subject to go negotiation with those individual employee contracts, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's a good question, though, Commissioner.

Thanks.

Any other thoughts or comments?

Otherwise, I will go yep.

Go ahead.

Uh yeah, just uh just a few uh comments.

Um if the commission uh does you know proceed with this uh revision, but um on the note of what Commissioner Knight uh just pointed out, um just making sure it's you know understood that the current uh policy does apply to both uh elected and appointed officials.

And so if the commission does proceed, I I think it makes sense to um at minimum, you know, meet our current uh standards uh in the present policy.

I would actually even advocate for the commission to consider incorporating really anyone that's in a uh leadership financial decision making uh capacity for the city of Grand Rapids.

Um so whether that's not just you know elected and appointed uh but you know, deputies, perhaps even you know, department heads.

Um so that's just some general feedback.

I think we're teeing this up for the right reasons for transparency, but I think we have an opportunity to show the public, you know, how far we're willing to go to uh embed transparency in the government.

Sure.

Yep.

Yep.

No, I appreciate you sharing that.

And um add something.

Well, I would just point out that uh for better or worse, you're not subject to collective bargaining agreements and the rules and the laws around public employee labor relations act and how a new work expectation might apply to those that are in unions would take some additional conversation having just negotiated and settled all of the contracts for the city to impose a new uh requirement on individuals that may be in collective bargaining units uh could undo a lot of great work that was just done through the collective bargaining process.

So I would caution against I I think the intent and the idea and the concept is is noble, but I think that some of the practicalities uh that could be created by that sort of approach might be something maybe talking about during the next collective bargaining session as opposed to trying to jam it down without any labor uh communication.

Sure.

No, that's a good uh good caveat there.

And I think you know, transparency can look a ton of different ways.

And so whether you know, maybe we this format is used for elected officials and I don't know, we we talk about um other ways we can be more transparent with the public when it comes to just day-to-day city operations.

I think that's a fair conversation too.

Um so appreciate you sharing that.

So uh hearing no other questions or comments, I'll go ahead and call the question then.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And those opposed.

Aye.

All right, the motion carries.

So that brings us to our last two items here.

Item number eight, we've got our cop trollers' warrant report for the period of September 9th, 2025 through September 22nd, 2025, uh, and the amount of 27,748,482 and 62 cents and monthly travel report.

And I will turn it over to our city controller again.

Good morning, commissioners.

Uh, for the period reference there, uh cash payments were released totaling approximately 27 uh.7 million dollars, which includes approximately 5.9 million dollars for employee payroll expense and just over 122,000 for income tax warrants.

Uh in terms of quantity, 418 income tax refunds were issued and 1,213 uh checks and electronic payments uh were issued.

Uh these funds were issued by payments or by individuals not uh in the city controller's office and not in accordance uh with the city charter.

Also uh in our report here this morning, we have the uh monthly travel report uh for July uh 2025, the first uh month of the new fiscal year.

And that report um is showing that let me just scroll down to it here that we have uh spent just over fifty-six thousand dollars uh on approximately two point uh three million dollar uh annual budget for travel spend for travel spend, excuse me.

Okay, thanks.

We'll go ahead and receive and file that.

And then lastly, that brings us to our treasurer's report for period of September 10th, 2025 through September 23rd, 2025.

Good morning, Commissioners.

With the report today, we did have a uh point two five percent reduction in the Fed funds rate.

So that's the first step down.

Um we don't know if there's gonna be a second one.

Uh we don't know until the economic numbers come out.

In fact, we're seeing the effects of the the federal government shutdown because we're not getting labor statistics, we're not getting the the type of reporting.

So we're kind of in a little hold period right now, waiting to see when the government's gonna open back up.

We're gonna see those numbers start churning out again.

Um I was fortunate enough to be invited to Crane's Power Breakfast out at Cascade Country Club with uh Fed CEO and president of the Federal Reserve of Chicago, Alan Austin Goldsby.

Um very impressive speaker, um very articulate.

Um he makes economics kind of cool.

Um the one thing he he really definitely pointed out is are the things that we pointed out before is that the Fed has a dual mandate.

One is to achieve full employment, the other is to maintain a two percent inflation rate.

The problem is that both of those numbers are moving in the wrong direction, and the Fed only has one tool.

That the only tool they have in the toolbox is to change interest rates.

So they're kind of locked in.

They're you know, we don't know what to do until we have better numbers coming out of out of our economy and to have tariffs come into full force to really filter through uh all the economic data.

And so that's that's where the rub is right now.

That's where the pause is right now.

They're not gonna overheat the market and turn it down, they're not gonna constrict it too much by turning it too high.

Um so I appreciate the fact that they're taking that cautious data-driven approach, just as we talk about data-driven things and other decisions that we make.

It's very important for them to make this data-driven decision and not be a political item.

Um we do have uh a chart here that's the it's called the dot plot diagram, showing where they think uh the Fed governors are are voting for these rates to go.

And really, when we're looking at you know, two thousand even out to two thousand eight, they're they're highly leveraged between um two point seven five and three point five percent.

So that's we're still two full years away from that occurring.

So it shows their um uncertainty until they actually get concrete data.

And I I do say uh I appreciate that because um if markets turn too fast, that means everybody's trying to reposition, and you'll see wild swings if they move too quickly.

Um for our portfolio, we are sitting at 788 million dollars, and we're earning over 3.49%.

Great.

Thanks.

Um I'll turn to my colleagues, see if they have any questions, thoughts, concerns.

All right.

Just I one quick question is there with the federal government shutdown, is there anything that we need to keep our eyes on as a city from a funding perspective or you know, programs, things like that?

Um the city manager and and his team and Karin Farrick, they're looking to see what types of things might impact us.

If there's any delay in any of the Fed funding for either the roads or for grants or other things, they're really honing in on what are those things impacting uh the organization.

As far as my view in the treasurer's office, we're not seeing anything that's uh impacting our operation.

But again, um unless it's trying to receipt the cash that's coming from them, that's something we can't do if it's not on its way.

But for us, we actually are doing very well making sure our funds are fully invested and we're earning good interest rates, and we're following the sea again, closely to see if there's gonna be any major change.

And if there is, um, we'll throw the flag up uh uh right away and we'll definitely engage with the city manager's office.

Awesome.

Okay.

Appreciate it.

Well, that's all I got, and that also wraps up our uh scheduled agenda items here.

Ms.

Claire.

I was just gonna jump in, sorry.

No, go right ahead.

Uh you know, while while we're on that topic of the shutdown, there's legislative committee today, so I believe that's gonna be discussed.

But um, from a fiscal standpoint, we have been looking at that um beyond a few weeks, we're not too worried.

But once we're past you know, week two, I'm I'm working with our um you know Connie Bohatch um out of community development as well as Stevie Parcel to assess which grants we're getting reimbursements from that are gonna be delayed because obviously we're gonna have to cover that.

So there is a risk.

I'm hoping I'm hoping this doesn't go past October.

Um I also will be doing a fiscal update in November, so that will be a uh you know, definitely a heavy topic in the coming weeks if we don't get um closure going, but we're hoping for the best right now.

So nothing to worry about today.

Well, that's good, thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and adjourn our meeting here.

It is 908.