Gonna try to call committee of the whole to order.

You know, at night we have a moment of silence to make that happen.

So glad you're all enjoying yourselves.

Um thank you for coming.

Uh the first item on our agenda, which is probably why we have such a pack room is the um our uh uh resolution on public safety uh recognition week.

Pardon me, public service.

What did I say?

Public safety.

Sorry.

Uh public service recognition week.

And um, I want to hand off to our city manager before I go up and read the proclamation.

Um, and we usually have a photo op after this, but I do want to say um, I'm just gonna start with an anecdote.

Um, I was at uh a dinner last week and sitting next to an individual who works in HR who told me that she'd been out in the private sector making more money and um looked at her life and decided that she wanted to work to make the city better.

And so she came and worked in HR for the city, and that's awesome.

So uh I can't say often enough how how uh grateful we all are for the vocational work that you all do, uh those of you who work for the city.

Um, lots of us work in civic engagement in volunteer work and things like that, but people who show up every day and uh do the work of making our city work uh really deserve our gratitude.

So I'm gonna hand it off to the city manager.

Thank thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

Good morning, everyone.

I too want to express my appreciation and gratitude to the over 1,700 uh regular full-time employees and the over a thousand members of our contingent part-time seasonal workforce for the work that you do day in, day out, not often celebrated and are often very often quick critiqued and criticized, but you do it very faithfully.

So I really want to thank those that are here.

Those that are here today are representing some of our employees who have been on it over the past year, so I look forward to hearing more about it uh after your proclamation, and we hear from our HR director, and I think we have a member of our workforce that's also going to address us this morning.

Thank you, Mayor.

Awesome.

Thank you.

So why don't I go up and read the proclamation?

All right.

So I'm gonna read the proclamation, then I'm gonna present it to Ovelle.

Uh whereas our citizens residing in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan are served every single day by public servants at the local government level, these are our unsung heroes.

And whereas day in and day out, they provide excellent city services as expected by our residents with efficiency and integrity.

The excellent level of services are pro that are provided are of vital importance to a growing, sustainable and resilient community and the well-being of citizens and visitors to Grand Rapids.

And whereas without these public servants at every level of government, continuity would be impossible in a democracy that regularly changes its leaders and elected officials.

Now, therefore, I, David Le Grand, mayor of the city of Grand Rapids, proclaim the week of May 3 to 9, 2026 as public service recognition week in honor of the thousands of public servants that work for Grand Rapids City as employees appointed to elected officials or on a board or a commission and call on all residents to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of government employees at all levels: federal, state, county, and city.

Thank you, Mayor.

In recognition of public service recognition week, we're here today to celebrate members of our city team who consistently go above and beyond in service to our community.

Since May of last year, more than a hundred and fifty employees have been recognized as ACE award recipients, demonstrating what it means to deliver above customer expectations.

These individuals bring to life the values of the City of Grand Rapids accountability, collaboration, customer service, equity, innovation, and sustainability.

At this time, I'd like to ask all ACE award recipients who are present to please stand and be recognized.

Please join me in giving them a well-deserved round of applause.

Thank you and congratulations again.

At this time, I'd like to invite Mr.

Ken Godwin, President of the APA union to offer remarks on behalf of labor.

Good morning, Mayor, City Manager, Commissioners, and members of the community.

On behalf of the Association of Public Administrators of Grand Rapids, I proudly stand before you representing all of the collective bargaining units.

I acknowledge in acknowledgement of public service recognition week.

Union leadership would like to extend our sincere thanks to each and every employee for your continued commitment to serving our community.

Your dedication, professionalism, and daily contributions do not go unnoticed.

We thank you for the vital work you do every day.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ken.

I'd now like to invite all of the ACE Award recipients to come forward for a photo with the mayor and city commissioners.

Congratulations.

I like this outfit.

You guys are doing great.

Congratulations and thanks again.

I'm like, I like those.

Oh, totally.

Thank you.

Did you get your ticket?

I did not get my ticket back.

Right?

Thanks, everyone.

Um, that brings us to a second item, our agenda, which is the resolution authorizing certain special events subject to chapter 53 of the city.

Seems to have cut off.

Presumably the city.

Well, good morning, Mayor.

Good morning.

Sorry.

So excited.

I am.

I'm just so excited about all the wonderful events that are coming to the city of Grand Rapids.

I apologize.

Good morning, Mayor and City Commissioners and staff.

This resolution is to approve a slate of special events for the remainder of 2026.

These events play a vital role in bringing our community together, supporting local businesses, and showcasing the character of our city.

This resolution reflects careful planning to ensure that each event is safe, well coordinated, and aligns with our broader goals for economic vitality and quality of life.

All events will submit a certificate of insurance and an event action plan that will be approved by risk management as well as our police department and fire department.

This resolution does not reflect all the events that will occur in 2026 as the Office of Special Events accepts applications all throughout the year.

I present this for your approval.

Thank you, Ms.

Pittman.

Um discussion, colleagues?

Commissioner?

Good morning.

Thank you.

Could you remind uh what constitutes a special event in the city?

So a special event is defined in our uh policy 11005 as well as our chapter 53 of the Minisi Code.

Uh so it's any gathering with an identifiable time and place uh of bringing people together on public property.

Thank you.

Great.

Um any comments or any other comments or questions, uh colleagues?

Otherwise, um I'll ask for a vote.

All in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye, aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

That brings us to our next item, which is um uh an approval uh resolution recommending approval of a liquor control commit uh commission or social district permit application um for MRA Vandenberg Enterprises transacting business as sugar bar located at 132 Monroe Center.

Uh can I have a motion?

Support uh anyone to us.

Um so to to put you give you the location.

This is kind of where the dog pit was uh in I think the macarone cookie store or whatever um over by Rosa Park Circle.

So that's that that location.

So this gives them obviously that they're in this social district, and this gives them the permit application, you know, to serve certain um drinks with with labeling that they can walk around in the social district with it.

Great.

Uh so does the social district already exists?

Yes with the downtown social district.

And new entrants have to uh essentially opt in to the to the mechanism resolution.

Okay.

Um any comments or questions, colleagues?

Um then did I ask for a motion?

I'm sorry, I forgot a motion.

Okay, all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

That brings us to our third resolution, which is for a brown field plan amendment to 528 Bridge Street uh development located at 528 and 532 Bridge Street Northwest.

Um up to explain that one is Ms.

Ronero can have a motion.

Support thank you, good morning.

Yes, this is the final step for the Brownfield Plan amendment resolution before we would send uh the packet to the state.

Uh, this is um activating the existing building at Bridge and Seward uh for commercial office space and also an opportunity to activate a pub uh sidewalk adjacent on Seward, uh which is awesome.

Uh so this is traditional Brownfield TIFF, which is uh demolition site prep infrastructure improvements uh to the tune of 710,831 dollars.

Uh the total private investment is 2.7 million, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Uh and just for the public's information, this is uh a project we've taken a look at already on in other components, but this is the Brownfield component.

So uh colleagues, any comments or questions?

Great.

Um then all in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

Motion carries.

Brings us to uh resolution for a 12-year industrial facilities exemption certificate for Falk Sheep Metal for a $5.4 million project located at 1782 Northbridge Northwest and Walker View Industrial Park.

Can I have a motion?

So moved.

Support and Ms.

Renault.

Great.

Yes, thank you.

This is um this is for the uh industrial facilities exemption certificate for 12 years.

The district was established in 2019.

And again, this is for Falk Sheep Metal, uh, which is adding uh 50,000 square foot production facility uh to the tune of 5.4 million dollars.

Uh and the abatement will be roughly 1.1 million over the 12-year period.

Happy to answer any questions.

Uh any questions, colleagues?

Uh, and just again for the public, this is not our first view of this project.

Um, and uh obviously I if I recall correctly, there's some uh some jobs come along with this, and not simply jobs.

Right.

And the next step will be the state tax commission.

Thank you.

Um all in favor then say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion carries.

Uh that brings us to our next resolution setting May 12, 2026 is a date to consider an ordinance amending chapter 28 of the historic preservation commission.

Um, Mr.

Wilson.

Oh, can I have a motion?

Support.

Lots of support.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, Commission.

Uh Kristen Turklson, Planning Director.

So this item as well as the next are uh virtually our companion items.

Uh, together they would allow for the issuance of a municipal civil infraction for the for violations of the historic preservation ordinance.

Currently, violations of that ordinance proceed from a notice of violation to a misdemeanor.

So the amendment would actually bring uh the enforcement of the historic preservation ordinance into alignment with other city ordinances and uh practic enforcement practices, including zoning.

Uh the city's preservation ordinance or excuse me, Historic Preservation Commission did recommend uh approval to you of this modification.

Uh and I'll also note that this is actually one of several efforts that the planning department is working on to evaluate current ordinances, uh, the administration of those ordinances and enforcement of them.

Uh for example, at the next commission meeting, we'll be introducing an amendment to streamline the appeals process for the crime prevention through environmental design or the SEPTED ordinance.

And of course, in uh June, you'll commission will be receiving an update on the uh city's zoning ordinance, which would include administration and enforcement of the same.

Uh so thank you for your time this morning and happy to answer any questions.

Um colleagues, I uh I do have a question myself.

So um there is essentially there's a there's a two-part um enforcement mechanism here.

Um and I would uh just say for my colleagues that I would um I'm not comfortable passing this as drafted.

I mean, this is only uh we're only talking about setting a hearing right now.

Um but as drafted, what this does is it sort of kicks the misdemeanor down the road, but it still leaves it on the books.

