Good morning.

It is 803, and I'd like to go ahead and call our legislative budget hearing meeting to order.

Do you mind call the role?

It's so nice not to have to call the roll and be all formal.

So first up with two minutes to spare.

I'm getting ahead of schedule, boys.

We're gonna start you at 803 instead of 805.

That's good, ma'am.

I understand that the mayor can't be with us today, and you are going to uh set up the introduction to the budget for us.

That is correct.

Yes, ma'am.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Okay, well, uh, the Meyer said as the vice mayor said, uh, welcome, good morning to the uh legislative budget hearings for the FY27 proposed budget.

And the purpose of this is to review uh some key highlights and details of the proposed budget and then answer questions that you may have uh per the agenda.

I will be followed after I do the kind of the big picture overview.

I'll be followed by the various departments and partner agencies, and you'll be able to uh ask them questions as well, and finance will assist where we can.

Uh the mayor's not here, but you know, I thought she summarized uh the budget best when she said that uh it was balanced with uh no new uh taxes, 499 million dollar net budget, uh that invests strategically while emphasizing core services.

I thought that was a good uh a good lead-in on it.

It is a bit leaner uh, but it continues to prioritize public safety, affordable housing, parks, and uh high quality focused services.

Uh it's also got a forward-looking uh commitment to great public spaces, quality of life, job creation, and proven partnerships to get results.

Now, before I get digging into the math and everything, uh just want to introduce who I've got here with me.

Uh, most of you know Kitrin Smith, the deputy CFO, my right hand in all things financial.

Uh, she is also in charge of our accounting division and our uh treasury division.

I've got also back here, they've moved one space back so they could get a little further away from the line of fire.

Miss Penny Owens, our purchasing agent, who's in charge of the purchasing division and all procurements, and I've got Miss Donna Dyer, our revenue administrator, who is in charge of all things dealing taking in money.

She's in charge of the revenue division.

So anyway, I want to take a few minutes right now to cover the highlights of the proposed budget and then uh open it up to questions that you might have.

First off, as I said in that intro, it's a balanced budget with no tax increases.

It is somewhat tighter than in uh previous years, and that's evidenced.

Uh, the two things that pop up top of my mind are we're proposing the use of six million in unassigned fund balance for one-time capital projects, and even with that capital is down 7.2 million in what we propose from the current FY.

So uh again, a little bit tighter.

Uh it still provides top notch services uh for our citizens.

We have healthy fund balance and reserves that are maintained in this.

It's got a sound debt portfolio and bond ratings, no change there.

In fact, it's improving.

The pension fund is strong and properly funded.

Our property tax is strong, it's still growing, but the growth there is normally slow, and the sales tax is still growing, albeit a good bit slower than it was uh several years back.

Now, in terms of the hardcore figures, our total budget is six hundred and sixty-three and a half million, so that's nine point four percent or fifty-six point eight million higher than the current FY, and that reflects inflation and higher pay for personnel and benefits, you know, those compound each year.

Uh, the net budget, which excludes interfund transfers and charges, is four hundred and ninety nine million.

So that's four point six increase, which is twenty one point eight million higher than the current FY.

The general fund is 344 million.

So that's up 6.5% or 21 million compared to the current FY.

Capital is 40.7 million that's proposed, which is 7.2 million less than the current FY.

Our employee full-time spaces are proposed to go up by 18, so it would go from 1,618 spaces in the current FY to $1,636 spaces full time in FY27.

And the part time will go drop down by from 27 to 21 for a decrease of six.

Now when I say costs are up, part of that, of course, is depending on what category, especially, depends on inflation.

Inflation hovers around 2.5 to 3.2%, depending on the cost category.

And of course, the compounding effects each year of personnel and benefits costs since we implemented the compensation study recommendations back in 2022, and we did that all at once.

It's up 19.6%, which equates to around 2.2 million dollars.

Other charges, which are things like service contracts, equipment leases, internal fund charges, fuel maintenance and so forth, building rent, that's gone up 5.4%, which comes to $4.5 million an increase.

Other uses, and that's those transfers from the general fund to support entities like CAT, public assembly facilities, the pension unfunded liability, and so forth.

That's up 13%, which comes to $10.4 million.

And of course, our we have higher personnel costs.

The general fund alone, I think they're up like $4 million.

The revenues are flatter, especially sales tax.

And if you recall from the budget retreat, that is our second largest source of revenue.

The only bigger one is property tax.

But it's only projected to grow by 3%, can where compared to where we projected ending the FY at the budget retreat, this FY.

So the total for FY27 should be $72.8 million.

That's what we forecast.

And that's uh only a $2.1 million increase in local option sales tax.

And the state shared sales tax is going to remain flat at roughly $24 million.

So, you know, sales tax is it's it's still growing, but it's sure a whole lot less than what it used to be when we were getting an average of 10% growth per year following the pandemic, which was awesome from a financial perspective.

Property tax, no tax increase, as I said, it maintains our 2.1556 per hundred dollars of assessed value, uh, and that's in the tax levy ordinance that uh you have before you, and it's also in the budget.

Uh the property tax grows from real growth only, but it grows slower than we'd like it to.

We've uh conservatively put in there 1.75% growth for FY27.

That would take us from uh take us up about 3 million dollars from what we think the property tax will end at this FY.

Now, if you look I'm gonna go down a little bit of a rabbit hole, but I hope it's not much.

But if you looked at the compass this morning, you may have seen where the property assessor's office is sending out reappraisal letters to uh the persons that own county properties.

I understand it's strictly county property, not the city, because I checked double checked this morning.

Ours are not done yet.

But I want to explain how this works.

As my partner down the hall, Caldwell told the compass, we don't benefit from that.

I think they were looking at going up, he said 60 60%.

I thought a couple days ago it was like 58.8, 58.9, regardless.

It's going up considerably, the assessed values.

But they, just like us, no matter what ours go up, won't benefit from that because what will happen is the properties assessor's office and the state will work together and come up with a certified equalization rate.

So what will happen is Kitron and I will come back to you, we believe probably in August and say request that you approve an ordinance lowering us from 2.1556 down to something else so that we do not benefit from inflation.

We're not allowed to benefit from inflation.

Okay, so if I was in your positions, I'd be asking, okay, well, what does that mean to individual property owners?

It depends on where they live.

It depends on where they live.

Some of their values, some of the taxes they have to pay, yeah, they'll see an increase.

Some will stay about the same, and some will drop.

It just depends on where you live.

I can't give you that.

I'd have to have a specific piece of property and know exactly what it the equalized rate is, and then all that.

Bottom line is as much as I'd like to get some increased revenue off of property taxes, you know.

My position, I'd that's great.

We won't.

Ours will stay because of the equalize equalization process about where it is.

So just wanted to throw that out there.

Um, in personal property tax and public utilities, also the KUB pilot, uh, we believe we do believe we're gonna have some decent growth there in the near future due to the two-year reappraisal cycle.

For instance, personal property tax and public utilities, we believe we're gonna be up about three and a half million dollars in FY27 compared to what we were this year.

We believe it'll go up and then kind of level off a bit, but at least we won't be taking those big discount rates that have been hurting us for for several years.

That will not happen.

And the KUB pilot, uh, we're also projecting that to be uh up as well.

I'll speak more there in a minute.

Uh some other factors.

I mentioned at the outset, we're looking at uh using, we're proposing to use six million dollars unassigned fund balance for some one-time capital projects.

And just to give you a flavor for what some of those are.

I won't talk to all of them.

But some of the headline ones are like the Washington Pike Improvements Projects, 2.1 million dollars.

The uh South Knox Bridge Greenway, that's a little over a million dollars.

Uh fire station number 15, 900K, 500k for the LT Ross building structural repairs.

Anyway, there's a list of one-time capital projects that that unassigned fund balance will go toward in capital.

Now, manpower or personnel.

Like I said, we're proposing to go up by 18 positions on the head count, and that'll be for one energy and sustainability manager in the sustainability department, one deputy director in uh CAT that will be a city employee, one financial analyst in the finance department that will focus most of their efforts on CATS finances.

We've got six parks and recreation uh part-time positions that we're proposing to go to full-time, and we have four positions that we're proposing to add to the public service department uh so they can work almost exclusively on, if not exclusively, on Shahai Park, the repair and maintenance there, since that is now become and will continue to become more of an open and regular park, like we have uh throughout the city.

And there's like 80 something acres there, and we need people dedicated to doing that that learn the property and what needs to happen and take care of it.

And there will be five.

We're proposing the addition of five police officers.

And to kind of explain this, Chief Noel will be here in a bit.

He's not already in here.

He's right behind us.

He's back here.

But I'll wait till he gets up.

But essentially, because they are much closer to being, depending on the day, fully staffed, okay.

Well, supervised to supervision, you need a decent ratio there.

Well, now that they're much higher up than they have been in previous years, they're wanting to promote at least five people within the ranks, I think, to the lieutenant and sergeant positions to give them from some more supervision for the for because they're fully staffed.

Well, the cascading effect goes down, and you end up with I think with looking at five, you'd need five new police officers uh once that cascading effect happens.

That's what that's all about.

So again, full time would go up 18 from 1,618 in FY26 to 1,636 in FY27, and the part time would drop from 27 to 21.

And when I talk about that drop, that's those, if you all approve it, those six part-timers from parks and rec to go to full-timers.

That's what that's about.

Uh, community agency grants.

Uh we're looking a little over 2.3 million dollars being appropriated there.

230K of that would be from opioid remediation funds, which we get in throughout the year to not a lot of them, like the county, but we do get them, and those would go to nonprofits to deal with that type work fighting the opioid crisis.

Uh arts and cultural type nonprofits to promote that.

We've got a little over 477K going there, community and social services type nonprofits, got a little over 630K going there, and then capital for a myriad of uh various nonprofits comes to uh 981k.

So that's uh it's a little over 2.3 million, and that's big picture buckets, how that's broken out.

Now the pension fund, I mentioned that that's properly funded, and uh, but I just just note that I mentioned it was going to happen and it is happening that at the budget retreat that uh it's going up 2.1 million dollars in what we need to pay on pension unfunded liability from the current FY to FY27.

That's not unexpected.

We knew that when that experience study was done and we decided to lower the rate of return by five basis points per FY.

So that's not catching us by surprise.

We've planned on it, but it is in fact going to happen.

Uh the KUB pilot, you know, that usually hovers in the mid-20s to maybe a little bit above the mid.

We're looking at that coming in with uh 30 way 31 million uh in FY27.

So that's that's very helpful.

Let's talk employee compensation for a minute, another thing that we spend a lot of money on.

We spent about 60 percent uh at least in the general fund on employee compensation.

Uh and overall, if you take all the entire budget, uh all funds included, uh it comes to almost 40 percent uh uh of what we spend or 195.2 million of the net budget, uh and it's projected to grow uh from the current FY by 3.4 percent.

Uh the largest portion, of course, is devoted to police and fire, uh, 102.1 million for the pay and benefits there for the uniformed officers in uh the police department and the uh firefighters in the fire department.

This budget continues to fund the two and a half percent salary increase for employees as well as the additional one point seven percent increase for the steps for our uniform bodies.

Also in this, it proposes to provide 256 K in additional performance pay to retain top quality employees and if I were you may know about it you may not but explain what that is.

Every year now for many years we have you take one half of one percent of the payroll for each department and that is what the various directors have to use for you know bonuses and things like that for for the for the people that are really uh kicking butt and taking names and the departments doing a good job.

Well we're wanting to double that actually and go to one percent of the uh one percent of their payroll in the respective departments so that comes to 256k that's what that's all about.

You'll also see in the budget we've proposed 200 thousand dollars for an increase to parks and recreation seasonal employees so that we'll be able to take the uh some of those employees their pay will go from the nine to ten dollar range right now where we just can't hang on to them to thirteen to fifteen dollar an hour range thus enhancing some of the some of their their their retention this budget continues to fund the fitness centers memberships for our employees for health and wellbeing and our health care costs are remaining the same in other words we're not going to pass on this proposed FY any increase to the employees in health care costs and we've done that for many years the debt total principal outstanding here in about six weeks actually seven and a half anyway at the end of this FY June 30th coming up will be a for the whole city including the convention center it will be around 104.3 million that we owe in principle we're going to make a 10 point a little over 10 point three million dollar payment throughout the entirety of FY27 so that'll drop us down to around 94 million by this time next year.

Now the convention center a lot of folks always want to know details about that I know I do.

Right now at the end of this FY we'll owe about 29.7 we plan to pay off four and a half million on it in the upcoming FY so we'll end up owing about 25.2 million on the convention center in uh at the end of this coming FY and uh with that we still believe we're going to pay that off a few years earlier if you recall the bonds uh run through 2032 and we believe we'll be able to pay it off a year or two early stadium debt I had the uh uh uh a member of council if ask me if I could go over the stadium debt for a moment and if if you're new on council uh you you may not understand it but you probably do from reading the news to some degree but for for a year okay first off the sports authority issued the debt okay but the city and the county agreed to equally split any gap funding what I mean by gap funding is by the time you factor in the revenue generated from the sales tax the tax increment from payments from the TIFFs and pilots the team rent so forth and so on if there's any gap on the payment that need shortfall and payment that needs to be paid then the city and county split that 50 50 for instance we budgeted one million for uh the FY that we're in right now FY26 I don't think we're gonna have to spend it all close but not all and the county budgeted 1.1 million uh we believe, as I said, that we're gonna come in a little better than we thought we might there uh and that's because uh we got about a no got about we approximately 1.35 million in uh sales tax for the first year, and we were expecting to only receive one or 970K.

So that's 380K over what we were estimating and the TIFTs and pilot, though, we were anticipating the first year being between $4 and $500K.

Uh we think that's what we will get, but our estimate was like $850K there.

So we'll be a little short there by about $350K, maybe a little less than.

The reason for that is it took a little longer to build some of the condominiums and the apartments and so forth.

Some of those are just now coming online.

So it took a little longer there.

But the net effect of it all, that uh I've been the the the county CFO, Mr.

Caldwell and myself have been looking at this, and uh by the time you figure in all sources of res uh all sources of funds for that.

Uh we actually believe neither of us are going to spend what we appropriated for that in year one, and we believe in year two that when those full TIFF pilot increments come online that we'll be even better off.

Okay, so it it that that is that is going well, and I I am very happy about that.

Uh this budget does continue, as I said at the outset, to provide the services our citizens have come to expect and rely on.

For instance, uh uh nine and a half million for roadway safety investments, like you know, paving roads, uh working on bridges, guardrails, signs, and so forth.

We've got 1.6 million for our vision zero initiatives, sidewalks repairs and maintenance, 88 curb cuts, uh the citywide roadway safety program, and parks and rec.

We're looking at 7.1 million dollars going uh there for improvements to our parks and our recreation facilities.

One of the bigger ones, of course, is Johai Park with uh two million we've uh proposed going there, and there's all kinds of greenways and pools and playgrounds and ball fields also in there.

Affordable housing uh we're proposing just over eight million for that with four and a half million for the uh transforming Western project, and this should be next to the last year that that the that we end up having to pay for that uh next next FY, I think, excuse me, FY27 will be the next of the year.

So FY28 would be the last time we have to pay $4.8 to meet our $26.5 million commitment.

But anyway, out of that affordable housing, $4.5 million goes there.

You've got $2.5 million in the Affordable Rental Development Fund, and then we have $900K roughly in uh philanthropic and city funds for affordable home ownership initiatives.

Homeless prevention, uh we've got over $2 million in local and federal funds uh to assist in helping prevent homelessness.

Also, this budget adds 200K to the 300K that we were already paying for the uh warming centers uh for the uh for for folks that are real cold and don't have a place to go in the uh in the cold months of the year.

And that would bring the total to what we pay for the upcoming FY to uh $500,000, which is uh like I say is from the city is a $200,000 increase.

The county is supposed to match that with $500K, so that means the grand total going toward warming centers for FY27 will be a million dollars.

We're maintaining in this budget some strong reserves, as you were may recall, uh council approved many years ago, setting up a stabilization account, which is the equivalent of 20% of the uh general fund, and uh that goes into our uh committed fund balance, and that comes to 68.8 million, so that will be held in obeyance there.

Five percent of the general fund is uh set aside as a signed uh fund balance uh as a matter of best practices, and that it comes to 17.2 million, and then per the charter we're required to hold back three uh uh one percent, and that comes to three point four four million for this upcoming FY.

And these reserves uh help us to handle the unknown if it comes up.

Uh in fact, we received a recent just fiscal health metric thing that came out of the comptroller's office, and it showed that uh we could just live on the cash alone that we have for 148 days at the time of that report without receiving a penny of income from anywhere else.

So those reserves are important.

Uh so the conclusion is it's a tight, it is a tight FY because the revenues are flatter, costs are up due to inflation and our uh you know personnel and benefits costs, but it's a fiscally responsible budget and it funds the uh services that our citizens have come to expect and rely on.

At this time, I'll open it up for any questions that you may have of me.

Thank you, Ms.

Sure.

Evans.

Um, that council, I appreciate you turn on your lights, and but I wanted him to get through the entire summary, hoping that might ask some stuff.

Now I believe the first person that had their light on was Councilwoman Parker.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh going back to the uh six million and unassigned fund balance, you listed off some capital projects.

Could you repeat those again?

Let me find it.

Yeah, I've I've got down uh the Washington Pike Improvements uh project, uh Magnolia Avenue intersection, the city portion of that, South Knox Bridge, Greenway, Fire Station 15, LT Ross building structural repairs, and the uh money going to uh for the uh KECs, the entrepreneurial centers, you know, setting up where they're they're gonna be.

These were just a few of them I pulled out of the the spreadsheets.

There are others.

Is this from the capital improvements budget?

Oh that's just off the spreadsheet on where we said when we looked at what we would use the unassigned fund balance on, that was what we said were some things that we could use it on uh as we were going through and determining the fund the sources of funding for the various uh capital projects.

Kitchen, you were about to say something.

Ms.

Smith, those projects are included in our capital budget.

Okay, the reason I ask is because when I look at the sources of funding and the capital improvement budget from the general fund, I see a little under two million.

So I'm trying to understand how the six million and unassigned fund balance is accounted for in the capital improvement budget, or is it just is it the 1.9 million from the general fund that's going towards the capital projects or six million?

I would have to take a minute and look at that.

Uh I know what I've stated there is accurate, but uh yeah, let us we may interject here in just a minute and get back with you, ma'am.

Sure.

Sure, I have um I have more questions, but you can we can go back.

Are they separate from the second minute?

And then Mr.

Hennick.

I'm you're going first, but I'm just saying there's more than two a year.

Mr.

Honeycock's got his light on.

Mike, I wanted to ask this because it's related to tangentially to uh to what councilwoman Parker was asking.

In terms of the unassigned six million, can you provide historical context for um like in the last 10 years?

How uncommon is it for us to move funds from that in this way or um just just trying to get a frame of reference?

Well, okay, first off, we normally we use some as we uh set forth the proposed budget.

In fact, a couple years ago, I think we appropriated 15 million from unassigned fund balance, a little over double this.

Usually where that comes into play, though, is in the budget amendments.

We'll have there will be it.

Drives me nuts as a CFO, but there will inevitably things that come up during the course of the FY that were not planned for at the outset of the budget, and we'll have to do a budget amendment to accommodate those.

And generally speaking, at that point in time, since we don't know what any of the audits done, how the revenues and expenditures are gonna flow, the only place we really have to take it out of is unassigned fund balance.

For instance, Ms.

Parker was asking a question earlier this week, and uh I got back as quick as I could, ma'am, and I know it probably wasn't exactly when you wanted, but I did do the best I could.

But uh where we appropriated six million dollars uh an unassigned fund balance for something that we did back in the maybe late fall of this calendar year.

I guess what I'm saying is it's not uncommon, uh, but but it does happen.

And it's just used to bridge a gap between revenues and expenditures.

Uh the the the caveat to that is if you don't have it, she can't use it.

I mean, you know, if you don't you want to maintain a decent level of unassigned fund balance for emergencies, and so if you if you don't have it, she can't use it.

So it sounds like it's more common to see that, like you said, with amendments, and that's how it happens, but there have been times contextually it over time where it is happening at the beginning of the budget.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And what we cannot use that on, just so you it is is operating, like we couldn't that six million dollars, we can't take that and pay personnel with it.

That has to be on one-time capital type projects.

Thank you, Mr.

Evans.

Um, Mr.

Honeycutt.

Thank you.

Um first of all, Mr.

Evans, uh, you know, I just want to commend you and your department on what you know appears to be a very organized and disciplined budget.

Uh and and you've given us a lot of information to go through, uh, but and you've been there to answer our questions, and I appreciate that.

Uh uh, you know, I've own a business and run a business, so obviously I've been through the budget process before, not as big as the cities or as complicated as the cities for sure.

But I do sort of try to boil things down high level in my own way, and so I wanted to run something by you and maybe the council uh my fellow councilmen as well.

Your chart on number page 41, I thought was really interesting, and the property taxes basically breaks down where our income and our expenses and our income is really in my again simple brain two buckets.

The big one being property taxes, which is forty-six percent of our income.

And that's a pretty stable income.

We can rely on it, you know, year in and year out.

Now, I would think, right?

Correct.

And forty-five percent of our expenses is public safety, police and fire.

So again, in my simple brain, I know it's doesn't work this way, but basically in my brain, property taxes pay for our police and our fire departments.

Everything else the city does, parks, greenways, courts, streets, sidewalks, you know, the the public services, brush, trash, all comes from really, and my again, my simple view, the other revenue sources, which is primarily sales tax, right?

Local and state sales tax.

So, and some other things like KUB, which again is dependent.

All of those other the 54% of our income is really dependent up and down based on the economy.

So, which is why again I appreciate the discipline budget because given sort of the unknowns in the economy, makes it hard to project, but that's effectively what we're trying to do here, right?

In this budget, is project what's going to happen next year and what we think we can spend.

Is that a fairly accurate simple way to look at it?

I would say mathematically, uh you're correct.

Of course, you don't, it's it's not like I know, I know.

When we used to be in the federal government, you had what we call colors of money, yeah, and you could only use those on certain things.

That's that's not the situation here.

I know mathematically, you're your your your your your statement there is accurate.

I know.

So again, I'm sort of just used to looking trying to put things in simple ways, big complicated things in simple ways.

And in my brain, again, stable money is in property taxes, effectively covers the stable sources uh that we need to provide to our constituents in police and fire.

Everything else it that's effectively elective is comes from the sales tax side in my sort of simple way.

You can get a bunch of other things besides I mean, yeah, the sales tax is the second largest source of revenue.

Well, but it does have KUB five pilot, which is huge, well, and liquor and beers sales and all of that stuff, all driven up and down by the economy, yeah.

So in large measure, yeah.

So on that, here's my question.

I mean, again, this is a budget, which is great, and we're setting a roadmap for the next year, and we can always adjust the budget depending on how the year goes.

But what do you see in this budget, given sort of what's happening, you know, uh in the global economy, as the biggest threats to this budget, like and what and how can we address them now as a council?

Our biggest threat is our Michael mentioned at the budget retreat, is the uh the operating costs go up each year, and a lot a lot of that is driven by what we have to pay uh personnel and their benefits to have the people to do the work because we're a service-based organization.

We can cut down on a lot of things if we needed to, but that's one area you got to be real careful about because like I said, we're we're a service organization.

So my concern is the uh the operating costs and has been for uh uh a good while, and uh but and that when we prepare the budget, just so you know, when you're preparing the budget, the first thing we do is we fund pay and benefits.

That's number one.

That's the building block.

And then we start to work on everything else, like the last thing we met with is uh capital.

So uh yeah, I'd just say rising operating costs.

I I don't see an end to that.

In fact, with some of the inflationary effects, and you know, always takes a little longer to hit local governments, but as though we're working their way through, like I was saying, supplies are up 20%, you know.

Uh that becomes problematic, and it's something we have to watch.

Thank you.

I was Kitron add in.

Yeah, well, I would also just uh add uh to kind of stress what Boyce said that's the compounding effect also of um the benefits uh for our personnel.

We know we had a compensation study, and we implemented that in one year, and there are compounding effects to that compensation study, as well as our our benefits.

We are a service-driven organization, um, and so our personnel cost, as you've seen in the budget, and we've talked about many times, is uh is are the largest expense of the city.

And I've it's on that note, real quick, and then I'll turn it over.

Sorry, I uh and I applaud like you know what you're doing in terms of health care for the employees and and continuing to cover costs that the private side can't absorb.

So um I don't know how long that's sustainable, but uh I appreciate the effort.

Thank you.

Um Ms.

Parker, I'll get back to you.

But the the thing I want to add in there is like Councilman Honeycutt said my place of employment, we've had to start passing on health insurance costs to our employees.

We don't want to, but without the money, we have to.

So our employees also, I don't know how many people on council know.

Some of us do, but by ordinance, city employees must get a two and a half percent raise per year by ordinance.

