April 21st, it's 11 a.m.

And let us begin with introductions to my left.

Stephen Libby, Council Research.

Mary Stepopoulos, Office of General Counsel.

Brian Parks, Council Auditors Office.

Kim Taylor, Council Auditor.

Good morning, Chris Miller, at large group five.

Ron Salem, group two at large.

Good morning, Raw Aries, District 11.

My gay district two.

George.

And we have uh council member Diamond that's here, just walked in.

And George and George.

Do you want to call yourself in?

Councilmember Diamond.

Thank you, Rory Diamond, District 13, the beaches.

Okay.

Do we have any public comment cards?

Let's give them two minutes.

It looks like Vinny Vinny Barry or Barnes.

Barone.

Please come forward, sir.

You have two minutes.

If you'd state your name and your address or say it, it's all in file.

Sure.

My name is Vincent Barone, B-A-R-O-N-E, 12132, Weatherwood Estates Drive West, Jacksonville, Florida, 3223.

I'm here today to talk about form number 904, 901, and the uh Jacksonville today, uh February 3rd, 2026, talking about how the council, based on what the Doge reports is, has skimmed 200 million dollars from the taxpayers of Jacksonville.

Okay, I think that needs to stop.

And I'm putting the council on notice if I say this right, it's section 42 of uh section 42 uh of the constitute uh constitution 1983, Florida state law does not allow you guys that protects you guys from the it basically takes your insurance money and stand takes your insurance immunity off because I'm not looking for the insurance companies, I'm looking for the people that are supposed to be offered our fiduciaries to be able to make sure we don't get robbed.

Everybody talks about the east side, the east side is 70 years naked.

Why?

Because there's a there's a hole in the system, and the hole in the Sim is the system, the money never goes that way.

And the reason why it doesn't go that way is because they don't have work with the they my opinion, they don't work with the city, they always try to think they have a better idea.

Well, if you don't put uh affordable housings, like in spending 40 million dollars to build 10 homes, you know, I didn't do enough drugs in the 80s to remember that I would ever do something like that when you talk about we don't have housing.

You don't have housing there because you don't have responsible enough people to understand those numbers don't match up in the poorer neighborhoods, they stay poor, is because the money, like I said, the money flows out of it because you don't work with you're not working with the with the communities like Jacksport that has billions of dollars to help keep the money in the community.

They just drive through it.

Mr.

Brum, thank you.

Your time is up.

Thank you then.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Mr.

Nooney, you have two minutes.

Hello.

I am John Philanthropic, Jelly Roll.

Good boy, resiliency nooney, Ocho Trace, Cinco Says, Baskum Road, Jacksville, Florida, 32216.

I'm in City Council District 4, CPAC 3, School Board District 3.

Uh you know, here's a shout out.

RD, the real Doge, Ron Davis, 600, WBOB.

You know, Doge are waterways.

You know, you want uh, you know, uh Governor DeSantis, James Upmeyer, Blazing Olea, you know, Pardon Nooney, 2024 0107, 2024 0325.

You know, legislation is a dialogue of the community, and you know, right now, you know, uh, you want to save some money, you know, open our waterways.

Now I'm wearing my FWC hat.

You know, it's a playoff the Fish and Wildlife Commission.

You know, it's the state of Florida.

And you know, it also has a whole bunch of other acronyms that could be applicable, you know, when it comes to this doge stuff.

You know, fishing with council, fishing with Congress.

You know, we just had um, you know, fishing with Coglionese, or resiliency thing.

Now, uh I want to make these part of the permanent record.

I'm only down to 30 seconds, but this is the Tourist Development Council meeting agenda, April 16th.

You know, here is you know, the ethics commission.

Ethics is gone.

And here's how I was reflected in the minutes.

Public comment.

Dr.

Freiburg asked for public comment.

Mr.

Nooney provided public comment.

That's it.

16 seconds.

Here's true, the true commission.

Again, how you're reflected in the minutes.

And you know, uh public comment, John Nooney and Cody Marks.

That's it.

That is how.

And that's why we need to doge our waterways.

Thank you, Mr.

Nooney.

Okay, moving on to the agenda.

Telehealth.

I think we have some positive news on telehealth.

Uh, yeah, very slowly.

The lawyers have got us some drafts, and so um we still have to, I still need to read through them and pepper them with some follow-up questions.

I'm uh candidly, I'm annoyed with how long that's taken.

Uh, but we should hopefully everybody can get a draft.

That's a public document.

If people want to see it as a draft, it is what it is.