So uh if we recall our our discussion about um Denise ordinance, um we removed uh criminalization entirely from that ordinance.

Um I frankly think we should do the same thing here because there are there are two ways that you can get compliance from people.

One is the civil infraction, but then the other is um the uh civil penalties and remedies under MCL 33.215.

Um essentially this is what we're talking about is property, um, and that means it's got value, and I think that the vast majority of these, well well, whether or not they're their own occupied, a lot of these are owner occupied properties.

Um and I really don't have much of an appetite for ultimately giving somebody a criminal conviction.

Um as drafted, it's much better because it makes the criminal conviction for a fourth violation.

Um but I know that in some in some jurisdictions um there have been rulings that say that let's say the violation is peeling paint on your front window.

Um that on the second day uh that can be every day that you don't will you you willfully don't correct your violation can be seen as your second offense, your third offense, your fourth offense.

Um and I know that's not how we deal with things in Grand Rapids right now, but potentially we could.

So that's a concern for me.

But the bottom line is let's say someone willfully doesn't comply with this.

At the end of the day, we can use money penalties to enforce compliance, and in fact, I think to uh to have correction.

So I'm very reluctant to have even somebody who's grumpy and not cooperative with historic um wind up with a criminal offense at the end of the day.

So I would I would suggest colleagues that we amend this ultimately and and move towards something that only has fines and costs, and then we discuss whether a fourth amendment whether a fourth offense gives you a significant fine and cost, but not uh criminal conviction.

So could you speak, Ms.

Turkleson?

That's a long statement, but could you speak to Section 333.201, like what the other enforcement mechanisms are there besides simply fines?

Sure.

So when we start out with an enforcement practice, of course, it would become a uh notice of complaint where we make an individual aware that there's uh concerns associated with their property and specifically the compliance with certain uh ordinances in this case, of course, the preservation ordinance.

Uh from there, if we were not to uh receive any communication or cooperation, it then does uh escalate.

Uh it proceeds to uh notice of uh civil uh a notice of correction, then a notice of violation.

Uh should we not be able to resolve uh the concerns, which I would say is fairly limited in terms of the number of times we are not able to resolve uh an issue prior to the issuance or even upon the issuance of a notice of violation, uh we would then uh proceed to a civil infraction.

Um I feel a little bit out of my element without uh working with our code compliance department to better understand when we go from a civil infraction to a misdemeanor.

Happy to uh feel more prepared for that specific uh transition uh in the fair uh when I come back to you.

Um but that would be the step that would take place.

Yep, I just wanted to lay that out um so we can consider that.

Um particularly since some of these things are things where well, anyway, we we can leave it at that.

Uh this is uh this is a motion to set a hearing for that.

So it's a hearing it's not a hearing.

Okay to consider it.

To consider, sorry.

Um so any other questions or comments, colleagues?

Commissioner Cobra.

Yeah, having served on our housing appeals board.

I feel like our coal compliance does a very good job of really not getting to that point.

I've seen some very extreme um uh homes lacking safety measures and saying that it's historic preservation, so they they don't want to put in safety measures.

Our co-compliance is a great job with that, but um even with that, um I do I would be supportive of um aligning it with our goals of not being criminalized.

I would be supportive of that, and just wondering.

So, of course, I'm supportive of the consideration now, and then wondering how we move forward with uh changing the ordinance as presented a little bit now.

Mayor, we would work with uh Ms.

Turkles and our city attorney in looking at uh some of the feedback we've heard from two of you today.

I'm wondering if that is the majority of the commission, though.

I will concur with what has been said.

Okay, uh everyone else comfortable leaving it a misdemeanor.

This is up for consideration right now.

I think we need to have an opportunity to look at a little bit deeper and think about all your mic uh commission.

Oh sorry, y'all can hear hello.

Nope.

Um I think um this is just up for consideration right now, but I think there's an opportunity again to look at the totality of the circumstances and what is and what has happened in the past, right?

We don't know how many people have been locked up or put in jail for uh any of these situations, so it'd be interesting to really kind of see what all of that looks like.

Um and then think about you know what what can um some of the process look like uh before we get to that point.

I mean, I've I've kind of seen how the the system works, and I've not seen anybody in that situation, but of course, you know, I don't want anybody you know getting this uh a misdemeanor for the grass being a quarter of an inch taller than six.

So I think we need uh opportunity to really look at all of the information first before making the decision like that.

Commissioner Sassy.

Commissioner Speaker 1.

Thank you.

Uh thanks for the presentation.

I think um we have our city attorney up here.

These things don't end up on our agenda without a thorough review uh without looking at some of the policy pieces.

So I mean, is there anything else that to your point, city manager um that we should be considered from a legal standpoint?

City attorney I think either pathway is is legal.

Um I I have some thoughts about the equity uh involved here.

We're talking about buying your way into compliance if you want to just keep paying a fee to stay out of compliance.

Um in the historic preservation district that we know where where that is.

Um I I haven't done a deep dive or or asked for staff to evaluate the equity of decriminalizing uh this particular provision, but it's something that as we we're trying to reduce the uh access to the criminal justice system by providing more civil uh fines before that in this effort.

Um so I think that is in line with some of the intention I've heard from this body in the past to completely decriminalize it and take uh one way towards compliance or uh getting someone's attention.

Um I'd want to know the impact from a staff perspective too, but uh we can do that.

Thank you.

Okay, any further discussion, colleagues?

All right.

Um all in favor of the resolution then say aye.

Aye, all opposed, resolution passes.

Thank you.

Uh and that brings us to our next resolution setting May 12, uh, 2026 is the date to consider ordinance amending uh municipal city infractions, and I think that that's uh a companion essentially.

So I understand, but I because that's essentially a companion.

I think I just we could let's have a motion if we if I can.

I'll move support.

Okay, all in favor of any discussion, colleagues.

All in favor of the resolution say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thanks.

That brings us to uh resolution for uh public hearing on proposed property taxes.

Uh public hearing on Tuesday, May 12.

Um before we do that, yeah, I would ask that we take these out of order if you could, Mayor, if I could present the budget and we come back to those.

Is that okay?

Yep.

I just wanted to point out that uh resolutions eight and nine probably come should come properly after our uh discussion of the uh preliminary fiscal plan for the budget and city manager.

All right, thank thank you.

Joel, if you can bring the presentation up before we start.

Before we start, while we were bringing that up, I want to take a moment and thank uh the staff and publicly acknowledge all the hard work and collaboration that goes into an effort that like this.

This is no easy lift, and no one person can do this, and there are hundreds of people across the organization that have made this possible.

So uh first I want to thank our fiscal services staff for their guidance and professionalism, as that is their major role almost every day to be thinking about the budget and making sure that we have sound financial practices, as well as our budget office team uh specifically who uh is the backbone of the process and works very closely with department directors.

Uh I would be remiss if I did not thank my executive office.

You see them before you with all of that, all of those books in front of them.

That's that is the uh budget that we'll uh deliver here shortly for their uh partnership and strategic um direction uh that helps to align the work of the organization and lastly all the department directors and budget managers and office staff, some of who are assembled today, others who are in the departments uh doing the work, not only for your thoughtful planning anticipation of what some of the needs are of cities are uh will be, but also uh the execution of the budget and delivery on the many of the important services.

So, with that, I am uh pleased to prepare uh to present our fiscal year 27 preliminary plan.

You will hear from our CFO uh shortly, Molly Claren, who has uh been very pivotal and instrumental in helping us get to this point.

And today we uh are not expecting city commission to make any decisions.

This is an introduction.

You will get the full detailed budget for your review.

We have almost a month of deliberations.

Uh, but today I do want to hear at the conclusion of our briefing if there are particular areas that you are interested to see us highlight more in the coming weeks.

So that would be very helpful.

You will be tempted today to stop at any point of this presentation and ask a question, make a point, agree with something, disagree.

What I will ask you to do is exercise some discipline uh in just letting us get through the presentation of we're gonna have plenty of opportunity for deliberation and uh a brief introduction and then we'll hold questions to the end if that if that's okay with everyone.

Uh so this is a journey that we've started long time ago.

Actually, it is started even before your prioritization workshop.

Last September, we did our annual performance presentation, and that became the foundation for where we were as an organization at the end of fiscal year 25.

Um, as we begin to plan the work for fiscal year 26 and 27.

And so uh we've had the mid-year performance update in February, had good feedback from you both in November and February.

All of that has been taken in consideration along with the input that we've heard from our numerous uh committees and commissions, uh, and as well as taking feedback from our citizen survey, um, that led us to this point in formalizing uh the budget today.

As you'll see, there are two work sessions uh on the fifth and the twelfth.

On the fifth, we will go in more detail over governmental excellence, safe community, uh mobility.

Uh you'll hear from our vital streets oversight commission as well as we'll talk more about our uh engagement work in the city, and then on the 12th, we'll continue uh discussions and focus specifically on economic prosperity and affordability and our health and environment as we get ready for the hearing in your ultimate adoption of the budget on uh the 19th.

Our roadmap and values uh remain the same as you've heard during the presentation earlier about public services week.

The entire organization is aligned around our six core values uh that was highlighted earlier, as well as uh the alignment around our priorities as an organization, which you'll see the budget themes are grouped in um consistent with those priorities.

If you're called during your 2026 workshop, in addition to having Dr.

Funkhauser come and talk to us about how we collectively work in the commons and do work together as a governing body.

We also reaffirm the focus areas around those six priority areas, those those things that we really wanted to pay attention to.

And you'll see in this budget that we've addressed a lot of the areas that we've talked about previously.

