Welcome to the Mesa City Council study session for April 30th.

I guess that's the last day of this month, isn't it?

Darn.

Wow, went fast.

2026.

Councilmember Taylor and Councilmember Duff are participating by Zoom.

Otherwise, all other council members are present.

I know Miss Duff, can you hear us okay?

If not, I'll get a thumbs up or something from her.

Ms.

Taylor.

Okay, as usual, we'll hear from them.

Item was to review the agenda we have for Monday's May 4th council meeting.

Let's go through the agenda.

Council, are there any questions?

I'm sure there's some thoughts and questions.

This is Mr.

Adams.

Got your homework in.

5B.

5B.

Candace comes right up.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

5B are the home ARP dollars.

These are the dollars that we have mentioned in previous presentations that we received from the federal government.

We haven't been able to make that happen or have that go forward.

So we do need to do an administrative act of uh filing with HUD to change the category from this bridge housing or non-congregate housing to support services.

There we go.

So in simple terms, non-congregate housing means um individual rooms.

Correct.

Mayor and Councilmember Adams, this was the intent for this was bridge housing, which would be individual units or rooms versus congregate, which is a congregate shelter is a large room with individual cots.

Understood.

Okay.

A fancy way of saying uh yeah, I get it.

Um what what will be the specific effect of this amendment?

Uh Mayor and Councilmember Adams, there's no immediate effect of this.

This is a program that we were trying to work similar to normal home dollars.

The anticipation was that we would use this as gap financing for a nonprofit to come in, create bridge housing.

This would be their gap financing for the capital portion, and hopefully they would run a bridge program.

So we're gonna ask that the the amendment will ask us, we will be asking to uh authorize us to use the funds for a different purpose than originally requested.

And what are we gonna hold it somewhere for a while until we figure out what to do with that or is that the plan?

No, Mayor and Councilmember Adams, we don't actually, these are um reimbursement grants, so anything from HUD is a reimbursement.

So it's basically a credit for the for Mesa, and we draw down it, we draw down those funds for an eligible activity.

So we haven't drawn down any of these particular funds yet.

Understood.

Um but what we do need to do is modify them to the uses that we would like to move it to.

Um once that's approved.

It does take about 60 days to go through HUD once we have approval from council.

Um, and then those funds would be available for a program to be determined at a later time.

To be determined, okay.

All right, that was my that was my question.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Go forth.

Yeah, um Mayor, I would like to um item seven.

I would like to uh it's not on the can yes, it is on consent.

I want to take it off consent, but I also want to propose a continuance.

Our economic development director has serious um reservations and concerns about the quality of this um project, as do our residents and I, and so I would like it continue continued so we can continue to work with the applicant and get um come to some agreement.

Okay, very good.

We have consensus on council, and I say Miss Taylor, you have joined as well as Ms.

Duff.

I show that you're participating as well.

Can you hear us?

And we you can't do that.

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, there's one.

Can you hear me?

This is Dorian.

We can.

Thank you.

You're both on.

Okay, good.

Um yeah, I'm fine with a continuation uh so that there can be more discussion.

I was just meeting recently um reading a little bit more about this, so I wouldn't mind wouldn't mind that myself.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I I agree with uh council member go forward.

Be supportive of continuance.

All right.

Okay, we have consensus.

We'll do that.

We'll put it on uh continuance, John.

So you know that.

Thank you.

Um I have a question on 3A.

I I know we've got some liquor license applications we typically um pass through, so to speak.

And this one here seems to draw on a little bit of attention for the area.

So as I read through it, Ed, you give us uh some updates.

Sir Mayor, uh Ed Queedon's business services department director, good morning.

Um I have a PowerPoint that I can run through, or I can just answer questions, your whatever you desire.

Just go through the PowerPoint.

Okay.

Please so this is 309 Sports Lounge.

Uh it's in District 3 at Guadalupe and Dobson.

Uh it is a series 12 restaurant license application.

Um so a series 12 again is a restaurant uh on-site sale, so there's no uh taking liquor off-site or out of the out of the premise.

Um it does have a 40% food sales requirement.

Um on many licenses, there's a 300-foot separation requirement.

Um, but in this case, as a restaurant, there is no separation requirement that applies to this daycare.

Um the 300 foot separation uh as a go no go or a requirement applies only to K through 12.

But when we get into other licenses, um it applies to licensed daycare.

But in this case, um that daycare is actually not that specific location is not licensed.

Other locations that they have in Mesa and in the valley are, but that not that specific location, but on a series 12, the 300-foot uh separation doesn't apply either.

Uh and uh just a reminder, council makes a recommendation to the state, um, and then the state uh uh will move from there.

Um because we do have um uh protests that would trigger a hearing with the state, um, so they hear it as well.

Just for reference, uh I threw in a map.

Um again, this is Dobson and Guadalupe.

Um the red box is the location in the strip mall where uh this restaurant is proposed.

You can see to the west to the left.

Um we do have O'Kelly's sports grill.

Um, and then the daycare is to the right, right along Dobson Road.

Um the previous location uh previous restaurant uh businesses at this location, uh La Casa de la Flores Gourmet Kitchen is the one that is leaving.

Uh and 309 is coming in.

Uh it is a change in ownership as well as a change in the uh uh agent.

So this is a separate business.

There were seven protests from five distinct locations.

Um these are the uh general themes that were contained within the uh protests.

Um pretty standard uh things that you would expect from neighbors if they're uh uh submitting protests.

Um we did run calls for service.

Normally we don't do that for restaurants, but um we wanted to see since we had the protests what there was.

Um four suites nine through twelve.

You can see in the right-hand column, there weren't many calls.

Um and in 2021, that was kind of an anomaly with a um bad alarm system.

Now, this may not include any calls that the neighbors would have made uh on the streets to the north.

Um they have been those those calls may have been uh coded to the locations of those uh premise, those complaints.

Um but this is what we had for the address involved.

It is that for the specific address 2050.

2050 is the location of the strip mall, and then suites nine through twelve in the right hand column is the specific suite um that this restaurant is proposing.

And this was with the prior ownership.

I mean the correct prior owners as you get down all the way to 2021.

Yes.

Got it.

And so far this year there's five five for the strip mall itself and one for the restaurant.

Okay.

All right.

Is that I have a quick question.

Um Ed, do you know if the prior restaurant that's leaving?

I think it's the casa is what you mentioned.

Yes.

If they were I I know that 309 is a sports bar, so it's gonna have a different vibe, if you will.

Um was La Casa in a similar uh category, because I'm thinking gourmet kitchen.

I I'm looking at 32.

I'm looking at the 32, and I'm thinking that's a lot from last year, and then it dropped way down.

I'm assuming while the casa was there.

And um I would love to obviously see people be happy, having a restaurant there is good business.

I'd like to see the neighbors be happy that are near it.

And I'm just wondering if those are in the same genre.

So should we expect more calls from the sports bar versus a gourmet kitchen?

Uh mayor, council member.

So the 32 calls is actually for that entire building in the strip mall.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay, I understand.

So the other column is specific just to that one location.

Correct.

Okay.

Sorry.

I think you mentioned that.

It just went over my head.

I apologize.

No worries.

So the length of hours they want to be open.

So I'm thinking of a daycare kids are going to be there during the day.

Is the sports bar going to be also open during the day?

Do we know that?

I I don't have an answer for you.

I can get that.

Uh I do know that they have to close by 2 a.m.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I hope the daycare is not open at 2 a.m.

Correct.

Thanks.

Okay.

That struck me as a bit odd.

I'll validate that and get that out to you.

You want to go next or Mr.

Adams?

Uh no, I you know, I haven't seen heard any uh uh any issues with this.

I know that that strip mall has been off and on and struggling with that.

The I remember the the previous restaurant uh had like little gourmet, but also have like uh little conference room set up there because I did attend a couple things there.

Um they did serve liquor in the previous iteration, so um but I haven't heard any like real complaints from that area per se.

So um that would be my take.

Mr.

Adams.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, Mr.

Guidens, um, did we by comparison take a look at O'Kelly's in terms of calls for service?

Is that been I have that request in.