Um I don't think it's been I don't think it's been handed to anybody, so I don't have anything as a public document.

Maybe the chair does.

I I have seen it and I have provided some feedback to the lawyers on just a few points that I thought could be strengthened.

Yeah, understood.

I just want to be clear because people care about public documents and they should.

I don't have one, so there's no public document for me to give anybody, but as soon as we have one, I'll share it.

I think it will be wrapped up here very soon.

And uh clearly by the meeting two weeks from now, we will have it and trying to be able to release it to everybody.

Adopt it and then release it.

Absolutely.

Yep.

Okay.

Thanks, sir.

Uh update on the two percent lapse.

Ms.

Taylor.

We're the chair to the committee.

Um, no update really.

We have not had any requests from any departments um to restore their funding.

And as I've uh stated, uh, we're gonna wrap up Doge by the end of June.

And if there are any requests on the 2% lapse after that, it'll go to the finance committee.

So there is a uh a venue for those to go to.

Okay.

Why don't we move to the Bailey group?

Sherry, Sabrina.

And we've got slides ready, correct?

We do.

Okay.

Good morning.

It's great to see you all again.

Uh, today we actually have a very short presentation that we will review with you today.

I'm gonna steal this.

We're gonna talk about some of the subsidiaries and agencies that are a part of your plan that are uh technically not City of Jacksonville employees.

Um, it is important to remember that the that we have been asked to consider the implications, but not make a determination as to whether or not they are um are eligible for the coverage under your plan.

There are three subsidiaries or entities that are currently covered, all three of them do have a contract in place with the city of Jacksonville, which we've been able to review and also had our legal department be able to review.

Those entities include uh First Coast Work Site or excuse me, Workforce Development Consortium, uh Northeast Florida Regional Council, and Jacksonville Housing Authority.

We've also included behind the name of each of these entities the approximate number of employees that are enrolled in your health insurance program from each of the entities, and you can see that there's approximately 250 employees that are added to the City of Jacksonville benefit program from these three entities.

So as we reviews these, we wanted to take a quick peek at a few very important topics related to these entities.

First of all, the legal and compliance considerations.

So we did take a look at some of the information related to each of those, and we'll have some more detailed information in a couple of slides here on those.

Also important to remember that the city ultimately bears the responsibility for any claims that are incurred by the members that are under these, even though they are not your employees.

And so that does put some financial risk associated with high cost claimants that might be in these particular pools of individuals.

And then lastly, by being included in the city's benefit program, it is important to note that these smaller entities are being being benefited financially because if they were to go out and look for coverage out in the marketplace on their own as a smaller group or mid-size group entity, they we would expect the premiums that they would be paying, the administrative fees if they were to move into a self-funded program to be more than what is happening within the city of Jacksonville.

So those are some important considerations.

So first of all, the First Coast Workforce Development Consortium.

This one, you can see we just pulled the information from their website that it outlines who they are and what they do.

And they have had an agreement with the City of Jacksonville for benefits since 1999.

It was renewed in 2018.

And as mentioned, there are about a hundred employees that are currently participating in the health insurance plan on this particular from this particular consortium.

This is you know, pretty much a standard list of benefits that are being offered to the City of Jacksonville employees as well.

Next up, we have the Northeast Florida Regional Council.

This group is a smaller group of people.

There's only about 20 employees that are under this.

No, I think it's exactly the same.

The last group, however, does have a little bit different list of benefits that are available.

This is the Jacksonville Housing Authority, and they have had an agreement in place since 2001, and it was renewed in 2017.

This is the largest of the three entities.

There's about 130 employees.

That piece is concerned with outside council as well.

You say deferred compensation, I assume.

Pension Yes.

And when it when the pension converted to uh a 401k style, they converted to that as well.

I would assume so, yes.

I see Brian nodding his head.

Okay.

All right.

So as mentioned, one of the important things that we reviewed and took a look at was federal guidelines as far as having these entities as a part of your programs as far as your benefit programs are concerned.

There are two things that we very specifically needed to outline.

The first one being ERISA, the employee retirement income security act of 1974.

This is a law that basically is there to provide some additional protections for different benefit programs.

However, as a government entity, City of Jacksonville is not subject to ERISA.

You actually can't be an ERISA plan because you are a government entity.

So we'll talk a little bit more on the next couple pages.

That is one of the most important pieces and things that we've discovered as we've reviewed this that needs to be further reviewed in order to determine whether or not you are in compliance with your non-ERISA status for these in these particular entities.