This year's budget uh represents a 785 million dollar investment uh in all uh across all city funds and 206.7 million for the general fund.

Uh what we have proposed is a continuation of all basic services, and with one exception, there are there are two grant funded positions that we'll talk about that are not assumed in the budget, but will have to be reconsidered by the city commission to be added in.

There's also some other uh points of policy we want to have some deliberations on to more accurately target some of the spending uh that is in the proposal.

We continue to use the strategic plan as our roadmap, and um you can see the decrease in the millage rate, even though there's an associated increase in property values that will result in a slight uh overall increase to taxpayers, the millage rate is uh is decreased.

So a couple of things uh just from a macro level, again, highlighting the investment in uh all of our basic city services, and when you look at our water system, both with water, wastewater, and stormwater, significantly the health and environment section of the budget and specifically our water wastewater services, uh is this considerable investment over 200 million dollars there.

Our second highest investment as an organization is in public safety, um both police and fire, uh collectively over 125 million dollars when you look at both departments combined uh budgets, 75.4 million for police, 48.3 million uh for fire, and economic development uh 56.4 million, and you see the other investments in core services 48 million dollars for vital streets, 40 million for uh parks and community services, and continue to keep our city not only safe and recreational but also clean with 21 million dollars for our refuse and recycling programs, and you see the investments in library and the courts.

And we'll talk more about the courts.

We are very pleased with uh how the court has been uh run over the past couple years.

This is really not an increase in the court's budget, uh, but the general fund continues to subsidize the court at around 10 million dollars of that $13 million operating costs.

As you've heard earlier, uh, how you know there is no municipal services without municipal employees.

You saw some of them earlier this week.

We continue to invest in our employees.

Uh total personnel services over 236 million dollars.

Uh that also includes the continued funding for the second year of all of our collective bargaining agreements.

We've had some previous conversations around the public safety funding that we are expected to receive from the state.

We still have not received that uh as of yet.

We thought it would come in fiscal year 26.

We're hopefully uh that we will uh actually receive that in 207.

Uh, but with that, we did make a budget amendment uh last year in anticipation for that to add 10 police positions as well as anticipating how we can use the other 400,000 for crime prevention that's not traditional policing with uh sworn officers.

Um we'll talk a little bit more about that.

What we've been thinking is of that 400,000, uh perhaps uh use half of that for community-oriented prime prevention services and look and see where they're already existing programs that are outside of the police department within the organization that we could continue to amplify, or I know that there's been a lot of discussion about enhancing some of our uh reconciliation mediation uh efforts as a city, and perhaps that could be used for that as well.

A couple other things I would highlight.

Um we did talk about the Dash.

Uh our mobile GR director highlighted that change for us both at our mid-year update, and we had subsequent conversation.

I know mobile GR Commission has talked about it, it's been well covered in the media.

The fiscal impact of that is pretty significant.

It helps us to, by by making those changes, reducing the amount of buses that we have in our circulator, uh, we avoid over seven million dollars in capital costs over the next five years.

That takes a tremendous amount of relief off the parking fund.

Um, and that is also going to help us uh sustain our current on-street parking rate.

There are no increases for on-street meter parking.

There are no increases for on-street meter parking.

There are no increases on street meter parking.

Uh but we're able to do that uh because of the uh changes that were made in the dash, as well as uh it helps us to avoid uh 1.6 million dollar annual operating costs for operating the parking fund.

So uh we'll see it's still a pilot, um, but we'll see how those uh services are received, particularly as we open up some of the new assets and venues uh around the city.

Um we do have while there are no added positions for the general fund, again continuity budget.

We do have about 14 positions that are uh being recommended in non-general operating fund departments and uh among the departments of environmental services, water, mobile GR, parks, and engineering.

These are enterprise funds that are able to absorb uh the cost either by fees or services for those positions.

We did uh find a way to uh continue um an investment in the personal belongings uh storage program that we partner with Mel Trata Ministries in previously, if you recall, uh we were able to use or leverage some of the recovery money from ARPA.

I think for the first two years or so of that program.

Uh this is the last year we will have ARPA funding available to us, and so we had to not find another source of funding.

We found uh 100,000 from the refuse fund to allow us to continue to uh to invest in that program.

We also are talking to uh partners uh around the city and our philanthropic community to see if they too would be willing to uh invest in a storage program to help keep our city uh clean, but also to help those who are unhoused uh have a uh respectable decent place to store their their belongings.

And then again, um while we have not had we expect the discontinuation of the retail retention program with our other partners from the chamber uh and DGRI, there is sixty thousand dollars that is still remains in the proposed 2027 budget uh to have uh some contracted program.

And we are uh going to be potentially releasing an RFP to see if we can get someone to respond to that uh if they're willing to be a contractor for the city and help us with our retail retention and attraction.

Uh a couple other things uh I want to highlight uh you've already approved the water rates previously, and so we assume those increases in the budget, approximately two and a half percent on both uh for the combination of both systems.

Again, I highlighted earlier there are no change to the hourly on-street parking rates.

However, uh the maximum event special event rate for our ramps is already at $25.

We've just applied it to several new places, uh, our lots and ramps, rather.

We've applied it to several new places, particularly that are opening up closer uh to the amphitheater.

We'll talk more about that during our mobility briefing.

Uh monthly parking rates have increased uh consistent with cost of living, roughly three percent, and we have uh electric uh charging transitions to energy brace pricing model for our EV stations.

So a couple other things uh that over the course of the budget process, we will be looking to get feedback on.

We've had a lot of discussion around the eight and a half million dollars of the roads funding that are uh that will be coming to us uh from the state.

Again, we have still not received that yet.

There is some strategy on how we might allocate that creatively in addition to focusing on uh pedestrian safety and mobility.

There's been some discussion around uh what we can do collectively across the county around deer management as well as um thinking about how we can um continue to make our uh community uh safer.

I know Commissioner Um Belshack had asked previously about our fund balance, and um you'll hear more from our CFO, but we are in a very very good financial position.

So such that uh this year we are recommending transferring seven million dollars to our budget stabilization sub fund, and we'll likely come back to you with a budget amendment to do that in this fiscal year.

And our CFO can talk a little bit more about uh the timing of that.

Uh, but that will continue to position us with so much economic uncertainty at the international, national, and and sometimes even at state level.

I think it uh does us well to continue to reassure us uh that we will be able to withstand any unanticipated uh changes that would affect us economically uh by bolstering our rainy day fund.

I mentioned there are two positions that are not assumed in this budget.

There are two grant positions, one is the uh Office of Equity and Engagement, the other, I think that's a half a position actually for fiscal year 27.

The other is um out of our sustainability office, and uh similar to last year, we'll talk a little a little bit more about those functions, and you will get the opportunity to let us know if you would like to continue uh those programs and services.

Uh if so, then we will come back and make uh changes to uh the budget by the time you adopt it.

The other conversation I want to have um at some point is around the commission enhanced support and communication enhancements that you've had over the past year.

We've had a six months pilot, we extended it another six months, so now it's been a year.

We submitted a report.

Uh we did not get an opportunity to very thoroughly discuss uh that report.

So we did not assume the conversion of the pilot into a uh permanent uh program, permanent staffing, permanent programming.

Uh however, um if that is the wish of this body, we certainly would do that.

In the absence of that, uh we're prepared to uh extend the pilot uh another uh for a short time period to allow for that deliberation uh to occur.

We also included uh $50,000 for a disaster relief fund, a local disaster relief fund in the event that uh there's uh circumstances that happen that are unforeseen that federal government has not declared it as a disaster, and we're not eligible for federal funding.

The state may have not declared it as a disaster, and we're not making us eligible for state funding.

We thought it prudent to establish our own local disaster fund in come in collaboration with other community partners.

So the $50,000 is proposed to uh be an investment with the United Way to help us with uh public uh response and recovery in the event of uh the disaster, working with our emergency management office.

As we were formulating the budget, we uh thought that in addition to what uh is already recommended, uh we do have flexibility to increase that fifty thousand dollars beyond what is the recommended.

So uh by the time we adopt, if there's preference from the city commission, we could increase that, bolster that to a hundred thousand dollars.

So this time I would uh like to invite our CFO, Ms.

Claren, to come up and take us uh through some of the financials.

Thank you, City Manager.

Um so to start out, our our process for putting to it together the budget actually starts in September in the budget office at least.

Uh what we do all year is collect information um from departments and our various committees, things like that.

We get feedback, provide that to manager's office, but then we start making a revenue estimate.

Um from there, usually, you know, by December, we're we're putting together the information with departments with the turn-in deadline of January so that the city manager and his staff can start reviewing by February, March.

So it's it is a long journey, long process just to get to today.

Um, from there, for the good of the public, we will be having work sessions with the commission and with proposed adoption at our last meeting in um in May.

So uh when we look at our fiscal plan, we consider a lot of the different guidelines we have.

Um I always say this.

One of the things that's a pleasure to be CFO here is I am standing on top of a lot of sound financial policies.

We have good uh policies around contingencies and uh fund balance.

Um we know our treasurer's office, you know, they do really hard work, you know, managing that investment income.

Um, but other considerations we take into account is we're self-insured.

Um we you know make sure we know what's going on as far as any liability settlements or things like that are out there as we shape this fiscal plan.

So looking at that upper right hand graph, we've already mentioned fund balance.

Uh, right now at the end of fiscal year 25, we're at 44 about 45 percent.

Um our policy level is 15 percent, so well above that.