I haven't seen it fulfilled yet, but um we'll see if we can get that in the packet uh this afternoon.

Okay, I'd be curious to see what that is.

I mean, I guess it it strikes me that we're judging uh strike that um that we're perhaps looking at the performance of the previous owner as we weigh the approval of the new owner.

Is there any connection between the previous owners and the owners of 309 information we have?

No.

So a new group, correct?

New folks.

Um, I I I can see the reason for looking at that, but um, you know, sometimes in the in the bar and restaurant business, management has a lot to do with how the business is conducted, at least in my opinion.

So I guess I'm just questioning the yeah, it's it's it's a fact of record that these calls have existed and have occurred, but uh I wonder if it's entirely fair to uh evaluate the new applicant by the conduct of the previous ownership.

Um I would defer to my colleague, Councilmember Heredio, whose district gets in, but I go there quite a bit because there's it's a mismatch of restaurants and uh there's a Starbucks, there's uh uh Jiffy Lube, there's like uh uh nail place and is this uh uh a spot where there's a lot of other small businesses around there, pizza plays there, so and there I should point out too, Mayor Council members, there uh is no outdoor seating or an outdoor area.

So um if there's noise complaints, it's activity in the parking lot or it's doors open or something along that line, but it's not an outdoor seating restaurant.

Thank you.

I have one question.

So the the five separate addresses for the seven protests can are they just on the back side of the homeowners on the back side of the the shopping center.

Mayor council member, yes.

Closest to the the building has a small pathway behind it for deliveries, a wall, and then there's residents on the north side of that mall.

Okay.

And remind me again, um, just quickly, the technical requirements are met.

Give us a couple.

I know there's several, but I mean so will you look at sorry or Jim.

I apologize.

So council member, mayor, council members, we we would look at uh uh things like the separations.

So let me start here.

The state, as they're processing the license, they don't have the ability to go out to each location and actually scope it out themselves.

They rely on the city to do that as well as the 20-day posting.

So we go out, we look at what businesses are around it to make sure there's no requirements such as the separation, the 300 foot separation, depending on the type of license.

We do the 20-day notice, we collect those protests if there are any.

Um we look at the the background uh uh uh as far as owners, uh DLLC will duplicate that effort, but we run it through PD.

Um, we look at the complaints and we note anything that we want to bring to council.

Um but uh those are the type of activities that go on.

Okay, and it's a okay, Jim.

Yeah, mayor and council.

If I can also add just on the 12 uh criteria, there's really sort of two that are most applicable that I think are relevant.

And I I'm not gonna read all 12, but I'll read the two that I think you might want to consider.

Um and I'll tell you that the first one is petitions and testimony from individuals who favor or oppose issuance of a license and who reside in, own or lease property within one mile of the proposed premises.

Uh the ninth factor um of the 12 that also is potentially applicable as effect or impact on the activities of business businesses or the residential neighborhood that might be affected by granting a license at the proposed premises, kind of a traditional impact um sort of zoning concept, right?

There's a third one that I'll mention.

Um I don't know that this is uh this one applies, but I'm gonna I'll mention it in case it comes up.

It's proximity of the proposed premises to license child care facilities as defined by a particular statute.

From what we were able to determine, they didn't quite meet, they didn't meet that state statute exactly as far as license, but we we don't really know uh as far as that, but that concept is really subsumed within nine, the idea of impact on adjacent sort of uses.

So really it's a it's a similar concept either way.

So um what I will call the first and the ninth criteria out of the 12, I think are potentially um relevant for council to look at.

The council um can look at all obviously all 12 are right there now on the on the screen.

Um but it seems to me that like you you might want to focus on those two.

Okay, and can you uh tell me really quick again, and you might have said it, the the difference between a series 12 and a series six.

Um the uh so you're talking a bar versus a restaurant.

Okay.

Uh a bar has um um the ability uh to sell for off site, but they also have a different clientele, and a restaurant um is intended to have at least 40 percent food sales.

So, in theory, a different clientele than a bar.

And the and the bar already exists there.

Uh O'Kelly's does, yes.

Okay, thank you.

This location has been a restaurant.

And mayor council, uh I've been told that the hours are 7 a.m.

to two a.m.

Wow.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

And I have a couple, you know, as I looked at the calls for service requests, it's pretty, I mean, it's all over the place.

Shots fired, hit and run, follow-ups, uh noise disturbance, noise disturbance, suspects disturbing, as for the prior, you know, assault drugs, uncoded incidents, suspicious persons, harassment.

I mean, so two two thoughts on that, Mayor.

Um, one, that is for the entire portion of the strip mall.

So that's all the businesses there as well as the parking lot.

But this is also Dobson and Guadalupe.

So if they get a call out on Guadalupe, for instance, they have to record it to an address.

So this could be something the the incidents that you're you noted could be something that's happening out on the street, and it just is recorded to that address because that's the closest address to put in the CAD system.

Got it.

There's like the circle Koster Street, so there's burglary alarms that are probably on the in the complex itself.

Noise discernments.

Okay.

Uh well, there's no shortage of Series 12 liquor licenses in the area, what I see.

And this is kind of more of an administrative too, whether whether we approve or disapprove this and move it forward than the liquor board actually is the one that certifies and investigates further, correct?

Correct.

Uh the fact that they have one one protest filed with the DLLC plus the ones that were filed uh during our uh 20-day notice.

Um yes, that will trigger a hearing at the uh liquor board before they issue a license or consider the license.

How is if we approve or disapprove this license moving forward, how do they take that?

If if we say, you know, disapprove it.

Um so um that way into their decision.

Yeah.

So uh we did some research on that when we had the one uh uh liquor light, um, let's see, it was a uh smoke shop up on North Country Club.

And the feedback that we got from the DLLC is that the liquor board really listens to what the council recommends.

Um they have their own due diligence and they will conduct the hearing and listen to testimony, but they do care what the community, what the council wants for their community.

So maybe at the state listens to cities.

I'd like that fact juggle check.

That's what we were doing.

Okay.

So they're more fun.

It's not the legislature or vice mayor.

And I will say, Mayor Council, um, we have uh suggested to the applicant that they be here on Monday night uh to answer any questions of the council um as well as respond to any uh uh folks that come in to speak to the item.

So overall then this will truck trigger review by the liquor board based on correct our recommendation, correct, for the protest.

And some of the protests were complaining about O'Kelly's here, you know, some of the some were complaining about O'Kelly's, but uh some of that stuff I don't know, too, that you can separate between the two locations if you're on the north side of the wall.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh council members participating by Zoom.

Do you have any other questions on that?

I'll go to you next if you'd like to ask about anything on the agenda for Monday.

Hi, this is Councilmember Duff.

Um not so much on the liquor license.

I do want to, you know, I just have some concerns that I realize there's a lot of calls for service there at that address, and don't want to penalize you know, point the problem at an a new applicant at the applicant rather than maybe the entire area as a whole.

But you know, I'll continue to look at this, and that's my only comment on that.

Regarding the agenda, um, I can work with um planning and zoning items 8C, 8B, 9A.

They're all good projects.

However, I'm seeing a lot of land.

This is Haven at Hawes and Haven at destination.

A lot of land being rezoned from intended retail or mixed use to residential.

So my concern is, you know, I understand we need homes, especially starter homes, but I also recognize that we're losing an a lot of opportunity for retail, which we like rely on sales tax.

Um in addition, I worry what you know, what are the distances to retail from more and more residential being clustered together without opportunity for retail.

I don't know if planning has any goals or pertaining to uh distance or how much retail uh ratios of homes to retail, um kind of like we do for parks.

What are those opportunities for green space or parks from homes?

I'm not suggesting that we deny it.

I'm just an overall concern for a lot of new development, and I certainly want to hear from council member Summers as far as how he's seeing that area and that district um develop because I'm just seeing a snapshot of one development or another, another, I'm just seeing patterns, but I it's difficult for me to really understand the overall comprehensive area and what we're trying to achieve.

Thanks.

Thank you.

One's the A is an annexation.

I know that.

And then the other ends uh vice mayor.

Do you want to address anything on that this time?

Yeah, these these particular parcels are so the first one is uh what you ask about.