The other one is whether or not your plan is a MIWA, which is a multiple employer welfare arrangement.

I will mention to you that you are actually not able to have a MIWA.

You do not meet the requirements for a MIWA.

So there is not a MIWA in place at this point in time.

So that's that's kind of a non-issue at this point in time, either.

But in looking at the ERISA portion of things, this is where we do find that we need to we recommend spending a little bit more time to ensure that you're in compliance with your non-ERISA status.

So IRISA, as mentioned, it exempts government plans.

Otherwise, it puts your plan in jeopardy of not of being exempt from that law.

And that's the screen in front of you kind of talks a little bit about what what how you are defined as a government entity.

A couple of things I will mention on here that I think are important.

So that's where we really kind of need to recommend that you get some legal advice to determine and make sure that these programs are going to meet that qualification.

So there are a few things listed on this screen that we recommend that you review for each of the three entities to make a final determination as to whether or not they are going to be part of considered a government plan or a part uh qualify as a non-ARISA portion of your group.

So first of all, you need to review the degree the government controls the entities' operations and finances.

If there's little to no operation overview from the government, then that could disqualify the entities from being being non-ERISA.

Whether the entity is supported by public funds.

If the funds for supporting that are coming from out from other sources, that could also disqualify.

Whether the entity was created by some sort of statute.

And so that's an important piece to take away as well.

And then if the employees are considered public employees under the law, and lastly, government ownership interest in the entity and the public nature and purpose for its functions.

So I think it's really important as you as we move forward that we really look at the entities and how they were created.

So our recommendation as far as next steps is to have either internal legal counsel or an external ERISA attorney.

Take a look at the details for these three entities to ensure whether or not they do meet the qualifications to be exempt under ERISA as a government plan to ensure that you are still being in compliance with that piece of the law.

So the ultimate thing that I guess that we want to ensure you are aware of is that there are some risks that you are taking if you do have these people, these entities included in your plan, and to help make sure that you mitigate that risk, we would make sure we would recommend that you do a few things specifically to help ensure that you've got the these pieces covered.

So, first of all, tracking the experience separately by the entities to help ensure that you do know what is happening within those groups of individuals as far as their health is concerned.

Make sure that there is some very clear funding uh amounts that are outlined for these entities, um, the including the contributions that the employees are paying, and that you that both you and the entities understand what those those fundings are, and then also have any have policies and procedures in place regarding reserves and what would happen as far as reserves are concerned if these entities were to leave at some point in time.

Um I will just personally mention I had a uh self-funded government entity that had an entity leave, and it was a little bit chaotic to know uh because they had not spelled it out on the front end what was going to happen with reserve amounts uh that had been set aside to pay for high claimants, what was going to happen with even stop loss reimbursements for people that had been under that prior plan, things of that sort.

You want to make sure that you have those outlined very clearly.

And then um uh continue to have a written agreement to ensure that everything is outlined for you, and then lastly, make sure that all of the entities are meeting the requirements of HIPAA, and that they are going through HIPAA training and things of that sort if they are being given any information related to the benefit package and details about personal health information that might be being disclosed to them because ultimately that is a city of Jacksonville thing that will need to be met.

Um, and we do recommend that there is reporting to the various stakeholders as well.

All right, any questions about any of that that you'd like to bring forward?

Well, I'm sure we'll have some questions, but I wanted to first go to the auditors because they did some research yes over the last 24 hours on these entities and agreements, and whether um these issues are are listed in those agreements and are they compliant, etc.

I don't know if that's Ms.

Taylor or Mr.

Parks.

Um to the chair, I'll go ahead and kind of tackle it.

Now getting into a RISC compliance or something like that, I would defer to legal ultimately, and I will mention as as they did, we did an audit back in 2015 basically, and we noted that there were these three what we would call at the time kind of external agencies.

There are reasons that they do kind of come up through the city of Jacksonville with the history, and some of them actually date back to 1977 is actually when they first started being on our health plan.

And so we had some research, and when we were not self-insured, but we bought basically premiums for each employee.

There was like it was sort of known and it was kind of less risky, maybe.

Once we went self-insured, we we raised some questions as we were doing that audit is are they paying basically the fair share and stuff like that?

And at the time, based on the claim stuff they were, but since rates have not changed since 2015, that is probably a little bit more out of whack today.

Um so the history is, and that's I mean, they kind of went through it though.

I can't say on the compliance, I do know that they've tracked stuff at you know, based on the different entities because we were able to look at rolled up numbers when we did that audit to compare the analysis.