Um that is really just fortunate in as far as our income tax collection, um performing better than expectation, and also um as we came out of COVID, one of the things we did was um to get through COVID when we saw you know, revenues getting hit a little bit as we put more investment towards our contingency pro or our contingency sorry, compliance program, which is just going after those outstanding receipts from years past that we we discovered our city hadn't been you know following up on as aggressively.

So we worked on that through COVID and then found uh getting those state tapes and staying on top of things that that has been a good tool to bring in extra revenue.

So you can see we are you know proposing to intentionally set spend down our fund balance with this forecast, um, getting down to about 27%, which what's with what is in the budget right now.

You'll see a revised version for some of the things city manager already talked about, but um again, we're in a good financial position.

Um we also have a budget stabilization fund.

Um currently we have about 18.8 million in that budget stabilization fund.

Uh to put this simply, it's a rainy day fund.

It requires two-thirds vote from our city commission to put that money to use.

Um, so if we do have another huge disruption like COVID, uh we see income tax plummeting, which is the main revenue engine for the general fund.

We do have this reserve that the commission could choose to tap to keep services going while we while we ride out that disruption.

Um just for a note, we are uh with the fiscal 27 budget.

Our pot while our policy is 10% of general fund spending, we are at 9.1%.

So we're out of policy right now.

To get up to policy will be about a 1.9 million dollar budget amendment.

Um you can only contribute to the budget stabilization fund when your previous fiscal year you've operated at a surplus, so that's why we are able to contribute to it now.

Uh, you'll see on my next slide that we um our revenues or our expenditures do exceed our revenue for fiscal year 26.

That's why you see that drop in fund balance in fiscal year 26 estimate on the slide.

Um, so if we get past July 1st, we won't have that ability to use this tool to put money away.

Um, I talked a lot about the economics and things that are going on that could be um you know threats to our operation or cause disruption at the mid-year report.

So taking that into consideration, that's why you know, I would urge you to you know, definitely consider a contribution to the budget stabilization fund with the proposed contribution that would take the budget stabilization fund up to about 12%.

So give us a good cushion for a couple years.

Uh next again, um, when we're putting together this financial package for you, um, you know, we have uh 80-20 split in our health care costs.

Um we always contribute 100% to the actual actuarial computed um contributions.

Uh and so we do have a very healthy pension and oped system.

Um, and then as far as our capital improvement plan on fiscal year 26 was the first year we got back up to policy about diverting 5% of income tax to the capital improvement plan.

We are sustaining that for fiscal year 27, which is great considering all the all the initiatives we have going on in the river and elsewhere in the city.

So again, that it's gonna be in policy as far as maintenance of effort.

We do have the parks investment um as well as vital streets, which is just our general fund commission commitment to supporting those.

So uh with Vital Streets, that's about 850,000 a year.

Um, our parks um we call it the MO maintenance of effort, that is uh about 8.9 million this year.

It's gonna grow to about 10 million by the end of our forecast.

Uh city manager already mentioned our support towards the 61st district court, so about 10 million, um, 10.1 million this year.

It's gonna grow up over 12 million by the end of our forecast.

So, again, looking for that state legislative fix because it's not just us dealing with the court funding situation, it's a lot of our partners.

So, again, um still leaning into that.

Oh, and I will mention the public safety um as far as what's going on with fire and police as far as their share of the general fund.

So uh police at 36.5 percent, that um just a percentage, approximate percentage raised from last year, and that's mainly driven by adding those um 10 positions, the officers and two sergeants.

Um but again, that was because we are getting that um public safety trust fund revenue through revenue sharing that justified that ad uh fire at 23.4 percent.

So uh moving on, uh, you know, just just to talk about the cost drive, one of the cost drivers we see in the general fund related to public safety overtime.

So we have noticed that you know, we've been adding positions with the hope of dropping down that overtime.

We're not getting the responsiveness that we thought we would, or or we just need to get um those new positions more time to get in there and um be able to be operating.

So you know, you know, we have maximum coverage with what we have.

So you'll see this is our overtime impact in the last couple years.

Uh, we are going to engage in an overtime study with public safety, and just so we understand it more.

Like, what is the impact of adding staff and what should we see as a drop in overtime, understanding that scheduling impact, understanding how the departments deploy and make sure we're following best practices, things like that.

Um, these numbers are not just straight time wages, this is the full weight of what overtime is, so it's the wages and benefits.

So just including this for your information, you'll see the 27 adopted line at the bottom.

Um, you know, as far as 26 goes, that over under that's the approximate budget amendment we'll be bringing forward in May to get them through through fiscal year 26 funding.

Uh for 27, um, those are the the budget amounts, uh 4.3 million for police and 4 million for fire.

Our pension system.

Um again, we we we max out on that contra we as far as what is recommended.

Um, we always make that contribution.

Um, remember that funding is driven also by the performance of the markets.

So, what we contribute also, what are those assets earnings?

So, our funded ratio is about 79.9% for the general pension.

Um, and again, keeping an eye on that, still very healthy.

We are probably one of the most healthy um pension systems in the state, and it's just because our commission has chosen to prioritize this and and make sure we're there with our funding levels.

Uh, for fire and police, we're at 74.9% funded, which is which is again very very healthy.

And then moving on to OPEB, this is a combined graph of all of our um OPEB systems.

It's around, I believe the percentage was 93% blended.

So total city revenues.

Uh, you'll see charges for services is our largest category.

Um, we mentioned water and sewer before, they are big systems and uh rate payer supported, so that's the majority of what that blue uh piece big piece of pie is.

Um, and then on to income tax again, the main main source of funding for the general fund, but uh we're estimating about 154.8 million this year.

As far as our income tax projection goes, um this year we uh decided to deploy the GVSU model.

We talked about this a few times.

Um, that graph to the lower left shows the percentage of how much we expect base to grow um over the forecast, and how this how this income tax is divided up approximately 82% goes to the general fund, but the remaining is split between vital streets, sidewalks, and capital.

Uh, one thing I will note about this GVSU model, whereas before we handled forecasting internally and based things off of withholding, which went out the door when COVID happened because some people are changing up their withholding, or we have this work from home factor.

We couldn't get our arms around, so our forecasting kind of went um, we were being more conservative than what we expected, but it was hard to get that data.

So by bringing in this GVSU model, it accounts for things like uh residential and commercial construction, um, employment, weekly average wage.

Um they they have a couple sources they use for work from home trends.

They also consider CPI like we did, but um bring in a GDP element as well, which was interesting.

So this was um the you know, they give us a couple different like here's here's the best, and here's like what the floor is.

So maybe it could be as high as six percent, but as low as one percent.

We chose like a more positive end.

This is probably the most um aggressive I've seen our income tax forecast for a while uh for fiscal year 27.

Uh, we're looking at 4.37%, and our um people we worked with, the professor we worked with over at GBSU thought you know, this this would probably be the most reasonable track for the for us for our city.

As far as property tax goes, for every dollar you spend in property tax, this is where that dollar goes.

So you'll see it divided between the general fund, library fund, the refuse fund, capital improvement fund, as well as the parks fund.

So again, each of those millages being getting put to work on different operations.

And again, this this is kind of a because of like the headly rollback, I believe it was Prop A, it's only gonna be able to grow by so much.

So it's a it's kind of a strong, steady revenue, but um again, we're very pleased in this next chart.

City manager already alluded to you know the the headly rollback or how um our millage rate will be going down, and it's really for a problem a positive reason reason for our city is property values are going up.

So again, um it's a very positive story as far as how our property taxes are behaving.

Um you'll see the um in the bottom right corner there.

We see the um impact on our residents, um average you know, residential taxable value going up there, and um approximately the impact to a resident about $51.

So again, good story there.

As far as water sewer, we adopted those rates back in December.

Um so this is the the average impact.

You'll see about $20.94 for our water and sewer customers.

Moving on to the American Rescue Plan.

Uh, we had to obligate these funds by December of 2024.

We have to have them spent by the end of December 2026.

So this is as of March.

I am literally hitting the okay to submit into the portal today for our reporting on this quarter, but um, we have about 5.6 million left.

A lot of what you see left on the table in in um categories like provisions of government services.

I know those are a lot of mobility and traffic um projects that are wrapping up strong healthy communities.

That's our allocation towards the greenway.

Um and I think a couple of them might be up in provisionals or governmental services as well, but we are winding down.

We expect to have all of these, you know, well spent by December.

So on to the general fund.

So this is this forecast is what is currently in the binder you are about to receive in all those fund statements.

Um, our expectation.

Uh, you'll see fiscal year 26.

We um our total expenditures are exceeding our total revenue, so you'll see that 2.3 million dollar loss this year.

That's mainly driven by a couple budget amendments we did this year.

We tried to we decided to advance some funding on certain initiatives like the museum.

That was a 4.1 million dollar budget amendment.

Uh we also um needed more money because of change orders related to the ERP, that was 690,000.

So those those two big things um did impact did impact this forecast.

Um so you know, just being mindful going forward while it was it was intentional.

We have talked about that 88 million.

We we intentionally meant to draw down that 88 million a little bit because yeah, our that put took our um fund balance as a percent of the expenditures um down a little bit for 2026.

Sorry.

So going forward to 2027 proposed budget that starts in fiscal year 27, you'll see we're pretty tight.

We're positive 305,000 dollars.

So should the commission decide to um amend the the budget in any way be mindful of what the impact is to that, do we want to balance, you know, and do we want to adopt a balanced budget?

Um so just being mindful of what we're adding, where we're adding it, is it one time?

Is it gonna be continuous?

Um, things like that.