And I can't remember how long that ordinance has been in effect, but other cities and counties do not have that ordinance, so in tight budget years, oftentimes I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but I just really want the community to understand and our employees to understand in an economic situation that we're in in the country, public sector at the city of Knoxville is a good place to work because you're guaranteed a raise every year, and I know when you're guaranteed it every year, it doesn't feel like it, but it is.

Just super fast related to what you were saying.

Isn't it to I understand that that requirement is a requirement, but doesn't that equate sort of a cost of living increase?

Well, I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing, I'm just saying there's no way we cannot do it.

I'll point my question.

But it is, it is equates to cost of living.

Okay, sorry.

I do think just cost of living.

If you look at the 10-year, so it is not tied to the CPI.

I think that's really important.

There were years where CPIs won 1.4, 1.7, it doesn't drop, right?

So there are years it's above, there are years it's below it's it's static regardless of what the regardless of we've got some recent information, and we can get into this when HR is here, but we we've actually been incredibly competitive over the last 10 years.

If you look at CPI inflation, both Southern Index, City, Tennessee, nationwide.

So we've got some information that we just got verified on that because we've had some discussions with employees.

But yes, uh, it is a cost of living, but it is also a very expensive way to do it.

I will also clarify my point.

Council attorney Mr.

Frost uh did remind me that council can change it, it just requires us to do an ordinance to change it, and at one point city council did um can suspend it for half of a budget year to make a budget work.

It was Mayor Ash's uh last or next to last.

So it's been a minute, it's been a while.

So uh it was it was to be suspended for half the year, then revenues uh took a surprisingly good turn, so ended up it was only I think suspended for about four months.

If my recollection is correct, the two and a half percent came in uh with mayor Kyrie.

Councilwoman Parker.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, you know, some of the additional questions that I have are along the same lines of trying to account for the six million in unassigned fund balance in this year's budget.

Um, and the discussion that was taking place around using um, you know, not using unassigned fund balance towards personnel costs, that's a concern.

And when I look at the general fund revenue on page 31, and try to get a sense of, you know, I'm looking at property taxes, I'm looking at our stable revenue sources, um, and whether that covers I think you said it was the hundred and ninety-four million in total personnel costs.

So that's what I'm trying to get a sense of, and I I did ask for a report, and I'm gonna have to ask for a an amendment to that report because I wanted to see um uh our general fund balance over the years.

Uh, but but this the allocations within that, so how much of that represents unassigned fund balance?

How much of that is assigned?

Um, so I I'll have to get an update to that, but the switching to um this budget amendment process makes it difficult to track how much we're using unassigned fund balance each budget year.

Um, I believe last year we saw increased revenues, we had a budget amendment.

Some of those increased revenues could go towards that budget amendment, but some of it was covered by unassigned fund balance.

And I think that's really important to know to get a sense of well, how much we're relying on an assigned fund balance each budget year, and how much our personnel costs are being covered by the stable sources of revenue.

That's what I'm trying to get a sense of with my with my questions.

Um was that what the total personnel cost did you say is about 194?

Hang on, ma'am.

First off, I heard what you said on the fund balance.

You want not just the total, yeah, but then like there's five categories of fund balance.

What are those, and we can break that out.

That's that's not a problem.

Okay, we're talking about personnel.

Okay, personnel cost, yeah, it's one ninety-five point two million.

That's for the whole city.

That's that's all funds included.

Right.

Um, yeah, those would be my major questions.

Is just getting more clarity around the six million, making sure that we're not using unassigned fund balance to cover personnel costs.

I also have questions about the debt payments, um, which we have limited time here today.

I'm fine with getting an answer by email on that, but I'm trying to get a better understanding of uh what we've budgeted for debt payments this year and why it's uh the number that it is with our $25 million payment last year.

Um the the the debt that we owed on the convention center.

I mean, you're right, we made a 25.1 million or a 25 million dollar lump sum payment in addition to what anyway that drop the key thing that did was drop us down from having to pay around nine million a year going forward on the bonds to around I think it's 5.7 million per year going forward, and we believe the tourism development zone dollars that gets generated.

Well, no, we don't believe, we know those are covering that $5.7 million and that is freeing up city hotel motel tax dollars to do other things like on deferred maintenance for some of our tourism related facilities.

I don't know if I'm answering your question.

No, it's just that we had you know the 26 million budgeted last year for debt service, and this year it's 30 million.

So that's I was just trying to understand that.

We can we can get you that breakdown of our debt service payments, but I think it's important to remember that as you're looking uh in our budget, and we have our fund 305, which is debt service, that does not include the debt service on the convention center.

The debt service on convention center is in our 506 funds, so that's two separate pots of money there.

But we'll get you that breakdown.

Thank you.

Um do you have anything else right now, Ms.

Parker?

Oh, and then also I'd love a breakdown of the stadium revenue.

Um I appreciate the overview, but yes, ma'am.

And and I would just ask that what you send Ms.

Parker, you sent everyone on council.

We'll do, yeah.

Thank you.

And then um at this at this point, I I just want to assure our new colleagues that it does pick up spick up the pace in the afternoon.

We front load us in the morning with the really heavy hard stuff that is more complicated, so we can we may get behind in the morning, but we bring it home in the afternoon, okay?

And so we'll be ready for public forum at five o'clock, and if we're not, we'll stay after public hearing the public forum piece and um finish our work.

So, um, but before I call up uh Chief Noel, I'd like to thank Ms.

Kirk for putting this um large amount of work together for us to help do the budget.

Will you just quickly tell us what's in this big notebook?

Absolutely, thank you.

Um, so you should have two.

I'm just gonna go over materials that you have.

So you should have two books in front of you.

You should have the one that was given to you at the state of the city address, um, which is the proposed uh budget put together by the finance department, and then you'll have a binder that is gonna be supplemental to that.

And so what that is is for each department, I take information from previous proposed budgets and from previous audited numbers and put them in a comparative way on this on the sheet.

Um also included is going to be what operating personnel and capital requests each department had um at the beginning of this budget process and then what was actually included in the proposed budget.

So if it's highlighted in orange, it was included at the full amount.

If it's highlighted in green, it was included at an augmented amount, and then that amount will be included beside it.

So just in text.

So at the break you can get her to clarify that more if you want to, but but it is a nice, it gives us some of what Ms.

Parker's talking about too.

I just want you to repeat the colors and what they represent again.

Orange is fully funded.

Green is partially funded.

Yes, go ahead.

Uh we have more colors.

Excuse me.

We have more colors for you on your agenda for today.

Uh we have color-coded um some organizations that we're presenting before you.

Uh, if they're in black, there's city departments.

Uh they're in the city org chart.

If they're red, they are organizations that are shared organizations between the city and the county.

Uh a good example would be planning.

Uh that's a shared resource for both governments.

Uh, blue agencies are partner agencies, such as uh Zoo Knoxville, for example.

Um also um the capital improvement program uh is a document that was delivered to the office a few days ago, and that's also at your seats, a little booklet for you.

And it includes districts uh each project that's broken down by districts this year, which is huge.

Thank you to Ms.

Smith and Miss Kirk for working on that.

That's a question that always comes up.

Like, where is this?

So thank you for that.

Okay, any other housekeeping things?

All right, one more time on the orange.

Green, orange is fully funded.

Green is not funded as presented.

See my brain works green is gold.

That would have been the real yeah, green good.

I mean, we're in Knoxville, yeah.

So it's orange.

So sorry.

Red's usually yeah, yes, yes, I agree.

Okay, all right.

Um I think we're ready for uh public safety, and uh first we will hear from the Knoxville police department.

Um, so Chief Noel and your uh folks can come on down here and sit on the right over here in these four seats, so that you're or you can stand at the podium if you would like to, Chief.

Well, it worked for Mr.

Evans to sit, so if you would like to sit, that's fine.

You may be there longer than some people.

I don't know.

It's just a big big department.

Okay.

Sure.

Thank you for having us.

I have with me to my right, assistant chief David Paul and Deputy Chief Susan Coker.

And um, we're really excited about our accomplishments last year and even more excited about the future with the Knoxville Police Department, and we're happy to answer any questions that you all have of us.

Um I'll go ahead and ask because I know that we've talked about it and uh the Mr.

Evans brought it up too.

You're asking for five new head count.

Um kind of gave us a quick overview.

Is there any particular places in KPD you want the five, or is it spread across the entire department?

No, ma'am.

So um you I think I've spoken about this previously.

A while back, I guess in 2020, 2021, we went to a 12-hour shift, the KPD, long before I came here due to the staffing shortages, and what what the department was trying to do then was try to maximize deployment on the street, and it accomplished that, but at the at the cost of increased stress on our employees, reducing their overall wellness.

Um the department stayed on a 12-hour shift for about five years, which I believe is well longer than they intended.

So what we're doing now starting in July 1 is we're going to a 10-hour shift where the officers will work 10 hours a day, four days a week, which is much better for their wellness, better for their stress um that their stress levels, but what that does is a much more inefficient schedule where we have lots of overlap, where we basically need more officers to cover the same amount of coverage that we did with the 12 hour shift.

One of the the challenges would go into a 12 hour 10 hour shift is we need more supervision.

For us, the recommended ratio for a officer to supervisor ratio is around one to six.

One to six, one to eight is the range.

If you have a younger workforce, an experienced workforce, you really want that ratio lower.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna use those new positions if you all choose to approve this budget to add supervision to our field operations to our uniform patrol, which will only get our supervisory ratio on an average basis around one to eight, which is like right on the high extreme of where we want to be.

When we have instances where supervisors are sick, supervisors hurt, uh, we get even higher than that.

So this is a really good beginning start of getting our supervisory ratio in the range where I feel comfortable.

Thank you.

I know that that's been a goal for previous counsel and um you and the mayor since you got here to do away with the 12 hour shifts.

It it was very hard.

It's not your tired people.

Um it's not good.

Yeah, our officers are super excited about it.

Uh it's gonna give them, you know, not only more time to really focus on their wellness, but more time to train as well.

Yes.

You know, you know, with police training, all too often we just think about recruit training, but training really needs to be throughout someone's career.

Um training to help them become better at their job, but also, you know, equally important as some of us talked about yesterday at the at the orientation that we had, training to help them become future leaders of our organization.

This is gonna give us we can use that overlap time to do more training.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions?

Mr.

Honeycomb.

Yeah, no, I just again want to commend you all and your department uh for the work you're doing.

Uh it is really greatly appreciated and respected in our community.

So thank you.

And you know, look forward to supporting you all in this budget going forward.

We've talked a good bit about, you know, the additional supervisor positions uh and the need to get, you know, the continue to kind of get the pay scale right sized.

So those are two, you know, big budget requests that you know are are part of this, which is great.

Are there any other, you know, kind of departmental needs that are part of this that we should be aware of that maybe aren't being talked about as much?

A part of this budget here, yeah.

So in this budget here, we also have um money a hundred thousand dollars um that that's in this budget to um basically build out a wellness center for us within within our public safety concept um complex.

Right now we have a really small fitness center in in our public safety complex, and what we want to do is just build out a not not only a complete gym, but also build in a wellness component as well, um, through a private donation through money through our Knoxville Police Foundation.

We want to spend about four hundred thousand dollars to redo our gym, build a wellness center where a physical therapist or a um social worker could come in and work with our officers and also bring in clean eats as well, where our officers can have a refrigerator freezer or kitchen area where they could come in and buy a meal and have a meal ready to eat.

That's a healthy meal.

You know, our employees work 24-7.

So when you think of somebody who takes their lunch break at 1 a.m.

Where do you go eat other than you know, you know, fast food, taco bell, stuff like that.

Also, you know, officers are getting off at you know at six in the morning.

The only really option for for breakfast is the you know to hit a drive-thru or something on the way home.

So we want them to be able to go hit that that area and be able to go get um a good healthy meal because we know that if they take care of themselves physically and mentally, they're gonna do a they're gonna be a better worker and they could do a better job for us on the street.

So that's the other piece is a hundred thousand dollars for that fitness center.

That's great.

And just for clarity, it sounds like it basically you're asking for a roughly a hundred thousand dollars in the budget for that program, which sounds like it's needed, but you're leveraging about three hundred thousand in private money to combine with that to create the whole wellness program.

Correct.

Absolutely.

We need about about four hundred thousand dollars to build that out the way we want.

And that that that'll be something that'll last decades.

If we take care of it, it'll last decades.

Yeah, and it'll be something that we all be proud of for for years to come.

Yeah, so it's leveraging city money with private money to get the to effectively create the program, which is which is great.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Thomas.

Yes.

Um, we've talked about the co-responder program and the need for to extend that around the clock and probably more personnel.

Is that reflected uh in this budget?

Not in this budget, no, sir.

So right now we're with this budget we're holding with with the six co-responder teams that we have.

Um, I've spoken about this many times.

I would love to double that to go to 12.

We have applied for the grant that you all um, the city council authorize us to apply for.

We have not heard back from that yet.

We won't for some time to increase that to three more positions to nine.

Long term, I would love for us to get to 12.

And it's something that that you know, we're starting to have these internal conversations about now.

Now that we're at our budgeted strength, we're starting to look at things that the police department should be doing to match the growth in the needs of our city, not only co-responders, but more traffic enforcement, more follow-up our detectors, um, you know, dedicated traffic enforcement on the interstate, and approaching some of the mental health challenges that we facing.

Those are all things that we would be looking for in the future to meet the needs of.

Okay, thanks for that, Date.

Duly noted.

Yes, sir.

Councilwoman Parker.

Thank you.

Uh, one thing that we were able to discuss briefly yesterday, and I thought it would be interesting for the public if you're able, um, was I was mentioning the growth in KPD since I was elected, and the fact that you know, in our lovely budget here, we have listed the full-time positions by department, and when I was elected in 2019, that was 5'19 for KPD.

And now today we're at 540, and KBD is hoping for 545.

So, I was wanting hoping you could share um some insight into what that growth has looked like for the department.

Sure, absolutely.

So I'm really proud to talk about some of the professional staff positions that we've added to our department, and you all may want to cut me off because I could ramble about this for a long time because I'm really really proud of it.

But you know, first one that you know that I really talk about is our curriculum director, um Donna Trogden.

Um, you know, we run a full-time education facility at the Knoxville police department.

We train our new officers, but we also have continual development training, and all of those trainers, almost all of those trainers are police officers like me that have never most never most have never worked in the education environment.

So, what modern police departments are now doing is hiring professional educators to work in that police academy to not only help teach, but help our teachers teach.

Just because you're a good SWAT officer or a good detective or a good traffic officer does not mean that you're an educator.

So just like the United States Military Academy, you know, they they train soldiers and and sailors for for combat, but they also have mathematicians and engineers and all these other people that teach in the military academy.

Us hiring Donna Trogdon is our first step of having a professional academic person to help shape that environment and really to create uh uh an environment of lifetime learning.

That's one of those positions.

Um some of the other positions that I'm really proud of as our firearms examiners, our firearms examiner team was just awarded the gold standard by the ATF for um being able to um analyze ballistic evidence and share it not only um with the knockout police department but across the region.

Um those are professionals, lifelong professionals that are not police officers, but dedicate their life to protecting their field, our crime scene technicians.

Um we've added to that over the years.

I'm also proud to say for the first time, and I think maybe ever, we've added a civilian crime scene tech supervisor.

So those crime scene techs that come to us with advanced degrees, with master's degrees, and go through the National Forensic Academy.

Before they had no way to advance.

They just were a worker for their whole life.

And now we're building under Chief Coker's leadership, we're building a career path for them to go move up into management, and it makes perfect sense because before we would just take a police sergeant and say we're now supervisors over these highly technical skilled people.

So if you have any more specific questions, I'll I'll be happy to answer them.

I could talk about those positions all day.

Um I'm really proud of our professional staff.

Our police officers get the credit all the time, but the men and women that come to work behind the scenes, they're just they're some amazing workers, and everything that we could do to um help them advance and to bring more professionals into our workforce is something I'm all for.

Just one real quick.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

And uh again, I think you all and the previous city council and everybody uh should be applauded for getting our police force back up to what we have everyone refers to as fully staffed, right?

Um and that is a great accomplishment for our community and for you all as a department.

But uh I think there's been some some talk about what fully staffed really means, right?

And who's set that number and how long that number has been set for.

So we've achieved a milestone, but will you talk a little bit about like what that number is and how long it's been set for?

Because I think it's been a long time coming, and when you look at the growth of Knoxville, uh we may actually need a higher number, but we should applaud where we are today.

Yeah.

So anyway, I just want to give you a minute.

It doesn't really, I know it's doesn't directly imply this, but in terms of our discourse and public discourse, I think it's helpful information to for people to know.

Absolutely.

So if I may correct you on one term, so I would not use the term fully staffed, I would use the term budget strength.

Because I think fully staffed, I think is a number that that I think does need to be much higher long term.

When you look at the growth of the city, when you look at the needs of our department with with wellness, um, I think that number does need to be higher.

We have been at uh the authorized strength or the budget strength for our department has been 416 for the longest.

I believe, and and Chief Powell, you have to help me when when when Victor Ash was mayor, we were on budget strength around four or six four sixty-one, four fifty-one.

So we were budgeted for much higher when the when the city was much quieter.

You know, now we have a lot of things going on right now.

We also have increased traffic issues.

So I'm super proud of our team for the tremendous reductions in violent crime that a lot of people should take credit for, not just police, but also community safety, some of the great work that's going on out there in the public.

We've reduced violence significantly, but we have still have significant traffic fatalities.

We st we still have an opioid epidemic in our community.

So we need to add, in my opinion, more officers doing dedicated traffic enforcement on our city roads and on our interstates because they're very dangerous, and we really need to take start a hard look at overdose, overdose deaths and combating some of this drug academic that's that's on our department.

I mean that that's in our city, and there's a bunch of other things I think that we need to look at as well.

So, what I would what I would say is long term, while we we're we're happy with what we have here with 421, we need to start getting back to where we were 30 years ago and eventually beyond that as well.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you.

Um, Chief, I would also like to say the number of special events.

This was a much sleepier town 30 years ago, and um with a lot of work.

People have made this the city it is, but um, it's a cool place and it's a fun place, but that's a lot more people here, which puts a lot more pressure on special events um work as well.

So, and for if the 10 hour shifts are then people are also choosing have to work extra for that.

That that is difficult too.

So is there, and I should know this, and I may know that, and I have forgotten it, so forgive me, but is there some long range strategic planning that you are doing about projected growth or what the force should look like?

Um, won't be for my time on office, maybe not even for the five new people to be here to, but just what is the are you what are you projecting, or what's the plan to figure out how many we need.

So that's a great question.

So um Chief Powell and Chief Culker and the team are in the process now of going through a staffing evaluation for patrol only.

It's only from the patrol side, and the reason we're only doing patrol is just the expense of it.

Right.

Um, and what we'll do is we'll have a one once that's completed, we'll have a formula that we that we could put in that will show the number of patrol officers that we need to to keep our to have the level of protection that we currently have now.

The preliminary data on that would show that we would need about 15 more patrol officers right now to meet those needs, but that's not counting the special event coverage and everything else.

You also have to remember that with when we add patrol officers, we also have to add supervision as well.

It kind of goes up goes up the ladder to first line and second line supervisors long term, and this is this is further out.

Yeah, uh, we really need to engage in a staffing analysis of our whole department, especially on our investigative side, because you know we have a handful of detectives that are doing a lot of work right now, and they get burnt out on that side as well, especially when you talk about people that are that are just they're going over and over again, especially dealing with violent crime.

And one of the things that does that does concern me with our department is we have a very very old and experienced department and a very young department, and we kind of have a donut hole in the middle, and I don't have enough staffing to start taking some of those inexperienced officers, putting in them spots and getting chained um trained up.

But what's going to start to happen is as those very experienced and senior employees start to retire and fall off, I'm gonna have a gap of experience that I have to deal with.

That's something that's the one thing that really kind of keeps me out up at night about right now.

I don't know if this will make you feel better, but that's you're not the only industry suffering with that.

So um, but any other questions about this?

All right, seeing no more lights, um, I think you guys are done.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um now, Chief Sharp, it's time for fire.

Chief Sharp, will you start with um telling us who's with you?

We may or may not all know, so that would be great.

I should have asked uh Chief Noel to do that, but I didn't, so I'll be glad to do that.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Fugin.

Uh so with me uh this morning, uh, first on my right is uh Gary Compton.

He's our deputy chief of operations.

He basically heads up our firefighting division, which is our largest division.

These are the people that are out on the front lines on the companies who respond to emergencies every day.

He also oversees our EMS division, which manages our first responder program.

Uh he's been with the department almost 38 years, and he's been deputy chief since 2014.

Uh to my left is Rob Cheesman, he's our deputy chief of administration.

Uh he's been with the department almost 28 years and has been deputy chief since June of 2020.

Yeah, he started right in the middle of COVID.

Uh perfect timing.

When we did, when Ms.

Parker and Councilman Thomas and I did.

And he oversees all of our other divisions including training, fire prevention, fire investigations and logistics.

And finally, Julie Smith Maxwell, she is our fire administration and business manager.

She's essentially our financial manager.

She's been with the city for 15 years and been with the fire department for over five years.

Thank you.

And I'll be glad to take any questions then.

Um I think it's helpful.

Um if you could give an overview quickly, because there's not much time, but of the um how your work has expanded over the last several years, especially in light of the opioid epidemic and how you've adjusted.

Yes, that that is uh as you all are probably aware, we uh operate the first responder program, which means we respond to any life threatening or limb threatening emergencies.

Even though we don't have an ambulance service, we still respond to all of those uh medical emergencies.

Uh several years ago, uh, actually started a little after 2013.

Uh we started seeing a huge increase in the uh overdose response.

Uh and it was kind of exponential up until about 2019.

I mean, we had you know less than a hundred uh in twenty thirteen and then it grew to almost a thousand uh in twenty nineteen.

We saw a slight dip.

Uh actually I think it was in twenty nineteen and twenty we saw a slight dip, and then it started increasing again uh until a couple of years ago and now over the last two years it's starting to decrease a little bit.

But you know, when I first started, I I don't even recall uh an overdose call.

I mean they were so uh uncommon, but uh that put a significant strain on our our all of our first responders and uh you know for their EMS calls and then we went through uh COVID, uh which caused an additional uh stress on our people responding to medical calls, and then we went through some really significant challenges with the ambulance service uh for several years, which made things even harder on on all of our frontline firefighters.

I I will say over the last year or so we're starting to see some improvement in that.

So so the medical portion has been a real strain on our folks, uh w which is uh uh something we we've worked on uh and also tried to improve our medical response, which we have significantly.

And I see that you all have done this um with what is it?

Three hundred and thirty-seven staff.

Yeah, yeah, we 327 are our uh our firefighters, the uniform staff.

We have 10 civilian staff.

Uh we actually uh and it's been at that level for a little over 20 years.

Back in 2003, 2004, we actually lost 30 positions.

I saw that.

Uh and we've been at at the the same level uh since then.

Do well I'm gonna ask this because uh Chief Noel brought it up and I hadn't realized that the size of our fire and police were much larger under Victor Ash.

Um do you have an explanation for that cut in 30 positions?

What what was the explanation?

It was just financial.

Just financial.

I mean, it was long before I was chief, but it was just there were major cutbacks that year.

And we lost those positions and you know, never regained uh grade gained them at this uh to this point.

And you have a budget request for additional firefighters.

Yes, but it was not correct fulfilled.

Um how about uh wellness issues with uh our firefighters who've been dealing with the opioid, so we have put an increased emphasis on that.

Uh many years ago it was something that was just never dealt with in the fire service.

Uh I mean if you were having uh mental issues, it was you know, primarily it was, you know, you just deal with it as part of the job.

You know, we don't look at it that way anymore.

There are significant uh problems that that go on with the the stress of this job and we see and do things that most people multiple times that most people never see in their whole life.

So we have uh that established uh a health and safety committee and one of the main things they're focusing on is mental health and well being uh including a uh I don't want to call it mandatory, but it is uh one something we've just initiated that every all of our firefighters, including me, are gonna have to go before um a mental health professional once a year and just sit and get some uh some pointers on how to deal with stress or or how to deal with problems with the job, and that's gonna help our people learn how to deal with some issues they're having, but I think it will also it will have some people open up that maybe need to get some help before it gets too far uh along the road.

So I'm really excited about getting that going.

Well that's a good update to hear.

Um and I'll I don't know if there are other questions, but uh that essentially is the bulk of my questions.

I just appreciate so much what you all do, and I don't think people have a sense of all of uh the life-saving work that fire does.

I think people think of it in terms of buildings on fire, we call the fire department, but um you know, in terms of you know, you know, uh getting folks out of cars and bad wrecks and you know, all of these life-saving activities that you all do and the trauma that you all get exposed to is quite a concern of mine.

Um I hear us doing a lot of more of that work in some areas than others, and I just want to make sure that all of our uh public safety employees are being taken care of in that regard.

So but appreciate it.

Um may I go before you thank you.

Um Chief Sharp, is some of that going to be um discussed in this strategic planning that the fire department is um going through right now.

Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Because I think some of the concerns Miss Parker's talking about, and I don't know what Mr.

Tom, but that we all that we all have concerns about.

Hopefully, some of that is what is going to be coming out of this strategic plan in the way we approach that in the future.

Yes, uh thank you, Vice Mayor, for that question.

Yeah, that's correct.

We're currently in the process of working with a third party uh on a uh long-term strategic plan, and they're gonna be addressing uh multiple things.

Some of our uh policies and procedures, uh career development, uh recruitment and retention, uh staffing, uh, our rank structure.

Uh they're gonna be looking at uh cost recovery.

You know, are there some things that we can uh some ways we can you know recover some of our cost uh from some of the responses uh that that we some of the things that we respond to uh among other things so yeah a lot of those things are going to be addressed in this strategic plan.

Today's fire service is not what it used what it used to be.

That is absolutely correct.

We are not just a fire.

I mean, we still obviously respond to fires, but they're we're in all hazards department, um from car wrecks to hazardous materials to rescue train to rescue uh emergency rescue uh services and obviously EMS.

Thank you.

Uh Councilman Thomas.

Yes, um a follow-up in the regard to the mental health aspect and the the trauma that uh firefighters often see, you know, and uh I was happy to see the annual checkup uh on for psychological services and uh it should be standard because you know we all go in almost for a physical every year, whether we feel like we need it or not, and so just standardizing the psychological aspect and acknowledging that uh I think that's a really good step in the right direction.

Thank you.

We we appreciate that.

And this is going to get some people in front of uh mental health professional that would never do it unless they were you know kind of forced into it.

Uh and some of those who I know will get some help that they need.

And in addition to that, we're actually including some uh mental health training uh in our EMS classes, in our EMT classes, in our recruit classes, and our promotion classes, because that is such an important part uh of the job and of things we need to be helping our folks with.

Councilman Honeycomb.

Thank you.

Uh, I just want to second my uh previous comments and and just say thank you, Chief Sharp and and the rest of your department for the work you guys do and the support you bring to our community.

Uh it is greatly appreciated, and we don't tell you that enough, and and I'm happy to you know support you as much as I can in this budget personally, and I know other council members do too.

Uh I again I just want to try to make sure that we get the message out that uh it sounds like I know for both your department and the police department uh that we have had basically the same budgeted strength.

Am I saying that right, Chief Newell?

Budgeted strength, I think.

So we've had the same budgeted strength for both departments.

We actually have less than we had 30 years ago.

So we have less police officers and less firefighters budgeted than we did 30 years ago.

And uh, and obviously we know the city's grown 20, 30 percent more uh easily than over that 30 year period in both sprawl out Harden Valley and other areas.

I don't want to talk about that in a second.

That's where my question's going, and in activity and people.

I know in my company, if I suddenly ask my the same actually fewer people to suddenly do 30% more work, I would have uh some I'd I'd have some challenges.

You might be working by yourself.

I might be working by myself.

So uh so I applaud both of you all and and in this case the fire department for doing the work you do.

I know you're getting a new fire station, a new fire station and Burlington, which is wonderful, but it's actually a replacement station for an existing station.

Our city has grown geographic both in population and geography a tremendous amount over the last 30 years.

How have we expanded our footprint and in the fire department to accommodate that growth?

And what do you see as the need there?

Well, I'll tell you what what the need is.

We have not expanded or not well, I'll take that back.

We did uh approximately 15 years ago.

Uh we opened a station in uh South Knoxville, Deep South Tonksville, the colonial village area.

But it was one that we had before, and it was shut down, uh, and we just had one station closer in in South Tonks.

Well, so uh and then we essentially rented it, the city rented it to the rescue squad for for years, and then they didn't need it anymore.

So we took it back, and it was a perfect opportunity to open that station again.

So that is the one expansion that we've done in the last uh 20 years anyway.

And we do have needs really in all directions, east, west, and and north, uh, to expand that uh and and that will be uh you know, that is part of our long-term plans also.

Again, I know that's not necessarily part of this budget, and I applaud both your departments for running obviously a very efficient and effective and doing a lot with the money you are given, and thank you to the current administration and the current city council for funding that they have provided.

Just long term, it's important I think for the public and all of us to understand uh as you make plans and come forward in future budgets where those where we are as a city and and what we need in the future.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Miss can I ask Miss Adams to go first since she hadn't asked questions.

Okay, uh, same um comments uh that all the colleagues have made in terms of kudos and the awareness of all that the fire department does and the name not really capturing at all the uh different specialties and emergency responses that take place under that name uh I know I got a big education uh just in the last six months about all the different things uh that the fire department does and the special certifications that are required to do that uh the comment uh has been made about the um study being uh the vehicle that will hopefully address some of the issues that are raised up in the personnel aspect of the budget request and I just wanted to go over the timetable if we have that for the that study um I understand we won't know exactly um the hard dates but just in general in terms of when that study rolls out and then would we anticipate that study being one to actually impact the budget plan for next fiscal year.

Because it's underway correct it is underway we expect it uh to be finished this summer and and it will there will be some things you know that we can probably we should we will be able to implement right away uh some with you know no extra cost and then there'll be you know long term uh goals and and plans uh for the next uh two three five and even up to ten years so as far as implementing what we would be implementing you know within the next year that may affect that budget I really can't answer that until we see what the plan is Ms.

Adams I think what will be important is there's a number of studies so fire department strategic plan there's a longevity study to look at our very very kind of uh it's been in place a long time with longevity compensation and then there's a large compensation study uh that will assuming it gets funded in this budget will move forward as soon as we get the budget approved so all of those are going to come together to guide next fiscal year's potential needs wants and so there's there's this triangulation of these projects that will all come together the goal is to have that ready by the end of the calendar year to start to guide what the needs will be by the end of next month so we December 26.

So we start our budget process pretty much when we get the budget approved we'll go we start planning but we need to have hard numbers for what where are we from a market standpoint where are we from a vacancy rate where are we from a you know does our longevity system work or not work so all of that the strategic plan where's the fire department going we we're always looking at head count and so all of that will come together to guide requests that would come in from our professional public administrators and chiefs and finance professionals as we start those submittals in December January and February so the goal is as we're going into budget hearings both internal with the administration and with the legislative body we have some answers yes thank you thank you.

Councilwoman Parker thank you.

And I look forward to those studies moving forward in terms of long-term plans I'm still concerned about our immediate needs um and uh one request I would like to make is to get a report of how much um the fire department spends an overtime expenses um because I see that this request for additional staff is to offset the amount that we're spending on overtime expenses uh so I I'd love to see how what that looks like and I'm you know continuing to be concerned about well being um and what we're doing in the in the short term to address, you know, uh overwork staff, uh, those who are um uh handling quite traumatic events.

Um I I I don't want to put this off for five years, um, when it seems like something that needs to be addressed more urgently.

But I would I would just like to see what that overtime pay for fire is, if you wouldn't mind sharing, we'll be glad to get that too.

Thank you, um, Councilman Honeycutt.

Just real quick, I appreciate Councilwoman Parker asking that question.

I had a similar follow-up that I was gonna probably send you in the email.

Um, but again, I just want to quickly reiterate that I'm not discouraging, you know, the previous budgets and the previous councils and and your previous department's efforts.

You've obviously been very efficient, just put it politely and uh as with the taxpayer money, and and we applaud the administration and your departments for for doing that.

Just trying to, you know, when we talk about where we were as a city 30 years ago where we are today and where we needed to be in the future, it's just trying to to in my own mind again understand it so that we can convey it to the public for for the future needs.

So it's not trying to speak ill of uh the city or anyone in the room when we talk about that stuff.

Uh just want to applaud your departments and the city uh for effective and efficient use and look forward to planning for the future.

Vice Mayor, could I jump in just quickly?

Just um the just wanted to comment the overtime request, we'll get you that number.

That was a discussion that the mayor had uh with Chief Sharp and the executive team because we are spending a lot on overtime.

Uh we oftentimes go above even what we've got budgeted sometimes because of the demands.

And the mayor said to the chief, like, hey, tell me if we staffed up, how could we do a better job of?

And so that that was really the first time we did that exercise, which we also think will be really helpful as we take these three plans and put them all together for a vision for the future.

So we'll get that number to you.

I will I will just say um the nature of government is there's never enough money to do all that we want to do, um, and the hard choices are are being made, but we'd all love more money to do all that we need to do as with every business with everything.

Um, but I do think 20 20 years of um set numbers for a city that has grown like it's grown, probably needs to change sooner rather than later, but that will come with the cost.

So um councilwoman Parker.

For the um capital budget, Young Williams Animal Center, how uh I uh uh have how long have we uh supported capital projects with Young Williams Animal Center?

Is this new because of our new relationship or is this a long it's it's it's it's as long as I can remember we've uh assisted them, both us and the county have, you know, we look at the county, we look at look look we look at their needs and more times we'll split those and so forth.

So it's been going on for a while.

A long, long time.

The city doesn't run a city of Knoxville animal shelter, and the city and county or the county doesn't run an animal shelter.

So that's we could get you that date.

It's been a really long time.

I think it's I think decades, I think.

I think it's been over 20 years when young Williams, which was just a shelter, became I mean, just did animal work became the shelter for the county and the city.

I think I remember when they said we're gonna get out of the business and enter into a contract and and let that, but my memory's not always accurate, but you can get that.

It's just um it just I found it interesting and a little surprising um because it's been such a fight to get the city to commit money towards homeless shelters.

We said we got carm carms providing those homeless shelters.

We haven't put that money towards homeless shelters, but for decades with the county, we split the expenses on our animal shelter.

Because most communities have their own county-owned animal shelter.

And yeah, I'm just saying that's interesting.

It's just interesting.

All right.

Um, we'll get down to those agencies a little later in the budget, so we can talk about that.

Is there are there any more questions about fire?

If not, thank you again for all that y'all do and um appreciate you coming and answering our questions.

Fire and police have a great day and a safe day.

Thank you.

Um also for council, just a quick reminder, we will take a recess after the next three.

Um, however, this is not a voting meeting, so if anybody needs to step out, get another beverage, do whatever, feel free.

Um, but we have a lot of ground to cover, so we're not taking very many recesses.

Up next is um Knox County Emergency Communications, please.

Um Mr.

Anders.

Nice to see you again today.

It's always a good sign, isn't it?

When you one can be seen.

That's it.

Um if you could just give us a quick update about kind of what's going on, and then we'll have questions, open it up for questions.

Sure.

I think this year there's uh uh our budget request was flat from last year, and so um, but what you just kind of give us an update on our organization.

We are uh currently operating out of our backup facility still, but we're testing uh the main center to move back into there in the next couple of weeks.

Uh and uh and after you guys get done with your budget process, we'll we'd love to have everybody or at least the new council over.

I know we had a brief conversation before you were sworn in and and kind of a 30,000 foot view, but I'd I'd like to have everybody over to kind of see the operation meet some of our folks and watch it in real time.

It's pretty fascinating with the technology we brought in and the things that are coming.

So I'll take any questions you guys have or comments.

We we are gonna come before uh we're gonna present to the mayor's office.

We need to update our interlocal agreement.

The one that we're working on is actually the very first interlocal agreement from the city and the county when they form 911, and there's been a lot of handshakes and a lot of uh agreements to do some things, and so we need to codify that uh the state's requesting and actually requiring us to do that.

So we'll we'll come before you guys and and uh show you the the true cost of what the city what we spend on city dispatch services for fire and police and for the non-emergency numbers and stuff that we answer with radio maintenance and things like that.

But um, you know, we we spend a little over three million dollars a year on police and fire dispatch, just the personnel cost uh and and the other stuff we don't ask for for any uh currently ask for any payment for that stuff, but we build it into our our budget that comes from the phone tariff that uh we receive through the state centralized uh service.

So uh, but there is well I think I think we're at two six this two seven this year.

I think two six or two seven.

We were uh we've been working to get that number up.

We were at about one five or one six one seven uh some years ago, and we've been trying to get that number up, but we're we're hovering around a little over.

We're gonna get that finalized calls when we close out this year and then come to you guys, but we do need to get a new interlocal agreement presented to the mayor's office, and then obviously through you guys to agree to as well.

It is in fact two point six.

And we've been going up the past three, four years, something like that, 200k per year, so we weren't 2.6 now.

Okay, thank you.

I would also I would assume, Mr.

Anders, that um just like we've heard from police and fire, they're busier and that makes you busier.

Yeah, we are busier uh in the than we have been in the past.

We've tried to mitigate some of that with some technology to uh, for example, fire alarms no longer come in over the phone, they go directly into the the dispatch system.

Uh there's some other things that do that as well, and we're just trying to, but the technology makes us a little bit more efficient at times, but we need to free up those for taking 911 calls.

We're we answer as many non-emergency numbers as we do for the city as we do emergency lines, and there's no compensation built in for that, but it's part of the process, and so uh half of the time that we spend for now for as an emergency communications district is for non-emergency items.

Okay, um, councilwoman Parker.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um there have been some changes on the county side, and I'm not sure how it impacts the city, but in terms of AMR and the ambulance service and the um kind of nursing line that they've uh created.

Um can you help me understand how that works within E911?

Yeah, so um pre previous to the new contract.

Uh the new contract had different protocols for different calls, and so uh what fire was going on two years ago, they're probably not going on now.

Some of those calls uh that has changed.

There is a nurse navigation program that's been successful.

It's been widely used in in our area through AMR as part of their contract.

And so if a call comes in and say and there's numerous calls that come in and that person really doesn't need an ambulance, but they need to talk to a medical professional, uh, they will go and talk to that medical professional and sometimes uh and even one of our staff members called.

Uh he was on he was at home as sick by himself uh and needed to get to the hospital uh but didn't need an ambulance, right?

Need to go to ERB and need an ambulance.

Uh so they actually sent an Uber to his house and picked him up.

And so there's just innovative ways to kind of do those things without uh taking up the ALS or BLS trucks time, and so that's part of that contract.

We did take in their employees uh and took in the responsibility of EMS dispatch, and so we're a fully reconsolidated uh when they started 911, it was consolidated, then politics took over and is unconsolidated for EMS and that's part of the time the sheriff's department wasn't in there, and we're all back together under one employee now, and it's been really good.

I think we've made a a good impact.

Uh there's still tweaks and and we're gonna have headaches with it when that's a big operation to take over.

But we've successfully did that uh in September.

Thank you.

Good update.

Anybody else?

Oh, yes, Councilman Hennicott.

Just real quick.

Will you talk a little bit about how you're funded between the city and the county?

And yeah, so uh most of our funding comes through the state uh phone tariff that's on the everybody's phone.

Uh that's about 10 million dollars, 10 a little over 10 million dollars annually for us, uh based on the formula from the state uh emergency communications board.

Uh and then the city pays in 2.6, and then the county sheriff's office pays in, I think it's one three or one five uh we collect from rural metro fire, carns fire, and the county is picking up the tab on the EMS.

And so our goal is to get both of those at three million and then have a steady increase built or have a built-in increase so we don't have to get as far behind as we did.

Many years the city and the county were way behind on covering the cost of dispatch.

But this administration has brought us back to where close to where we need to be.

So state is around 10 and then the city and county are around five.

Yeah, around five or six, yeah, between five and six, but I think it's it's closer to five.

Yeah, at the moment.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And it's actually there's no state dollars in 911.

The state has never put anything into the 9-1-1 system, and we actually have just had a long legislative battle and the the mayor of the governor vetoed our um uh we had it passed overwhelmingly in the House and the Senate, and the governor vetoed an increase.

Uh that would have brought a million dollars more to Knox County 911.

And there's many rule 911s are gonna operate in the red uh because of that.

So uh it's a consistent.

I'm on actually on the the state 911 board.

Um chairman this year, uh rolling out of that role, stay on the board.

Uh, but uh we'll bring that back up probably again next year.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Mr.

Anders.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Knox County Emergency Management Agency.

And before we get started, um some of you may have known, some of you may not.

I saw it and um want to congratulate Colvin on his big statewide award.

I would like to tell you I remember the exact name of the award, but um I know it was a huge individual award for the outstanding work that you do, and we appreciate you and congratulations.

Oh, thank you very much.

That's uh that's very kind.

But the name of Lee Worth uh award is the Bill Worth Award, and he was a colleague who did fantastic work in emergency management.

We we we miss him, but thank you very much.

I I appreciate that.

Well, we're lucky to have you get honored so well.

So uh if you'd like to go ahead and um tell us a little bit about what's update and any budget things that you think we need to know about before we open it up to questions.

Sure.

Um uh good morning, council.

Uh I'm Colinickis, director of the Knoxville Knox County Emergency Management Agency.

This is our team member Sarah DeLozier.

Um, we uh we don't have uh any requests in the proposed budget, however, I would be happy to answer any uh any questions that you might have.

Can you promise us no more winter storms?

Um I I think I think we're out of the woods for now on on that one.

Um, yeah, it was safe in the safe in May to say we're good for a minute.

Yeah, uh getting getting an unfortunately in spring storm season now.

We do we do worry about uh tornadoes this time of year and whatnot.

I think there were just some in Mississippi last night, I believe.

Yes, ma'am.

So any questions?

I know that I know that new council members have had orientation and had a nice presentation from you.

So um Ms.

Parker, do you have some questions?

Yeah, I'm just wondering uh without a planner or communications manager who fills those roles.

Um we uh we do um we do what we uh we can with our with our current staff.

I I would say that any um to borrow from the from the military uh every marina rifleman uh every emergency management staff member is is uh is a planner um and uh uh Sarah has been uh as as we can and as uh uh has been filling in uh when we have public information needs, particularly when when we open our emergency operations center, but of uh of course during blue sky days is as as well.

And so with with those requests, um I'd be happy to speak more in detail about what about what those uh look like with those requests.

Really we're trying to uh address um an overarching uh overarching capacity issue.

Um when uh when when you look at the size of our emergency management staff, it's uh uh extraordinarily small for for a community like this.

And so uh long-term big picture we'd like to move towards uh uh towards a staff size that's uh more appropriate for our community.

Um councilman Thomas.

Uh yes um even though you have no request in the current budget, I think it might be helpful just in general for you to uh inform us about how you're funded overall.

Sure.

Um so we uh receive about 150,000 a year that that fluctuates by a few thousand dollars from year to year uh through the federal uh emergency management performance grant.

Uh that's grant funding that goes directly towards towards our budget.

Uh the remainder of our budget is uh is split 50-50 between the uh between the city and county.

So uh when whenever we have a budget request, we uh we send that to the city, we send to the county as well, and ask that uh uh each of them uh fund half of that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Honeycutt.

Uh I'm gonna start looking right now.

No, well I have to kind of do your curveball there by turning my light on and off.

Yeah, uh they actually uh you answered my question anyway, which is why I turned my light off, but I turned it back on just to briefly say, you know, uh your department, uh the emergency management agency, uh I'm so glad you won the award.

It's incredible.

It's one of those things I hope we never need you as a community, but when we do, you are critical, uh, you know, whether it's floods, natural disasters, everything, and having toured your facility and understanding your preparedness, especially some of the wonderful stuff we have going on in Oak Ridge that could also offer challenges uh to our community.

It's just it's it's great to know you're there and it helps people sleep at night.

Um, and I appreciate what you do.

So thank you.

I and and I'll second what you say.

We would very gladly and happily stick stick to our emergency planning and preparedness work.

And if we never get into the the crisis part of that, that would be just fine.

But it's good to know that you're there and ready if we need you.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any other lights?

I'm checking my thing, looking left, looking right.

I don't see any.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you for the work you do.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

All right.

Team Council, this is uh community safety and community empowerment.

This is our last group before our recess.

So um, and we have um a whole team of one.

Miss Middlebrook.

Um, go ahead.

Sure.

Good morning.

Um, thank you all for having us.

Um, we are the Office of Community Safety and Empowerment.

Uh, so we um, as most of you all know, uh have about five initiatives uh that fall under our department.

Um, and here they come uh that uh our staff.

I don't think they want to uh that are staffed by uh some of these amazing folks that you see uh here with us.

We are uh a team of 10 full-time, one part-time uh staff that uh facilitate um the Office of Community Safety, the Office of Neighborhood Empowerment, the Police Advisory Review Committee, uh staff the African American Equity Restoration Task Force, and facilitate um the Empower Knox Initiative, which does a lot of the youth-basing youth serving work uh in our community.

So we are happy to uh hopefully answer any questions you may have.

Councilman Thomas.

Yes, I have one uh in regard to the TLC program that I know you've partnered with uh KPD with, and this may have been a question for the KPD, but could you explain a little bit how that is funded as far as uh what's currently in place and then the recent expansion?

Yes, um, so obviously the uh law enforcement portions of it are funded through KPD's budget.

Uh they utilize um a lot of that is done with the patrol staff that they already have existing, um, but in terms of uh a lot of the resident engagement um and neighborhood engagement pieces uh that uh is reflected in the violence and eruption uh fund um that is I believe on page 207 of your budget book.

Um, and so a lot of the community-based activities, uh the resident um led activities uh are facilitated through that fund.

Okay, thanks for explaining the relationship there.

Thank you.

Uh-huh.

Councilwoman Parker.

Um that was uh similar to my question in terms of the funding, because uh this department's budget is broken up into so many different places that it's hard to track.

Um, so that's my question is where are you located in the budget?

What are the various sections?

So um the Office of Community Safety and Empowerment kind of what I call general uh budget is um reflected on page 58 of the proposed budget book.

Um, and that's gonna include uh the funding for um the operations of Empower and Arts Initiative, uh the uh African American Equity Restoration Task Force, the police advisory review committee, uh, and a lot of our general operations.

So we think about professional development, uh, when we think about the support uh that our office uh provides um through uh sponsorships for uh community-based organizations or uh the support that uh the allocation um that we have for the Bet Cultural Exchange Center, a lot of that sits in that portion of the budget, and then um on page 65 of your proposed uh budget book, um we have the Office of Neighborhood Empowerment, and so this is where a lot of the uh neighborhood level engagement happens with working with uh neighborhood organizations or folks who are looking to uh organize uh the neighborhood advisory council, uh the building Strong neighborhoods Organization uh is where that uh portion of our work sits, and then page 207, um which is the violence and eruption fund, and that's where a lot of the work of the Office of Community Safety sits, is in that particular fund.

And so our total, I think we are at just a little over 2.7 million dollars, including personnel for the overall operations of the Office of Community Safety and Empowerment.

She may be able to answer some of that.

If you look at page uh 74 in your binder, all of those uh funds and those page numbers are included.

So it's already I'm sorry, that was not as easy to follow.

No, this conversation.

Um, but that's good to know.

So I can reference it later so I can go back to it.

So okay, so um some of our grant funding programs are going through the page 58 through Empower Knox, all of that.

Page 207, that fund.

Are there grant programs moving through that one?

Yes.

So our uh what that has traditionally been our opportunity youth grants and um and our youth violence prevention week micro grants um are through the the fund on page 207.

And then for programs like um uh Knoxville Peace.

Is that through this fund?

Yes, okay.

And has that agreement been renewed?

Um we were able to because we were under budget and still had some uh outstanding pieces uh of the deliverables uh that we're working on, we were able to do a no-cost extension uh to take us through another few months to be able to deliver those deliverables.

So that'll actually save us a little bit because it's at no cost, no additional cost over what has already been allocated in a previous budget, perfect.

And that's just even the allocation.

I guess it's been approved, so we don't have to approve the allocation.

Correct, it's already been allocated, and there's no additional cost over what has already been allocated just change in what the funds are going towards.

Okay, perfect.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Grant.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, just kind of want to piggyback off councilwoman Parker's um questions.

Um the NICJR contract, right?

That um Knoxville Peace contract is the same thing.

So when the questions being asked in terms of if the contract is renewed, I just want to make sure.

So city council voted on this last year.

Um that contract was due to expire April 29th, I believe, this year.

And you I can't answer that right off the top.

Yeah, and so just to be clear, it was not a renewal of the contract, it was an extension, a no-cost extension of the existing contract.

So it's not a new contract.

So April 29th was when the contract was supposed to expire.

Correct.

And so it was it was extended to what date we have an actual date.

Um I believe if I remember correctly, um, that the extension can extend based on the existing uh resources available, um, that we have budget to extend it out uh as far as December December of this year.

Uh, that does not mean that we are bound to the contract for that long.

Um, but we have the opportunity to extend it out through uh December of 2026.

Okay, and so that amendment that that contract amendment that was extended in May of last year was for an additional five hundred and nineteen thousand dollars.

How much have we spent out and how much is left for us to spend out?

Um I don't have that number right in front of me to give the exact number, but we can get that to you.

I don't know.

Well, that was uh it was a rhetorical question because I actually had it.

So what I'm what I'm seeing is there's still an additional two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars that needs to be spent, and the amendment to extend it, right, didn't require any additional funding, but what we're saying is is an additional seven months is needed to exhaust these funds.

To me, right?

That seems as if that this was this was overfunded to begin with.