I just have a zoning case.

What one is in the Hawes Crossing area, it's located uh Hawes Road north of Warner.

Um they're look seeking to rezone that as a residential parcel.

There's residential, mostly residential around that.

There's a new residential development down south on Warner and Hawes.

As a matter of fact, we dealt with that zoning case within the last six months where we um reorganized the general commercial and the uh the residential uh mixed in.

So there will be commercial just to the south of that, it'll be some limited commercial.

Um, but it's it's more suited given the location of the residential around it to a residential use.

The other case, which is Haven at destination.

If you look at the the vicinity map, uh you'll see it's it's essentially residential on two sides, freeways on the south, and then Apache Junction is on the other side of Meridian Road.

So that was what we would I would call a orphaned parcel of industrial land and to put industrial inside of this small parcel adjacent to single family homes, just wouldn't make any sense.

Um there is a uh considerable amount of retail, just the next exit up um off of the 24, which is the the Walmarts, motto dealerships, a bunch of restaurants, uh different shopping opportunities there.

So they're pretty close.

Would that be accurate, Mary?

Both my statements.

Uh good morning, yes.

Uh mayor, vice mayor, that's correct.

The uh that Burge Auto Mall was approved just to the to the west of where this parcel is located on Meridian.

So there is a lot of um retail in this area to serve this home, these homes, and they are adjacent to another single-family residential development.

So it seemed as almost like an in-filled um residential development was why we made that recommendation.

Yeah.

And then there's some uh additional commercial coming to uh East Market.

So that's about a mile away from the first development, a little bit more than a mile away, a mile on the turn.

Uh so uh one of the things that we've been looking working on, Mary and I, as well as uh Jay O'Donnell economic development is taking a look at how the more refined look of how this area uh develops out.

We've seen large developments, both industrial and residential.

More than likely we won't see those types of large things anymore.

So, how do we smooth the edges as part of her general plan so that we get much better neighbors that we have in the past?

Uh Jay is currently working on a piece looking at um the available industrial land and commercial land available uh and how we best utilize that as we smooth these edges.

Uh we hope we hope she can have that by the end of the summer.

We'll we'll be able to come up with a far more uh cogent strategy for moving forward.

But as as far as these two parcels are concerned, I think this is the best use.

I hope that answers your question.

My meandering uh discussion.

Yeah, yeah.

I am lost when it comes to district six, and I'm you know, like I'm saying, I'm just looking at snapshots and don't know the greater, you know, distance.

I've just seen overall, sometimes we may, especially when it comes to Hawes Crossing.

We had great master plans for hundreds of acres and then chipped away, chipped away to not being a comprehensive great plan, is just the traditional put all the houses in one corner, all the industrial over here, all I don't know, it's been chipped away and not been an integrated community.

So that was my concern.

And again, I'm just looking at one little uh square and not understanding how everything else has developed around it and changed and making sure that we're building communities instead of just you know, streets with stuff on it.

Um the what is it?

Uh Haven at Hawes.

I also noted that um it was across the street from Light Industrial, and I didn't know what the plans were there, and but I I know you know the area, just wanted to have a discussion.

I appreciate your input.

Thank you.

Yep, any time.

Yeah, there's some LI there, uh if Haven at Hawes, which one is that one?

Is that the one in uh Hawes Crossing, right?

So there's some industrial there that's in the county, and more than likely we're gonna see that.

Hopefully, we'll see that county uh be annexed and and reused, and more than I would think a residential component would probably be the best use there.

In addition, there's some uh land to the north, which is state trust land, and they are in uh the process of doing a what are they doing up there?

A PAD or uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

We're actually looking right now.

We've got a um a general plan amendment and a re uh rezoning request for uh for that parcel and for the parcel on the other side of 202.

So we're working right now with the applicant on those, those will be coming forth to council in the future.

Maybe a really, really early version could be sent to the council members so she could see how it's integrated.

And Vice Mayor, I believe we have a meeting with her next week to kind of go through comprehensively what's been happening with Hawes Crossing.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else, uh, Mr.

That was my question on the house crossing.

I remember there is percentages attached to how much commercial, how much housing, are we still following those pieces?

I I guess if you can have a brief uh uh maybe after uh uh conversation on that, and uh we can touch base in uh trying to see what's the what's the uh the outlook here as far as those things uh as far as I remember the presentation, like it was there's a mismatch of uh commercial housing, but there is a tax percentages.

So um Mayor um uh board uh council member Heredia, that's correct.

In the MX district, there are requirements for the residential and commercial components.

What we're really seeing is kind of in that whole inner loop area um uh along two within 202 to the west, we're really seeing that turning into more of a residential neighborhood with some key areas of commercial um to serve those residential neighborhoods.

We followed the open space plan of the horse crossing plan.

Um so we're we're we're starting to see all the pieces come together, and what we could do um is we can provide the council with a map of all the different pieces that are going on.

We can provide that to you because when you look at it, it it doesn't look like that patchwork of we're chipping away at those commercial areas.

So if that would be helpful, we we can do some kind of a summary for the council on that.

That would be helpful if you can overlap it with the previous discussion that was had as far as what was commercial, what was housing percentages that that's helpful as well.

Was this just a question?

Was this piece part of the horse crossing master plan development or outside of it?

I made Nana get up.

Sorry, Vice Mayor.

I'm gonna ask Nana.

He's got a cramp, I can see to answer this.

He was a ri he was part of the other that original rezoning.

No, yeah, yeah, okay.

So you were a part of it either.

Yeah, very good call, great conversations here.

Can I bring up the case if you don't mind?

Um the case we talking about.

That's okay.

That's okay.

Do we have any music playing while this is going on?

So people watching channel 11 or entertained.

Ms.

Taylor missed stuff, they're bringing up some information here for you.

So stand by we could have the Jeopardy music playing.

Back in black, something you could see.

Yeah.

Sorry.

No, that's why yes.

Um the piece that we're talking about, actually, if you look at the inner loop, this was the piece that was actually left out of the horse crossing.

Yeah, this was the one that the Apple Council is a good really opportunity that this piece is coming into the whole horse crossing PAD because we at the time of doing it, we really were working with the applicant to include this parcel in the PAD, but um now they're actually being able to get it coming into the PAD.

So it's a good opportunity.

And in terms of Councilmember Heredia, your question about overlain, the residential and industria, one of the things that led to the whole horse crossing study was we didn't really know exactly the right allocation of the mix of uses.

So if you remember about five years ago, the controversy was whether we have the right amount of commercial industry and all that.

But as we began to actually work with um the property owners, developers and all that, we've seen settings shift and organically with the way things are shaping.

So that's how you've seen some of this amendment.

But do you have our own vision of making sure that this is an active vibrant community that has right commercial, right residential to support a mix of uses, uh the goal and the vision has not changed.

We are really watching that.

So some of the things that you've seen, we realized that some of the special orientation of some of the land uses were not really at the right place.

So you've seen example, Vice Mayor said that um a couple of months ago you saw kind of an interchange between where some of the um commercial land use was swapping with a residential.

We've seen that kind of shift, but we continue to really look at it overall vision and goal for the host growth and development.

And at the end of the day, there is also a development agreement that it and if if you realize we've not come to you with um requesting to change the development agreement, and most of the vision and goal is really embedded also in the development agreement.

So it's still governing the whole hospital as MPAD.

Yeah, that I suspected that because this is a county island.

It'd be nice if they would uh I know their objective is to try to acquire the parcel to the to the east, and then we'll just be able to continue it on there, but it'd be nice if we can get that done sooner rather than later, and then the integration above.

I think what also might be helpful is I know we have some maps of that area to the south.

This looks a little older uh because the GC and the residential identified to the south isn't uh the final approval and plat.

So if we could maybe get a a map for council for folks to see how this integrates with what was done uh within the last six months on that parcel, it'd be great.

It'd be good.

Probably Monday.

Should be easy.

We can do that, Vice Mayor.

And what we can do is we can also um highlight those parcels where we have applications that are in now that will come to council in the future.

Yeah, I'm great.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions from Ms.

Taylor Mustaf on this 7A?