I would urge you if um it is the appetite to put some of that fund balance to work, make it one time because as you know, when you add continuous things, that tends to compound.

So uh what the city manager proposed for revisions, a lot of them are are more one time in nature.

Um, so moving on to that revised forecast, you'll see um we count for the um public safety revenue sharing amount.

Um, that 1.7 million dollars is not going to arrive until September.

So it's in the it's in the 27 forecast, but I'm gonna take it out of the 26 forecast just just to show you the impact of what that does to our to our fund balance.

That's 1.7.

We will not receive.

Uh also with the contribution to the budget stabilization fund of $7 million, um, that takes our loss to $11 million.

Again, intentional.

Um one nice thing about the budget stabilization fund is it's still in the city's coffers, but we're making sure we're we're protecting ourselves for the future.

So it's so it's while it's it's just moving one fund to another, it's not going out.

So again, good idea for a use of one time use of money.

Into 27, you'll see that $50,000 for the contribution for disaster relief.

We put together the budget with a $50,000 already in there.

We didn't anticipate.

Well, we we decided, you know, after we finish moving the numbers, 50 more thousand we could definitely afford.

So that takes that balance down to 255,000 as far as our net revenue goes.

And then you can see in the out forecast, we did uh put a placeholder of possible you know, labor cost increases, things like that.

Um good good to create a placeholder for that because it is realistic.

We are gonna have to do something with labor contracts, but um having that placeholder out on the horizon keeps us mindful of where we're gonna be at the end of our forecast, which as you see is right at that 15% uh policy level.

So again, you know, this is a working revision.

Um, if if you are in agreement, we can definitely bring forward those budget amendments or make those adjustments to the 27 adopted.

And then just this is just another visual to show you the impact of the the you know fund balance.

We do spend it down to policy level sooner.

So you see with that orange line there.

As far as uh personnel additions go, you'll see um additions to environmental services, which again enhance enhance pro plant operations as well as water.

I will mention with environmental services and water, we set their revenue back in, we adopt their rates in November or December.

That those news rec revenues kick in in January, so we start seeing performance.

So when they came in for budget review, we look at what the impact is of this new revenue, and definitely um could absorb these costs with with what they had adopted previously.

Um mobile gr we're you know, enhancing support there for parking enforcement, um, and then right sizing our facility you know, parking facilities management and adding capacity to our to our team there, the planning team.

Uh parks and rec.

We want to maintain the parks we have out there, so we have a ground keeper edition, as well as um funded by the engineering fund.

We want a capital analyst.

Our our capital program gets more and more elaborate every year, as well as compliance work we have to do based on funding source, things like that.

So uh again, providing some relief for staff there with that that support.

Um moving on to the unfunded positions or programs.

That top box is our grants, grant positions mentioned before, two positions.

Um the administrative services officer as a program coordinator in equity and engagement.

Um, their grant runs out in um December, and so this looks like full year funding, but um we would actually appropriate probably about 50% of this 155,000 to account for just needing funding through January to June.

Um, and then um in our office of sustainability in the executive office, our energy and carbon specialist, that grant expires, and this is the approximate six-month cost 63,000.

So again, you know, it do we want to continue these programs or or allow the grants to expire?

That's something up for consideration.

Um, other other things we have on here is the commission enhanced support, um, a position as well as a contract, and then an administrative analyst, which could handle media as being a mediation coordinator, um, helping with public relations, so that would be about 150,000.

Um, so again, just something for consideration.

I spent a lot again.

I spent a lot of time at maybe you're talking more about our forecast, I guess, or our economic outlook.

I'm even more confused now now that we put together this budget, and now we have Iran happening and all those kind of things.

So I'm concerned about the cost of fuel, aluminum, steel, um, it's you know, and it and it's ever changing.

We're seeing slowing economic growth both nationally and regionally.

Um so again, just keeping an eye on that.

I can assure you, I was asked specifically yesterday about fuel.

Um, as far as our our you know, fleet is probably our largest user.

Um last few years we have not had to tap into our 50 or sorry, 500,000 dollar contingency.

Um, this year we're starting to we did a purchase, I believe, um, or we're doing a purchase this week, so we are starting to.

We think we're gonna be able to end the year in the budget we have, but we do have contingency for a lot of these things.

So the general fund we have one and a half million in fleet.

We have fifty, oh my gosh, five hundred thousand.

So um we do have reserves as well as fund balance to draw from.

Those are conversations we'll have as the year goes as far as the uncertainty.

So, but it's good to you know, keep these things on on the horizon.

Um, again, being mindful of affordability is also important too because it's not just in what's going on nationally and locally in the economy.

It's it's not impacting just the city, it's our residents.

We we also want to be mindful of.

This is um already been put to use, and we are because we're not receiving that revenue in May as expected, it got pushed to September.

Uh that 1.3 million for the police department position ads.

Um, again, we'll get that funding, but we are using a little bit of our reserves now for that.

Um, and and then city manager mentioned what how we're using the rest of that funding on that 1.7 million.

We have an internal internal city department programs as well as community-based programs for the other half of that 400,000.

Um, other key revenues include our um third ward equity um investments.

This is one million dollars we put to use annually.

Um, again, we we like to fund that grow 1000 program.

Um, we also have the youth oriented and public health programming around 200,000, and then um for 27 leading into traffic and pedestrian safety projects.

The next three uh tranches of revenue um handled by other bodies and by this body.

So um we're gonna get more into that when we get into the other work sessions, but I thought I would list them here.

Our affordable housing fund, we're um getting up to over 10 million dollars with the sale of 2019.

Um that contribution will come to you probably in May as a budget amendment to be able to send that cash out into our um affordable housing fund at the community foundation to get put to use.

Um as far as our opioid settlement funds, uh right now we're having a bail for 1.1 million uh with the 20 set 2027 neighborhood investment plan.

We're putting 800,000 dollars to use, uh about half a million.

We anticipate in additional revenue this year, so that balance for 20 by fiscal year 28 will be around 800,000.

And then the neighborhood roads fund.

Um again, this was another um tranche of money that uh got delayed.

Um now we expect that in September.

We'll handle that by budget amendment later, but uh we do want to discuss it with you during our work sessions about how to put that money to to use.

So overall, again, our total what citywide approach uh pro I'm almost there.

Oh my gosh.

Our total citywide appropriation is 785 million.

Um, our general fund appropriation is 207 million.

And with that, I can move on to the service provisions.

I'm gonna shift my notes.

Okay, for service provisions.

Um these uh again, um each department manages various fees across our city.

Um, you know, some of them require, you know, we we try to make sure we get through all of them for review.

We dedicate at least a third of them for you know, maybe that extra step of review because there's a lot of them.

We have um uh 1,272 fees total that's in this omnibus that you're gonna be um looking through.

Uh you'll see um you'll see basically they're divided into different categories.

Uh we have uh fees with no recommended change, which would be code A, uh fees with the cost of living adjustment, that's code B, uh fees larger than the cost of living adjustment, which is basically around three percent, um, code C, and then fees achieving full cost that are achieving less than full cost recovery would be code D.

So as you look at the chart of fees that's connect that's attached to that commission item, you'll see them.

There's a couple different attachments.

First one I believe is just sorted by department, the rest of them are sorted by these different fee categories.

If there is an area you want to dig in uh more deeply, but you'll see department district description, you'll see description of the fee, you'll see uh what was adopted in 26, what is being proposed for 27, the percent of cost recovery, um, as well as that change code, so you can link it back to okay.

Is this is this above or below?

Um, you know, just as far as far as these fees go, um, we are not affecting like 63% of them are not going to be changed at all.

Um the ones I will note for you is um we have new things going on, like the MLK Community Center.

We have 19 new fees associated with that, for instance.

So that might be something to just take a look at for awareness.

Uh, we also are um doing memorial opportunities with the parks and rec department.

Um there's four fees related to memorial operating opportunities ranging from uh trees, benches, plaques at the parks, trails, and the nature preserve parks in the city of Grand Rapids.

Um I believe we have some adjustments, City Mansion to parking fees related to the garages, um, and then you know, garages and event fees.

Um so, and then I know one category, category D where fees are not achieving full cost recovery.

That's usually with a purpose.

So if you do have a specific question about like why does it fall in that category, you'll see a lot of cold compliance planning, um, parks and racks, cemeteries, things of that nature where it's probably a little more intentional.

Um code C, uh, you know, where fees increase to increased greater than the cost of living.

A lot of the explanation might be um, I think in the majority of cases, we haven't touched that fee in quite a few years, so sometimes it's gonna be more than that three percent.

So we should um, you know, we'll definitely dig into it if if you do have sp you know specific questions about a fee.

Um, and with that, we'll go back to the strategic plan priorities.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right, thank you, Miss Claren.

So, real quickly, um I already highlighted much of this has been highlighted uh the investments in uh by different strategic categories.

I'm just gonna highlight just a few things.

There's there's a lot of facility management that is occurring.

Uh 442,000 for asset management projects uh in our various facilities.

We have uh we'll talk more about some of the renovations in the police department later.

I know the elevator is being upgraded.

There's some other facility work that's happening there.

I see Phil here.

Um 1.6 million dollars for our public safety uh recruitment class for both police and fire.

Uh economic prosperity and affordability.

I appreciate uh CFO highlighting the third ward equity fund.

But I do want to also mention we talked about the RX Kids program previously.

I know the mayor highlighted that in his state of the city, and it seems like uh the area of the city where there will be the most focus on for that program is the 49507 zip code.