So I would think when it went to council though in 2017 to be approved for those new agreements that OGC hopefully looked at all those compliance things, but I I can't clearly answer that question at this time.

Mary you know, I don't know if this is a Sean Granite question.

I suspect, but anything that you can add to that uh to the chair.

So I think you're correct.

That's that's who I was gonna follow up with just to say to see what the history was with respect to our office's involvement and review.

There may have been an outside attorney that was engaged to look at it at the time of the renewals, the last one being in 2018 as was indicated during the presentation.

But I'm happy to follow up on the OGC side to ascertain what kind of review and um items were considered when those renewals came up.

And are we in compliance with the various provisions that they've they've mentioned here?

We'll do.

Um auditors, are we tracking any of these um their expenditures of the or of these individual employees with in this to know if we're um our office is not directly tracking this, but I will kind of point out there's a reason also why, and in the contracts themselves, they state they the agreements with those entities.

And in the contracts themselves, they state they the agreements with those entities.

It says they have to, it's the same rate as what the rates would be for anybody on the city's plan.

They can't be different.

So that's how the agreements were set up.

Um we did the original audit, had the finding.

That was when the prior administration went through, they decided to go ahead and execute the agreements and stuff like that to continue on the practice.

So to your knowledge, nothing's been done since 2017?

There's not been an update in the agreements.

Again, I I I would want to be cautious.

I would have to reach out to employee benefits to see what they're actively tracking with this.

Um, and we can do that.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh can I mention I I I want to go to the group.

Um I know for example, and I'll take Northeast Florida.

Uh what we provide uh, as I recall, about $375,000 to support them.

Um do we ever year?

Every year we have.

It's been a struggle at times, but I think we have.

It does that include so they're under our health insurance plan, and that 300 and I uh uh that 375 is quote our share of the various counties, but we're paying for the health insurance for those employees.

Does anyone know if that's factored into what the what the city of Jacksonville contributes versus the other counties?

I think at that point you may need to talk to Bethany Florida, yeah, because I I think that amount has kind of stayed flat and might be done slightly different from for us to begin with.

So whether or not in the discussions we've had, I would say is it's not been directly done there, but I would defer to them.

Okay.

Go ahead.

And and Ms.

Payne is here.

I uh yeah, I've seen her.

Um let me go to Mr.

Arias.

All right, thank you, Chair.

Um so yes, there are obviously three entities here.

One of them is the one you just mentioned with 20 employees or so.

Um my question, I guess, uh to Mr.

Parks would be uh you mentioned how these entities are not paying their fair share based off of what COJ employees are paying.

Are COJ employees paying uh the updated rate or has nobody been updated since 2017?

Is that what I gathered?

Yeah, that's that's the whole issue when we kind of talked during the budget during the summer is the rates have not changed.

I think I believe it's either one one 2015 or one one twenty sixteen when the city went self-insured.

The rates have not changed for the employee or employer since that time.

And so that's why we've had contributions from the general fund or we've had other funding sources to help cover cost.

Got it.

All right, and through the chair and to the chair, do we plan on taking action on this?

Because I mean it's 11 years now where we're taking money from the general fund, and now at this point it's not even about our own city employees, but also we're we're covering the cost for other people that don't belong that are not part of the COJ network, I guess.

Um so when are we gonna have that conversation to update these rates?

Is my question to you or to whoever wants to answer that?

Well, as as we went through the I guess you were you're pointing to me, we went through the budget process.

If you recall, we subsidized the health insurance plan with I believe it was 23 million dollars to make it whole, and the reserve account had been depleted as well.

And as I recall, we put in five million dollars of general fund money um as a sort of a stop gap for that, and I as I recall we sent a letter to the state saying we have our our reserve of 372 90 million dollars that we would use if we got into a bind on our health insurance.

Um I I personally think these contracts need to be looked at.

It's been eight, seven, eight years and determine if if they're applicable today is what they were seven or eight years ago.

Um and yes, they're paying the same premiums we're paying, which is which clearly doesn't meet the cost.

And uh it's one thing for our employees, we understand, but these are quote outside entities.

Yeah.

So I I have two more follow-up questions to that, Mr.

Chair.

Um, and this will be to the Bailey group, but um on the contract for these three entities, I'm not singling any of them out, just all three out in general.

Do we have to keep them in the same rate at city employees, or because they're not part of our city employee network, can we say, hey, you are gonna pay this fare?

Can we do that?

Yes, you you can have different uh amounts for the subsidiaries.