No.

I mean uh No.

A, B, and C.

Okay.

I want to start I don't have oh, sorry.

L let me f uh 7A continuance uh a date for the applicant.

Are we looking at 30 days?

Miss Go Forth, is that work for you?

Uh that works for me.

Okay.

What's the date certain?

Mr.

Butler Mary, uh 30 day on a continuance for this item 7A.

Okay, Mr.

Smith, any logistics with that?

No, we can put the date certain for you know two council meetings out, date certain that it's sort of stay on consent, so it'll be what I'll call a hard can a hard um continuance, so it'll be on the agenda for continuance.

I think that's the intent.

And then does it have to be reintroduced, obviously.

No, it'll no it won't have to be reintroduced.

Okay, great.

Good.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you could go two weeks if you like.

Uh it depends on two weeks or 30 days.

I thought if it had to be re-introduced, that we go to two weeks, but not.

I mean, if we can vote on it in 30 days, I think that's plenty.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Very good.

Yes, sir.

Mr.

Adams.

Thank you.

Just a quick comment.

Um, relative to these cases we've been talking about.

I I was a uh a vocal critic of the uh low participation planning and zoning votes in the past, and I note that most of these cases are six O's as opposed to four O's.

And uh, since I was critical of the past, I'd just like to say that it's encouraging, and I appreciate that the planning and zoning board has found a way to uh uh greatly increase its participation.

Uh and hopefully we'll start seeing some seven-member votes uh in the near future.

Thank you.

Very good, thank you.

Uh anything else, uh, council on the agenda for Monday city council meeting.

I have a couple of questions.

Um, but first I just wanted to say thank you for the clarification on Hawes Crossing.

Um I read over that uh yesterday, and it's such a big area that I'm not as familiar with, and uh similar to what some of the other council members have voiced.

I I was hoping that that would be um for lack of a better term, kind of if we're gonna do more home building, which is great because we have a demand for it very much like master plan communities where there's retail and shopping kind of within the community, so people have places to go, parks.

Um so I'm excited to see what that development looks like uh for our Mesa residents.

So thank you for that.

I just have a couple of questions on two items.

One's um more for general knowledge, also in case anybody from the public read this, but on 4D, uh everything makes sense on it, but I was curious to know if someone can tell me two things.

What is the Topaz capital and operating fund?

And what does the 65.72 percent mean?

Because the city of Mesa is listed with several other municipalities, and I just I didn't understand what the percentage listed was supposed to be indicative of just uh confirming which item, please.

Oh, I'm sorry, four D.

Four is in dog.

Um, yes, four D as in dog.

This one says generator purchases and installation of services.

Are you yes?

And on the council report is what I was looking at, and I was I was understanding where the funding is coming from.

Okay.

We have our IT team coming up to address your question.

Okay, thank you.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Uh Mayor and Councilmember, that was Taylor, I believe.

Yes.

Yeah.

The percentages uh relate on the back of the backup for uh item 4D relate to the TRWC breakout of who pays for things if we were to use these generators on TRWC towers.

Maybe explain what that does.

What's a TRWC tower?

Uh this is our shared public safety network for broadcasting, particularly for fire, but also for police, where we have multiple agencies, uh, Gilbert, Queen's Creek, Apache Junction, and others, uh, benefit from the breadth of the public safety network for radio broadcasting and and radio communications between the various agencies.

And what we do is Mesa is the lead of the TRWC, and therefore we get the line and share.

Most of our coverage is it within the the City of Mesa uh lines, but outside of that, we make sure we divvy up appropriate percentages to all the others, so they share in the expense.

Well, Mesa will actually purchase the generators in this case.

Uh we will charge the other agencies back and they will reimb reimburse Mesa and which goes back into the general fund.

I see.

Okay, that was very helpful.

I hadn't seen a list of percentages like that on a council report, so I understand now this is the percentage of usage.

And since we're gonna be the purchasers, we're getting the majority of it.

Um and then for the the Topaz Capital and Operating Fund.

Can someone tell me what that is?

The Topaz Fund is actually part of the public safety fund, and it is budgeted every year in Mesa's annual budget.

So uh this is already uh proposed money, and once the budget is approved, uh it would be potentially utilized for this.

This is not a for sure purchase, this is just an authorization to purchase should we need emergency generators at various locations, uh, which also benefits the city's facilities if they have issues, not just uh public safety towers.

That makes perfect sense.

That part made sense to me.

I just wanted a little clarification on the council report portion, just to make sure I've got the whole picture.

Thank you so much.

Um my only other question was on 5B.

I know Candace was up a little bit earlier.

I I unfortunately logged into a different Zoom link, so I apologize.

Uh Ms.

Taylor.

Uh yes.

We've got another question on what you brought up.

So I'm so sorry.

Stand by the same thing.

Oh, yeah, no, no worries.

You you you made me think about on the Topaz Capital Operating Fund.

Are those restricted funds that come in from a sour from the source?

That topaz fund?

I think they're just reimbursements for theimbers.

Okay.

Okay.

So the the TRWC sets up their their proposed budget on improvements they want to make.

They come to Mesa as the administrator of TRWC.

Uh our team evaluates all of that, and then we work with the Office of Management and Budget to decide whether this makes sense or doesn't make sense, or is their their requested timing correct, or can it be delayed for another time?

And we work very closely with with Brian and his team to come to those conclusions and then put that into the proposed budget for the year.

Okay.

So yes, Mayor Council, the TRWC is a joint venture, so they have their own board, and so what that is is we are part of that board similar to um like the Mesa Gateway, similar to um ownership of the Greenfield wastewater treatment plant.

So it's a joint venture that we participate in, and that's 60 percent, 65 percent it roughly ranges is our ownership and usage of that.

So that their board will review the budget, and we have a separate individual fund for the Topaz and and um TRWC to where those revenues and those expenses our are um recorded, and so we track that separately because it is a joint venture.

Okay, thank you.

Appreciate it.

And Chief Dan Butler is our representative on their board, and I am the alternate representative.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Ms.

Taylor, you asked the question about the percentages.

Think of it this way.

This is my simple way is that the seven municipalities and the one uh Indian community, Fort McDowell.

This is our way to dispatch fire and medical calls for those communities.

And it entails this uh communication system and which we all participate in.

So those percentages you'll see pretty much all throughout, unless uh something changes to where they add more population or more towers to the system, and this is our uh commitment to deliver 911 services through our dispatch to these communities.

Got it.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

Thanks for explaining that.

Okay.

Uh you had an X one on five.

Yes, on five B.

Um, I read over.

I'm sorry, I'm opening it.

I I read over the home our allocation plan final submittal amendment.

And I read over um just the red text, which was the updated to the substantial amendments.

But what I didn't see, and I know that this may not all be hammered out yet, but I was looking for what are the exact changes, and maybe I missed them, but I was looking for more specifics, and I was wondering are those available somewhere else.

Um, are we should we be getting them?

I I saw that there's public comment that they're gonna do that, and you know, we're looking to serve the homeless population and reuse these for programs, but I didn't see like exact specific changes.

Well, we have Candace here to explain.

Thank you, Candace.

Thank you.

So, Mayor and Council Member Councilmember Taylor, the exact usage of the funds has not been determined, so that's still to be determined.

What this does is changes the category with HUD.

So these are HUD categories.

The current category that these funds are in that council approved back in 23 was for more of that brick and mortar bridge housing.

That's the category of for HUD.

And with the category we're now changing it to is support services.

What that does is allows it to open up for multiple different types of programs that could be funded through these funds, but we do not have program specific information at this time until we actually move it to this category, then staff will continue to work on what is the best use of these funds.

Okay, okay, that makes sense.

So we're going from brick and mortar over to support services in short.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

And then my other thank you.

My other question was I noticed that out of the amount, I think it was just over five million, eight hundred and forty thousand dollars was to be allocated for administrative purposes, and that just seems like a lot.

And I was I know I've met some of the individuals who do our admin.

I think there were two people.

Um so I can you explain why so much money is going over to admin.

Um, Mayor and Councilmember Taylor, those are percentages that come from HUD that allow um these funding mechanisms to be self-supporting, meaning that we do not need to use general fund um in order to administer these types of grants.