So that I've just talked to some of the community partners, and we'll be looking to make a contribution uh from the third ward equity fund since it's specifically targeted to the 49507 uh zip code to help uh leverage some of the funding that the community is raising raising for that.

Uh and you'll see additional 4.3 million for the AME DC talent grant uh that will help with support for the uh placemaking and workforce development.

Uh engage and connected, a lot of good work uh to continue to make sure that we're able to reach our entire community.

Um do want to uh thank the planning department for the continuation of the development with us program that helps us to make sure that uh given all the things that are happening around the city uh and not just in with business cores or corridors but in neighborhoods that we make sure that we're able to engage and form residents.

I know that's been a focus of this commission to uh make sure that we are actively communicating and you see the various um investments that allow us to do that all the way up to our own clerks uh efforts to make sure that voters are educated and aware.

A lot of good work happening health and environment.

We highlighted some of the um things that were happening in our park system.

Uh Ms.

Claren, I would want to clarify one thing on the fees.

The MLK park fees, I believe we established that already.

So that's a continuation of those fees that we had previously established.

Um but we're continuing to invest in um keeping good infrastructure, making sure that we're resilient, uh, especially doing uh you know, very um unpredictable weather climate events.

Uh we continue our led service line implementation program as well as uh making sure that we um enhance um our efforts to um prevent the risks associated with flooding uh along Butterwart Street.

Regarding mobility, we'll have more discussion around our mobility investments.

I know the eight and a half million dollars that we're anticipating uh is of interest to many of you, but we continue to have 48 million dollars for our vital streets programs and um multimodal use.

Uh as you see some of the other major capital projects, the 10 million dollars for the uh wealthy interchange study.

Yeah, the MEDC has helped uh us with supporting that.

Um, and you'll also see some of the positions we highlighted earlier that we're adding in terms of staff for uh mobile GR.

Safe community, a lot of capital investments, uh particularly on the fire side.

Uh much of that was grant leverage uh from the state, 35 million of uh the that has been supported through grants that will allow us to continue to um develop our training center.

I know we've had the ground breaking on that as well as uh the fire station operations.

I do want to um I didn't highlight earlier um the OPA uh budget.

Um think I have that on there, uh but I think it's a little less than three million dollars, but approximately 1.7 million of that is uh for body cameras uh for the axon contract.

But uh again, continuation of many of the services uh that we um highlighted previously.

Real briefly, our capital uh plan across five years, roughly 560 million dollars uh from 27 to 31.

If you broke down the vital streets investment by ward, you'll see uh over the past 10 years, pretty equal.

Uh fiscal 2027, uh we are making uh more investment in the uh second ward uh this year, but if you can see uh through all 15 years of the program, once we complete it, it will be equal investment in each ward.

Uh and there's the uh breakdown of uh fiscal year 27 of our capital plan, 134 million dollars across the various departments.

You'll see some of the projects that are listed in each ward, not all projects, but highlights of those that are in the first ward, assembly uh second ward and a third ward.

It's in more detailed in both the budget submittal as well as um you have believe that's in your packet, as well as our projects in our neighborhood of focus across uh the various wards.

So I know we've talked a lot about a pause and just uh see what questions you might have at areas of further interest you might want us to explore over the next uh few weeks.

Uh but if you have questions beyond today, please uh submit your questions to me or our CFO directly.

We will uh determine whether or not that's a question that should be answered by the budget office or requires additional research from staff outside of the fiscal office.

But we've asked these departments for a lot of information, so we want to be respectful of their time and not ask them to resubmit things that have already resubmitted.

So that's why I'm asking you to direct your questions to uh me or the CFO, and we'll make sure if we cannot answer a question on the diet set of the presentation that we will ensure uh do so at the by the next city uh commission workshop or meeting.

We'll also be posting uh questions and responses online for both your review as well as the public.

So if you want to maintain transparency in the process.

With that, I'll pause and see uh what questions or areas of interest uh you would like to see us focus on in coming weeks.

Okay, colleagues Commissioner Belchuk.

I do have a question about the Dash, and I know that that's something we may be discussing more in depth in the future.

But I'm wondering if you could explain why or how the decision was made to um make the changes in-house versus considering it like a 1.6 million dollar budget amendment or something that we would need to actually discuss as a commission.

Yeah, I'll very briefly then we can discover this uh explore this more.

Last year, there was some sensitivity to parking rate increases.

And part of the things that we that were driving parking rate increases was the Dash itself, because uh both the mayor sits on uh the rapid board, both they had concerns about the unaffordability unsustainability of of the dash as well as we so, in order to take some pressure off the cost of parking, we had to make an adjustment of a service in which we do not collect any revenue for.

So that's the reason why we made the adjustments.

But we can talk about that in more detail.

Colleagues, um thank you.

Um, thanks for the overview and presentation, Miss Claren, everybody who put together this packet, as you said.

This this doesn't just come together, you know, in this last month.

So um, with lots of changes and lots of things that are happening.

Um, if we could do a bit of an overview, I know you talked about the public safety trust fund money.

Um, I think it's clear to me what those dollars can be spent on.

We'll go through this process, obviously, 75% program directly to um to public safety, what's considered direct service, or you know, I'm not sure if that's the right language, and then we'll determine what else we do with the amount of money.

I think there's we certainly have a lot of good processes in the city to um distribute dollars effectively to communities with community impact and feedback.

Um, and so with that in mind, it probably that pot of money is not so much my question because it's more clearly defined what that money should be spent on, and we'll go through that process, and I'm sure that will be rigorous.

My question is on the um the road funding dollars.

I think for me, that is not really clear uh what the state intends this money to be spent on.

We also obviously have our vital streets millage, um, that you know, sort of people in the city of Grand Rapids have already been investing.

Thank you, residents of the city of Grand Rapids, um, in the quality of our streets.

And so I'd like some clarity around that.

I've I've had people out in the community already tell me what they think we're spending the money on, and so I'm always a little shocked to to be told that.

Um so I'd like some guidelines on what our uh what was the intention of that language, um, and then how do we put that into practice?

Um, you know, I'm glad you brought up these severe weather events or you know, I don't know if they're called naturally occurring.

I don't know I'm not sure the right language, but some serious weather events that happened, you know, we were all in Lansing when um there was really flash flooding that occurred in the city.

We were watching the the river quite very closely.

We're obviously making all these investments in the river, and so I'd like to understand what is requ what is required with that funding and how we might also look at um you know some of these streets that are impacted by some of these severe weather pieces because I think that's definitely one of our to me one of the priorities.

So I would say that.

Um I would say I I think the last thing that I would just say is um just more on and sort of what's in front of us because you know, like you said, uh this continuation, there's a lot of uncertainty, Miss Claren uh, you know, mentioned.

Sorry, I didn't see where you were, my lady was like uh I know you just didn't leave.

Um, you know, certainly lots of changing geopolitical forces at play.

And so for me, you know, I think about um how do we get out.

So this is another topic.

Let me just kind of define that.

So talked about public safety trust funds, talked about the roads fund, and I want to shift to um sort of the uncertainty that we have in front of us, right?

Is much more uncertain.

Um heard a really interesting story today about tariffs and businesses that are impacted, and and anyways, my my piece I want to just be really clear is is that I'm not interested in continuing um any of the un and I know you don't have it in there, but any of the unfunded pieces as it relates to uh commission support.

Um I have yet to be convinced of how what is the value add on this.

Um I think um I would actually really rely on or you know, I would as I was looking at the last uh printed edition of East Town's Access Newsletter.

I really feel like our neighborhood um organizations, some that are funded had been funded, were have never been funded, are really valuable tools for us to get messages out, especially right now when there is a lot of uncertainty.

And I know some of us have talked about, you know, just sort of the um increased sort of news sources.

I'm using quotations of um some pieces out in our community.

Um, and everybody's entitled to their opinion, and everybody, you know, people have their their First Amendment rights.

Um, but I think there is a lot of miscommunication that is happening right now in our community, and it's no surprise there's elections going on and you know, all these sorts of things.

So I I just would like to say I'd really like us to explore.

I don't want us to get stuck in a binary decision of are we doing um are we gonna do this commission support or not?

I would like us to explore how we better communicate with our residents with our neighbors.

I mean, my husband's in the audience, and he probably watched my ward newsletter.

Thanks, hon.

Um, but I don't know how many people watch that ward newsletter.

And I think that we should really be saying who are those folks that are most connected.

We saw many of them at the neighborhood uh summit this past weekend, and how can we help them?

Many of them had said, like, how can we help further our messages?

And so I'd like us to explore that um and not be so focused on the binary or not, and even though I know it's not in the budget, city manager, but I I know we probably have differing opinions on what that looks like.

So I just think again, we have consistently been um sort of hit on the socials with a lot of people saying that they're new sources and they're not, and that's concerning to me.

So okay, those are my three three priorities I wanted to talk about.

Thank you.

And we'll make sure that we talk about those uh state funds in more detail.

Uh Miss Baron's in team have been very careful to create a menu of options of things we would ask the city commission to consider as targeted areas for uses of uh the road funding.

So we'll we'll have be happy to go through them.

Yeah.

And uh yeah, uh I I second Commissioner Usasi's sentiment there.

Like there's uh if we have a new source of money, it's very it's very important to have continuity in the city, and so when we have a budget, the vast majority of it is let's do what we did last year, right?

We don't want to stop plowing our streets, we want to stop collecting garbage, we don't want to stop the complicated machine that is the city.

Um, but when there's an actual new source of money, then you get to that's an opportunity to step back and say, Oh, can we do something new?