I didn't vote last year, the new council members didn't vote on this.

The four rolling over you guys voted on this, and my question would be how many updates have you guys had in this 12-month period regarding this program?

Formally none.

So you voted on a half a million dollars last year, and you haven't had any updates, any monthly reports in terms of where the finances have gone as of today.

Are you asking for one?

I'm asking the four council members who voted to approve this contract.

Have we received I know the new council members haven't, but I just said we have not formally asked for anything.

We don't typically ask for updates on all the contracts that we approve that as a regular order of business, so if a council member wanted it and asked for it, I'm sure it would have been provided.

Okay.

Do we know when the amendment was made?

I can't remember.

Do we this this updated amendment, right?

The contract expired April 29th, so we're talking last week.

When was the amendment made and was council notified?

So if you voted on a contract, that was 12 months.

I believe um, did you say that it was an automatic extension like other contracts are that if we haven't spent all the funds we can extend it?

I'm just asking you know somebody in finance or Miss Middlebrook's gonna have to answer that for me.

Yeah, so um, I think a one of the uh practices uh that we have available to us is if there is no additional cost that is required and there are still deliverables uh to be met, and uh the administration and the contracting agency agree to extend uh the term to meet those deliverables.

That is an option that we have available to us.

Uh and so um that extension was executed prior to uh the term ending.

Um, and yeah, and if if council is requesting um monthly reports, we'll be happy to provide those.

Uh, but we had not received a request for those at this point.

Sounds like we're asking.

My recollection of this one was it was uh getting close to the expiration, and uh we were endeavoring to extend it, and we did get it extended in time.

There was a no cost extension, but uh because there was some problem getting in some of the paperwork back from the the entity and so forth, particularly regarding insurance, we got all that, and then it got signed, it got extended, it was a no cost extension.

The only time the contract would come back an amendment like that to council is if the aggregate cost of a contract exceeds it meets or exceeds ten thousand dollars over the base contract that was approved by council.

And my understanding on this one is and but can you correct me if I'm wrong because this is definitely your world.

Our intent is not necessarily to try to go and use all the money that is uh was initially appropriated for the contract, but to kind of uh what's the outfits called what's the afternoon, Nick Jr.

or whatever?

Yes, sir.

Just uh it kind of uh and this is just voice talking.

But wean ourselves off that and get a local entity here in this area to do that type work.

So if that happens earlier, we can obviously just, you know, you you can terminate contracts with or without cause at any time or uh city contracts.

That's the overall intent.

That's my understanding of the situation.

McKenzie, if I'm wrong, correct me.

That is correct.

So I I would just like to say this for the record and I and I appreciate the response, uh, Mr.

Evans.

Um ICJR is a national renowned organization.

Um that we funded for a number of years, they've been supporting the city with this work for a number of years.

Uh in terms of you know, of documentation and then making sure they have their documentation together.

They should, given their long standing.

Um also when when you just look at the remaining balance, right?

If we haven't if there's an additional 275,000 that we haven't paid out, and we've been able to work with this organization for the last three years, and they still haven't been able to get a program standing on their own two feet.

I think as a body, we we need to take that into real consideration.

Um there's a number of organizations out here that are kind of still doing the work on a grassroot level.

And so if there's additional funding, and ICJR wasn't able to fulfill or spend that money, and we still have these additional funds left in the future taking that into consideration because if you ask me for a half a million dollars for twelve months and you come back after 12 months and you haven't spent half of it, I think as a body we should we should we should look at that and say, okay, why?

What are we doing, right?

Because we haven't had a homicide this year, right?

So the work it's working.

So at what point are we gonna say, okay, where can we exhaust these funds?

And so that's just my concern.

Um, and even the DOJ grant.

Still haven't been able to get any direct answers in terms of the two million dollars over the last three years.

How much of that have we received?

How much of that has been paid out for this work?

It did, you know, September 2023 is when this grant we announced that we were going to be receiving it.

I haven't been able to find any information or get any information in terms of if we have, and so I would like to know how much of this two million dollars had the city received from the with through this federal grant and how much have we paid it out to organizations doing this work.

Okay, um, can I ask um Miss Smith or Mr.

Evans to talk about in general contracts we we do this kind of extension often when contracts expire if it doesn't cost anything, so it's not just specific to this particular contract.

But I I will say uh Miss Millbrook here loud and clear, we want some um I think the whole council would want some um reports on what how the money's been spent and what we can ask and what is still left to be done.

Yeah, we can absolutely forward I mean if you want to thank others the monthly reports that we receive, we can forward those to you.

I think that would be great.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Frost, when the attorney turns his light on you usually.

Thanks.

I just briefly, I don't recall the specific one council member grant's asking about, but um council uh will recall that there are certain contracts that do have built-in option periods of additional years.

So if those contracts, when they are presented to council for sake of argument, it's a two-year contract to provide software licenses, and it can have built in uh additional two year options, those options uh once that's passed by council, it becomes up to the administration to decide whether or not to go forward uh with those options.

So that that's a uh kind of fine-tuning that discussion uh on contracts there.

That's so that when you like w we apply we we'll do a contract for X piece of something with up to three extensions without having to come back to council.

So that just lets the administration keep that vendor to keep doing the work at the contracted price.

Okay.

That's uh news to me.

Uh I thought that I understand uh with the uh option for three years or that sort of thing with the contract, and so you don't want to have to get a new vendor each time.

Totally get that.

But I did assume that when you went into year two with a contract, we're talking about widgets here that that expense would come back.

Yeah, this is year two as an option.

Are you approving this expenditure?

Doesn't because speak to it from an accounting standpoint, please.

I understand the vendor relationship part.

Yeah, I'm I'm not gonna speak from accounting slap, but I'll speak from financially.

Uh, and from purchasing so if we want our general or the general rule of thumb in purchasing, okay.

I was approaching agent for many years.

What, 15 or something?

Anyway, is most contracts go out for it's a one-year base with two each one-year options to renew, and oftentimes they'll have an escalation clause in them for the second and third years of something on the CPI.

And when we go, it could be mowing services.

I don't know, fill in the blank.

We'll go, we'll take that initial contract to council.

If council approves it, then we move forward into the first year, and then after that, it doesn't come back to council because council has already approved any and all extensions if we choose to exercise those.

Now, in terms of the budget, what we do is we kitchen and her staff look at all those contracts that we've got outstanding and what they would cost with the escalation or whatever, and maybe they don't have an escalation.

Some don't, those are great.

But anyway, they look at that and they they build that into what we call the target.

Remember, I said payroll was one of the first things, pay and benefits.

Well, then we're also looking at all these ongoing contracts, and we're putting that into the budget for the upcoming FY.

That that's how that happens.

That's why it's not a new big thing.

If it it's it, you know, so I I hope I help there, ma'am.

Uh councilwoman Parker.

Yes, two questions.

Um of uh council member grants questions.

What I think it would be useful to see is a breakdown of the sources of funding for the 2.7 million that comprises the community safety budget.

Because we have received grant revenue to do some violence interruption work.

It's unclear how much we are relying on grant funds versus general funds uh for this work, and it would be good to know.

Yeah, and I can hopefully ease answer that fairly easily right now.

Uh so the 2.7 that you see before you is comprised of all local dollars, so any grant funding that has been uh awarded is not reflected in this particular budget.

This is all local dollars.

For with regards to the uh DOJ grant that was referenced earlier, as with most federal grants, I can't speak to all because I don't know about all, but as with most federal grants, those are reimbursement grants.

So the federal government doesn't just send us two million dollars that we sit on to use.

You have to send in uh you have to make um budget requests that have to be approved by the uh the DOJ, that money has to be spent, and then you file for reimbursements to this point because we have been I think very uh uh judicious and successful in being able to build partnerships, um, some of which do not cost many of our partnerships do not cost us anything, uh, because we're partnering with organizations that have funding through other streams that can help us to achieve some of our goals, especially with regards to the violence reduction work.

Um, but we have also shown a high level of commitment by continuing to uh uh allocate local funding uh to that work.

Um, we have been able to uh partner with organizations to uh allocate funding through some of these uh contracts or through grant opportunities to be able to accomplish um our goals, I think, in a in a very judicious way.

Uh and so um, and with some of the organizations that we work with as we broach some of these conversations around partnering on federal grants.

Um, some of them honestly, quite frankly, don't have the capacity to spend money uh that may take you know four months, six months, eight months uh to retire.

And so um we have not to this point um assigned uh any contracts directly to that grant.

Um we have been in conversation with our partners at the DOJ around opportunities to extend that um uh um award uh potentially uh where we may identify opportunities to do so, but there's not funding that we are sitting on that is not being dispersed.

I want to make sure that we're very clear about that.

Um but uh so all of the 2.7 that you see represented in front of you is with local dollars.

I will say though, it it it sounds a bit concerning that we are it sounds like we're requesting an extension, but we don't know if we'll get it, but we have decided not to spend these funds uh as currently, you know, as under the original plan for use of funds.

Um, so it sounds like we're willing to let go of this grant and use and rely solely on local funds if we're not able to get this extension.

Well, and to this point, we have been able to, I think, uh uh successfully uh implement programming uh with the local funding that we have available, which honestly has been um to our advantage because we have not uh seen as a lot of communities have where the the funding is not as stable and is removed and programming that is stood up uh are very quickly gone away, or they're trying to scramble to figure out um how to backfill uh uh programs that were stood up with funding that wasn't stable or consistent.

Um, and so we have been very proud uh of what we've been able to do and are really grateful for council for continuing to support uh this work at the level that you have, and I think we're seeing the results of it in our community.

Okay, one final question.

Uh page 65 under neighborhood empowerment.

I see a reduction under grants 20,000.

Is that our neighborhood empowerment grants?

It is.

So we're not moving forward with that program this year.

Well, we're continuing to kind of assess uh what our capacities are and looking at our funding as a whole.

Um, as you said, we're kind of spread out over uh several funds, um, and so we're kind of continuing to look at where we have opportunities uh to support organizations, whether it's uh through a grant making process or or other uh processes, and then also a big part of what our team does is really support organizations and neighborhood groups and building capacity, uh so identifying whether it's through the Office of Community Safety Funding, um, community safety and empowerment funding uh or other funding streams uh that may be uh available, but also how can we support organizations beyond their funding needs.

You got the you got that one.

Ms.

Ms.

Parker, we we actually had discussions uh with the administration, Vice Mayor Fugit.

We've shifted those into 202 funds.

We felt like many some of those were things that could be better handled through requests uh over into uh into council's hands.

I think there was a request to increase those.

So we've been looking at those and working with uh Vice Mayor Fugit on how best to do that, and uh and so that was uh that was part of that.

So we we had asked our two oh two funds are going to twenty thousand dollars a year for each of us instead of fifteen thousand a year.

Many of those, you know, they chose to move the money that way, but um uh some of that is because we get asked for a lot of individual small things from neighborhoods, um, and it gives us more money to help them with events and other $500 gifts that aren't as um laborious paperwork.

I mean, we can have a different discussion about what you think they ought to do with neighborhoods, but I asked for more money for us, and we got it.

You look at me.

Well, I'm just everybody So we're losing the neighborhood empowerment grants because we're getting extra two or two funds.

Is that what I just wanted?

We've we felt like some of some of the the processes that we had were pretty cumbersome they required a lot of work.

We felt like council yes more 202 funds there was a quest to do that we felt like it may be easier for groups that needed some of these to go to council members there was a request to increase 202 and a lot of the discussions between our workshop and a council have been you know we're really close to a lot of the folks that need some of these dollars so that that's the concept I think if council believes that those ought to stay and we ought to still increase 202 we're we're open to that we thought this was a good way yes yes to that what you just said.

Okay that's what council's saying they would again we're here for we want both.

Okay we want both I mean I mean because we may be involved with one neighborhood you know and I'm gonna give all mine to my neighborhood or whatever.

I don't I don't think that I don't think they need to be convoluted very much.

Okay just my opinion that's great feedback.

I don't know what everybody else thinks but well I I have okay go ahead and then we're I'm losing control here.

Not that I ever really have it but you know I pretend I just want to get a little more clarity on uh what councilwoman Helsley just said because I've been hearing from neighborhood groups over the last month that had been part of an application process and then they had been told no not happening or we're paused or something like that.

So it was very unclear as to what was going on with those grants.

So let me clarify that I think there was a lot of anything to do with my request.

The causing happened long before I asked on behalf of council which was the long you are abdicated from cause well no I just no but I mean no I'm just telling you council had a prior council had as one of its goals to increase our 202 funds back to a day we won't get to 40,000 a year.

I'm not sure we should have 4000 a year but to get it back more in keeping with the number of individual requests we get.

So Vice Mayor I was at the budget hearings and I heard you make that a request and I was very happy for that request so thank you for pushing that.

I just don't want this to be my fault no I appreciated that because I everything's my fault just added to the list the 202 funds you know the new folks we've only had uh a round of that and um just seeing how slender those dollars are in terms of all the requests that come in and understanding that we did councils before us had more money to work with.

So I I very much appreciated that that ask but I if you could uh Mr.

Brace explain the thing I may be merging which is so there was a lot of discussion I know uh councilman grant and we've had uh councilwoman Parker there's been for the last few months right questions about how we do grants how our grants allocated why are they done at different uh times during the year so we had a I think a really good workshop I wasn't able to be at it um to kind of lay out how dollars are granted out um and so um there was a period where the mayor said hey there's a lot of questions until we have um the workshop let's kind of hold off on anything else going to council right let's just hold off so maybe that got trickled down the organizations what's in the current budget right now fiscal year you know we're moving forward with those processes and programs what we have suggested and I think we need your feedback is um they've had a a relatively small amount of money run through neighborhoods to go out and do these neighborhood grants we had said you know maybe that's better um you know we're also trying to manage staff and what our priorities are in time maybe it's better for those to go through the 202 process uh and then we'll we'll not focus on those because a lot of those are at the neighborhood level that's one idea but if if council thinks we need both of those then we just need to we need to uh discuss that and see if we can integrate that.

We're not talking about a huge amount of money, but we did try to meet the needs of uh of both uh both groups, council and the executive branch thing thanks for clarifying that.

It sounds like we'll have a little more conversation on it.

And if there was confusion on that, I, you know, I apologize.

We did say, Whoa, nothing else to council.

Let's get this workshop out of the way to try to respond to, you know, again, council member questions and concerns, specifically council member grant um who's got a lot of experience obviously with uh grant management and and experience as an executive director.

But that that's if there was confusion, uh apologies.

And if if I may, um I think just uh for for clarity on where we were processed with regards to the neighborhood grants, uh, there's not a current there was not a current application open.

So there would not have been organizations who were kind of in the queue waiting that were told um that the program was being paused uh based on kind of the the previous timeline, uh this would have been the period where the workshops would have happened that organizations would need to participate in to be eligible to apply for the grant.

And so the workshops were paused, but there was not an open application for them to participate in at that at this point um for them to have been told your application is on pause.

There were no existing applications in the queue for the neighborhood grants.

Now we did have uh our um our uh empower nox uh event grants, um, where some organizations they weren't neighborhood groups, some organizations uh had uh already applied.

Um, and so we are in the process uh of now that we are through the workshop uh of um reviewing those and preparing uh to bring some recommendations uh for those before council because those folks had already applied, but with regards to the neighborhood grants, um the application was not yet available to them.

It would be coming available typically uh what about now or within the next month or so?

Okay, so it had I guess it had been posted, but it was taken down, um, and the but the application period had not arrived and applications had not begun to be received because the workshops hadn't happened.

So um I appreciate all those uh points of clarification uh what uh I've been hearing, I think councilwoman Helsley may have been hearing the same thing, is neighborhoods that had been following that process seen would have been posted going ahead and getting their ducks in a row to put that in, and then we're being informed that that work was not necessarily going to have it the light of day or that they needed to pause.

Uh and folks were really confused um with what was going on with that.

So this is this is why we do this.

Councilwoman Helsley, you haven't asked the question all day.

I already did about this, and to uh the Karen already said this, but if everybody knows anybody that's involved in neighborhoods knows when those grants come around every year, and I don't know how many times I have been asked from my neighborhood group alone, what happened to the neighborhood grants?

Right, Ms.

Sharp?

Yes, okay.

So that's the point is everybody knows when it happens, and I don't think we need it to happen.

They were, they were.

They were looking at projects to do, believe me.

They they were planning.

So yeah, so we have been asked, at least my neighborhood.

Okay, thank you.

All right, that was a statement, not a question.

It was not.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Mr.

Grant, Councilman Grant, which are yes, um, and backtracking a little bit, um, but just for the record, I and I'm asked, this is a question.

I would like to have, and I think it would be important for council to know regarding the DOJ grant, how much what data are we using to get reimbursed for that?

Is there a plan, right?

It what we've spent on turnout Knox, NICJR, Knox piece, uh Connect Ministries, Helen Ross McNabb, is that information and are those funds that we're using as local dollars, is that information then going to be used to get reimbursed from this two million?

That's that's my question.

If that makes sense.

So if I'm I I think I'm understanding the question.

Um, so with the uh DOJ grant, um, the way it generally works is the sub awardees are approved by DOJ prior to programming beginning, and then those awards are submitted for reimbursement.

So anything that was already existing um prior to the DOJ award and was either you know continuing or renewed or extended, um, typically are not they generally discourage uh shifting already existing projects or programs into that funding.

Um, and then of course, with like say, for example, connect was specifically mentioned, uh a new contract or award, uh the um uh partner would need to essentially um agree that they are going to be a sub awardee under that grant.

Uh and so it would start off that way, it's not a situation where we do all this work that's funded by local dollars, and then we say to them, oh, look what we did.

Can you give us money back for that?

And so uh I think the short answer is no, that's not really how the process works.

And so just for clarification, we have not received any funds from this DOJ grant.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, Mr.

Thomas.

Yes, uh, just for clarification, I apologize.

This may have been answered earlier, but uh specifically in regard to the NICAR grant with the 200,000 uh odd numbers uh that are still in the balance.

Uh are we legally obligated to fulfill this by an extension, or is there an opportunity for us to get a refund on the uh unpaid balance?

No, so those it is reimbursement based, so we haven't paid them money, and then it's just sitting there.

They bill us for services.

So after the services are rendered, they send us a invoice with along with their reports, and so it's not like they have the money sitting in their account and we're just trying to spend it down.

Right.

Has that contract been extended, I think, until the December date?

Yes, so uh we are under contract now with them to accept their billing and uh reimburse them.

Yes, but it's um I think Mr.

Evans or or Mr.

Brace pointed out that contract um does not have to go all the way to December, it gives us the option uh to use services up through December as long as funding is still available uh and we are still on budget.

However, uh if um other programming arises or we decide to go in a different direction, that contract can be terminated at any time.

It can be terminated with or without cause at any time, as most of our contracts.

Okay, if you answered my question, thank you so much.

A lot of contracts are written that way, so thank you.

Um any other questions.

Okay, um, thank you.

Thank you.

Um we will uh take about a um 15-minute recess.

I mean, we've been sitting here since eight o'clock, we're taking 15 minutes.

Okay, thank you.

No, Debbie, back before three.

Um we can get started.

Okay, all right.

Um, all right, we're gonna go ahead and get started.

I'm gonna call the next group up here so everybody will sit down.

Um next up we have operations, um, and if you will all introduce yourselves and we will um well, all the people who are officially gonna talk, introduce yourselves, and then um we can begin with um excuse me.

I'm sorry, was that a good was that a good school arm look?

That was good.

That was good.

My mother was a teacher.

I've learned that.

I love I've seen that look.

So um all right.

Who's gonna kick us off on operations?

I'll be happy to.

Well, Grant, go ahead.

Well, Grant, you're this why don't you, Grant?

Well, I'll tell you it up.

I'll be very brief.

Uh, just wanted, you know, give a really brief introduction for overall operations, you know, Chadweth, our deputy COO, sitting behind me, and I've obviously here to answer some questions.

You know, we have a really outstanding team in operations.

Uh, operations is a big, it's really not a department, but it if we're a department, it's a it's comprised of about 10 different city departments with some other really key partner agencies um that that support our entire enterprise um and do a lot of the uh uh I would say thankless work, although I'm very thankful uh for the work that we do in operations, and uh just again, it takes a really great team.

So I guess kicking it kicking us off uh this morning in ops will be our engineering team and uh followed by Plans View Fleet, CAT, and then many others that'll that will follow public service.

So I'll turn it over to Mr.

Claybo.

Well, Mr.

Grant, before you start, Mr.

Claybo, I would just like to say it's not thankless.

Um, it but you only hear when it's not going well.

So yeah, when when we don't, yeah, we when we don't hear anything, when everything works as issues, yes, that's victory.

Okay, gone unnoticed most of the time.

So Mr.

Claybo.

I appreciate the opportunity uh to speak to you all today.

Uh my name's Tom Claybowell Engineering Director.

I want to quickly introduce the team I've got with me here.

Um, got Chris Halley, if you folks raise your hands, Chris Holly, our deputy director.

I've got George Dawes with our civil engineering division, uh Karen McKeon, our chief traffic engineer, and uh Curtis Williams with our engineering development services and David McGinley with our stormwater engineering division.

So, thank you.

Hi there, Peter Ahrens, Plans of View and Building Inspections.

I brought along uh Brian Berry, one of my deputies, as well as Rachel Covington, my executive assistant.

Okay, uh good morning, uh Nicholas Bradshaw, Director of Fleet Services.

Uh I I'm flying solo right now, but uh our deputy director Scott Jenkins uh is out of town uh assisting uh on a fire truck build, so really important work.

Uh, but he's uh pretty critical part of my team.

Isaac Thorne, director of Knox Lawyer Transit.

I'm also flying solo at the moment.

Okay, great.

Um, yes.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, I'm Rachel Messler, I'm the director of the public service department, and I have Chris Webster and Sherry Bennett, and Chris is um, he's our deputy director, and Sherry helps keep me in line with the budget process.

Great.

Um, does anybody have anything you want to tell us up front?

Or if not, shall I just begin asking questions by department or are you ready to round Robin?

How do you want to do this?

Okay, you're ready for round robin.

Okay, anybody have a question for any of these people who are here today about their budgets?

Okay, um, all right.

Mr.

Councilman Grant, you're I saw your light first.

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, just looking at the budget, um, and I do know there is a uh compensation study being done with public serv our public service department, just kind of want to know where we are in that particular process.

Um, I know we can't give hard dates when it comes to these studies, but um just being open and transparent, right?

You know, and I only can speak for myself, but as new council members, when you come in, you know, people are gonna call you, you know, they're gonna have their their issues, and so I just want to be able to go back and give answers to the questions that we're getting in terms of the compensation study for public service.

When is there a plan for when it's gonna go into effect and what are we doing to kind of help uh mitigate some of that compression that we're seeing within that department?

Yeah, I jumped up to give Rachel C, and then I had to come to the podium really quickly.

So great, uh great question.

We've got the experts here to talk about that, which is our director of HR, uh, Betsy Cunningham.

But I want to give you the high level.

I mentioned it earlier.

There's a number of studies.

Number one, compensation is complicated, it's uh a mix of actual wages, and then there's benefits and health insurance, and and so it's a complicated um beast, and so I think this administration has been committed to competitive compensation and benefits.

And so, as you're aware, we did the compensation study and implemented fully in 2022, took a full tax increase to implement that.

And so we've implemented that.

And as part of that, we made a commitment to study it again in five years.

And so this budget, this proposed budget includes funding to hire a consultant to come in and help analyze the market, our benefits, and to give us a guide for the future.

And so this is by the way, part of a broader philosophy, which is to not do band-aids, but to actually have a are we competitive, implement study.

Are we competitive?

Implement study.

So this study will help guide the next five years.

And so our team, when I say the team, that would be uh HR, Chad Weth, we're gonna engage with our employee reps to develop the scope of work for this study.

The scope is going to dictate in the uh RFP what we want, and then uh market experts can then respond, and we're gonna hire those folks.

They're working on that scope right now.

The goal, I've talked to Chad, I've talked to Boyce, is when this budget is approved, we are going out to the market with a really good scope of work in an RFP to get a contract in place as quickly as possible because we need to have that information that study fast tracked so that we're ready in December with some of those initial answers to the future of our compensation because it's I mean, compensation's expensive, and we got to figure out can we, how we, what, what's a want, what's a need.

And so that study, again, RFP, as soon as the budget is approved, get that out on the streets, get the contract before council as quickly as we can to have a really good vendor.

There are other pieces that are happening right now.

So, for example, we also are doing a longevity study.

So we have an old longevity model where you're compensated a certain amount of money every single year.

You're an employee here.

That's been in place a long time.

Is that the best use of those resources?

We knew that was complicated, and we didn't want to wait on the study because we didn't want to, we really wanted to get that done.

That study is happening uh this fiscal year, it will be handed off as discovery to the actual big picture compensation, and then we could start to drive forward with all of that information at once.

And so I hope that answered your question.

It is a top priority for us, and we uh we want to make sure again that it's out as quickly as possible.