Um the grants usually are multi-year, multi-reporting, and so those are the types of items.

Those are common with our home program with our ESG, with our CDBG.

All of those programs have a percentage that's administrative costs.

Um it is not just two people, it's many people in community services that need to do reporting, vetting, um, all of these different types of programs.

So that's a that's an allowable use by HUD, and so we default to the allowable use.

What we actually spend it on might be different, but these are the allowable uses that sets us up for uh permission to use the funds.

Okay, so it's a preset percentage, it covers a whole team of people, and it is for multi-year multi-service programs, so it's not just eight hundred and forty thousand dollars for one year of administration.

That's correct.

That's for the for the full year full administration.

Some of these, depending on the programs that we use them on, for example, our normal home dollars, um, usually have a 20-year uh oversight and reporting period.

And so that's where the HUD is um reimbursing us for the administrative costs are following their regulations.

I see.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

I just needed to understand it a little bit better.

I have no further questions.

Thank you.

Okay.

Ms.

Duff.

None.

Counsel in person.

Seeing that.

Okay, we're done with uh item one uh two A.

We'll move to uh presentation discussion on the fiscal year proposed budget.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Uh Brian Richel, the uh Office of Management and Budget Director, and along with me I have uh Sam Schultz, who is the Office of Management and Budget Assistant Director.

So today is we'll be going over presentation for the proposed budget update.

This is kind of the last last step of the presentation budget process.

So what I wanted to show is here is kind of those uh 12 steps in the budget uh cycle that we've shown before, and just to let you know where we're at.

So on April 2nd, um the city manager submitted the proposed budget to the city council, and then throughout April, um departments presented, and then today is with April 30th is that last presentation with me wrapping up and doing a proposed budget presentation before we uh uh the tentative budget is submitted on May 18th for council's consideration for approval, and then on June 1st is when the adopted uh the final adopted budget would be be presented to council uh for adoption.

So now we're at April 30th.

Kind of want to show you we're on the tail end of the budget process um of this month and throughout the whole um process itself.

Before we get into the budget updates, what I wanted to show here is recent recognition with the uh with the financial stability and with the staff.

I want to recognize some of the um awards that the city has gotten in the past year as one of them is the best run city in Arizona by Wallet Hub.

Another one is the top 10 best big cities to live in by the U.S.

News.

Another one is the the four golden prospector awards given by the Arizona Association of Economic Development, and that shows for outstanding projects for women-owned business events, the Mesa AZ Retail.com site, the Mesa Business Builder Program, and the More to Mesa program.

So those were the four golden prospector awards that we received for economic development, and then also for uh financial transparency is the triple crown winner for the government finance officers association, and we received that ward for the annual financial uh report, also the popular annual financial report and the um executive budget book.

So wanted to kind of highlight some of those recent recognitions that the city has received.

Now going into the general governmental funds, um we heard from from council on a few things that they wanted to see in the in budget presentations.

So with this, what we what I want to do is kind of take a um kind of a storyline and show go back to what the general governmental fund uh forecasts looked like when the council adopted the fiscal year, the current budget for fiscal year 25-26.

This is the forecast that was presented back on May 19th of last year.

And to kind of highlight, we had uh a negative net sources and uses in the budget for 25-26 of 51.4.

And a significant driver in um that was the uh the public safety benchmarking.

Um that was roughly about 20 million dollars ongoing, so that's a significant portion of why the uh the net sources and uses in the outer years are also negative on that.

So when we came back to council in February, we presented a forecast um for 2526, kind of projecting out how the the rest of the year would, and then also the uh following fiscal years.

As you see, what I want to point out is for the projected for 2526, our net sources and uses improved to 36.3 compared to the adopted budget.

That is due to uh sales tax.

We and we were anticipating a certain amount of sales tax to come in, but we were able uh sales tax came in higher than what we were anticipating.

So that is one of the uh um contributors to that, and then also we were able to we reconciled some of our project carryover costs that reduced the expenses and the uh um the projected for fiscal year 2526 when we came to council in February.

Now moving forward when we presented the proposed budget.

Now moving forward, when we presented the proposed budget, want to highlight now that we're looking at the the projected 2526, but also the the proposed budget for 2627, and we went from uh the projected of 16.8 in the forecast for 2627 to 31.1 and contributors to that process was um transit costs due to Prop 4 um 479.

What has happened is now that Props 479 has been approved.

Uh some costs that used to be reimbursed by Prop 400 are no longer being re reimbursed, so now the city is um taking on some of those costs.

Also, the redevelopment toolkit um was added to this proposed budget, along with some one-time projects.

Uh for instance, the uh we have in there our parking garage uh infrastructure um projects, some other ones that were in there that is the um property liability contribution.

We're seeing an uptick in uh our property liability insurance, but then also uh our medical benefit costs have uh significantly increased for both employee and retirees.

So that is the difference of the um the budget now for 2627 now.

Comparing that from what was presented for the proposed to our update now.

So go the net sources and uses stayed pretty similar from 31 million to 36 million uh compared to the budget.

The biggest comparison for that, and as you see in the outer years, is um what I mentioned a couple weeks ago during the um police and fire sworn MOU process.

That that is the contributor here of the net sources and uses uh change from fiscal year 26-27 out through 3031.

Um also what I wanted to kind of mention here too is what has been discussed previously is uh some one-time.

So the net sources and uses just isolate 2627 um budget is the negative 39.8.

However, there's just about 18 million dollars of one-time expenses in there.

So, what that means is that if you took those one-time expenses out, our ongoing revenues and expenditures would be much closer than what it appears on here.

And we uh we do that on the one-time because we have received revenues higher than anticipated in previous years, that does increase our fund balance, but now we're able to reallocate some of those revenues for some one-time expenses that are needed for um one-time projects, and we usually allocate those to infrastructure, city-owned buildings, city-owned property type projects.

And that is similar to 2728 forecast and the forecast for 2829.

Uh, there's some one-time costs for this fiscal year, 2627.

Uh, major contributor to that is the public safety radio replacements, both PD and fire have some one-time costs in there.

That is the reason why that negative net sources and uses.

As I mentioned, if we take those one-time things out that we've been saving up for uh and putting it into our savings, which is the ending reserve balance, the net sources and uses would be uh much closer to um um zero or um equal.

Ryan, I have a quick question.

This is council member Taylor.

Um when you say there are one-time expenses that we saved up for, is there a reason that you don't include that in the sources?

Like you know, we have this in a savings account, so technically it's a source that we draw a fund from for that one-time use.

So thank you, Mayor.

Um council member Taylor.

So the sources are the revenues that come in.

So where we're doing that is the uh our resources, so our total resources equal our total expenditures for an adopted budget.

So what we're doing is since the revenues came in, so for instance, the sources if we have uh anticipated revenues above what we were um thinking we were gonna get for fiscal year 25-26.

So that would then drop down into our ending reserve balance of the 244 million, and then the following year, we would say, you know what, we we received a little more revenue um than what we thought, and then so we have some one-time expenses that we would like to put into the fiscal year 26-27 budget.

So that's why the total uses would increase, but not the total sources, because we are using that fund balance that's at the the top, that 244, the beginning reserve fund balance.

We're using some of that savings account to be able to uh um pay for those one-time costs.

Okay, so you're just not dropping that extra money into quote a source, if you will.

Correct.

Those those sources are revenues coming in for that certain fiscal year for that particular fiscal year.

Okay, that's really helpful.

Thank you.

Well question.

Yes.

Mr.

Adams, please thank you, Mayor.

Um Mr.

Richel, I'm sure that you know where just about every dollar comes from and where it goes, and I'm not looking for that level of detail.

But um in your presentation so far, you've mentioned um one time costs.

Uh I assume those are those are larger amounts.

It would be helpful for me, because I'm trying to make notes here as you go.

If we had just a little more detail on that, like you know, I made a note here about uh, you know, the prop 479 prop 400 thing.

Um you mentioned uh 18 million somewhere else.

Um it would be a helpful footnote for me to just know where those those larger amounts are that are that are skewing things that if we didn't have that one time expenditure, our number would look quite different.