Um and so uh I think that's an unusually exciting uh part of the money we haven't seen yet.

It's been announced, and so I think I I I understand the the need to not not spend money before we got it, and we kind of took a leap of faith on the police officers.

Um, but with road funding, uh, I think your decision city managers is the correct one to be deliberate about that, imaginative but also deliberative and also a little cautious.

So, Commissioner Cogar, you had uh your hand up.

Are you okay?

Okay, uh thank you so much uh to all of our staff.

It is a true uh on public service recognition week.

It's great to see all of our staff working really hard on this.

I really appreciate it on myself and several, the majority of the commission uh did seem to want to hear more about our proposed service and provision fees.

Uh I am really as we are responding to the question of what we will want to see even more of.

I I believe you said it's included, Miss Claren, but more or you're open to discussing more about the individual fees.

I really um will be looking forward to um assessing code C, uh fees larger than the cost of living adjustments, and we'll really want to uh hear uh the rationale and understanding about uh code C, uh larger than cost of living adjustments, as we know our neighbors and constituents um their pay, uh their salaries are continuing to um really just still uh and stall and and are not increasing.

So that is something I look forward to researching and talking more with um our colleagues.

In addition, we talked about the great tool that Vital Streets Oversight Commission has been as a former chair.

I'm always really zeroed in on that wonderful tool for our community.

As Commissioner Isasy said, it is wonderful that our neighbors support this, and then I also want us to continue to continue to know that this is sunsetting soon.

So I'd like to hear more on what are our efforts to continue this tool as we see, even if Lansing says we're gonna get more money, it's sort of like, oh my gosh, when, right?

Uh so this is a good tool that we have, and I want to hear more about our plan to continue that.

So those are my two uh things I'd like to zero in on and see more.

But thank you so much for this.

This is a very good presentation.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Kilgore.

Thank you for uh your comments.

Uh, do want to remind the commission.

Um, unlike last year, we wanted to introduce the uh fee ordinance um earlier.

And you have that in your packet today, in your full city commission packet, a full disclosure of those fees, and we're happy to talk to them about them in more detail over the coming weeks.

Thank you.

Commissioner Knight.

Um, yes, thank you again, um, city staff for putting all this together and echoing the sentiments of y'all can't hear me, right?

No.

Okay.

Echoing the sentiments of uh Commissioner Sasi, especially um around the um the administrative support and really thinking about how that's really impacting our community, if it's really impacting the community, right?

And so um one thing that I've advocated for from day one is really utilizing our neighborhood associations uh to really help be a uh an extra arm into community.

They they tend to have the the heartbeat or the pulse of what the community is saying and what a lot of their needs are, and so really being able to help support that work and that communication.

Um I I kind of had a question about um I know the the police funding that we get from the state is you know very specific on what it's supposed to be used for, but I'm also thinking about, and these are questions that I've gotten recently from community about um the activation of these new assets that we have downtown and how much of our police forth is going to be used to help redirect the direct traffic and kind of like where is all of that coming from and is that money coming from mobile GR then looking at how they had to, you know, we've we had to cut back on the dash um what what the funding is gonna look like to support that and if that's coming like directly out of their budget or you know I mean um what we're doing in that just kind of looking ahead.

We don't know what it's gonna look like until it starts, right?

Um, but really kind of uh keeping an eye on what um and how that's gonna impact our community and then also um the the impact on funds supporting our our public safety department.

Um I got a couple other questions, but I think I can just email those to you.

And I know that thank you for for that.

I know that's been a um a real question of interest uh in terms of the amount of city resources that will be needed to help to support these new facilities that we have.

And fortunately, next week we will be discussing both uh safe community and um uh mobility.

And uh just at a at a high level, um I'm looking forward to uh Chief Trig really uh unpacking uh kind of the operational plan.

I know Miss Barons has uh done that at public safety committee as well as uh we had a press conference um a week or so ago.

But the fiscal impact, I think we're really um looking forward to being very prepared for uh the first couple of shows and then learning and then seeing whether adjustments can be made, and we're happy to talk about the fiscal impacts of that, but also uh if there are other partnering agencies uh that we can collaborate with on the public safety side um with uh since it is the uh city county conventional arena authority.

Uh the the county may be also uh able to help us in some of the safety uh efforts around that venue specifically.

Uh and as you said earlier, the the funding um the breaded streams of funding.

Uh we uh get contributions from the CAA and the city.

I will say on mobile GR, but there's a there's a benefit.

It's not because of the events, people are parking more in ramps and on the street, and so there's there's an added enhancement to our mobility revenue and operation from them.

So it makes sense uh for there to be some participation uh from the uh parking fund.

Commissioner Purdue.

Yes, good morning.

Thank you.

Um I echo all the thanks and gratitude to staff and leadership for preparing uh for one of our most exciting times of the year and really appreciate the preliminary overview and look forward to going into further depth in each of these areas over the coming weeks.

For now, I'd like to uh in addition to some of the the topics that my colleagues mentioned they want to go deeper in.

I will also add um neighborhood organizations and how we might better support our uh neighborhood associations.

This has been a huge need for quite some time.

Um, and so I would like us to raise that up in this conversation and see what steps we can begin to make.

Um, I think in the third ward, Commissioner Kilgore and I discuss being open to using Third War Equity Fund to get some of that going.

Um so we can talk to get a little bit more into those details, but what um for the third war specifically, but also just we need to figure out how to bolster and strengthen our network of neighborhood associations.

I mean, they are really talk about communication and advocacy and really understanding local needs um and being a bridge to City Hall.

Uh they are those uh folks, they really help in that area.

Um, and we a lot of them don't have a lot of support.

So um we'll like to raise that.

Also, I'm looking forward to going to how we might uh use road funding.

Um, and then want to raise we talked about this uh when we looked at the water and sewer rates.

Um and Mayor, you you really uh focus in on this, but how we might use those fees or um that are put into that pot of late fees, the late fees that are put into a pot to assist people, and there's usually quite a lot of dollars left over in that, and we wanted to be more proactive about figuring out a good way to utilize those dollars.

The late fees that are put into a pot to assist people, and there's usually quite a lot of dollars left over in that, and we wanted to be more proactive about figuring out a good way to utilize those dollars.

So I'm sure we can make sure that we have that discussion when we go deeper into that topic, but wanted to flag that.

Um and then finally, did you want to respond to that, Mayor?

Well, I if you don't mind me jumping in, it's like it's not the rules, you can keep going.

But I just wanted to remind for the public, this is really I think something we're both excited about is there's this what we've got is a a big uh non uh really substantial pile of late fee money that comes out of all around the county, and then that money gets used not for it's not on a need base that it gets allocated out, but it gets allocated out according to like whether your part of the community had a ri had a raise in your water rate that was bigger than on other part of the communities.

And that doesn't necessarily track on an equity lens at all.

Um and so I that's a conversation that I think uh I I think it's exciting to have, and thank you for just I just wanted to say amen on that, and thanks for having we're not done with the conversation.

It's really maybe not even part of this discussion, so we would maybe we went a little off track.

But yeah, thank you for that.

No, I think it is though, right?

Because what happened last year is we got to the point where you know all the dis you know it was really hard to redirect those funds at that point, and so I do think it's good to for us to set some of those expectations uh before we get there again.

Um I think so.

Other than that, um let me just fumble through my notes here or thumb through.

Um I think I have a follow-up question for Ms.

Claren.

Um I am curious about um our income tax projections, our income tax growth projection.

You mentioned working with the Grand Valley professor.

I don't think I caught what you all uh you do use to decide those projections between uh 2027 and 31.

So I'm curious about that and particularly why they uh why we project that they might decrease over that time.

Um and then I have one more follow-up after that.

Um yeah, I can I can just briefly talk about they they we can jump more into the model if you want to know more of the nuts and bolts, but it's their forecast model over time.

So um it actually includes some of the stuff I talked about mid-year and and today with the slowing down of the economy right now.

Um, you know, different different things they take into account.

I mentioned the you know what's going on construction-wise in the city, um, you know, what what permits have been pulled in the last few months is that an indicator going forward and what we expect after that.

So they they are on trend with what we heard from like the right place and um yeah, econ club.

Um, you know, the the things I go to and I'm like, okay, what's going on in our region?

Um, you know, they're pulling some of that same data too, where there is this projected slow down by 2030.

Um will it will it be a will it be a recession?

Will it be uh, you know, just a slowdown will get going again.

So um I can definitely do more of a write-up on the G VSU model though, if you do want to know some of the more uh finer points of what goes into those numbers.

Um yeah.

Well, let me let me add to to that because I think in the budget book, uh we do a pretty good job of spelling out, and you'll get it on page 20.

And it incorporates uh those variables that Ms.

Clearin added with income point income uh tax, employment, average weekly wages, inflation, the work from home trends, uh the city planning department's future uh uh forecasts of projects, regional construction, uh the Bureau label statistics, regional unemployment figures, the CPI, consumer price index, the gross domestic product for the MSA and weekly wages.

It it is a really really comprehensive variable.

And even in its comprehensiveness, we were very, very aggressive as we we've never had a forecast of four percent income tax increase.

So I trust their 27 uh forecast, and I think what they're saying in terms of the future is not any different than what we've heard as Ms.

Clarence said.

Yes, and I think every year that I've been up here, we always this is what's got this.

But but this this is different.

That's what I'm saying.

They've they've aggressively forecasted both 27 and the out years.

But they showed they showed the out years being less um aggressive than the current year.

But in the past, our forecast would have been a three percent for this year.

South and a half, yeah.

Okay, so we're gonna go.