Is that part of the uh through the chair?

Is that part of a a new renewed contract with all three individual entities?

We definitely need to negotiate that out or got it.

And then my second uh question and last question for now would be um you mentioned the hundred and sixty roughly employees or two hundred and fifty employees altogether between those three networks.

Um do you have an estimated cost of what that looks like to our part?

Like what are we paying?

What does that cost us?

We have it set out.

I don't think we have that split out yet, but but we will have like when we meet in uh May and June.

I think we get close to that number.

Okay.

Because you know, I'm looking at, you know, you mentioned one of the entities and it was like 375 this year in the budget.

I want to know what these 20 employees also equal.

So now it's 375 plus whatever it is.

So now we really have a true number of how much we're contributing to them and to everybody else.

So um I think we should definitely look at these contracts to be renewed, even if we keep our COJ employees at the current rate.

Um, but it's just something that honestly we shouldn't be covering this cost, in my opinion.

Thank you.

I mean, it's gotta be several million dollars to to cover the health insurance for these three entities.

So if you just took uh 250 times 10 grand, I mean just as a rough.

Yeah, that's a good thing.

Well, and that's two and a half million dollars right there.

That's probably a little low of an estimate.

I was trying to be on the conservative side as I probably approaches three million dollars that we're would that we're paying to support these groups.

And if I can add a little flavor, if you go through the process and you decide they're supposed they should be part of your plan, we would never recommend that you charge them back like actual claims and stuff.

There's a duty to be in part of a larger group that smooths the good years and the bad years and and puts everybody on one.

So we would never think that y'all would like just charge them for their claims.

That would be a bad idea.

Okay.

Other questions.

Well, uh, in summary, I think what we need to do is is uh ask the Office of General Counsel to follow up with us in terms of compliance with Arissa and all those things.

Um happy to do so, Mr.

Chair.

I would also just like to point out that the housing authority is part of it's an it's like an independent authority of the consolidated government.

So that is treated similarly to those other independent authorities that fall under our umbrella.

And and they were also in the pension plan.

The other two are not in the pension plan or the 401k plan, as I heard.

I don't know the answer to that.

Um that might be the case, just because like I said, they do fall kind of within the city, the consolidated umbrella, unlike the other two agencies.

The regional planning council is statutorily provided for.

Um, and so there is some obligation there with respect to membership within the regional planning council, which all came up during the discussions of the budget um item for the the city's contribution to that.

Um I'm not familiar with the other agencies, so that's a little bit of an unknown as far as kind of the history on that and it's it's its connection and um the city's obligations with respect to funding or contributing to that particular organization.

Okay, uh Councilmember Arius, you're recognizing the thank you, Chair, and Ms.

Uh Stapopoulis.

Yeah, you're you're right about that.

Um JHA, they actually came up during the budget.

The other two didn't as part of the budget.

So that's why I'm more focused on the other two than than JHA, just because JHA is part of, like you said, an independent authority in a way.

Yeah, and you I don't know that you all look at their budget though.

Um so the one that came up during the budget was the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council, and there was a lot of discussion on that.

Um but the housing authority is provided for under Chapter 51A of our code.

And so they they were created under the authority of state statute to manage our the housing the the varies housing authority options that kind of fall under our umbrella.

For career source and the planning council, we provide a lump sum of money to both of those entities.

We're not as familiar with the the first coast uh one, the other one, yeah, you do the annual contribution, and we'll look into whether or not there's an additional expense outside of that annual contribution for the the health care um that they um tack on to.

Uh but we're not as familiar with how it's set up with the other entity, and so that's something I'll work on is pulling the contracts and seeing how that that particular entity operates.

I don't remember seeing career source or or that name in the budget process.

Auditors are are are did we approve uh that a lump sum of money to them or are we just providing benefits to them?

Uh to the chair, I'm not aware of any lump sum, like there's not a non-departmental contribution like we've had for the Northeast Florida Planning Council.

Um it goes back in time.

We'll look to see if there's separate legislation that has provided any in the past.

I can recall it many years ago, but not as part of this budget at all, no, sir.

And I know there are entities in the audience today from these three organizations.

We we are attempting to fact find uh at this point to determine exactly what what the city's responsibility is and and maybe um well uh um do the representatives want to come to the podium and at least introduce yourself.

I know Beth Payne is here from uh Northeast Florida, the planning council.

For the Jacksonville Housing Authority.

Can you say that again, please?

I don't know that it came through well.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Uh the name is Adina Dillore School, and I'm the uh CAO at the Jacksonville Housing Authority.