Sounds like you want it finished by the end of the year.

We want we want to have we want to have it as close to finished as we can.

We need to have those answers.

You know, we're really when I say we, the finance team and our directors and our cabinet are really thinking about budget in October and November.

They're huddling their teams up, so we've got to have those answers at that point to then guide the future of where we are with compensation.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And you know, Chad, Rachel, there's ever any information, you know, that you feel like I may need or council members may need um while we're communicating with you know employees who they don't understand, you know, that these things aren't just a matter of you know, happening overnight.

Um, and so like I said, I I appreciate that information.

I do want council to know uh that the mayor meets uh with our employee reps, so there are elected representatives of police, fire, and general government.

We meet with them regularly.

We also have a group of individuals that have been at council.

The mayor and I met with them uh this week for a breakfast, engage their concerns, their thoughts, their interests.

And one of those uh items that came out of that meeting was we've got to do a better job of communicating.

There was a communication breakdown.

Uh, and we've got to communicate both uh with employees, with the employee reps, and with council.

So there's a commitment to do that.

There was also a lot of discussion about getting making sure we were all playing uh not playing with discussing facts around what has happened since the compensation study.

What has the inflation rate been?

What about CPI?

What's our turnover rate?

And so I think um just know that that meeting happened, and I thought it was productive.

If you've talked to any of those employees.

Well, we're uh working on a larger meeting just with public service, uh, and then following backup with those employees in about 45 days.

So, again, we appreciated those folks coming to council.

We want active employees, and Mr.

Grant, especially you and others have been really active uh with the administration about doing that.

So thank you.

Um councilman Thomas.

Um, first comment and a question, Mr.

Claybook.

So uh I really want to commend your staff and you for the response that you've been giving to me and my constituents uh when I make a request to do a overview or an evaluation of a certain situation.

It's been really prompt, and you just give a matter-of-fact uh analysis, you know, and uh they've been remedied at some times, and then sometimes it's not within your purview to do that, but most of the time it's been quite satisfying to my constituents the rate that you've gotten back to them and the feedback you've given and and in the also uh repairing certain issues as far as flooding and and traffic things.

So I I really appreciate that.

It's been top notch.

Um this won't surprise you, you know, once I hear so much from my constituents, but can you give us an overall assessment of traffic calming and uh speed humps that uh is in the budgetary budgetary?

So we are uh very excited about the neighborhood traffic safety program.

Uh I think you all know that we kind of retooled the program.

Um, and the reason was the high demand that we had.

We we had folks just backlogged, we couldn't get to them, and it was really kind of setting unrealistic expectations for the program.

So basically, we put a pause on the program.

Anybody that was approved, we are cycling those through right now.

Uh most of that work's done within our paving program.

So those are being cycled through.

And the new program, we accepted applications in January at 64.

Uh we've done speed studies on those, so that was February, March, and we're getting ready to start neighborhood meetings with with those folks who uh uh have applied.

Um so the process is as we work through that, we get the neighborhood meetings, uh, and this is going to really be data-driven.

So with those 64, um, we we're gonna look at the the metrics of uh how how bad the speeding is, the volume of traffic, crash history, uh, is there a sidewalk?

Is it in a PRI?

Those things come up with a score and then prioritize those.

Then, based on our approved funding, we'll we'll implement what we can out of that those that of those sixty-four.

I appreciate the systematic way that you evaluate these uh requests, and it's helpful for me when I explain to my constituents kind of where they are and the process, and um you know, enables them to have a little bit more patience, I think, because the demand, as you know, has just really been overwhelming.

So, well thank you.

Okay.

Councilman Honeycutt.

Thank you.

Um, uh this is there's a lot of departments here to cover, and you guys do uh a lot of various things, but you are the backbone uh of our city.

So again, thank you all.

Uh, and just like my back, I only know when it's a problem.

So thank you guys very much for what you do uh and and the services you provide, and just being a few months on city council, uh most of the constituent calls we get have something to do with your department and the things going on in your department, sidewalks, crosswalks, traffic issues, that kind of thing, calming.

And and again, I'll reiterate just like my fellow councilman.

You know, every interaction has been professional uh and and up and upbeat and positive, and and and I appreciate that the every what every department brings to that.

Uh a couple of quick questions and or comments.

I did want to uh based on David Brace's comments about the compensation study, just reiterate that it sounds like that is a citywide compensation study.

So it's not just this department, it is citywide department uh compensation study.

So everyone uh from every department will be studied, and then you know obviously recommendations will be brought back.

Uh so we'll have a great sort of benchmark when we're talking about city police fire engineering service, and uh and it'll be great to have that data to then make decisions, but it's gonna require kind of strategic decisions because we're not going to be able to address every need we have.

Uh, on the traffic calming real quick, I appreciate the rework uh that you guys have done on that program.

Uh we're gonna talk further about it.

Obviously, there is a big to me big demand, and the demand outweighs the available funds.

Uh, but I do think we can tweak maybe how the applications are done going in.

Uh there's been frustration with only the the 30-day window and and people not feeling like they could at least take action on that, but we can talk further about that.

I do want to sort of my main question, and I'll get to it here, uh, is about deferred maintenance uh and what you know what we're looking at as a city.

I mean, there's certain budget numbers we've got for projects we're addressing, but what is the long-term deferred maintenance look like uh for our city?

Yeah, I don't mind to handle that one.

Um deferred maintenance is continues to be a challenge, a challenge for every organization.

Uh, especially one as large of ours, with as many assets as we have.

Um we obviously every year we commit a ton of capital towards deferred maintenance, so obviously building a new uh station six in Burlington, uh renovating station 15, and we got a lot of our fire halls.

We've renovated several of our rec centers over the past year, so we try to chip away it every year and dedicate as much capital as we can uh towards those needs.

Uh we have some large assets like the Coliseum Auditorium.

We're working on a long-term strategy to address that need, uh, hopefully utilizing some hotel motel tax revenue uh to address those needs as we do every year.

Uh we try to take care of a lot of things.

Again, behind the scenes stuff that you don't always see, but new electrical vaults and boilers and HBAC systems.

Um we recently hired a new senior director of facilities planning.

He's about two months in.

Uh, as Ben Charble, who used to work for Knox County for several years, uh, excited to have him on board.

And his his main role is looking at our long-term facilities planning, capital planning needs, uh, working with our public building authority, working with our civil engineering team, all of our lives to uh to address these needs.

Um I hope that answers your question.

I mean, we have a plan.

Uh there's other there's other deferred maintenance needs, you know, related to stormwater stormwater infrastructure.

Um obviously our transportation infrastructure, we we resurface roads at a at a pretty heavy pace more than other, I think other counterparts, municipalities around the region, but that's always a need.

Again, a constant need, sidewalk replacements.

Uh, our public service department does a ton of ton of work in our facilities, uh, facilities team, our construction team.

So uh we are we are working on it.

Um it's a long-term plan that we're trying to uh create a sustainable path forward to address.

Is it fair to say that basically our you know our deferred maintenance needs far exceed the available funding we have to address them?

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's a fair assessment.

Yeah, so just again, we I know we can't tackle everything as a city, and and you guys do a great job with the dollars that we have, but it's it is a challenge.

Thank you.

Councilman now.

Thanks.

Um just before uh leaving that topic of the communication and public service.

Uh I just want to uh encourage that we recommitment to communication to continue because I think that is where so much of um issues can crop up when there's just a lack of transparency and a lack of communication.

So I'm glad to hear that those meetings have been happening with the mayor and with the team, and I hope that those continue um continue forward.

Um I just wanted to say uh again what some of my colleagues have said, which is I really appreciate getting to work with all of the operations team from the emails that I have received that have been very detailed and anticipating questions that I might have or that the community might have to help uh me as a council person be a better advocate and communicator.

I really appreciate those.

Um I've also appreciated being able to call in and get very specific answers to weird situations that crop up.

So I I just uh want to say thank you for all of that coverage and patience because there's a lot of uh new learning going on.

I think, with all five new folks and being willing to walk us through that.

Um, also very excited to be working with Ellie Moore.

Um, I feel like that is just beginning uh in terms of how we've got a a new partner to work with, so thank you.

Uh thank you for that, but just wanted to express appreciation for everyone.

I feel like with all the folks who are sitting there, I can think about different calls and different emails that have happened, and your coming out to community meetings as well, being willing to join um in that effort to make sure that communication is reaching uh the neighbors that we're serving.

So thank you.

Councilwoman Parker.

Thank you, guys, man.

Um, okay, so identifying operations in the budget.

Is operations under the mayor's office?

So there's there's technically no operations department.

Um, I guess in terms of you know, my direct team, it's myself, Chad Weather, deputy COO, uh Chip Barry, Deputy Chief Operations.

Uh, Ellie Moore is uh Council Councilman Adams, Councilwoman Adams mentioned, and then Ben Charble, those are that comprises kind of the operations general operations team that provides leadership and oversight and support to our our operational departments.

The rest of the operations, quote unquote, are those various departments throughout the budget, right?

And maybe this is a question.

So I meant to mention we're in and we're technically in under the administration mayor's office.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

Um, and then so there, so you don't submit a budget request.

Uh no, I don't, I don't as a there's no department that I submit a budget request under directly.

Again, our very I worked with all of our directors obviously on their individual requests, and um for engineering, thank you for operational.

Um we've seen requests to cover the increased uh need for special events, other things, not always funded.

What adjustments is your department making as we see these new events happening and new needs arise?

So um the um as far as special events, I think there's well over 200 events a year that that our transportation folks are working.

Um we did have some requests for some overtime and some personnel.

Um but um we also have a uh staff augmentation.

We got some funds for that that we can bring in an outside contractor to help supplement that, and that's really what we've been doing in all of our divisions is using staff augmentation through those operational funds.

And so when is not allocated, we use contract labor.

We do, okay.

Perfect, thank you.

Um parking costs.

I have a question about, and I'm wondering if we are monitoring uh our new system, and if we have any kind of insight on perhaps the leveling out of cost, but when I look at it, if we look at um, you know, metro parking for this budgeted year, or this proposed budget, we have five point six million in revenues anticipated, but 7.3 million in expenses.

I'm looking at a form that you all don't have.

Um, so it seems that the revenue from our new parking structure has increased, but so have the expenses as well.

I look back to see uh what the situation was when we installed the new meters 10 years ago with the same goal of um increasing parking opportunities and moving uh vehicles along.

Uh and there was much lower revenue um, but there were lower expenses, and so there was uh a um a gain there from Material Parking.

What do we anticipate with this new system?

Do we expect these expenses to level out at some point uh and for us to start seeing increased revenue or or what are we looking at?

That's a great question.

Um so we're we're about we're just a little over a year in to uh our implementing implementation of our parking study that was done uh year and a half ago.

Um it's overall going well, but we are still working through, you know, the operational refinements of the overall system.

I say there's there's metro parking.

We we have on-street parking, then we have our garages, uh our garages and lots are managed by public building authority, and then our on-street enforcement is handled by public building authority, and then our management of on-street uh is also handled by engineering.

Um I mentioned Chip Barry, our our deputy chief operations, he's gonna be tasked with leading further implementation of our parking uh and looking at how we how we manage it.

At the end of the day, yes, uh uh a cost of increased revenue has increased.

It's much park mobile.

Our team can tell you is much more efficient than trying to manage all those meters.

Um we still are a very affordable city to park in relative to other modern you know, similarly similarly sized cities, municipalities.

As councilman Honeycutt mentioned, we have deferred maintenance, deferred maintenance is also applies to a lot of our garages.

So we need to have a more sustainable path forward to be able to address those cap those needs in our garages, modernize a lot of our systems in our garages, but using utilizing better technology that maybe doesn't require on site parking attendance, for example, and can better manage, you know, spaces and communicate better with the public.

How many spaces are available in this garage?

That's some of the very same.

And also consider, of course, the primary goal is to make it easy for residents and visitors to park at a at a low cost.

So just keep us updated on the progress, and we will try to tweak as we may.

Thank you for that.

Um, again, appreciate the comments and questions.

The uh good example, just trying to look at take a more comprehensive approach to parking and how it also uh pilot, but we're gonna extend that pilot and make it more permanent with our downtown connector being free.

How that actually helps solve parking park a little further away that's less expensive or free, you know, it it does get them to where they want to be safely and quickly versus you know, everyone wants to park for free as close as they can to where they want to go.

A lot of competition for those prime spots.

Um I don't expect the parking meters to come back, but you know, now having to have a cell phone.

We can talk about population.

Anyway, I continue uh to look forward to updated reports and trying to do problems.

The only suggestion I have on the application process would be district just about the window.

And a lot of people were just coming out of the seamless in January, kind of caught them a little bit to scrambling to kind of get those applications in.

So I would suggest through February or just take a look and see if it will work within the system to kind of uh give a little bit broader window on that uh because I've said I've got some of the same concerns coming to my district.

So I'm gonna take privilege because and well actually I'm a voting council member, so I'm gonna call myself.

So um I I would like an update uh um if we can talk a little bit about what's going on with development services.

I know that in the last few years we've invested quite a bit of money as in council um adding staff when we were at the height of craziness and permits taking and the beautiful after effect of being a very popular place uh with all the development going on.

So um I I'm pleased to say I don't hear as many complaints, so I know that's working, but if you could just kind of give us an update because that was quite a bit of uh city dollars we invested to make that process better.

Sure.

Um well I can tell you development hasn't slowed down.

No, I know we do appreciate the the added staff, and we are continuing to make improvements to the the software system.

A lot of the feedback that that I get is a lot of folks are really appreciative of.

We opened up the front desk so that people can interact with customers.

They love that.

They we've got we've got great staff that really are very helpful up front there.

Um, so at this point, we um we made some tweaks uh that we implemented in our in our application process earlier on this year.

We're gonna kind of set tight for a little while to see how they play out, get some more feedback before we make any other tweaks along the way.

What kind of um turnaround time are you experiencing now?

Um, at this point we're still hitting our benchmarks.

Great anything under 500,000.

Anything under 500,000 on the commercial side, anything residential is reviewed within a week.

Um, on the commercial side, under $500,000 is a two-week turnaround.

Between $500,000 and $20 million is a three-week turnaround over 20 million, it's about a month.

And so we've been consistently hitting those.

Um as development uh continues to grow.

I sit down with my staff and I say we got to get better, we got to get more efficient, and we need to be able to be um thoughtful in how we engage our customers and so that we can try and reduce the number of, and we've sat down, I sat down with Chris and his team um earlier this week.

How do we what are some things that we can do?

How can we get a strategy to reduce the number of review cycles?

And so a lot of that is engaging with with our customers uh so I'm excited because we're on the same team and we're working together, and I think we have made great improvements, but I think there's always opportunities to to make some more uh tweaks and improve those turnaround times and and reduce the number of review cycles.

If it's okay, real quick, I just want to chime in uh and address the question about investment.

This count uh many of many of you all in council approved.

Well, a council did it we're all now council, and yeah, council council people have some improvement.

If you recall the investment, you know, yeah, the city invested in this in this in both of these departments with additional staffing technology, but really it was a development community that made that investment because what we did is we restructured our fees.

So this department, correct me if I'm wrong, is not uh weighing very heavily on the general fund dollars, it is funded through our permit fees.

So those additional staff members were actually hired through the additional revenue that's generated from permits that was done in the we approved the fees.

We approved the increase.

Yes, absolutely.

No, I again I applaud council for doing that, but I also want to point out it was a value proposition from the development community and the development community supported those those fees, because we promised these benchmarks that we've been delivering on, so we've set expectations that we're now delivering on, and that's made a huge difference, and we're we're measuring how we're doing and uh council uh vice mayor, the number one metric I like to tell folks I talk to Brace about this all the time too is uh we don't get as many calls.

That's our number one metric as how many calls do we get from our you know our development friends.

So thank you.

The reason I brought that up is because I know it's a lot better, and I think we need to talk about this in this setting because for years when I was in the private sector loaning to people, I I I heard about you a lot.

And um and sometimes I was asked for rate extensions and they all blamed it on you, and I know that's not always the case, but I'm just saying I do think it's it's working, it's a good success.

Um, and I think we should be proud of that, and you guys are to be commended for that.

I will also say I really appreciate um discussion about somebody at the front desk.

Uh one of the you know, answering, interacting with customers.

One of the things that people get most frustrated with with any company anymore, but especially from their government is if they can't find a person.

They want to walk in and talk to a person, and um sometimes that personal touch is one of the first things to go, but I think it's what our constituents want the most.

And so I appreciate y'all working on all that, and then um that that's all I'll say.

I just uh think it's nice to highlight it.

I know it's never enough, but um good job over the last few years dealing with um an amazing increase in volume in the last decade.

So thank you.

Can I add on to that quickly?

Yes, just to say that I also have not received any calls, so I see that as a good sign.

Yes.

I hope me saying that does not make the calls.

Knock on some wood, knock on some wood.

So yeah, for all our sakes.

Let's all knock on some wood.

Okay, I think next uh councilman Grant.

Yeah, I just want to piggyback and you know, take this opportunity to think, you know, Peter Aaron.

I know I've had conversations with Rachel when individuals in the community have called me, Rachel's been spot on in terms of answering in terms of you know getting people what they need.

Um as a as a council body, um, you know, Grant mentioned the fees, right?

The fees being able to help us with this staff.

Um I think that's a great thing, but I I do kind of want us to also as a body be mindful, right, of of how that can be harming as well, right?

Especially for local builders, right?

Who may not be able to afford the the higher fees.

And so I I getting to a point where we're not incentivizing increased fees to make sure that we had the the funding to keep operating.

One of the things that was an important item for mayor can canon was that we didn't increase the fees on the small residential projects because we wanted to recognize the the happy homeowners that are just trying to make improvements, and so I I don't was it even I think it was negligible.

The f the fees were increased for the larger scale projects and the commercial projects.

But require the most work, yeah.

That requires and honestly, well, I'll just yeah, we uh we kept the residential stuff pretty much.

We also limp I mean we if you you weren't on council at the time we eliminated a lot of like fees and we made it more simple and streamlined and rational and as Peter said he's correct we we we kept the smaller end of the spectrum of projects those fees actually some of them went down actually I think uh as a percentage uh and then you know the really big again the ones that are more time consuming on our staff more demanding on our time and resources those are paying a higher fee but also we looked at our peer communities we looked at Lexington Chattanooga other peer cities and we made sure we weren't above and beyond what those other peer cities charge we we're in line with our peers and we want to continue and we're gonna continue to address that make sure we stay in line similar to compensation let's we got to keep up with with the market and and what uh what the resources command and um it it's again it's gone we haven't heard a lot of complaints about that if we do if you hear any please let us know we we always always want to look at ways we can be equitable in our uh our fee structure absolutely two things one um we also got rid of we used to require a local license and so we got rid of that a couple years ago um and we just recognize the state licensure um which was essentially a tax that we got rid of and the folks that we do hear from are the out of town builders that are doing like the student housing and the number one thing that they tell us is they they're amazed at how accessible we are because we set aside um two afternoons a week all afternoon just to sit down with folks and they'll coordinate with Rachel and her team um but just our accessibility is something that they find um lacking in the other major cities that they work in so we do have thank you we've got a great team um we're continuing to get better and and look for opportunities to improve but we appreciate your support thank you Peter um councilman honeycutt yeah I think uh again vice mayor asked uh question I was gonna ask but uh and so I'm glad we were able to have this conversation and I do appreciate it that the previous council administrations made the investment in the department and and and you've been able to make the improvements because I'm glad we kept them uh in-house I know a lot of municipalities are starting to outsource these to third parties and private developers and that kind of thing and that is a slippery slope so I'm glad because you are our quality control you are looking out for the public welfare and life safety which is huge as we grow as a city.

So I'm glad we have found a mechanism to hopefully make that successful within our within our city.

What is the do we know what the delta is between or is there much of a delta between what the development fees pay for and the cost of the department like is that is does the department basically fully fund or is it so yes the general fund does not support his operation at all.

That's great self sufficient I mean that's that's again that's another thing that's great for us to know and to be able to talk about that you know your department in particular is covered by the fees uh because a lot of people are asking about why we're picking up certain fees for certain things.

Um and then I guess the uh I also wanted to commend you on using the word customers I I appreciated that uh that uh that you're using that language and talking in that way because you know they are our customers and there are customers on city council and there are customers as a city uh the residents uh and the constituents and you know uh the development community and so I just wanted to commend you on that too the um the real quick uh this goes to deferred maintenance and how we address deferred maintenance but this is a little bit in the weeds but will you talk about substantial investment and how that works to as a and I think it may be called something different now but just so council understands what that mechanism is.

It's it's the threshold where when you invest more than 50% that's where it I'm gonna defer to engineering because it it's tied to the stormwater.

It's just something that I think uh it's helpful for council to know because one, it is it's it's a mechanism we use to address as a city deferred maintenance by making the developers and or projects pay for it.

Um so it's not on the tax dollars, but it is something that trips up, especially small businesses a lot uh when they're trying to develop, and so if it's okay, we can talk about this at a later date, but I just was I can have the Chris Howley address that.

Yeah.

So the substantial investment is a portion of the ordinance that talks about and it's pr predominantly related to stormwater.

Right.

And so it is where you have a development that is it's a redevelopment, not just a development.

So we have an existing use and we're investing a certain amount of money into it.

So the the definition for the substantial investment is that you're investing 50% or more in the valuation of that existing building, and that existing building's valuation could be tax-assessed value, could be an appraised value, or it could be the last time it's sold, whichever's higher.

And so if you're investing more than half of that amount, it's basically identifying that you'd have to bring certain aspects of the property up to current sp specification as far as stormwater goes.

And the stormwater, a lot of it has to do with the Clean Water Act, which ultimately comes down through the city's national pollutant discharge elimination systems permit, which basically says we need to make our stormwater runoff all the water that gets to the creeks cleaner, and so to address that um without um having a mechanism to add a criteria for somebody to do their fair share for the amount of impervious area, the amount of runoff, the amount of pollutant load that comes off a site is really what that's trying to address.

And there are some stormwater quantity aspects associated that with that as well.

And so those two things kind of run in tandem and and often in redevelopment, they're managed in a singular thing, which is usually like an infiltration facility where some or some areas constructed to meet that criteria.

But again, we have millions of dollars of stormwater deferred maintenance, and especially when larger projects are done and people come from out of town, they are doing that city work infrastructure on their dime as part of that development, and so the taxpayers don't have to cover it if they meet the which most of them will at the bigger projects this threshold for substantial investment.

Is that correct?

Yes, they will they will reduce the impact to the remaining portion of of the system that the city maintains.

So that's good.

Um but sometimes smaller developers like that are just trying to open a restaurant or that kind of thing when they trip substantial investment and suddenly they may be required to do thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of stormwater repair, is there a mechanism to help those people or to talk through that?

So if we go back in time a little bit, the original substantial investment uh aspect, if we go way back in time, um the city we we used to used to do probably ninety percent greenfield development, 10% redevelopment.

And so a lot of our focus was on new development regulations.

And as the years came on, now we're doing probably more than 90% of redevelopment, probably 10% greenfield.

Greenfield, that's rarely a problem because those those criteria are very um clear in what what the uh expectations are.

Um so when when this I'll say this this transition occurred from having um more and more redevelopment occur, um, the the way that the original redevelopment uh the substantial investment thing was set up is it was it continued on forever.

So it's like any investment and you would do that additively for the history of our records would add up to trying to equal that 50%.

Um and it also applied to uh any size development.

So in the last few years, one of the tweaks that we did make to try to make that a uh more equitable um outcome was we set a a if your project is not at least a half million dollars, then you don't you don't apply.

So we've cut that portion out, which was pretty notable in to help some of the smaller developers.

And small developments and to not strap them sort of like you're talking about with the development fees, hinder them or hurt them from being able to to do the mom and pops to be able to open their stores and the restaurants and the local stuff.

Yes, that's correct.

And the other aspect of it was that we um changed it from a forever time frame for you know what is it the length of our records to a five-year rolling window, so that especially if you have tenants that come in that come out and the next one comes in and you do another investment that it's not penalized that uh um that you have you know we don't have blight in an area because somebody can't add you know a new tenant finish out without adding these stormwater controls so uh to create that and we we base that very similarly on FEMA's standards for what their practices are, and so we have similar language in a different ordinance for FEMA criteria, but we felt that that was a reasonable window of time to uh allocate so that we are not burdening those smaller developments, and that's what both of those the language on both of those was intended to help uh address.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Woman Parker, and then I just want to remind everybody we also have uh Kat and Fleet here.

If you've got questions, so go ahead.

We don't want to tell the love.

Sorry, guys.

Well, Kat, you're up.

Okay.

A couple of questions.

One is help me understand the increases in the administration under the budget.

I'll see 100%, 106% increase.

Deferred to our finance team on that question.

It looks like to the under over under is actually uh for the actual is $4 million, 4.1 million dollars.

What's 4.1 million?

If you're looking at administration um proposed to actual, it's um we're under four staff.

Well, right now I'm looking at page 100 and 100.