Yeah, so this is since I've been CFO over the last seven years, this has been the most um aggressive aggressive, especially in those out years, but but they are seeing that you know, tipping off.

There's no reason to expect growth right now.

I uh you know, or a higher higher rate of growth right now, in their opinion, compared to 27.

So yeah, um one other thing I'll just take a note of when we mentioned those the late fee revenue from the water and sewer utility.

The that that revenue is actually governed by our utility agreements.

So I would suggest that conversation happen outside of the budget process just because there's going to be we did want to explore that, it is a whole other thing.

So well, I was gonna address that to make sure we level set expectations.

We're happy to have the conversation.

But what we did this year, because there was not a lot of flexibility with that fund specifically, because it is a regional program.

That's the reason why we wanted to uh have a couple of areas where it could be more locally focused with our disaster relief fund that we were proposing.

Um as well as their uh for the neighborhood specifically, we're in pending litigation over a major source of revenue that could be allocated uh with more discretion uh to some of our neighborhoods uh down the road.

And so I was hoping that would not be the case at this time.

And so those were the two things that um I was anticipating that would allow us to have uh more localized focus on helping people in relief.

So if you can hang on there for just a second, first of all, you had a follow up question.

Yeah, so um very um very in-depth sophisticated formula.

Is population growth part of the con the consideration?

Okay, yeah, thank you.

Okay, and then the last question I had um was just related to overtime.

Really excited to see that we are going to be doing a study to see uh what's the best path forward.

Um more so a question out of curiosity, uh, given the actual numbers for both 25 and 26.

Um curious why the proposed amount, I'm looking at slide 14.

The proposed amounts don't more closely ref reflect what has been the trend of actual spending.

Well, you know, I will I will say when there's an election year, believe that you know you'll see you'll see that reflected in the numbers.

We're just hit harder, and we can't forecast how many times the candidates gonna come to the city.

We also can't predict if there's going to be like a civil unrest incidents, things like that.

And I don't know, city manager, if you want to add to that, but it is a um that's one of the reasons we're doing the study.

It has been hard to um, you know, think about okay, what's what is the right size staffing for our city or what is the proper scheduling and and taking that into account and knowing how big our over, you know, we're doing budget amendments almost every year now.

So, you know, talking with city managers, like we need to we need to understand this better.

So we're getting our hands around it.

So let me uh um add to to Ms.

Clear's comment.

So yes, there's a lot of variability around labor costs, uh weather, inclement weather, both extreme heat, stream cold at ads, a lot to first responders.

We've seen that this past winter.

Major events, whether they're venues or their election seasons, those contributed variability.

What we've tried to do based on direction that we've gotten from this commission in the past is to charge the departments to try to manage the costs.

And that is what they have done while the overtime budget has exceeded in some areas, as uh their ability to reduce costs in other areas could offset those those overtime costs.

The fire department did a really good job of that a couple of years ago when we added um some um firefighters to uh the roster, and we were able to reduce those costs significantly.

They're starting to creep again uh and we need to better understand why.

But before we resign and say we need a double overtime, we want to have a very thorough management evaluation of what's happening before just assuming that's business as usual.

Again, as I said, with uh public safety on the police side, there may be other ways to uh mitigate that cost with other agencies or to get additional revenue uh outside uh the city before we just assume the general fund has to incur that on an ongoing basis.

So I'm I'm hopeful the study will uh be more informative of what we uh should do and what we can expect moving forward.

Thank you.

And I'm I'm still in agreement with that approach, so and thanks for breaking down uh kind of how that shows up in this proposal.

Thanks.

Uh Commissioner Koger.

Uh, thank you, Mayor.

In line with uh things that we like to zero in more on.

Um I I'm so pleased to hear from staff we talked about earlier in fiscal, how we are uh supporting our climate action adaptation plan through grants from Eagle.

I really like seeing uh the innovation and funding some of our goals and priorities in line with that, Commissioner Purdue and I um have had the idea and talked with our throughout community about philanthropy and community partners bolstering the third world equity fund of this in million has been transformative, it's awesome.

It's awesome.

We are thankful to our colleagues for continuing to continue continuing to support the third world equity fund, but we want to think larger as we know things are more expensive.

It feels like it's a million dollars just to put a shovel in the ground.

So how can we get community partners?

So we talked about that.

I we uh city manager, you noted uh talking to community partners about helping fund the uh storage program.

I would love to as we um connect and partner or in lock arms with our community partners.

Could they also could some of that conversation also be about supporting the third word equity fund?

Well, there they're the uh I'm gonna use this word that um that Miss Baron is used.

There's braided ways in which that happens.

Uh even with uh you know, the third ward equity fund and the use of the uh youth employment program, those are community leverage programming.

Um that that can happen.

The Rx Kids is another example of community leverage funding.

And so while it is not specifically called out, there are um community partners that are coming alongside in various ways to help us leverage not the fun, but the outcome of other programs in which we're funding.

So perhaps we can give more examples of that and call that out.

But it certainly doesn't help to to ask, but we are uh we are we can see what we can call out specifically.

Thank you very much.

Great.

Uh any follow-ups, colleagues?

Uh Commissioner Beljack.

Thank you.

I appreciate the second chance here at the round table.

Um so even though I asked my question earlier and I'm glad we're gonna address it.

I would like to also just highlight that I've been and continue to pay attention to um how we're implementing our urban and forestry initiative.

So I see that we have three million dollars allocated to that.

So I would be interested in hearing more from the parks department as we move forward in maintenance of our trees, um, particularly our neighborhood trees that maybe aren't priority one trees but do need um maintenance.

I've had a lot of complaints from my own neighborhood, but also um different people in the the upper west side, I would say.

And um I think that um the support to strengthen the engagement initiatives for the parks department is also important because I I think that there's a lot going on with the new programs that are going out, you know, being developed with Oxford Trails and other things.

And I presume that some of this has to do with the new uh memorial services and things like that that are going to be offered.

So I'll be looking at that section of the budget for the parks as well.

Thank you.

Um anyone else, colleagues?

Otherwise, um, if we if we're wrapping up our discussion, uh thank you so much, Ms.

McClaren.

Thank you, City Manager.

Um, and thanks to all the staff that you know put an insane amount of work in to get this uh to this point.

Uh and just to reiterate for the public, this is us saying, hey, this is the beginning of the process.

Um so there are a number of points of we're gonna have a workshop session on this, there are gonna be a number of points where uh the community can give us public input.

I mean people can give us public input tonight if they want.

Um so this is this is the beginning of the engagement on this process.

Uh and but I really appreciate the professionalism, the clarity, um, the uh the intent on honest forecasting, the uh you know the the good financial planners spend always always spend their time, you know, making sure they're back stops and and uh making sure that that uh things don't go off the rail.

And um back when I was on city commission 15 years ago, um there was back then it was a new radical idea to do five-year budgeting.

Um, but the idea of taking a constant rolling five-year look is just a very, very healthy way to look at budgeting because um, you know, we don't want to sort of have reactive, oh wow, there's a surprise.

Oh wow, we didn't see that coming.

Um, and you know, predicting the economy in five years is a little bit like trying to predict the weather in three weeks.

Like I can say, well, it's probably not gonna be snowing in three weeks, but I could be wrong.

Um so you know, macro trends uh get get I have less and less confidence of them as we're going further and further in the future.

I mean, I wouldn't have predicted AI, I didn't predict COVID.

Um there's lots of things that are going to happen in the future that nobody in this room would have predicted.

Um and so um it's a combination of prudence and planning.

I think that that's well said, Mayor, you're you're adopting a one-year operating budget, and of course certainly we are approving the five-year capital plan, but uh we do our best to forecast uh, but there's a lot of uncertainty.

I want to conclude uh by a couple of things.

One, let me um acknowledge and thank uh uh my chief of staff, uh Lou Canfield, who's been very working very closely uh with uh our CFO, he's actually our uh chief strategy officer for the city.

So the budget and strategy go hand in hand.

And I typically call him Lou the Glue, but this session I called him Lou the Superglue.

Uh he's done a good job keeping all this together.

So I thank him.

And uh to that end, um uh him and Asante and uh Doug and Kate have also uh been very, very uh helpful in putting this budget together along with our uh managing directors, uh Ms.

Bohatch and uh Wayne as well.

So thank both of them.

Uh we do have books uh that we'd like to present, Mayor, at this time.

Every mayor, make sure you get your budget books and you can add to them as presentations uh become available.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I was actually getting um having a disc a sidebar there.

Are we ready to move on to our resolutions?

Or did you say okay, great?

Um so uh bringing us back to our agenda then uh having had the discussion, um we have uh two resolutions which are uh coupled and relate to the presentation we just had.

First is resolution schedule a public hearing for the budget for May 12.

Can I have a motion?

Support.

All in favor say aye.

Aye aye, all opposed, motion carries.

Second is resolution for public hearing on May 12 on uh service provision fees.

Kind of a motion.

So move to support.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

That uh brings us to one uh walk-on agenda item, and that is to move into closed session and retire from here to room 601 uh for the purpose of discussion pending and litigation.

Uh uh, can I have a uh motion?

So move.

Support.

Uh roll call vote, Madam Clerk.

Commissioner Knight.

Yes.

Commissioner Kilgore, yes.

Commissioner Belchak?

Yes.

Commissioner Sasi?

Yes.

Commissioner Perdue?

Yes.

Mayor LeGrand?

Yes.

Mayor, do we uh do we project that we'll have enough time where we won't run into public safety at 1230?

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

We're adjourned.

We'll have a