It's uh um it's much easier to uh explain and defend these numbers, the more data that I think council has.

So if that could be included in this is great.

Um and and in my uh year and a half worth of education here on the council, uh these numbers make total sense to me.

I get how it works.

I've done budgeting uh in my own business, but uh those high level uh one time items, a little detail on that would be really helpful.

So we do have thank you for the question, uh Mayor, Councilmember Adams.

Uh, in if we go to the support slide.

Oh, I just didn't I just didn't drill down far enough, did I?

No, this is actually just a support.

Yeah, you yeah, so um this is just in case if it's needed, and it is.

So here's some of the one what we put in here is some of the large one-time items in the forecast.

And these are the one time, so as I was mentioning, so for fiscal year 26-27, about 16.2 million dollars of one time is for the PD radios.

We also have a financial reporting system that we need to upgrade this year.

Um, also that's where I mentioned the parking garage structural repairs and then the fire um radio replacements for 2728.

We have the big one is the 27th pay period.

I I think I mentioned that before to where this is an interesting fiscal year coming up to where there's gonna be 27 pay periods, and then you see in the outer year is some of the other uh additional one-time expenses.

So these are the one times that I was I was mentioning.

The the other ones I was mentioning is for the MOU, that's ongoing.

Um, the transit contract uh and those expenditures are ongoing, and so everything else is pretty much uh ongoing.

So uh except for these that are we look at so we do this one time because a lot of these, for instance, the PD radios is every probably seven to ten years we take a look at, so that's why they're not in the the forecast uh in the outer years.

Same with the financial reporting system, that's every probably seven to ten years that we need to do.

So there's a few things that we have uh on schedule, but we consider it one time uh because they're not on an annual basis.

Well, thank you.

I will in the future I will read cover to cover.

Well, I think this one is not this is not incredible.

But we can we can send this to council.

I think that's a good point.

You know, if we're gonna dive into this, we should have these backup slides uh as part of the presentation.

Or an additional here's some additional reading.

I can send that.

Yeah, we yeah, we try to balance it, then we could send you 200 slides, and that's probably not the most efficient use of anyone's time.

So we we try to guess what's gonna be the most relevant and then have backup slides available just in case questions come up.

And but we're we'll be glad to send that out to you today so that you have that have that slide available.

In case a guy like me didn't read four and well, no, it's a it's a good guessing game of knowing out of such a large and complex budget, you know, what the questions of council are going to be.

So good.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I'm with you, Rich.

More data is better.

Can I ask really quick?

You you mentioned the transit prop 4794.

What year was that that that influenced?

So that is coming up.

Ongoing coming.

This fiscal year.

Sorry.

Mayor, council member go forth.

That uh comes into effect 20 uh 26-27.

Okay.

Uh for those ongoing uh expenditures that um will be uh um that Prop 79 will start funding, uh, will not fund actually, and the the city will need to take over those expenses.

That's 2627.

So moving on, just wanted to show kind of highlight here's the comparison, as I mentioned.

So the top one is what was adopted, uh the adopted forecast back in 25 um 26 and in uh May.

And then here's the the bottom part is the proposed budget update, just to kind of give you a one snapshot comparison of what was adopted last year compared to uh what is being proposed this year, and all of the the changes that I've mentioned in the previous slides are are all combined into here, so you can kind of see the difference of when we adopted last year.

Um we had a negative net sources and uses all the way through all the way throughout, and we dropped below what our anticipated uh or what our uh minimum uh reserve balances at 7.4.

And so that made us uh made the city take a look and say, okay, what else can we do?

And that's why um city management asked the departments to do another uh two percent to let's get let's try to get structurally balanced uh within the forecast.

And so with the proposed budget coming up for the general governmental fund, we were able to do that, and now we're at positive net sources and uses in uh fiscal year 3031.

And so, and as I mentioned, with that, some of those other uh net sources and uses have one time.

So, even if we were uh if we took those one times out, uh our ongoing revenues and expenses expenditures are um close to structurally balanced.

And so that with the ending reserve balance now instead of the 7.4, we're at 15.5, which is above both our um principles of 10 to 15, but also our policy that council has adopted of eight to ten percent.

So mayor council, this is this is a big deal.

Um, you know, we we heard you last year um when we went through the budget season and and your desire to see us get back to structural balance sooner.

Um we believe this does that.

We also it we can't gloss over the fact that our standing is 31 million dollars better as we close out um the current fiscal year than than what was in the adopted budget.

We dropped from a 51 million dollar um uh being upside down by 51 million dollars to um to 20.3 million dollars.

So again, that shows how much throughout the course of the year that we actively manage and the fact that as we've talked about that we fully load the budget.

We we load it with as if we're going to fill every position, and that um we also take into account those unexpected um revenues or or um other things that Ryan mentioned along with the carryovers.

And so you you see um how from year to year we're gonna actively manage that the budget, but um thanks to your direction and the support of um staff to make this happen.

We have we have cut fifty-six million dollars from our ongoing expenses of the three years of of two percent cuts.

Fifty-six million dollars that we have saved uh by tightening our belts, by finding efficiencies, by doing all those things that we need to do without avoiding major pain to our residents for services, because we've found ways to be innovative in that.

And um, and so that that's really a testament to our organization, to the men and women um who are really doing everything they can that has not necessarily come without some pain internally on our resources and and our and our staffing, but it's been the right thing to do to make sure that we get this budget right sized and uh and and so it just can't be glossed over what impact that $56 million in savings and efficiencies have on this budget.

Well, mayor, I would uh I I agree.

I appreciate it.

Um I was rather vocal last year during this cycle about tightening that up and getting us out of the uh as it was characterized the imbalance at the time quicker.

Um this this slide, Mr.

Richel, is I think what I requested a week or two ago.

Thank you.

Uh I appreciate seeing it all right here in one place, and uh yeah, Mr.

Butler, I uh I I agree.

I believe you heard us.

Uh it was not done at the expense of public safety.

It was not done at the expense of essential services.

So um I I appreciate what I see here.

Thank you.

I I have one question.

So when you say fifty 56 million, uh you you use that in past tense, but you're also assuming for the next year's budget, right?

We're talking 24, 25, 25, 26, and 26, 27, there will be 56 million dollar reduction over the course of the three years.

That's correct, Mayor.

That's right.

The forecast and the numbers we're showing you today take into account those savings that we've um received from those departments as we went through the budget process this year.

So um so yes, 56 million includes three fiscal years of the two percent cuts, including the 26-27.

Okay, so we're forecasting another two percent.

That yes, that is that is what we have uh uh baked into the budget.

Um and so I just want to clarify on the um the changes.

So I think on the second, we went from um a balance after by 2829, and you're what you're attributing moving that back one year is all to the MOU that we just for public safety.

Okay.

So, yes, mayor, council member go forth.

The um the difference between what the proposed budget was, and I believe it was a positive 2.3 million or 1.8 million positive net sources and uses in 2930, and it is now a negative 8.4 is contributed to the uh current MOU for public safety sworn that was presented to council, I believe a week or two ago.

Okay.

And and really it's it's more psychological than it is from a real budget standpoint on that, council, because again, we're talking four years down the road, um, three years down the road about about that, and as we always talk about how we manage the budget, um you just look at the trend line and you see the way that we're um we're tightening that gap and getting and trending towards being back into the black uh sooner, and and that was a change from what you've seen last year.

And so in the midst of such a large budget, that difference of swinging from 2.3 in the positive to eight um 8.4 in the in the negative is you know a percentage, you know.

And so it's and and so we'll manage, we'll manage through that, but it's that overall trajectory, I think that is really important for council to see.

Absolutely, and I would agree with you, Scott.

But I guess what I think uh you know, the residents would ask, and they would they would agree that um we prioritize public safety, but I think what they would say is we don't add it to that um, and I don't want to say deficit, but that imbalance we have to go back and find you know find it somewhere else.

And and I know that's hard to do, and and but um I you know I throw that out there.

That's what I would like us to do.

I would I mean if we're gonna add that eight, then we gotta tighten up somewhere else.