Cat administration.

It's also in our binder under CAT binder page 226.

They don't have the 106.7% increase in administration.

Okay.

And fund 100, excuse me, that's where we budget for our CAT grant match.

That is all that you'll see there on page 100 there.

So that is uh just what we anticipate to be our grant match for the grants that they're gonna go for in the upcoming fiscal year.

And so in the upcoming fiscal year, cat anticipates going after grants that would double the size of the administration.

Correct.

They're looking to um apply for uh a larger number of grants in this upcoming year than they have in the previous year, and thus the grant match has increased.

But we're not talking about increasing administrative staff, we're talking about funding grants.

I think that's what Kitchener's trying to say.

Correct, okay.

So help me understand.

Um, I'm sorry, yes.

It the the budgeted amount is under grants in the CAT administration budget.

Um, and so we've also learned that there's a deputy director of CAT position that's being added, and but is that under the parks and rec budget?

We have essentially doubled our staff in terms of city staff at CAT.

We've had one city staff members and Isaac, it's our director.

We are uh bringing a position from CAT to the city and hiring a we've hired a deputy director.

Uh we've hired Suzanne Rimmer.

She starts on Monday.

Uh, she's actually been our deputy director of working under Collin.

Uh, we're really excited to have her on board.

Uh, this is a move to help us again provide additional support for Isaac.

And you know, CAT is not technically they're a component unit of the city.

They're not technically a department, they're structured a lot more differently.

However, it's city funds, it's it's a city service that we provide.

So we wanted, you know, and one one effort this administration has made, our team has made is you know, every department having a deputy director just to help with support, uh, succession planning, all those things.

So CAT, we've hired a deputy director, she's she'll start on Monday.

It's not a new, it's a it is a new head count position, but it's a revenue or cost neutral change moving it from CATS budget to the city budget.

Um so I don't know if that helps answer your question.

It doesn't explain the grant funding and the uh but from an administration.

Yeah, we are we're adding another staff member as a city staff member that's gonna support Isaac and support the team over at CAT.

Mm-hmm.

And and I want to understand um you know what's happening, what this budget is telling us, but I also uh for my own learning and and benefit like to understand where the dollars can be found.

Um, and so that's why I asked some of these questions, but it helps to know going after more grants, and that's why that is budgeted that way.

One question though for finance.

Um I thought it was our policy to budget for any grants uh that departments were pursuing in the upcoming budget year.

That is that is what you are seeing in fund 100 under administration.

That is the city's grant match for the grants that they're anticipating applying for in the upcoming year, so that we have that grant match available should they be awarded the grant.

Now that when the police were before us, we council's already approved them to go after funding to expand the co-responder program, but it we were told that was not included in the budget.

Is that actually included in the KPD budget?

Or can you clarify maybe later?

If I'm understanding the question correctly, if we are aware of a grant that the department is going to be applying for in the upcoming year, we do budget for that grant match.

Okay.

Now there are grants that KPD will apply for.

They do not require a grant match.

Um, so I I don't know if I'm asking.

If it doesn't require a grant match, it does not go in the grant.

Most DOJ grants, which is generally what KPD gets, they're usually a hundred percent to federal funded ma'am.

So only grant matches, and it's only the match that goes in the budget, not the full grant.

That is correct.

Okay.

And it's gotta be one that we know about at the time we're preparing the budget.

So things will come up.

You got one coming to you before long that we're preparing this, didn't know anything about, so we'll talk about that later.

But uh okay, that helps.

Thank you.

Uh council, so I have councilwoman Adams, Councilman Thomas, and then Councilman DeVar de Laban.

So just want you to know I have seen your lights.

Okay.

Councilwoman Adams.

I had to remember what my question was.

Sorry.

Um I appreciate that.

Uh this is uh for Mr.

Howley, uh, it's relevant to what we were talking about a moment ago with the percentage improvements.

Um, and if this is uh we can talk about it later, but I was just curious in regards to um how those percentages are handled, if any differently, when it's not uh when it's a land lease.

We don't really have a different clause for uh the different types of ways people manage their land, and so it really looks at it's really up to them how they figure out who pays for that additional improvement.

Yes, that's that's up to them.

It's just a requirement of the ability to get a permit, and so however that's negotiated between the the different uh managers of that land is is really up to them to make that decision internal to their business uh model.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, councilman Thomas.

Yes, of course, public transportation is uh really important for variety of reasons, environment, quality of life, traffic, um, employment opportunities, etc.

And uh I just wanted to note uh also for the public.

If you haven't been on a CAT bus in a while, um they're first rate.

Uh most of them are electric or hybrid and um Wi-Fi.

They're clean, they're quiet, uh, they don't pollute.

Uh so just a little cheerleading there.

And I just wanted to circle back uh for Director Thorne, just give you an opportunity.

Is there any uh general things or any ways that uh we can help you uh and maybe a little bit of update on reimagine cat.

Yeah, I can give you a quick quick update.

So we uh we had two point six million riders last year on CAT, which again was our highest since 2015.

Um this year through March, our ours is up another five percent year to date.

So um I would say cat reimagining has been very, very successful in terms of increasing ridership.

Uh again, the public overwhelmingly wanted more frequency, and that's what we provided.

Um so that's exciting news.

Um I also say too, we're at currently 191 operators.

Uh our goal is to get to 200.

33 of those are um in training right now, so that's also exciting news.

And our retention rates at 72%.

So it's really good.

As far as the configuration of the relatively new routes, do they look like they're pretty solid and probably no need to uh do an adjustment on the routes or we made that promise public for our customers?

Um, just one.

The other highlight to you from got reimagined is the fact that our our on time is very um important for individuals that take public transportation is it increased 11% since we launched got reimagined.

So, thank you.

Councilman DeBartley.

Thank you.

Um I first want to say thank you to Mrs.

Kirk.

This is really helpful.

This notebook you provided.

So I'm on page 96 right now, and it's really helped me navigate this whole discussion uh as a guide.

So thank you very much.

Um so uh some quick questions.

Um if I am a citizen and I want to know what the Washington Pike improvements include, that 2.11 million.

Where do I go to find that information?

So the best source of information is on the uh city engineering website.

Uh there's a list of all the design and capital projects and it lists in detail what the schedules are, who's working on it, what the project includes.

Okay, thank you.

Um next question.

Uh the Gay Street bridge repair, um, what is involved with that?

So the we uh last year completed the repairs of the bridge to get it open to backs and peds.

Um since it's converted now to a pedestrian bridge only, the city is responsible for any inspection.

So previously T dot did that inspection every two years, which they do for all all bridges.

Um so that funding will fund a full bridge inspection for this next fiscal year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um Will, I think my next question is for you.

There's an engineering capital contingency there for $2 million.

Is that what wouldn't we vote in our meeting where that makes its way as a does it come before us as a resolution to add that to an existing project?

Or maybe Rob, that questions for you.

How does the contingency who do who decides where the two million dollar contingency gets spit?

Mr.

Rosenberg.

Thank you.

You take a stab at that.

Because we typically, you know, sometimes we have projects that are uh that are over, you know, we budget and then they come under bid, and then you know, we're they're short.

So we typically, you know, have to go find money from another project or rob and uh, you know, project that hasn't been that's lower in the priority queue.

And um again, it's just something we but at the end of the day we just don't have we don't have the resources available to be able to have have a budget, have a contingency budget every year and a contingency fund.

But it's something again, like to work towards over time.

But uh I'll take the I'll take the take all the arrows on that one.

So you're telling us that's a nice to have, but like you were told it's not a need to do yeah I mean that's two million dollars.

We wouldn't we wouldn't have available for other other critical projects that we absolutely have to fund this year.

So again, uh took my run at it and uh uh but long in the long run we'd like to see something like have have more sustainable, you know, having the that fund available.

We still have to go to council obviously for approval to fund contracts, of course, but gives us more flexibility.

We make it happen, we make it work uh every every project and and count this council supports that but um again it was just something trying to plan for for future and I think the point you're making is oftentimes if we have to take money if if we have an overrun it slows the rest of the projects down that's that's the bottom line in in the reality that's the reality.

So it's not making this budget then no okay it's not making this budget.

Gotcha not as presented no and then uh my last question concerns vision zero program it's somewhat misleading that it says there's only fifty thousand dollars in here because I see lots of vision zero projects would someone speak to that.

I'd be happy to so vision zero is is really an initiative that uh is really baked into everything we do so every project that we do we work with Cody Gentry and those vision zero initiatives to try to make sure we're including those safety features in those projects so it's it's something that's really permeated through the whole department and every project we do.

Let me also point out we're we're also adding another additional staff member at Vision Zero so we're we we are contributing more to the division zero effort not through make necessary capital again as Tom said it's vision zero is embedded in all of our capital projects but uh we are adding additional staff member at vision zero with Cody's team and uh really committed to that effort it's going it's going well going very well councilwoman Parker.

Uh to follow up on the Gay Street Bridge questions we've seen some recent damage that needs to be repaired and uh announcement that the ballards or however you pronounce it would be replaced um is that something that that you have maintenance funds to cover we expecting a budget amendment or what what are we looking at?

No we should be able to re we should be able to fortify that with that with existing funds we have in our budget um the ballards yeah we're obviously not not effective and uh we'll put something a little more permanent more uh robust that prevent those incidents from happening in the future thank you uh councilman grant yeah um definitely want to give Cody uh gentry a shout out just kind of go into my question um he's done a good job I know tomorrow they'll be visiting some Austinese students just to kind of get their feedback in terms of traffic and safety and so I you know I think that's great for him to be able to do that given you know those kids walk those those areas um so definitely a huge supporter of vision zero my so my question and this may be for you Grant when I look at the Magnolia Avenue uh streetscape which is phase four I believe um I see the FY 2627 and 27 and 28 there's a pause in twenty eight and twenty nine and then we we pick back up on that twenty nine thirty um can can you explain that as as to why there's that gap I'll let time I'll let Tom answer this.

So is that phase four?

Yes sir so that that project is included in the transportation improvement plan so it's got eighty percent federal funds in it and so what you're seeing as we implement those there typically is a gap and as we develop design we go into right away right away normally takes a little longer and so it it extended the project another physical year before we're ready for construction so that next request is for construction then thank you a lot of our federally funded projects they take they take a long time I'm just be real candid they take a a really long time and a lot of it's there's a there's a NEPA phase there's as Tom mentioned right of way I mean it's it's years and unfortunately just to go through the process so we try to plan for that uh those matches any oh, Mr.

Honeycutt yeah, so uh real quick, two quick questions.

One is for fleet.

Uh the uh what approximately what do you have built into the budget for gas prices and how do you account for the you know potential increase or decrease of that in the in the city's budget?

Yeah, we're uh we're usually very conservative with our with our projections just because the uh fuel market uh can be so volatile.

Um I'll tell you we spend about uh uh well we consume about twenty three hundred gallons per day of gasoline uh and another similar amount of diesel, so uh seventy thousand a month or so each.

So yeah, the we're very susceptible to price increases as you can imagine.

Um I think we've got over three and a half million uh budgeted for fuel in the uh the coming year I can tell you uh right now we're we've spent um about a million and a half or so as of the end of March.

So we're we're well uh we we we've got enough cushion in there to uh, you know, as long as prices don't get even worse, they're they've already doubled, but uh you know, I think we'll we'll end the year in a in a good place and uh we budgeted similarly with uh I don't think finance took the credit for that, but uh I think uh we we've put ourselves in a position where we can weather some of these increases with our conservative uh projections.

Okay, thank you.

And then second question, uh I I'm sure other people will get a lot of like we have said earlier, a lot of constituent uh requests regarding sidewalks and crosswalks and turning lanes and that kind of thing, and and they're all very valid uh and we need them all over the city.

So how does uh how does the engineering department track these and then prioritize them and then plan for them in future budgets if they're not accounted for in this current one?

So uh you're talking specifically new sidewalk requests or I'm talking about I'm talking about all the constituent requests we get.

I mean whether it's again sidewalk extensions or crosswalks or turning lanes.

I mean it's there's a lot of a lot of things that come in the pipe sort of down the pipeline and how it I assume they're evaluated and then where they tracked and then as we as we receive those requests we do track those and and we keep a running through three one one, yeah.

Right, yeah usually.

Okay.

Um and that's the same for like new traffic signals, crosswalk requests, new sidewalks, uh so then how do we convey to our constituents, you know, if they want to know where their request is in that process or that pipeline.

It it and it it I think it really depends on the specific request that that we have.

We'll we'll we'll reach out and and follow up typically with a letter when we get like new sidewalk requests that that we have a a sidewalk um program um where it it looked at new sidewalks throughout the whole city and those are kind of prioritized and we can give the information to folks.

Okay, that this sidewalk is in the study and it's this rank um and as so as we get funding available we we look to try to implement those.

Right.

I and we're um and last on that note, this is a question.

Uh one of course one of my go-to's is to tell them to call three one one to get in the queue and then we can start tracking it together with your department.

But the second thing, and is it accurate to also point people to the comprehensive plan and to if people really want to see different things and different infrastructure improvements to make that known through the comprehensive plan process?

I mean I think that's an excellent avenue to to get to get your voice heard.

Yes.

That's great.

Because again, we're talking about trying to plan future infrastructure projects.

So one is three.

They can go on the website, right?

And literally start making these specific requests known.

That's that's correct.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

If I could follow up on that, I got council Tom Councilman Thomas' permission to jump ahead of him because it's on sidewalks.

Um I also think correct me if I'm wrong.

Um I also think it's important it's not where you are in when you ask for it.

There is a prioritization based on usage, traffic patterns, those kind of things.

Because I also don't want our citizens to think, well, I I'm number four hundred on the list to ask, but number five hundred went above me.

And I'm say four and five hundred 'cause they're more than that.

Um is that correct?

Yeah, and it just and I think there's some sort of evaluation process.

There is an evaluation process.

We take those requests and we we track those, but at the end of the day, um uh just to give you an idea, new sidewalks uh on average around about twelve hundred dollars per linear foot.

Very, very expensive.

Um so we we are working on some new sidewalks in house designs, uh but as as far as um overall funding it's just a very expensive thing to to fund new cycles or and I've totally agree with you and I'm saying not just because someone asked for it doesn't mean we're gonna deliver it but it's about sort of helping us um temper expectations and the more we can convey to people we've heard you this is where it is in the process and then here's the you know here's when you can expect a result the better off we all are that's all right I I was just adding adding color commentary.

Thank you.

Um it's a sidewalk okay.

Just to clarify someone tell me if I'm wrong but there are no new sidewalks in this year's budget.

That is correct.

Correct?

Yeah.

Setting expectations.

Okay.

Is your question on sidewalks?

Well it's actually follow up to council grant okay well then I'll go to council go ahead.

And I think it can be pretty quick just um I see Magnolia Avenue streetscapes I it's actually phase three in here.

And I see Burlington Avenue improvements.

Um Burlington District Improvements has eight point eight million in the fund but none included in this year's budget.

That project's already funded and underway.

It's under construction right now.

So we don't have to put it in the budget to spend it out for this year.

It was already it was previously budgeted.

It was it was funded in previous capital budget.

And that's what I'm trying to understand with the capital improvement funds.

When we have those funds approved they've been put into that fund.

Shouldn't we see them drawn down through about how much we're expecting to spend throughout the budget year.

No.

No, our capital budget works a little different than our operating budget.

So we will fund the project that amount of money goes into that project and then that pro that there are the requirements on those dollars to be spent by the end of the fiscal year or if they last those that money stays in the project so they have that year or even into the the next fiscal year to spend those dollars.

So just over time that money is spent.

Yep that's helpful okay thank you.

Now councilman Thomas bring us home with I will you're all that stands between us and lunch.

Y'all can help lunch I'll keep this your uh no I just wanted to kind of round out with fleet services and I appreciate your update on the effect of higher petroleum uh prices but you do other things and you have other ways of um of uh fueling your vehicles and I wanted you to take just a minute and talk about your fleet and the use of electric vehicles and then the opportunity to talk about any other things that you think we may be able to help you on.

Uh well thank you I appreciate that yeah our total fleet is about a little over seventeen hundred assets of those about fourteen hundred or so are are powered the remainder of trailers and things of that 1400 about eleven hundred are on road vehicles we've got um about ninety two assets that are fueled by uh renewable propane uh which is really uh non-fossil fuel-based uh fuel and that ranges from lawnmowers to uh pickups and SUVs uh it's a very sustainable fuel that's low emission uh we've got 220 assets that are uh powered by electricity uh golf carts uh a big portion of that but 56 of those electric uh assets are on road vehicles sedans, SUVs, pickups um so yeah we I think having a diverse um you know energy uh portfolio there is uh is a is a great thing to help us weather events like the uh recent spike in uh in uh fossil fuel prices that we've seen uh but we certainly appreciate the uh opportunity to highlight a lot of the wonderful things you're doing in in fleet and uh some of the innovations we've we've made to uh uh power our uh power our fleet to keep these guys running and provide services to residents.

Yeah, I love the track you're on and I just wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of round out uh some of the things you do and uh kind of the uh outlook you have for the future as far as energy consumption.

So thank you, that's all I have.

Thank you.

Okay, last chance.

Anybody have anything else they want to ask or say?

Okay, if not, thank you all for coming.

Um, very good discussion.

Thank you.

Okay, counsel.

Um, it it is time for a lunch break.

We will be reconvening at twelve thirty.

I will say, wait, um, that somebody's supposed to give us instructions about lunch.

Is that going to be you or was it Will or what?

Well, so we'll have to step out for a moment.

Um I don't know what instructions he was going to tell you.

What I do know is that um, your lunches are on the table and they're labeled with your names.

I think that was the instructions.

Okay.

So don't everybody go at once, but your lunch is over there.

Okay.

Um looks like we've got the majority of council back, so we will go ahead and start.

Um thank you.

Um everybody for being here this afternoon.

Um, as we um do the second half of the budget uh hearings.

Um, we're still in the operations department, current uh division, I call it a division, operations division.

Um so um, if you will all introduce yourselves and tell us uh your department, then what we did the last time was just sort of let it be.

If there's anything you want to tell us, tell us, and otherwise we'll just start with um let people ask questions as they need to, and we have recently merged departments with 311.

So now we are the Department of Innovation and Technology.

Good afternoon.

I'm Betsy Cunningham, the director of HR, and uh part of my team is behind me here.

If you all raise your hand, um Michelle Black is here, Linda Um Perdue is here, and Christy Tunstall are here.

Thank you.

I'm uh Laura Peck.

I'm the deputy director of the civil service department.

Russ Jensen, director of 311211, the that half of the information or the innovation and technology side.

And with me is Renee Bowman, who's the call center manager back here in the back.

Okay.

Um, see like somebody trying to turn on.

I think what Chad wants to say is Christine Stickler, our director of benefits and risk is out of town, so but we'll we'll be happy to answer any questions.

We're we're asking Chad every question.

Call Chad, that's the motto around city government.

Call Chad.

Call Chad.

Yes, uh I would also like to just take a minute to introduce Adam Stollman.

He's sitting in the back as well.

He is our risk manager, so if there's any questions, hopefully myself and Adam will be able to answer those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, you don't know how right you are when it was called Chad my entire first term, so thank you.

Um, all right, anybody have any particular comments you want to make about things going on in your department or well, don't all rush to do that.

So, okay, we'll just hit you with our questions.

How about that?

Um, first up, I see Ms.

Parker's light on, so I'll start with her.

Well, I wanted to start with the merger that was just mentioned to get a better sense of the movements that are happening.

I noticed it in the budget, um, and wanted to get more clarification.

There is um for instance, the director's position of 311 call center um is still within the uh uh the uh the budget um well actually maybe I should just ask my general questions.

But is it that one?

Help me understand what what changes are happening with the personnel.

IT.

Turn on your mic.

Sorry, the short version is that position you're looking at is me, and I'm still listed as under administration.

Yeah, and I'll be retiring next year, so that position will eventually go away.

So with merging 311 and two one and IT together, it just made more sense to leave me where I was.

So that's why it's appearing in two different places.

Okay, that helps.

The budget for 311 though is still basically flat.

Um, could you um share the reasoning behind the merger?

I'll I'll start.

Mark and jump in.

Uh, long story short, the the synergy between the two departments was already there.

Um, making making that relationship more official and moving those employees together.

Um, we're creating efficiencies literally as we speak that um I think everybody's going to be very happy with, but elevating the level of customer service, reaching people where they're at, using technology to its fullest, also, but working with the people in the call center that all they do is work with people and help with people all day.

Putting those two things together just in the few months that we've been working on it has been incredibly powerful.

Anything you want to add?

It was really a marriage of strengths.

You know, we become more customer service focused, they become more technology focused.

We were ready uh with Carter.

I forgot to introduce Carter Hall, he's now my deputy director, but he was Russ's deputy director, and he was working on data initiatives and things like that.

So it was just it was already there.

We just acknowledged the obvious.

Okay, and making sure all those tools on customer interactions were being used so that we could do more data analytics and forward thinking.

Again, another bonus.

Awesome.

Thank you all for sharing, I saw your mic down, Councilman Honeycutt.

No, thank you, uh Vice Mayor.

The uh and I apologize I came in a few minutes late, but the um you guys, I guess, are are you all leading the compensation study effort on behalf of the city?

Yes, one department has.

The HR department will be.

Yes.

So and so I guess as part of that, you know, we'll see the results of that really, and then that'll be determined as part of next year's budget.

But what's currently in the budget is retaining the consultant to work with you all on that citywide compensation.

That is correct.

We just met.

I just met with purchasing yesterday, and we'll be pursuing uh developing that RFP.

So that's correct.

So we talked, I mentioned it earlier to um uh in a general comment, but how I know employ you know, obviously attracting the best people to the city and retaining good people at the city is incredibly important.

It's obviously a lot more expensive to retrain people, you know, than to keep good people.

And I know benefits are a huge thing at the city.

The pension, which again, I'm new to the pension board, but feels like it's run very well and and healthy.

But health care costs are rising, uh, and most of us on the private sector are not able to absorb those costs, but I know the city is.

Do you think that that's sustainable?

Uh, and is that and I know it's included in this current budget.

I will defer to Chad on that question.

Let me let me jump let me jump in actually.

Whether or not we can fund continued health care uh absorption is really a policy budget question that we evaluate every year.

Twelve years, you know, we want HR to be the trusted neutral provider of information to employees.

Policy political questions, budgetary questions need to be answered by finance.

Okay.

I I can't answer that now until we know what you know the adopted budget, where we are next year.

12 years is a long time.

So I think we are probably towards the the tail end of that, but I can't give a definitive answer, but 12 years, 7.7 million dollars that the taxpayers has absorbed within our budget.

I think that's a pretty long time.

So we'll have to evaluate that.

The compensation study will also be a guide for us to help uh analyze where our benefits are, wages, etc.

Great.

So the yeah, so the compensation study will help benchmark that across other other cities.

So we so we we actually do some benchmarking as part of our benefits team and Christine and so uh Christine Steckler, who's not here, and so they will take again part of the study is the discovery of where are we now, go back to the MAG study, where are benefits, what are the benchmarking that our benefits department does with our consultant, and they will take all that discovery and then start driving forward with recommendations.

Um but that is a decision I think that we've gotten a really uh nice 12-year window, but I can't say whether or not next the next budget process, what we'll be able to do or not do.

So, you know, let's say for example, sales taxes comes in much higher than we predicted.

We may be able to go another year.

If fuel prices stay really high, maybe not.

So that's a hard one to to look 14 months down the road, 16 months down the road, but the study's gonna help give us a guide.

Great, thank you.

Councilwoman Adams.

No, you turned your light off.

I was just gonna ask if the if we anticipated that the study studies that are being done would help influence what the capacity is there.

It sounds like that will be part of the equation that's considered.

I do want to just when we talk about managing expectation with the public employees, uh, taxpayers, and with council, uh, compensation analysis, um, compensation studies are expensive.

Okay, and so I think we all at this table know that every time we've done, we've never done one that didn't have a cost, okay, and they're usually significant.

So I think um we've made significant investments this administration with support of council in our employees' wages and benefits.

The the strain on our budget, there's two reasons that exist right now.

One is uh revenues are starting to flatten out.

Boys talked about that.

The other is the compounding effects of all of the dollars we've put into people, and that is a huge priority because we're a service organization.

But I think when we get this information back, there's gonna be a very uh there will be challenges from our a company from a uh uh ability to pay for it.

And so I think just know that coming in.

We are excited to know where we stand from a markets perspective, but it will be there will be hard decisions that need to be made in the future.

So I just want to manage those expectations with council as well.

Mr.

Gray, is your question about compensation?

Yeah, okay, go ahead.

Um Betsy, I think you've done an amazing job, um, just in your your few months uh since being here.

Got great feedback just from employees, uh just in terms of the better communication, knowing what's going on, and so just you know, I think my thing is the messaging, right?

Because that's something that I learned when you compare compensation to benefits.

A lot of people don't see the value in those benefits and the city absorbing, you know, that that growth in health care costs, right?