Okay.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Beth Payne with the Northeast Florida Regional Council.

Okay.

Good morning.

I'm Cheryl Taylor with the Career Source Northeast Florida, and we do not receive any funds from the city of Jacksonville.

Other than the health insurance.

Other than a health insurance, correct, sir.

Okay.

It's just interesting to me.

Okay.

Are there are there other questions?

I think we've we we've tasked the auditors and and OGC to do some research.

Um we'll come back in uh maybe in two weeks or if it takes longer and get a get an update on it and see where how we can move forward.

I don't see any other questions.

Do you all have a go ahead?

You want to go through our timeline for sure.

Please.

We've been through a lot with you guys, but we want to we know you want to finish at the end of June.

So we're um we want to show you that path for how we're gonna come back to you over the next couple months and finish some of the bigger items that we still have left.

Is that a slide?

Yeah, okay.

Yes.

So um what we've been waiting for for some of the bigger things like the funding and the um and the contribution strategies is a little more data, which we wanted to get data through at least March of this year because you want the newest plan data in order to make it the most accurate.

You have to trend out claims less far um the more current your data is.

So we're working feverish feverishly in the background now that we just got March data to um get funding rates for you all and to develop contribution strategy recommendations, including those that were based on salary tiers, because I know you mentioned that to us, so we're gonna bring that back to you in but most of our meetings um probably both meetings in June, we're gonna need time because we're gonna bring back the benchmarking and the demographic analysis, and then all these other things, including the funding recommendations, the contribution options, and the stop loss estimation.

So we believe we can be done at the end of June, but it'll be a little bit, it'll be pretty busy the month of June because we're frantically trying to kind of put some of the stuff together that we just got the data for.

So it sounds like you need one meeting in May and two meetings in June.

I'm not sure we will actually need a meeting in May because that's the month that we're actually gonna be working with our actuaries to ensure that we have uh the funding recommendations ready to go for you and and kind of doing the the actual work behind the scenes to be prepare for the June.

But I would anticipate we'd need both June meetings to be able to do that.

Okay, because I definitely want to bring the telehealth uh back.

So it sounds like we may have one meeting in May that y'all might not be involved in, and then two meetings in June.

Yeah, we'll need both of those for sure.

And we'll skip one of the meetings in in May.

That sounds great.

If it if that sounds correct, let me mention that council member Carlucci, Joe Carlucci has joined us.

I apologize for not calling you out earlier.

One last thing I do want to mention the stop loss that we will present in June will be an estimation rather than firm numbers.

We actually normally have to have data through about September ish to be able to firm up those numbers, which brings us long past your time as of the Doge committee.

So we wanted to at least present you with some estimations that we'll be able to kind of give you an idea of what we should be looking for, and then afterwards we can firm those up if needed.

Okay.

I think one of the things that will be coming back to us, I think it's important that right now everybody pays the same premium, whether you make uh 25,000 a year or 225,000 a year.

One of the things I've asked the Bailey group to look at is some type of tiered approach that would uh increase the amount that higher paid people are are uh that are making those kind of dollars would pay a higher premium and how that would impact our uh our our uh costs clearly.

Okay, okay.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you again for your time.

Thank you.

Let me move to uh comments from the committee.

Councilmember Diamond, I know you have something.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'd like at the next meeting if we could cover the uh draft legislation on a uh oversight committee.

I brought it up a bunch of times.

I do think that it needs to be done here.

Um I think it's a perfect place to do it.

Uh depoliticize kind of oversight and have different a different uh future for it.

So um I just want to add that to the um to the agenda.

Okay, has that legislation been drafted?

Yes, Mr.

Chair, if you'd like, I can give the committee members copies today so you can take it back with you.

Um, but there would be a few caveats for consideration, and if you would like me to pass them out and go over them, so you have that as food for thought before the next meeting, I can do that.

It's a it's whatever the pleasure of the committee is.

You have them with you now.

I do, yes.

Please, I I I mean we have some time.

I have some thoughts, and I'm curious to what if my thoughts are consistent with council member diamonds, uh Mr.

Chair, just uh I wonder if it wouldn't make sense just to digest these things and then do it in two weeks.

Okay.

Uh just because it's uh I mean it's a whole bill.

Yeah, so uh if I could, Mr.

Chair, just to give you a brief rundown.

So we um I prepared this draft based on my um discussions with council member Diamond, um, based on kind of his initial thoughts of what this committee would look like, and um obviously to be further fleshed out by this special committee during your discussion when the item is brought up on the agenda.