I don't think we just add it on.

Yeah, mayor and council, I I would even though I 100% support it.

Yeah, I uh though I would respectfully disagree though that we need to go out and cut public safety services in order to adequately pay our um men and women in uniform.

Um and so uh it just goes to show though that when we talk about this, um keeping track and keeping our um pay competitive, uh it comes with a cost, and it's a cost that you know we have to make sure that we are managing and that we're staying competitive of, but um back then and cutting actual services out of public safety.

No, no, but I'm not suggesting that, Scott.

I'm saying you reduce services and in in somewhere else.

We've all said public safety is non-negotiable.

But that doesn't mean you don't go somewhere else and say we've got to we've got to reduce in another place.

Now I I might be outvoted on that, and we we might be perfectly fine with saying we're gonna use our reserve, which is what they're there for.

And I you know, I understand that as well.

Um and as you said, it's four years out, and we probably you know this changes all the time.

Yeah, but um we're gonna get I'm gonna get asked that.

Yeah, and why you know right, and and again, we're we're adopting the budget for this fiscal year, and again, it's to show this is to show the trend line of where revenues and expenditures are going, and so we'll be able to manage through that.

So I wouldn't the the point is not to get too worked up about that switch in 2930 because there's gonna be a lot that happens uh on you know between now and then.

So Mr.

Reddit.

Um Ryan, you mentioned uh unexpected revenue sources, is that mostly sales tax and carryovers?

I I notice on 2425, it's it's around 18 to 20 million dollars.

Um can you it and I think expecting probably this year as well as as far as the increase we started with like 220, like around 20 million, it seems like the last two years of I don't know if it's unexpected or kind of can you can talk about the ending reserve balance kind of those those revenue sources that I mean increase?

Yes, thank you for the question, Mayor, Councilmember Heredia.

So those unanticipated revenues that we received is uh mostly sales tax to where when we were projecting our sales tax, um we we were projecting a certain level of sales tax to come in.

However, the economy um we have seen an an uptick in uh retail sales, also utility sales tax, um rental on the commercial side, sales tax.

So we've seen an uptick in what we're receiving than what we were anticipating when we adopted the budget last year.

So that that is the uh unanticipated uh revenues that that were I was talking about on that.

It seems like for the last maybe four or five years, that's been kind of the norm.

Not saying that that's gonna be the norm, but I think as we invest in more retail and invest into be more intentional in that piece, um it it's it's helping us to uh receive a little bit more sales tax than we anticipate.

Is it the modeling that's just very conservative on that end, or what's what's the because 20 million is quite a bit, right?

So it's uh what's the uh what's what's uh I guess a modeling around that piece that we're unexpectedly receiving like 20 million dollars more than what we projecting.

So, yes, Mayor, Councilmember Heredia.

So the modeling, yes, we do a conservative model.

Um the past four years have been uh interesting with the economy, uh, because if you you take with some of the stimulus going on, and so people were spending the stimulus, so we weren't anticipating uh some of that uh uptick, and then also with the loss of residential rental, we were anticipating a revenue drop in that.

However, we're seeing still uh people coming in and um we're seeing uh an uptick in retail sales.

So this year we're forecasting to be about five percent above budget, so five to seven percent about above budget, which is about the what we would hope for, but we usually um forecast about three, three to four percent uh above each year.

And so the previous years have just with the contracting with uh prices going up, we're seeing uh a significant increase in the past couple of years with our contracting sales tax.

Uh with the growth, uh, we're starting to see a little slowdown in that due to the single-family home um permitting dropping and not seeing as an uptick in in those.

And so it is kind of a combination of a conservative forecast, uh, but we want to be a little on the conservative side.

Um, just in case so if we didn't overshoot our forecasting, hey, we're gonna get this and we're gonna add some programs, programs because we're anticipating getting these revenues throughout, um, and then we don't receive that revenue, uh, then we'll have to take a look at okay, what then what programs do we know have to reduce because we didn't receive the revenue ongoing revenue.

So it's kind of that forecasting.

Um, but thank you for the question that it is mostly sales tax.

Um we weren't anticipating an increase in the utilities as much as we are, um, depending on the climate and the weather that's going on.

And so it's kind of those combination of things.

Perfect.

No, just uh I think you know, having a 31% uh any reserve balance is you know, I remember having these ongoing discussions that what's a balance of having too much of us reserve balance while we're still cutting some of the the services, maybe quality of life services.

So it's just trying to figure out that's the the I think the exercise every year why we do this, right?

And trying to figure out uh how do we not cut too much of the quality of life stuff that I think our residents enjoy um and just figuring out what's the adequal adequate amount of any reserve balance that we should have as well, right?

So um just to point that out because I think it's it's an important aspect to keep in mind as we continue.

Um we can't keep on cutting some of these quality life pieces that are I think our residents.

It's it's really hard to metric and and keep it on track, but I think it makes makes uh makes a difference in in residents, especially our youth, uh, when we're talking about programs in parks or libraries or or things like that that um there we sometimes look at cutting back uh based on uh keeping a reserve balance uh five years from now, right?

We you know yes, markets can change and and differences, uh, but uh that's why we do it each year, right?

So just making that comment.

Mr.

Adams.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um Council Member Heredia's question reminded me of something.

I um, you know, we're obviously sales tax or TPT reliant to a great degree, and I think it it brings me back to some of the discussions that we had at our session in March or strategic planning session about how important it is that we remain business friendly, remove barriers, uh, make it easy for or easier within bounds of reason for businesses to establish businesses to expand.

I mean, our economic development office spends a lot of time on business retention.

And um not to not to get into the weeds on it, but when I meet with a constituent who feels that they're running into obstacle after obstacle after obstacle to expand their business, it makes me reflect back on that and go, well, wait a minute, those are high ticket items, those generate TPT.

So I just think it's important that we keep our eye on that ball, that if if we're dealing with appropriate, legitimate businesses that are trying to do something to increase their sales, which increase our revenue, we we have to be focused on that.

And I'd also comment that we've done some very responsible things recently.

Uh the capacity fee.

Uh we addressed a difficult revenue issue at Falcon Field that a lot of people weren't happy with.

But if we're going to look at these budgets and say, geez, we'd like to come out of the out of the deficit quicker.

Uh those those two things I just mentioned were were key to that.

Um important pieces of that.

So uh, and those are sometimes difficult decisions, but I do think we need to across the departments, keep our eye on that ball of how important sales tax revenue is, and uh everybody should have their eye on the ball of what can we do to make it as easy as possible to facilitate that.

So glad you brought that up about sales tax.

Thank you.

And mayor, councilman rounds.

We'll we'll have some follow-up for you next month.

Um specifically about some discussion from the strategic plan about how we're trying to make that process easier.

But you're right, including changes that DSD has already made, including an ombudsman and others to help people get through the process and the collaboration and coordination that happens between economic development and DSD and and uh downtown transform downtown transformation and and some of those offices to to try to do everything we can to make sure we're all on the same page.

And and that's and that's true.

We and we look at that, and we've talked about that as we um look at developments that are coming in.

There is a reality that um some of these developments, whether it's the car dealerships, whether it's um uh the Costco SEM Club of the world, they generate much needed sales tax revenue uh for the community, and so we have to be strategic too about those types of uh businesses when we think about sales tax recruitment.

So good.

Brian, carry on.

So with that, what we focused on what this budget focuses on too is uh elevate Mesa, and what I want to focus on this part of it was the staffing and how the city um definitely uh um looks at staffing and wants to and knows that that's the core um um the core of the city is all the staff and all the outer facing um employees.

So the first one is police department staffing, uh, as mentioned with there are three academies of for 110 recruits for this fiscal year.

And so a little bit more on that is that we we have three academies budgeted every year, and this 110 recruits is just a placeholder.

Um the academies can range up and down, but this is a total of 110 for the year, so they hold three academies, so it's about um 35 uh per academy.

And we do see the police department does see uh um attrition fallouts.

So usually out of that 110, usually about 80 to 85 recruits actually um come through the uh academies.

So that helps with all of the retirements, um, any unforeseen leave, uh people that leave, and also um any other types of um um police officers being promoted and vacancies.