And so you never want to, you know, tell people, well, this is what I'm doing for you, but getting more employees and getting taxpayer dollars to say, hey, as a taxpayer, you're actually absorbing the cost increase for your city staff, right?

And I know I feel good as a taxpayer being able to, you know, take on that cost burden for our city employees, and so just the messaging, right?

Maybe having something to where employees see that benefit, and as a taxpayer, we see that benefit.

Uh I think would be a great opportunity to kind of get rid of some of the things that a lot of constituents in the community don't know necessarily understand.

Um, but thank you.

Thank you for what you're going to say.

Just to jump in there really quickly.

Every year we provide a total rewards compensation, um, one sheeter to each employee that shows how much the city contributes.

So we we've been trying to do that for a good number of years because it is when you look at what the city contributes to your to an individual's health care, etc.

So just we do that, and um we could send you uh an example of one of those if you'd like to see it.

I think I was I was gonna say I was gonna bring that up.

I know that employees see it themselves, but the community at large, to your point, doesn't understand what we mean when we talk about compensation, compensation, their salary and benefits equal compensation.

So the other thing I would uh like to ask uh Mr.

Brace if you could tell me off the top of your head, not exact, but since the compensation study was done the last time and the prior in um in 22, I believe we voted for the tax increase to fund what came out of the compensation, overall what percent did compensation and benefits uh increase for the major.

I mean, I understand there's compression, but overall, um, in the butt what how much budgetary impact did that probably have when we um improved wages?

And then my follow-up question that somebody uh hope can answer for me is does is this compensation study?

I know we talked about cities of similar size, but do they also look at the private sector within Knoxville?

Because I know the last time one of our real challenges, especially in financial engineering, was compensation losing city employees to private sectors that paid more for very professional degreed requirements that could go to the private sector, and we lost a lot of talent.

So the the total investment um I we'd have to get back to you on that since we did the study.

I mean, I think at the time it's important to note that when we did the study on average, there was an 11% um increase for employees across the board.

So employees got an average of 11%.

Some were well behind market, some were at market, some maybe a little ahead.

So 11%, and then we had the 4.2 for uniform 2.5.

So you can start to add those up.

I actually asked HR, and I and I need to forward it to all of council to just compare the percentage increases for the last 10 years compared to CPI.

So I've got that information because that's one of the things we need to talk about with employees is kind of the facts on how we've uh stayed up with inflation, even during hyperinflation during COVID.

So I need to get that to council.

I want to kick over the because I'm not an expert in how we do studies.

Do we compare to the market?

Do we compare to governments only?

Let me kick that to either Chad uh or over to uh to miss Cunningham because I I can't remember from the last study how we did that.

I the reason I brought that up is because I do think it's important to look at what the private market is paying for folks.

That's very good point.

And I think that's up to us.

We're gonna carve out the scope of service and what we plan to do and um we recognize that is important in certain areas particular positions.

So uh we will definitely take that into consideration as we I would encourage you to ask for that.

Okay, you know.

Yeah and I I just want to again sort of uh second what both vice mayor and uh councilman grant are talking about because you know again seeing the pension seeing the healthcare programs the benefits that the city offers are are are a huge perk for working here and I'm glad that it's conveyed at least once a year to each employee but I know even to my own team members and employees you know it's hard to it's hard to see beyond the paycheck uh especially if you're a young person um and and you know you're just trying to buy groceries to understand you know what the city's offering in terms of health care and and their retirement um so the more to I think councilman grant's point the more messaging and and understanding that and again what's the saying someone has to hear it seven times before they hear it right so um it would be great because again as we're talking to city employees and city departments and uh anything we can do to help them understand the great benefits that you all offer would be great and then I agree with councilman excuse me vice mayor councilwoman is fine uh all of all the titles uh vice mayor that uh I would definitely include uh both public and private sector in the study because that I can tell you right now the private sector does not match or cannot match the benefits that they currently have or probably will have even after this study so I think it's a great uh great tool thank you.

Yeah I would I would just add um myself and Betsy and Christine um we've already been trying to get with subject matter experts on compensation that that do this for a living and um that's one of our our questions we've asked them is is how do most cities do they include private sectors and so I think we will do a little bit of mix.

I mean it might be more government heavy but uh including some of our local companies around here it does make sense.

Well I if I could I would just say I I understand you don't have to do um private for maybe some jobs that only a government does but I I really think about when we had shortages of engineers and accountants and that kind of stuff that the private sector can go after robustly um that the that's a little more you know maybe we narrow the scope to job classifications that are more likely to have private sector competition that might keep the cost down.

Any other questions for anybody about any department here of the um importance of the market the uh and I and I remember um having to tackle this at Miraville College and you know we were only looking for a while at higher ed um and higher in the area and that being the benchmark but that wasn't where we were losing people it was the market and not only in our area but beyond so I think your idea of like looking at specific job classifications but absolutely those markets that are that are outside GOB because that's where they could go anybody have any other questions oh heaven's doets to you all are oh y'all are gonna get off no but no pun intended Betsy but um but you're about to get off easy anything all right.

Well, then y'all did an excellent job.

You're finished early so thank you thank you.

Thank you.

Subscribers okay let's see.

Okay.

I see the zoo see visit knoxville.

Entrepreneur centers here.

Junior Center.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Um PBA.

Public Assembly.

Exactly.

We're very good.

Yeah.

So for those of you that are up next and are already here, if you'll come on up, we'll begin and um.

Keep moving.

Somebody can somebody text.

Okay, don't do it.

Okay.

But PBA.

Okay.

That's great.

Great.

Yeah, we will.

We will.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah.

Now they'll all get here and we'll go long.

But that's okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think if those of you that are here will go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell us who you represent, then we can begin because not everybody that was on this panel is already here.

So we can we can roast you first.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Okay.

All right, I'll start first.

Um Kim Bumpus visit Knoxville.

Or do we just want to go down the line?

Yeah, just go down the line.

I'm Mary Bogart, um, Legends Knoxville.

Hi, I'm Bill Street President, CEO of Zoo Knoxville.

Mike O'Knoxville Chamber.

Okay.

And so for those who if you're looking, Mary's public assemblies facilities on our thing.

So I'm sorry.

Now think how you're coded on our uh on our agenda.

We're public assembly facilities.

I apologize.

Yeah, that's fine.

Yes.

So um if you would like to give us a little highlight of what you have going on in your world, and then we'll open it up to questions if there's anything you'd like to tell us.

Are we going down the line or are you is that just for Mary?

No, it's it's it's down the line.

All right, well, look at that.

Y'all can arm wrestle for you.

I'm gonna kick it off because you know we don't want to start with my god.

So um it's uh it's a crazy awesome year uh for tourism.

Um obviously I'm just gonna hit a few high notes and then of course answer any questions.

But we had Bassmaster in March.

Uh Luke Combs uh just happened with uh over 90,000 uh guests, and we did our first run of the traffic management plan that we're working on on rerouting uh three lanes counterflow on Neeland.

So that was uh a real good learning opportunity of human behavior when you make a change.

So uh feel very positive about where we're gonna go with that for Savannah Bananas.

Uh we just hosted a sales fam that ended today with uh meeting planners from all over the country, which was super exciting.

911 Nashville aired, which was like a love story to Knoxville.

It's a very cheesy show, but it has millions and millions of viewers and is highly aired uh internationally, so that's super exciting.

Uh the visitor center, I just came from there.

We are grand opening on Wednesday, and uh we are gonna be grand opening all the way till Wednesday.

So we hope to see you there.

Uh we are full in the last uh stages of construction.

Um, May is really really crazy, though.

We do right after we grand open, we have open streets, and we also recruited an event called Slippery Stairs, which is an hour-long show on ESPN 8 that will both be on May 17th on Gay Street.

So if you're upset that the road is closed for a little bit, you can blame me, but it's gonna be super awesome on telling the story of why you should visit Knoxville.

Then we go cruise right into Savannah Bananas and the visit Knoxville open, Savannah Bananas will take play Covenant Health Park on May 21st, Nealin on May 23rd.

Both shows are sold out, and there's still a running list of people waiting to get in.

And then outside of that, the Sun Sphere is going awesome.

We're over 240,000 visitors, 50 states, 63 countries, roughly we're converting about 70% of the people that walk into the welcome center into a purchase to the observation deck.

So that continues to build our Sun Sphere Fund back up, which is exciting.

And then other than that, um, tourism in general is bouncing back.

We flattened out a little bit in the fall into the winter, but right now from a collection standpoint, we're up 28% within the city.

So that's super exciting through March and there's more, but I can answer any questions you have, and I'll kick it to Mary.

Can I ask you one question before you go?

Um, so and you may not be the right person, but you probably have a pretty good idea.

We had a big boom in hotels in downtown.

That slowed.

I've heard there's some more on the horizon.

Um how many do you do you know that have actually committed to um do more hotels downtown?

Well, there's there's quite a few things brewing, but as far as like actually breaking ground, just one or two.

And the way I will just say, because this is a question I get a lot about like, oh, do we have too many hotels?

We have over 110 properties city-county wide uh that makes up about 8,500 room nights.

Uh you know, which is awesome.

Um, and no, the investors are really crazy.

They will only build a hotel if they know they can make their money back.

So I was about to say, I'm not worried that they're overbuilding because they don't come, they do the math.

Yes, they do, and we are the way they're falling into our inventory though, it's very easy as visit Knoxville to keep them full with leisure/slash event.

Well, I think that's the point is that with enough going on downtown, enough festivals, that sort of thing, and business going down here.

Uh people like being downtown.

They do, and it creates compression, which makes our countywide hotels be able to charge a higher rate.

All right, anybody who is that councilwoman Adams.

Yeah, I just did your question made me have a question about a property on Gay Street that has it turned into a hotel yet, or the Andrew Johnson building.

What's the status of that?

Um, actually, I think developer is working through some plans right now, and that that's been a that was a county owned building.

Yeah, remember this.

Uh, was acquired by a BNA, the same owners of the Oliver Hotel.

And uh Phil Welker actually emailed with him about something else, he was coming in town today and tomorrow, actually, for I assume related to that project, but uh it's I think he's still seeking equity investors.

That's a that's a county request.

That's not related.

We can we can make a request.

I'll do an email over to uh our colleagues with the county to see if they have an update.

So we'll do that.

Thanks.

All right, thank you.

Sorry I opened that kind of orbs for uh but curious.

All right, um, Mary.

Um also want to introduce I have uh Tiffany Reyes, who's my director of uh finance who's with me today.

Uh other members of my leadership team could not be here.

They are, as we speak, attending the Greater Knoxville Hospitality Association Leadership Awards luncheon.

Um, and several of our uh staff members are being recognized.

They'll go on to represent Knoxville at the state level, governor's hospitality uh governors conference on tourism, uh, which will be taking place in Gatlinburg this year.

So sorry they couldn't be here today.

Um, just to kind of give you an idea of the volume that we manage, it might be helpful for you.

Obviously, public assembly facilities are the Knoxville Convention Center, World's For Exhibition Hall, and the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum.

Um, just last year we hosted over 760,000 attendees and 488 event bookings with 1,165 facility use days.

So the facilities are uh very busy.

We have eight 80 full-time employees, 450 part-time employees, and we utilize 15 local staffing agencies to handle all of those events.

Um overall, convention center bookings are are solid.

Our convention center uh booking engine is working like it should.

Um, and attendance is strong.

Uh live entertainment bookings are also strong over on the civic side uh civic auditorium and coliseum side.

We have Santa Dip and ticket sales, but that's not just the Knoxville market, that is nationwide.

We've uh been able to do very well uh in response to that though, we have really pushed food and beverage.

We took over food and beverage in that facility in 2022, took us a little bit to turn it around, and uh since taking that over, we've uh realized 500,000 in additional food and beverage revenue at that facility alone.

So um we've been able to significantly beat our budget uh year over year, basically because we're putting back into food and beverage.

Um so again, next year's looking very solid.

Uh the current uh budget ask is three hundred and seventy thousand dollars less uh than in our current year, which was six hundred thousand dollars less in the previous year.

So public assembly facilities in the last two years have reduced our operating deficit by over a million dollars, so something we're very proud of.

Um, thank you.

And with that, I'll answer any questions you may have.

Um, Councilman Honeycutt.

Thank you.

Yeah, no, this is really just a general statement.

First of all, I don't know who put this group together, but they did a fantastic job.

Will it great job?

Uh this is an incredible uh group to talk to collectively.

It's it's a fun.

Yeah, it's a fun group.

You guys it's a fun group.

Uh, but uh, and and I want to thank each one of you individually for what you do for Knoxville.

I mean, tourism uh and quality of life is directly impacted by each one of your organizations' jobs, you know, it's uh job creation.

Uh you guys are the engine uh that brings so much life and energy and money to to Knoxville, and that is greatly appreciated for what each one of you do individually.

On that, we there was a conversation this first thing this morning with Boyce, and he's gonna cringe when I say this, but you know, 56% or 54% of the city's revenue comes from uh, you know, sales tax and and a lot of the things that you all directly impact.

Uh and so without that money, without that revenue, we couldn't be doing a lot of the budget discussions we're having today.

So thank you guys.

Um, I guess what my question is, you know, there's a lot of budget needs because each one of you plays such sort of an important role in the creation of jobs and revenue for the city.

Are there things missing in the current budget or needs that you have, or there are holes, if you will, um, that we should be aware of, you know, as we look at not just this budget but budgets going forward.

And and again, you can just as you kind of look at it and answer your questions, think about that.

Be great.

Um, and Mary, we already know Mary, we already know um the Coliseum and the auditorium need work.

Put me on the spot there.

Well, no, we've talked about that this morning.

I just thought I'd, yeah.

Anything else?

No, it's just an incredibly, you know, it's an older building, uh, has a lot of challenges, you know.

Um we're talking about the Coliseum here.

Yeah, I mean it's 64 or 5 years old now.

So, you know, we are limited um when we're competing with other markets for VIP experiences because I think that's what you'll see a lot of what UT's doing is creating those VIP experiences.

Uh, and that's what today's um consumers looking for.

We have managed to do an awful lot though.

Oh, and yeah, commending it on the taxpayers' money that you spend very efficiently for sure.

And I know on Visit Knoxville side, I think is there anything you know that you guys are in terms of attracting the right tourism and the right, you know, revenue dollars that we should be aware of?

Oh, well, I think the the biggest thing, and that's kind of brewing right now is just uh trying to work together as a community on what like a sports park might look like and what opportunities could exist in that landscape.

We do really good partnering with the commission center for our indoor sports because we own all the premier sport court and tractor trailers, basketball and volleyball systems in the southeast.

So we're really good in basketball and volleyball, but the rectangle sports, soccer, lacrosse, uh things of that nature and artificial turf, you know, those are things that we're working on aggressively and would love to have a complex where we had, you know, 15 fields in one spot where we could host bigger tournaments versus spreading them all over the parks and rec system.

Thank you.

And I know these are all wish list items and no one's guaranteed anything, but it's helpful to know.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Council Member Graham.

Yeah, I think that just kind of took me to what I was thinking, just in terms of communication and collaboration.

Knoxville's growing.

Um we have Covenant Hill Park.

You have Neiland Stadium, who's going to, you know, they're they have a plan, right?

To offer entertainment um and increase what they're doing over there.

So just I guess the communication obviously is there.

Um, I would assume because you know, I just don't want there to be a situation in the future where you guys are losing out on opportunities because the entertainment venue and you know, different spaces are are growing and improving.

So just keeping that in mind is you guys are coordinating them amongst each other.

100.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Parker.

Thank you, Smayer.

Um looking at the public building authority.

Are we working on that?

They're not here.

They're they're coming at one.

We started early, they'll be here at 1 15.

Okay, I'll hold that question.

Um looking at the Knoxville Zoo.

He has a okay.

We're leading into the zoo.

Do you can he give his first little spiel and then we'll start with your question?

Sure.

Okay.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Um uh one of the sayings that we use frequently is great cities have great zoos.

Uh, we have a great city and we have a great zoo.

Uh Zoo Knoxville had a very successful 2025.

I passed along our annual report.

You are the only ones that have that yet.

We literally rolled off the press this morning.

Um, so if you find a typo, do not tell me.

Um the zoo had a very successful 2025.

It in terms of growth, uh, we had uh some of the largest investment from a capital perspective into the zoo last year than almost any other year that we've had uh over 10 million dollars worth of capital growth with several projects that are listed in the annual report.

Um our zoo continues to grow.

We had lots of babies born last year, including the baby gorilla, uh baby lion earlier this year.

Uh those bring out visitors uh in droves.

We made national news on several occasions, including ABC Nightly News bringing attention here to the Knoxville area.

Um we had a very successful year last year.

In fact, from a a business perspective, it was one of the most successful years we've had for the zoo in in recent times.

And really since um uh tourism picked up at the tailing end of last uh last summer, we have exceeded our attendance and revenue uh expectations in the zoo all the way up through the end of this last past month.

So we are uh last year we had a little over 525,000 visitors to the zoo, which is a little bit under what we had hoped to receive, but from a financial perspective, we perform overperformed.

And we are on track this year, not gone wood.

Uh if we continue this progress progress, we may break 600,000 visitors this year.

We are having a fantastic uh first uh third of the year.

Um we we're excited.

Um the investments that you see here uh capital investments are actually pledges that have been made in previous years.

So this is just a payout of those pledges.

Um we don't have any additional capital components uh that were approved in this year, just payouts from previous years.

Um and this will allow us to be able to complete a big section of what we call the Appalachian node.

Um, as many of you I think came out and saw, we have a new uh wonderful boardwalk that goes through the middle of the zoo.

We added smoking night lights to that in December, tree smashed it all up, but it's fixed and uh back in open.

Um, and uh we are gonna be adding an eagle exhibit this year, uh, a red wolf exhibit, we have Red Bulls already.

We'll be working with the American Eagle Foundation that's over in Kodak uh to uh bring Eagles back, and then there's another section for those of you been around a long time.

We used to have a restaurant called Tiger Tops.

Yes, that's in the middle of the woods.

Did you go to it?

Yes.

Oh, I want pictures.

Um, I'm probably they're probably you know, black and white.

Okay.

No, I don't want to.

All right, no, I didn't grow up here, it was my children's, and I have no idea what happened to those pictures.

Well, that building has not really been utilized for some time, so we are uh uh putting new roof on it and reopening that as another component.

So that will kind of that that will complete that section of what we've identified as Appalachia, and I think individually and as a group, I have communicated to this group about what our future capital plans are and our intent to go into capital campaign probably this year.

Uh that will include a new vet hospital.

Uh, we received five million dollars from the state uh as part of a $15 million project, which we're very excited about.

The other $10 million will be raised privately, and we hope, if all goes well, that we will be through design this year and into construction uh the following year, which will be in that Appalachian area.

So the zoo is growing.

We are very excited.

And since Mike's sitting next to me, he told me in our first meeting that you know, zoos and places like us keep people here and have families uh kind of create memories and want to stay here in Knoxville.

So we're doing our best to continue to grow our zoo as Knoxville continues to grow.

I will say that I'll ask Councilwoman, let you ask your question, but I have one more silly comment.

How many we are the multi-general fa family that has taken pictures at that turtle?

Big Al.

My children are on the turtle.

Now my grandchildren have been on the turtle.

Well, and and big Al's 150, they can live up to over 200.

So your grandchildren, when they have children, grandchildren might still be hanging out with Big Al.

Good.

I'll be gone.

Me too.

Okay.

Councilwoman Parker.

Uh thank you.

I will I wanted to ask a little bit more about the future plans for capital projects.

Um, we see in our budget packet that there is a zoo knoxal entrance and Chihuahua Park redevelopment request, but not included in this budget, not funded.

Is that something that you would say is on hold, could potentially move forward in the future with funding?

Is this a funding decision or is this uh decided not to move forward with the project decision?

Uh that particular piece of uh we have five pieces that will likely go to our capital campaign, which we have not started yet.

Um, but that piece is in anticipation for uh the redevelopment of Chillawi Park.

Um so as we all know that is in the stages of discussion, and um we want to be prepared as an institution to react to whatever Chillawi Park becomes.

So I would say it's both on hold but a strong placeholder for whatever is decided in terms of the redevelopment of that park.

Um I think it is important, you know that the zoo is the biggest tenant of Chulai Park.

Um how our entrance, where it's located, and how that engages with the park is is vital to our success.

Um so we just want to be cognizant that at the pace that the park comes along in its development that we are uh we're riding alongside of that and making sure the zoo adapts to those changes.

Perfect, wonderful.

Um this is a believe a question maybe for Mr.

Brace.

Um we have in previous years gotten an update from Tennessee Valley Fair, but we're not getting one this year.

Do we expect that to have a contract with them again next year?

Once their contract expires, are they in this budget?

So the agreement we have with the fair when you say are they in this budget?

The agreement we have with the fair is in place until the end of the fair this year, and we the mayor actually reached out, not reached out, talk with Clarence Vaughan about our process to work on the future agreement with the fair.

We obviously want the fair to be in East Knoxville and be at Chohawi Park.

And so I think those negotiations will start very soon.

Uh had a meeting with our law department uh actually reviewing the current fair agreement, so that's moving forward.

I don't I hate to say this, I don't remember them always being on the agenda for these.

That wasn't intentional.

I think they got asked last year to come and got called up, but they have never been on the regular agenda.

So but again, this is council's uh legislative hearings.

If you ever want to have certain partners here, we're more than willing, but that that's not intentional.

I don't I want to make sure you guys know that, and that's very clear.

Yeah, I requested them last year.

I was hoping to see them again this year, but I did not make that specific request.

Okay.

But just to clarify, are they in our budget?

So we I'm trying to think if they would be so they get an agency grant.

We do that so they are in our agency grant budget.

I think five or ten thousand.

They've always been in there.

Yeah.

The other things we do for the fair are in kind.

So for example, they have I want to say 1500 square feet.

There's a range, I'd have to get it where we provide them office space year-round.

That would not be in the budget, because it's just part of our in-kind.

They also are using the Chilhowi Park facilities for the contract is about 30 days.

They get it before the fair, they get some cleanup afterwards, they get this window, they are not charged the normal rates for those.

Um, they just handed me the agency grants.

Tennessee Valley Fair asked um for 4,000 and it is proposed 4,000 in agency grants.

So are they in the budget?

Yes, the agency grant.

Everything else is in kind um for the fair, so it would not be a line item in the budget.

Okay, I had to ask because I didn't see them listed.

There are some agency grants that aren't.

I would just say this that the goal for their agreement is to have an agreement come before council for them to continue to stay at Chilhawi Park and do the things they do while also giving us the flexibility to meet the needs of the CPAG, which is working right now to figure out the long-term vision for Chihuahua Park.

So I would see a similar agreement probably coming back before council.

Um, but uh we'll sit down and start working on that here very shortly.

And uh once I get that schedule, I'll let uh council know what it is.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yep.

Council, yeah.

I just want to uh piggyback on that because I have had conversation with Scott as well.

Um they are talking to UT, uh they're talking to the county about other potential sites to host the fair.

Um, I know UT agriculture is coming in and they plan on helping the fair as well.

Um, but I have spoken to Scott uh in terms of you know what the future is going to look like for um the fair.

So I know the city, the mayor, they they are working that um as best as they can uh to be able to provide that for them.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Thank you.

I I do think it's important to note that the fair is its own nonprofit, and they just held it on at Chilhawi Park.

So it isn't a city fair, so they can be if their contract's ending, they can be looking anywhere else to perhaps enter into a contract with us or with anyone else where they want to hold the fair.

So I'm glad to know that the city's open to negotiating a contract if they um so choose to ask us to.

Thank you.

Okay, Chamber.

Good afternoon.

It's always uh great to be here with you all and talk a little bit about the work we've been able to accomplish over the last 12 months.

I would like to start by saying I disagree with Kim Bumpus.

I think Nashville 911 is not a cheesy show and deserves any any potential.

It really is.

I haven't even seen it.

Uh this has been uh last 12 months or so, even more have been one of the slowest months that I've seen in my 20 years of doing this work in economic development.

Uh, the volatility of the economy, the the now the Iran war, other components have really held us back, and and it's not just what we're seeing here, we saw it across the state, we saw it across the southeast and and and most of the U.S., not a lot of deals being made.

Uh, even the ones that were there were a number of those that actually had been announced a couple of few years before and just got brought to the forefront publicly uh recently.

Um with that said, we are starting to see things pick up.

Um the the amount of projects that are coming through in the RFP RFI process has increased.

Uh we've hosted three site visits just in the last two weeks alone and so we are starting to see some people come off the sidelines and and be looking again.

Uh locally we're seeing similar with our companies here expanding uh they're not getting quote unquote hurt economically but they're just staying on the sideline a little bit longer to see what's going to happen.

So our hope is we'll see th those potential projects come to fruition as well sooner um well as well uh couple things uh on the what we call regional enhancement front one is uh we sent a team to uh University of Alabama Huntsville uh at a career fair there to really show off Knoxville we're trying to target some markets where we could get some postgraduates to move here and fill jobs and so that was one uh the other was Tennessee Tech over in Cookville.