There's a few things that I'll just point out with respect to the draft legislation, so you have these items to think about coming back to your next meeting.

So on starting on page two, and what all this was drafted as an amendment to the city council rules with respect to adding this as an additional standing committee of the city council, which was the direction from council member diamond.

Um so starting on page two under rule 2.102, this is where we're adding the oversight committee as an additional committee of the council.

And in this section, it talks about the charge of the committee, which right now is a little bit leaner, but there's a few items I just wanted to flag for you for discussion at the next meeting.

So one of the items that council member Diamond wanted to include in this provision was that the oversight committee would consider matters that relate to the staffing levels and funding for the Office of Inspector General and the Ethics Comp Office of Ethics Compliance and Oversight.

So with respect to the meeting schedule for this committee, right now it's being proposed that they would meet that the oversight committee would be meeting once a month on the third Wednesday of each month.

So you might want to consider whether this type this particular standing committee would receive legislation or not, because if you do want it to receive legislation and it only meets once per month, that's gonna for the matters that would come through legislation to the committee, that could delay the process for those items because it only meets once a month as currently proposed.

So one item to think about.

The other item that was included at the request of councilmember diamond was that this committee would also review audits and financial reports of the city and its independent agencies.

That is currently already in the charge for the finance committee.

So there would be some duplication there, and it would just be a matter of whether or not you want to allow the for that duplication.

Do you want to, you know, potentially look at altering what the finance committee is looking at versus the oversight committee?

So we just put that on on your radar to be thinking about as we lean into going to the next meeting for this item to be thoroughly discussed.

Sure, absolutely.

And look, I'm super easygoing.

I I would like to see an oversight committee.

So that I'm not wedded to anything uh other than to try and do it right.

Um, but my thought on this was that oversight committees tend to be kind of floating, they they tend to be up here, they tend not to have um a legislative function, they have an investigatory type function and to review and to bring things to light when there's a problem, so that uh the council president doesn't have to sit there and like create a whole new investigatory committee or assign something.

Um in addition to that, there's so many reports that we get um on all the different committees.

And I we're always in such a rush to get to the legislation for every standing committee that there really isn't a place just to think about hey, are we is this makes sense?

Uh is this thoughtful?

Are we doing we following the law?

Is this what the charter means?

And that's the idea is to take reports in and actually decide, like for example, all the waivers we do have to be reported.

Issues with regards to uh you know council members' conflicts sometimes have waivers, and there's reports for that, and we don't look at any of that.

Single source contracts, we don't look at that.

Uh I mean we do officially look at it, but there's never enough time.

So it just seems to me that there ought to be a place that focuses.

I'm saying this next to a former inspector general, uh, but but this is exactly the type of people who ought to be on that kind of committee.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um Councilmember Arius.

Hi, thank you, Chair.

Yeah, I was gonna ask when will they be meeting?

And and Mary, you mentioned it'll be first Wednesday of the month, whatever the case is.

Um I would almost suggest two things, one of two things.

Either it meets um it doesn't look like this committee is gonna be something that's gonna be meeting for two hours at a time.

So maybe because we do have currently finance at one o'clock, it could meet, you know, for 30 minutes right before finance every two weeks, you know, or it could be a floating committee similar to like the Radio Tower Committee, where um whenever there's anything coming up, they just call an agenda for that.

Um but that's just my suggestion that way, because I mean, like like you said, if if anything, it'll it might bog down the system and delay legislation if we have on Wednesdays and and we missed that deadline.

So maybe it could be floating where it could be almost any week, just as long as you know they meet for 30 minutes, whatever the case is, or right before finance, in my opinion.

Thank you.

Through the chair to council member Arias.

So what you're what you're actually describing is more like a special committee, such as this operates, and I think it was council member diamond's intent that this be a consistent standing committee meets with a regular schedule, because don't forget this committee will have to be staffed like any other standing committee, legislative services, research, OGC, council auditor's office.

And so there the consistency there is because it's a standing committee as currently proposed.

All right.

So then to my point, then I think it makes sense for it to go right before finance, whenever finance is because to have it be done on a Wednesday once a month.

Um I it just might slow down the process.

So if it's up to you guys, I mean I want to support this.

I just think that it should be more recurring.

It could be 30 minutes right before finance, and if it requires more work, then you know you guys could extend the time.

I don't know.

Yeah, I'm sure.

Uh my thought, Councilman Arias, is is it just wouldn't look at any legislation.

