The Kansas City Council held a business session on August 24, 2023, to discuss the Public Infrastructure Advisory Committee (PIAC) process and receive the year-end financial report for fiscal year 2023. The meeting also included approval of previous minutes and a closed session for legal and personnel matters.
PIAC Presentation: Lauren Cruddy (PIAC Chair) and Heather Bray (PIAC Administrator) presented on PIAC funding and the project cycle. Key points: PIAC is funded by a one-cent sales tax; 25% goes to street preservation; this year each council district receives $5 million (total $30 million). Last year nearly 1,000 applications were received, totaling $751 million in requests. The life cycle includes quarterly updates and contingency reallocation memos. Councilman Ray asked about project transfer decisions and delays, and requested a list of funded projects. Cruddy encouraged council to identify two to three top infrastructure priorities and to use capital asset rating screening categories (asset condition, safety, equity, sustainability) for consistency with citywide goals.
Year-End Financial Report (FY2023): Finance Director Tammy Queen, Budget Officer Krista Morrison, and Deputy Director William Choi presented the cash-basis unaudited year-end report. Highlights:
Note: The meeting was adjourned without further action; the remainder of the financial report presentation (business-type activities) was postponed to a future business session.
Welcome to business session. Our first item is approval of minutes for business section session of August 10th, 2023. Is there a motion to approve the process? It's been moved and seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Item two on the document is auditor and clerk review. We'll save that for the end of our docket. Let's go on to our public infrastructure advisory committee presentation. I'm sure it was. Come on up. And you get to sit in these seats. Madam Chair Cruddy, you're up. Okay, go ahead. Hi, my name is Lauren Cruddy, PIAC Chair. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Heather Bray, PIAC administrator. And we will be talking today a little bit about PIAC. A lot of this we talk about in our PIAC meetings that we've been going through every evening with citizens, but we will refresh some of it this afternoon. We will start with what is the funding of PIAC. So how does PIAC get its money? PIAC's funded through the one cent sales tax. The neighborhood PIAC projects. Those are the PIAC projects that you guys are meeting with constituents and residents about every weeknight in the next month. Of the one cent sales tax, 25% of that goes to street preservation and complete street type activities, and the rest of it covers debt and other maintenance needs around the city. This is in code section 68450. If you would ever wish to read that on a Saturday evening, it's a wonderful section of the code. Is what it's estimated to be. With that, it was about 30 million goes to the in-district neighborhoods, which each council district is getting five million. So how do you how do your residents submit a PIAC application for you guys to review? Well, they are online, we have them online on www.kcmo.gov backslash PIAC. They can submit them electronically. We also have paper copies, we can mail them, and we always have paper copies at our meetings. Last year we received almost a thousand applications, which totaled more than 751 million dollars. That's a lot of needs throughout the city with only 30 million dollars funded to cover those needs. Which is why we're meeting with you guys here today to talk a little bit about that. So the PIAC life cycle, right? Now we're at the very beginning of a PIAC life cycle. We and you guys are meeting with your constituents and residents throughout August and September. In October, we will have a list of all of the PIACs for your council district to give to you with the PIAC estimates and engineer comments. Of the requests that came in for your council district. And the list will go in the submitted budget with the adopted budget in March. In April, we will send award letters out to let everyone know if their PIAC project was funded or not. And in May, with the beginning of the fiscal year, the projects that you selected will be funded. That's when the real fund begins. That's when the projects are sent over to the departments and the project managers to begin engineering them with design or right-of-way or surveys, designs, and construction. How do we how do you guys get updates on these projects? Because that's the most important, one of the most important parts other than the community engagement is you guys need to know where the projects are so you can help relay the information to constituents to answer questions and uh hold us as staff accountable to completing the projects.