Um that we actually brought some of our businesses with us to that one highly successful lot of interest from uh seniors in that group getting ready to graduate saying hey I had really thought about Knoxville as a place to relocate or find a job.

So I think you're gonna see us in next year uh business plan really start to build that out even more and go to more sites uh more schools bring more of a presence from the business community with us.

Uh another thing on the workforce front that we're really excited about is we've just launched a micro internship program.

So just to very quickly encapsulate what a micro internship is most of us know internships as being semester long, summer long you go every day or every other day of that you work within the company.

Uh that's great for bigger companies.

Becomes a lot tougher for smaller midsized companies who just don't have the personnel to be able to do those types of things.

Micros micro interns are two to six month uh week programs really project focused and can be on site off site hybrid whatever they want to do uh and the way we're doing 'em is we've actually contracted with a staffing service called at work which is headquartered here in Knoxville and and uh council member Adams district over in South Knoxville.

Um they are going to be the the employer of record so they will screen the applicants for any of internships they will interview them then they will narrow that down give it to the employer let the employer make the full decision and then they will onboard them uh at work will and the chamber actually will pay the the administrative fee so the company doesn't have to get added to it.

So they're paid internships, they're just in very small windows of time.

Uh really it also helps the student a lot of our students work there's right through school and so it's hard for them to take three months off to go fill an internship then try to go back to their job.

Here they can do both.

They won't be they won't be limited because they can do these at nights on weekends when they're not working or in school.

So we're excited about that.

We're actually hosting the chamber we're gonna have the first micro internship uh she started week before last um child care continue to work on that we did have some victories in the legislative on the legislative front on statewide trying to get some some funding in some grants for some different areas which was a huge lift.

I think two big one bills we got passed one uh is on hold but we hope to get it next session and then finally one of the parts of our new strategic vision is trying to create a partnership between us our friends in Chattanooga and our friends in Tri-Cities and all along the 8175 corridors not just those communities so we started that work we're starting to look at areas that we can work together on uh really put together when we say regional not just within Knoxville region but the East Tennessee region and how uh things that we we can really when we go after federal funding and other things we can put together a much more comprehensive plan.

So happy to answer any questions and I will say though Councilmember Thomas you're freaking me out with the haircut I saw you the other day I was like who's that guy okay so sorry if I keep staring at you still trying to get used to it.

That's awkward.

Okay.

Um Mr Mr.

Odom, um one question I had um for you about the chamber is and I know we've got the entrepreneurship here to Senator Shear to also talk, but you talked a little bit about um helping local businesses grow.

I know there had been some discussion around supply chain companies, that kind of stuff can you speak a little bit because I know that one of the things that the city of Knoxville, you know, we we want you to do economic development and for us, but um there's a real I personally, I think all of council has a really strong interest in how we grow jobs inside the city limits.

Um for folks who have transportation difficulties, that kind of stuff.

I know we've looked at microtransit.

I've talked to Rob, the your board chair about some of the microtransit issues um to help with that.

But I I really do Knox County has a great overall um average median income per se, but the city is a little lower, um, and we could really use some more jobs within the city limits, but a lot of that has to be natural organic growth.

But I've heard some other s maybe I should be quiet and let you tell me that.

Keep going, you keep going.

But all I've heard, but um, uh, as as you all know, the the at the heart of everything we do is trying to help businesses that have already made the investment, made the commitment, uh, created the jobs here within the city before we go and bring new people uh from some other other places.

Um and so, but a lot of to do that, their hurdles are a little bit different.

We're not competing against other communities.

We're trying to ensure that they have the right supply chain, especially as uh you look at the tariff situation and they've had to readjust.

Uh the workforce issue continues to be uh a problem as you talked about uh vice mayor about ensuring that we put the jobs where people are.

So so not only if you do not have reliable transportation, but also we don't want you to sit in traffic and add to congestion issues that may or may not exist in certain parts.

Um so we we did some of that work right at the beginning of COVID and realized that everything was growing so quickly we couldn't there were jobs coming now that everything's kind of stabilized a little bit.

We're we're going back and looking at that.

Uh you're seeing you see that part of our next next business plan.

Uh we've got to figure out, continue to figure out how do we solve these problems because if we solve these problems for these businesses, then they'll be the have the opportunity to grow.

When they grow, there are more jobs, there's more revenue for the city to be able to address more issues and do those things.

So it is a key of what we do.

Thank you, because I think it works in tandem with what the school system is doing as well, you know, growing our workforce, making our our students aware of what jobs are around and so that you would we can keep our great talent of young people here if they get the right skills with the right jobs that are here and it is a it is an ecosystem and I know we're working on that.

I I'm really talking about this more just for the record and for everybody to understand that council's aware of that.

It is a desire of the city to do that, and as part of why we invest in the chamber, so I'm really glad um to hear you talk about that because with what the school system's doing and what the chamber's doing and people who want to grow grow generational wealth themselves by owning a business or uh being able to afford a home, it all those things have to work together.

It's it's the one number one thing that keeps us up at night is not being able to keep our talent.

Yeah.

As you mentioned, A65 Academies, and we've been a big part of that since inception.

But as those their scores and their numbers across the system be continue to improve improve as UT and our other universities and colleges continue their enrollment needs to grow.

If if we're not doing everything we can to keep those folks here and just letting it go other places, we we become their training ground.

We're their minor league and we're in the major leagues, we've got to keep those folks here.

So it is the number one thing that we focus on day in and day out.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

I'll quit on editorial.

No, not at all.

Um Council Member Grant.

Yeah.

Um thank you, Mr.

Odom.

You mentioned at work and it triggered a thought for myself.

Uh the University of Tennessee, the Haslam School of Business actually offers a franchising course.

Um I myself just had the pleasure going through that course.

Um I finished last week and was able to just have conversation with the university over there.

Um, I myself was able to learn more about what franchising entails.

We often think of McDonald's, Chick-fil-A, right?

When you hear the word franchise, but there's so many other things, right?

From fitness, uh cleaning companies.

Um I had the opportunity to meet Miss Um Shelley Sun, who's the founder and executive director of uh Bright Star, which is a home health aid company.

Uh just to see her growth and from where she started during COVID to now is immaculate.

But I bring this up because I feel like franchising um is an opportunity that I don't think we have really tapped into.

Uh when you talk about being able to bring local business here, most people think, you know, I want to start my own business, right?

From the ground up.

But with franchising, you know, you're not in business, you know, by yourself, right?

And using that as a tool for local people who want to invest in their community, those are things I think can create jobs as well.

Absolutely.

You have the infrastructure right there.

You're given the playbook, this is how it works.

Yeah.

Not only that, most franchisers have um the analytics behind it to say this is where you want to make your investment, this is where your customer is, uh, which is critical.

The biggest hurdle, as I'm sure you all learned in that work was is capital.

Obviously, the the franchiser has to has to have a financial funding part of that, and for a lot of people that's that's a little bit tougher, but because the franchise model works, it's goes to the vice mayor's past past career.

It's it's actually banks are more willing to fund it because they know the model, they know how it works and things of that nature.

So there's some different opportunities.

Uh so we work with when people approach us and say, hey, we're interested in franchises.

We'll push them over some of our partners who really have a really good grasp of it and can help them with funding opportunities.

Um also some places you have to, it's the real estate's important.

I'm part of that as well.

And so that's a we love franchise.

And you mentioned that work.

The corporate headquarters here, if they're a franchiser, and and they're one of the biggest staffing source companies in the country, no one knows about them, that they're based here.

Um, and so we love those folks, and so that's a great example of it.

Thank you.

Okay, council, we haven't heard from the entrepreneur center or uh the public building authority.

And um, if some of you want to give up your seats, are you?

I didn't think I'd have to ask.

We can let them come down uh for the uh the last little bit we've got.

Thank y'all.

Well then, yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

If y'all, if y'all will introduce yourselves and then we will go ahead.

Well, finish this section with you guys.

Push the button.

There you go.

Good afternoon, Council.

Um I'll get there eventually.

Uh I'm Jim Biggs.

I am the executive director for Knoxville Entrepreneur Center.

Good afternoon.

I'm Jane Barrett.

I'm the administrator CEO of the Public Building Authority, and I've got Alex Fassaro with me, who is our chief operating officer, and Kristen Grove behind us that is our director of property development.

She didn't want to come sit with me.

She could tell you.

If you want to tell us some high points of what's going on in your world, and then we'll open it up for questions.

But sometimes what you tell us sparks some questions, so thank you, Councilmember.

And uh thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Um I I think many of you are familiar with the work that KEC does, but for the benefit of anybody who's not familiar with it.

Uh we were started 13 years ago to be a literal and figurative front door for entrepreneurs in the community, uh, and a resource for anybody who is looking to start or grow a business here.

Uh we are agnostic to what kind of business that they are trying to grow, and uh to some extent not concerned with where they are in the process, and I know many of you are getting tired of of this joke, but it actually literally happened, so uh it's why I keep saying it.

Uh it gives us an opportunity in any given week to be working with entrepreneurs who are knitting mittens for cats and selling them on Etsy, and then uh people who are building small modular nuclear reactors and powering data centers.

Uh so it's an extraordinary continuum of entrepreneurs in the community, and we're quite fortunate to uh to be able to work with uh a large number of them to help them grow uh in Knoxville and and the surrounding region and to uh you know see capital invested here and to create jobs here.

Uh that's sort of our primary role.

Um, and like Zoo Knoxville, we have just released our uh most recent annual report, and like Zoo Knoxville, we actually had a great year.

Uh so uh you can find it on our website.

I'm happy to share copies with anybody, but the highlights are that uh entrepreneurs that we worked with in 2025, uh raised over 23 million dollars in capital from the private markets.

Um they created 84 new jobs that we know about, and uh we had 128 of them participate in programs, although we had over uh over 2,700 that came to events that we hosted.

Um I say 84 jobs that we know about um entrepreneurs are are notoriously bad at responding to surveys when we ask them for data.

Uh and so it's is likely higher, um, but the ones that that we do know about we're very we're very proud of.

Um for the coming year.

Uh one of the things we're we're really excited about uh in addition to the opportunity to work with all those entrepreneurs, uh, is the opportunity to explore new space for KEC.

Uh as many of you know, for the past 13 years, we've been located uh in a humble spot on Market Square.

I've gotten better at saying that we're not beneath the chamber.

Um but it is in fact physically where we are.

Um and that space has served us very well, um, but it has its limitations.

Uh, and the chief one being that it really only allows us to do one thing at any given time.

Um and so we have been in conversations uh with uh folks in the community about looking for a new venue that would give us additional capacity to serve entrepreneurs.

Uh and we're very excited that we we have at least one very, very strong prospect and that Mayor Kinkanan has recommended uh 150,000 in the capital budget uh to help facilitate that move.

Her commitment allowed us to leverage funding from the county as well.

They're going to match that, uh, and it will also allow us to go out to uh private donors uh to complete whatever construction needs we have.

Uh so we are very grateful for her commitment and the longtime support that we've had from the city, uh, and we're excited for that in the future.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Parker, did you have a question?

I did.

The last comment, um, though, is what I want to start with, and I'm looking for that capital investment for the entrepreneur center.

Maybe finance can help me find it.

Or if or if the entrepreneur center knows where it is in the capital project's budget.

Page 15.

Mr.

Rosenberg, I mean, it's under Mayor's office under policy, 150,000.

Page 406.

Mayor's office.

Page 406.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I'm looking at the budget, capital budget.

Say that page number again.

Are you talking about the binder?

In the binder, it's 406.

It's in our binder, Mr.

Rosenberg, not in your book.

Okay.

We have a big garden here.

So that's under the mayor's office.

Okay.

That is.

Yeah, I got it here.

Okay, so it could you also give us an overview of the programs that uh will move forward under this budget and our kind of our budget overview?

Um the partnership with Central Hispañola is mentioned, but that was it.

So I was curious about other projects, the 100 project, anything else moving forward.

Yeah, so you know, if KEC operates essentially in three buckets if you want to look at it that way.

Um programming, which is essentially teaching entrepreneurial skills, and so that can be anywhere from uh lunch and learn workshops on topics like social media all the way up through multi-week cohort-based programs that are a much deeper dive into sort of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.

Uh some of those will have a specific focus on types of entrepreneurs or industries.

Uh for example, we run a program called The Works in the summer, which is a an accelerator program for uh primarily scalable technology oriented companies that are looking for venture capital funding.

Uh, but we also run programs like starting a business 101, which is really designed for anybody uh who's looking for sort of the nuts and bolts of how do I get a business off the ground.

Um the second bucket is mentorship.

We have a lot of people in the community who have raised their hand uh and asked to share uh their experiences, their lessons learned, subject matter expertise, professional skills, uh, and so we have a pool of mentors who are available uh to take meetings with entrepreneurs and to uh to try and help them problem solve around issues that they may be uh facing.

And then the third is events.

Uh and the events are primarily focused on elevating the profile of entrepreneurs in the community.

So in some cases, uh literally putting them on stage.

Uh we do a pitch competition every year called What's the Big Idea?

Uh recently did that and uh was a fabulous event.

A young woman named Meg Quigley won with a uh concept called uh prep solo, which uh she hopes will be uh a way to develop modular kitchen systems for people with disabilities.

Uh so very exciting.

Um but the real purpose of most of those events is to bring people together and to facilitate uh collisions between entrepreneurs and potential investors, potential uh customers, potential uh employees, and to let us get out of the way of that.

Uh so much of that programming will continue unabated, uh, but we hope we will have the capacity to do even more of it because we will have the capacity to do things simultaneously in a in a new space.

Um we also run a couple of initiatives that are not branded as KEC, but it is us actually running those programs.

So one of them you may be familiar with is called the Maker City, and it's an effort focused on the creatives in the community uh and trying to help them build uh capacity.

Um do not ask me to teach you how to paint or to sculpt or to do anything creative.

Um, but if you ask us how can we make a living doing something like that?

That is really the focus of of what we do with the the maker city and and the mayor's maker council.

Uh the other one you referenced uh council member was 100 Knoxville, which was an effort to support black owned businesses in the community uh and to grow revenues for those companies by uh 10 million dollars over 10 years, uh excuse me, five years, and uh for for the coming year, much of our focus for that is going to be supporting uh companies that have graduated from the cohort program and trying to do essentially business development efforts for them.

How can we scale up their customer acquisition in some meaningful way by actually making introductions or opening doors for them?

So I don't know if that's responsive to your question, but that's sort of the programming that that we do now and that that we will continue into the coming year.

It sounds like there will be somewhat of a shift with the 100 program, not taking applications for a new cohort, but looking back at past participants to work on business business expansion.

Is that what I'm hearing?

That's that's currently what we are thinking about for 100 Knoxville correct.

Thank you.

Council Councilwoman Adams.

Thanks.

Um really appreciate all that KEC does you know I'm a big supporter and big uh fan of all the work that comes out of there and the good things that it does in terms of helping people across that entire spectrum that you mentioned like someone who is just starting out with a small crafty sort of business to uh someone who has really big aspirations that might go global.

So appreciate that I I wanted to ask if if you can share anything about um what the different footprint in the potential uh new location a couple of the things that it might allow you to do that you're not able to do right now.

Yeah absolutely thank you for the question um so you know one of the things that we can't do right now is have people essentially resident and and co-working in in the in our current space uh because we move furniture around all the time literally and because we have events that are consuming most of the space uh it's very difficult for us to promise to people that they could have a permanent location and guarantee that they could find a desk space that uh they'd be able to settle into so uh you know it could open the opportunity for us to have co-working uh we also yeah I mentioned that the works program that we do in the summer uh a number of the companies that we work with uh have asked in the past uh to be able to set up shop at KEC for the duration of that program uh unfortunately we're not able to accommodate that for the same reason that we we can't do co-working um it also will give us the opportunity to have uh larger meeting space uh while we would also have uh you know what could be essentially a a an event space so it will give us space where you could set up you know a 40 to 50 person gathering uh but you could still have a board meeting going on you could still have mentoring meetings going on um and and none of that would have to be disrupted or you know uh I joke about being beneath the chamber they have also been very generous with their space and and not infrequently we are using one of their rooms to host uh a class or an event because we're also doing something downstairs um so those are the kind of things that that we're looking forward to be able to do if if we're in a new location great thank you council member grant yeah just want to brag for a little second um I've had the opportunity to just be involved in you know a number of the programs that KEC is offering um the feedback that I got you know is that it's effective um especially for those first time entrepreneurs uh the amount of courage that it takes to step out there in the support that KEC is offering um if it was up to me I would quadruple the amount of support um that you currently have because I think this is something that does need to be amplified um I do have a question where what so where is this new facility and I'm being a little biased because you're already downtown um in the district and I know sometimes you know parking right people finding your location you can kind of put a strain um what what is this potential future shot site where is it located um if it's not in district six then which one of my constituents that I need I need to be mad at but um yeah if you if you can go further in detail you say I I'm I will say by saying this I'm looking at council member honeycut to say can I say that so it will be if we if we're able to work it out undecided at this point.

We we have not come to any firm conclusion but we'll one of the favored spaces would be if if we can work out everything uh to be in the sanitary the what is it the former sanitary laundry building so oh you mean council member honeycuts office building I I do mean that office building yes so which is again that's totally undecided at this point.

Obviously if it became real would recuse myself from any conversation about this particular topic but uh but yeah I think it's I think it's a valid conversation to talk about where they need to be to have the greatest access to entrepreneurs because I agree that the seeds that we can plant in entrepreneurship in our own community are vital and and homegrown companies will ultimately create great jobs just like companies we bring outside but when we look at the Claytons and the pilots and the and the axle logistics and the bushes they also get back to Knoxville in a greater capacity so yeah I I agree with you but yeah I mean one of the I know you're looking at multiple spaces one of them happens to be in the sanitary laundry building which uh is the one I occupy as well so that and I it's my understanding uh that the the capital commitment in the budget is not directed at any one space so it gives us the flexibility to continue to explore options as they come up at least that's my understanding of it.

So in the interest of time I we're not gonna negotiate your lease.

So um I say what did so anyhow councilman Parker do you have a another question before we can talk to PBA just while we're on the topic um if folks know of good space near the downtown area Knoxville community media desperately needs new space so keep your eyes open let us know if you find something or want to add us as a tenant in your building thank you okay now councilman thomas yes um just some thoughts that poured forth that I would like to share when you were talking about the work you do and in particular with the makers aspect and it has more to do with this the cultural value the lifestyle value kind of the artistic uniqueness value of allowing people who don't necessarily fit into the corporate world you know but they want to express themselves or they want to have their own unique business to where they can do what their passion really calls them to do.

And to foster that uh is uh invaluable thing and that type of product that's locally made and inspired by someone who loves to do that really adds an enormous amount of cultural value and uniqueness to a city so when I hear you talk about that um aside from the the business aspects or the overall business aspects for people to be able to do on a smaller scale something they love to do and make a living at it and doing it uh in a way they're producing a product whether it's pottery or uh baked goods or any number of things that that you mentioned is um that's what gives a city its uniqueness and uh as a part from you know kind of a cookie cutter approach you know um any American city does it but to have local groups here that are doing that you know we had a yeehaw print shop here years ago and they were printing off this stuff that virtually nobody else was doing at that time um that just is just popped in my mind but um when I hear you speak uh I that's what um kind of evokes in me of the uh of a more unique I guess value to to what you're doing so I you know I anything we can do to encourage that um I would I would be thankful for so thank you.

Well thank you for those comments I appreciate it and and we've been very fortunate uh to to have the support to be able to do that work and also to have the engagement of the maker community it's it's a very vibrant community here um and uh you know they have been the ones that have really driven the the initiative and the agenda so we've we've we've really enjoyed working with them and um yeah I will just say um I agree a hundred percent about what about your comments and and how much they add to the social fabric of a community.

Well, I mentioned that we do work throughout the region and not just in Knoxville.

We have we've taught some of the the maker classes in in places like Campbell County.

Um it's been a few years, but when we were there last time, the median uh income for a family of four up there was about twenty eight thousand dollars if you are already in your basement knitting those mittens for cats and you can make a little bit of extra money selling them on that, so you're doing something important for your family, that is not inconsequential at all.

Um and it really can be life-changing for them.

So uh it's been it's been uh transformative for for a lot of the folks in in our community.

I'm I'm glad you brought that example because I didn't mention just basically home-based businesses, you know, where people can uh produce things and don't necessarily have to go the complete business model of having a brick and mortar uh place, but can actually supplement their income and and do what they really like doing uh out of out of just their homes.

So any kind of uh aid or encouragement or you know, uh expertise you can lend those folks that's uh invaluable.

Thank you.

Jane, it's if you'd like to give us any quick updates and then we'll have to questions.

Okay, well, thank you for having us.

We're thrilled to be here.

Um I've been with PBA now eighteen years and seen a lot of change.

We've added more people because we've picked up more properties and are doing much more in our levels of security for most locations.

Um they um this year we're adding on, we've added on the city parks.

So our officers are patrolling those, unlocking gates, checking restrooms, things like that.

We're also um doing the um potentially we have officers in the world's fair park that are also doing volunteer landing, those areas, things like that.

We manage all your parking public parking facilities, the garages and the lots, cat transit center, cat magnolia, um, then we've got public works where we do some of the property there, some of the maintenance, and um exciting things at World's Fair Park, and our team is down there as well.

So um a lot of lot of exciting things happening, not as interesting quite as your world.

We're doing more of the service side, but um any questions we're happy to answer.

Kristen's here with our project team and she does um Burlington Fire Station, Lawnsdale, working on the amphitheater, a lot of exciting projects too.

I was gonna say I'm pleased that to know that the work is starting with the amphitheater.

Um it was an icon and it was about to not be one.

So I'm really glad that we invest in that.

Um I was here for the 82 World Fair too.

I was in college, so right.

Y'all can just figure out my age.

I mean, yeah, I really don't care.

I'm happy to be here.

Um when do we think that'll be finished?

Um right now we're scheduled and we're running on track to reopen that in March of 27.

Oh, great.

So if you if you go by right now, you just see structure up there, all the tinsel fabrics gone.

Um, but that roof reinstall will begin in the summer.

Thank you.

Because I know people are curious.

Yes, because it is seen a lot when you're walking through the through the World's Fair Park.

Uh Councilman Grant, did you have a question?

Yes.

Um, I had the opportunity to attend the Burlington Business Association meeting uh went great.

Allie, man, she's yeah, she's amazing.

Um but just kind of being able to explain one of the things we did talk about was just the public notice of letting um community know what's going on, especially when you you know when you're closing traffic, you know, coordinating with different businesses, uh obviously KUB being a separate entity and you know um making sure that they're communicating if there's going to be any water or electricity cutoffs.

Um but I do think you guys have have done an amazing job.

Um he was able to provide me the overall project timeline, and so maybe publicly putting that out there.

I like that it it's not hard months, it's not a hard timeline, but I think it's something that you know can kind of give constituents um, you know, just basic knowledge in terms of what they can expect from phase one, phase two, um, which were to my understanding in terms of the the uh streetscape will be skipping phase two, moving on to phase three and then coming back to phase two uh completion.

So just making sure we're putting it out there because I I know I'm gonna get calls saying, okay, why are they skipping over this part and going directly to the fire station?

So if we can you know put it out to me, I can put it out to my networks, Burlington Business Association has their own networks, but the more we can get that out, I think it'll save us some some headache as these projects start to phase out.

Yes, we um have the presentation that was presented at the meeting Tuesday night, and Ellie has that in her hands and can distribute that to you or to anyone else.

It's public information, and we will we did put kind of the disclaimer that's information as of that date.

Um it's live, you know.

Construction changes all the time, so we will continue to update and when the next um association meeting comes around.

If we have different information, we'll be there and provide it.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Councilwoman Parker.

Thank you.

Um I was I I'm and this may be something that that is submitted annually, but I was a little surprised to see the number of capital projects that the public building authority has waiting, waiting to get some attention.

And um is this a now what we have here is a a list of seventy-one million dollars worth of projects, you know, obviously not all funded in this year's budget.

Um, but is this a list like was it included in last year's budget?

Like, like like every year this is the same list.

Is it growing?

What what is this list looking like?

71 million.

Thank you for the question.

It is growing.

We feel it's important to always reiterate every year that these items have not been addressed, they are your property, your assets, so we want to make sure you're aware of them.

So some of them are repetitive, some are new.

Um a lot of the buildings that we maintain are older, um, and they maybe haven't been cared for as much in the past.

They've been passed to the city or county.

So you're seeing those numbers just as we go in and do capital assessments of what we feel needs to be done, and so yes, it's adding up and I think Grant always speaks to that.

He wants to handle preventative maintenance as best we can.

So one example um is the World's Fair Park Amphitheater.

We have budgeted money uh to begin that work, but even on this list, there's another four million, it looks like that's needed.

What would that address?

So that portion is an additional scope of work that can be done in the future.