It wouldn't be an official committee where legislation had to go through.

That way it would never slow down the process.

It would be like a traditional oversight committee.

If you go to DC, oversight committee isn't looking at legislation.

Rules has routed around it to the substantive committees.

So it wouldn't hold anything up.

I did want to make it kind of a regular meeting standing committee.

That way people are like, yeah, that's something that ought to be looked at in oversight or oversight needs to have the authority to look at something to drill down.

Just because as we get a bigger, more complicated city, there's just it seems like there's something to look at every other week.

I mean, look at how much we could do in doge if we wanted to.

Yeah, I personally, and we've started a discussion, but I think we need to continue with at our next meeting, whether um it's a standing committee that uh meets regularly, and the president drops issues into this committee uh as well as some of these financial reporting things that you mentioned, or it's just a committee that's out there that when there's an issue, that issue is dropped into the committee, and then it does meet.

I tend to agree with you.

I think some regular basis uh is is what's needed in order to make it effective and not just meet periodically when something comes up, and that way there's a place for um the president of the council to drop issues into as things pop up, what whatever they may be.

Right.

Whatever they may be.

So what I would suggest, let's all take this, and we will meet one time in May, and we will have a discussion about this, and we will also have a discussion about telehealth at that meeting, and uh and then uh we'll come back in June with two meetings.

Councilmember Miller, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I think this is a lot of a lot of good work and a lot of good thought, and I I really like the I idea of having a body that has um has the time and and does focus on some of the things that we don't always spend a lot of time as council members uh focusing on.

And um and I must admit that's one of the things that always makes me wonder about you know what are the what are the great things that the auditors and the others, the inspector general and the others that they've done that we really need to digest more and and what do we think of that and what do we want to do about those things to make um our government more effective and efficient.

And so um I like the work that has already gone into this.

Obviously, we'd need to tee this all up for whoever is the incoming president and make sure that's in sync and lined up with his or her um thinking for the next year, but but this gives that person a lot to think about and maybe some things they haven't um they haven't yet uh put time into.

So I I think there's there's goodness in all of this.

Uh so thank you very much, Mr.

President.

Yeah, I think post dose, there needs to be a venue for these types of issues.

And and I think uh something that's more formal that's regular is probably the best way to go, but we'll we'll discuss it in two weeks.

Or or the next time we meet.

Are there any other issues anybody wants to bring up?

Mary's on the queue.

Mary's on the queue.

Miss Mary.

So just a couple of other things.

Um in speaking with Ms.

Taylor and Mr.

Parks, there used to be an audit subcommittee.

I don't know.

Some of you may have been around when this existed, I believe, of the finance committee.

So we're gonna pull their old charge and see if there's aspects of that that make sense for this new committee that you're looking at creating.

Um the other alternative that I just kind of thought of based on a comment from you, Mr.

Chair, with respect to um, you know, if you're looking to stray away from regular meetings, but letting the president kind of ad send things to this committee, then you could almost look at it as like a permanent ad hoc committee, because ad hoc committees are a special type of selects committee that looks at a specific single type of subject that is convened when the president determines it's appropriate to convene such a committee.

Um so w rather than being a standing committee, there's different iterations of what this could look like.

So I think once we kind of narrow down with this group what the charge is, and then we can kind of back into what is the frequency or how does it get in front of the committee and that kind of thing, we can kind of look at what does it look like from that perspective as well.

And the the the audit committee you mentioned is one that isn't there a a committee, Ms.

Taylor, that once your audit comes back that there's two or three of us that get together and review that.

I it that's in my distant memory.

Yes, sir.

To the chair, you have a good memory.

Um we usually had two or three members in the past and we would present the audits in more detail.

Um also had more of a vehicle if there were any issues with the um, not that we don't have that same vehicle with finance.

I know that I could we'd go to leadership in the finance group.

Uh, but just kind of keeping you more up to date on the external audit of our of our city's financials that are um required to be done.

So uh it it provided a good vehicle to go into more detail.

Um so it it's definitely something to consider, or maybe we can pull some of the charge or what was done into the aspect that council member diamond is seeking.

I think that would be helpful when we bring this back exactly.

Is that continued to meet uh Ms.

Taylor?

The the audit committee?

Through the chair, no, sir.

It has been a sporadic kind of thing.

It comes and goes depending on the different councils and and and and what's been done.

So it's not it's not been consistent over my time here, but sporadic.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, let's let's bring that into the discussion as well.

Anything else?

We stand adjourned.

That's good.

He was ready to leave.