Welcome to the October twenty first twenty twenty-five meeting of the Lafayette of Urban Renewal Authority.

Executive Director Keaton, can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Airrington.

Commissioner Martin.

Here, Commissioner Rodondo, Rogers, Commissioner Williams.

Here, Vice Chair Cutler.

Here, Chair Muller.

Are there any directions or additions?

No.

Second, all those in favor of approving this written, please say aye.

Okay.

Move on.

Excuse me.

Move on to our first agenda item, which is introduction of the twenty twenty-six law for removal authority budget and amending the twenty twenty-five law of urban renewal authority budget.

Great.

All right.

So tonight I'm introducing budget.

For both this current year, we're going to be amending our budget, and I'll walk through why we're doing that in the process, and then also looking forward to our 2026 budget.

And really, these are meant to be our like final years of expending all of our funds and doing transfers.

So I'll walk through the process and then do an overview of revenue expenses and key initiatives and then open up for questions and feedback.

So tonight I'm going to introduce a budget amendment for 2025 and then the draft budget for 2026.

Then through our urban renewal plan, um, we will we're we will be going to council for feedback.

Council's not our governing body that needs to approve it, and so we just we present and get feedback, and then we will present a fine the final LORA budgets at a public hearing on November 13th, and then you'll be approving two resolutions.

So one for amending and then one for um approving the 2026.

So for a state statute, it requires that all special districts amend their budgets before expending funds in excess of the amounts previously appropriated.

So as Laura finalizes its remaining projects and funding transfers, this amendment to the 2025 budget ensures that um additional downtown development funds and property tax revenues are actually accurately reflected and properly authorized in the expenditure.

So the big thing is we received another year of property tax that we didn't include into our original budget.

Um and we also didn't spend as much funding as we thought in 2024, and so this is just accurately reflecting that.

So for the revenue, um, as I mentioned, we um are receiving over 900,000 of property tax that was not previously reflected in the adopted budget, and we didn't necessarily know what was going to happen with our TIP expiring, but um this property tax is the property tax from 2024 and it's collected in arrears, so that's why we have this additional funding.

And it was hard to just budget this because they come kind of in chunks throughout the year, and so um this is the latest amount, and then we also have interest of just being able to have our funds and a high yield savings account.

So for expenses, um, you know, it looks like a large dollar amount, but I just want to remind you all that these are all initiatives that we've been working towards or have approved in the past um year or so.

And so um again, when the when we finalized our 2025 budget and then initialized and uh developed that it anticipated that more funds was going to be spent in 2024, and just because of project timing, um it didn't.

And so, due to project timing, the receipt of that additional property tax, we're gonna allocate the surplus funds to downtown development initiatives and reflect a more accurate expenses during this Laura DDA transition.

The other thing that I want to note is that um you'll see in the amended budget that you know we're still putting things towards an administrative fee or a parking lot program, and per our IGA or intergovernmental agreement with Laura and the DDA.

Laura has said that we would fund the continuation of key programs through 2025 during this foundational year of the DDA while they get up and running.

And so that includes things like the administrative fee, our parking lot program, such as maintenance and snow removal.

Um, we're still funding the marketing contract.

Um, we provided funding for the farmers market this year to help with the the traffic control and just general administrative expenses.

And so some of this is going for you know just the downtown district in general, these were the expenses that we typically see.

So with our budget, um, you know, 89% of it is gonna go to uh downtown development, and that's a large number, but I'll go through in a second how we've allocated this just with past resolutions and approvals.

And so this is actually doing those transfers or spending those funds.

Um but you see we have you know a number of smaller things like streetscape marketing, operational, administrative, professional service, and repairs and maintenance, and those are kind of just like the key expenses that we typically have throughout the year.

So for the 2025 key initiatives, um, you know, related to operational administration, like I said, we're really in the window phase.

I know I've been saying that for a while.

Um, but this is everything to just make sure that we can finish up this transition.

And then for downtown development, you know, it's a large dollar amount, but these are all things that we've previously committed to, and we plan to do those funding transfers this year.

And so that includes DDA startup funds.

We've committed to roughly two million dollars, depending on the final um uh accounting of everything.

The South Boulder Road revitalization project, this is related to the cooperative agreement that we approved last year about allocating the remaining tax incurrent financing for our South Boulder Road urban renewal area to do three sub projects, which include an area plan, um uh small business capital grant program, and then also district implementation.

So you all approved that last year.

And so then this is plan to actually transfer that funding over to the city.

The 700 to 800 block of South Public Road Streetscape project.

This is related to the design and construction of streetscape improvements from Kim Bark just south to 805 South Public Road.

And so that includes you know shortening or eliminating curb cuts, moving some of the XL light poles into the planting beds, new planting, public art to just make it a more enjoyable experience and a safer one.

And then we are also doing alleyway improvements in this area.

So paving the alley and also putting a storm sewer in there to help with drainage.

So that was all approved last year.

We have been paying the streetscape design through the Lower budget, but because we're in this initial window phase, we're going to transfer all the construction funding over to the city to manage that.

So that was approved last year.

And then 108 North Public Road funding transfer.