So also in there is a civilianization of the positions um that was mentioned before for fire and medical.

Um they have two academies uh budgeted for this fiscal year.

Uh and so they'll they'll do those.

I think one's in the fall, one's in the spring.

Um also in here is uh a reminder of the cancer screening um funding for fire and medical, and then also the emergency uh transport service um conversion of 12 hour to 24 hour.

Uh also in this is the uh Mesa Public Safety Support Department.

We have a uh public safety communication shift supervisor that will help out with their uh 24-7 operation.

And then also we added an assistant um city prosecutor to um to the city man to the city attorney's office for public safety.

Brian, I just want to on the three academies for police department staffing 10.

That's just to keep us at par levels.

We're not even really at par, I think, to police department, right?

I mean, we're always under that.

So these are budgeted positions baked into the budget, they stand firm every year.

So we're not over hiring.

I want people to know they're we're not over hiring, we're just trying to keep up with attrition and people leaving our department retirements, et cetera.

Mayor, that is correct.

We they have, I believe right now about 32 vacancies in the police officer position.

And so it is these academies are needed just to keep up with the attrition and retirements of the police itself.

I believe in the next uh couple of years they do if if um what the projections look like it's gonna happen, they will become um fully staffed or around fully staffed to what they consider fully staffed.

So um we're still working towards that, and we'll be doing three uh academies per year until probably that happens.

And that also hits our uh public safety uh liability portion, everything that we do benefited employee for that portion as far as on the public safety side.

Yes, Mayor, correct.

That does.

Okay.

I have a quick question.

This is Councilmember Taylor.

Um Brian, there for the overall general governmental fund and tying into public safety, what is the revenue from our photo radar enforcement cameras?

Does that go to the public safety fund?

So, mayor, council member uh Taylor, thank you for the question.

The photo safety radar does not go into the public safety fund.

So the photo safety radar does we track it uh on a quarterly and annual basis, and that revenue comes into the to the general fund.

However, what we do is we track all the expenses.

We have uh different trackings for the contracts that we have for the photo safety radar.

Um, those revenues are also some of them are restricted to the state and the county and the court system that go in there.

So right now for uh unrestricted revenues for the city, uh I think for 25-26 was about 2.1 million dollars.

But what that 2.1 million dollars also funds is city operations, so part of the court, part of the traffic unit, and any other ancillary parts as part of the photo safety.

And after those expenses are accounted for, um, what was left over, which I believe was about uh six to seven hundred thousand dollars at the end of the fiscal year, that gets transferred over to um for use for the transportation uh department to do traffic calming uh type uh things on the street.

So for instance, like the mid-block um lights, the any speed humps, uh just any type of traffic calming, that's what that's used for.

So it gets uh it gets allocated right back into um public safety and transportation safety.

Okay.

Is it do we project?

Because I know this budget goes all the way out to fiscal year um 3031.

Do we project that we will always be using those additional funds for transportation safety?

Is that a portion of the budget that we could reallocate to something like public safety, the leftover funds to offset things like the 26-27 $8.3 million dollar deficit.

So, mayor, council member Taylor, uh thank you for the question.

So the forecast does have the uh uh four uh forecasted revenue for that to be transferred over to transportation, and the philosophy for the city has always been to reinvest those funds back into traffic safety, and so that was that has been um the direction that we have been doing throughout the forecast, and um that's what we would follow until otherwise uh directed for that.

But we we feel that since the red light cameras are for traffic safety, and that revenue should be um reinvested back into the traffic safety.

Okay, okay.

And then I had another question around the the tie-in.

So you you mentioned that the MOU is one of the reasons that we have a bigger gap for next year.

Um I'm just curious to know I I'm thinking about what Councilmember Govorth said, and uh not just adding to but reducing in other areas um instead of just doing general cuts across the board.

I just want to propose that we still look at surgical quote, as council member Adams said, surgical cuts within our various programs and services and departments.

And I know that's incumbent upon the council to really learn all the various programs that the city offers and what the expenses associated with them are.

Um but I I do think that when the resident sees that we are maximizing our budget, we're filling every single vacancy, we're doing everything that we can to basically say this is what the city would look like if it operated at full capacity.

I don't want them to see public safety, which we value so much, as a pawn for basically looking at asking for more money from them.

I want them to see that we've surgically gone through and can really empirically prove that we have reduced unnecessary programs that aren't truly nonpartisan or general programs that benefit every single taxpayer.

So I think I just want to make that statement that I agree with both uh council member Adams and GoForth on this, and I I think we're doing a great job, and I can't praise the city enough for all the cuts that they have done, but I think being more surgical in the future would be an excellent strategy for us as council.

And the reason I also say this is because we have a $35.9 million dollar operate operating gap when we look at the reserves that are forecasted to decline by fiscal year 3031.

And I'm thinking, well, if the operating gap is that large, that I mean, that should give us pause to think about where have we cut where we shouldn't have.

Um, where should we maybe be adding more funds?

And um that helped that should also help us think why we would want to approve this budget this year if we're looking at such a large operating gap into the future.

I know that was a whole mouthful, and I know that was a large load of information, but um I just kind of wanted to make that statement now so I don't miss the opportunity to later.

Yeah, mayor and council, maybe I should should add, and thank you, Councilmember Taylor, for for those comments and uh wholeheartedly agree.

You know, we're not we're not landing this on the aircraft carrier and saying mission accomplished.

We're saying that this is a process that we're constantly looking at process improvement, efficiencies, um, really the emphasis that we've put um with council's support on the Office of Innovation and Efficiency to really dive into each department to look at ways so that we can be more efficient, save money, save resources.

That's going to be an ongoing effort that we continually look at.

And and I agree, I mean, every year we we make alterations to the budget to different programs based on council's direction, you know, every every single year, and we'll continue to do that at your direction as we talk about different programs.

We also, you know, we talk about the redevelopment funds that we're um looking to stand up.

That we've we were careful to have that as a pilot program, right?

We want to get the efficiencies and make sure that that's actually being helpful in moving the needle out in the community before we uh commit to that becoming an ongoing expense.

So you're exactly right.

We we're going to continue to push and pull those levers uh each year.

And uh, and I think uh council member Taylor, I I agree with your um use of the term strategic or or um surgical surgical, thank you.

Um, because that that is truly I think what we are looking at.

We believe that the overall trajectory, as we talked about earlier, is trending in the right direction.

So hopefully it won't be um across the board two percent cuts.

And I know council member Adams has also raised this um previously too.

So I think moving forward now that we we um see some stability in the future, we can be more targeted and more surgical at um making any determinations if there's changes to programs that we want to see.

Thank you.

I I would just appreciate Councilmember Taylor's comments and and and you you all have done that, and we appreciate you have gone surgically this year, and we've done the two percent cuts.

I think a lot of the times this goes back to what council member Adams is the way the information is presented.

I mean, we go through this exercise, you get our direction, we say, yes, that's important.

You know, we don't we want to keep that program or yes, let's reduce.

If we could, you know, at the end of the day here, we have to be able to explain these numbers to our residents in in a concise way, right?

And so I think that that chart that you showed is helpful, but if we could have sort of have just a here here's what 25 26, 27, here are the impacts of that that 35 um point nine, you know, here's what we've said is important, and this is important that we're gonna take from our reserves and show this deficit.

That's why.

And then we can have a discussion with our residents on what they think about that.

But that's what the council has decided that we're gonna that it's important to the city.

And I if we could just maybe I don't know, maybe I can get it separate from you or something, but um the way it's it's presented over several weeks, and I think that that maybe is what we'll might be helpful to come back and and give us sort of this one page summary of where those we're where what are those programs we did say yes, this is important.

Let's let's continue to know you've done it.

Yeah, no, we can't.

But they're in different, you know, they're in different reasons.

I I have to go back to several different presentations and the cuts and the cuts.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

We can we can that would be very helpful.

Not a problem.

Thank you.

Well, I was gonna save this comment till the end, but I hearing from council, I think it's important after we get through this budget season, we have a work study session at the next fiscal year, and so we dive into all the components here, and you know we spend a few hours, you know, Brian, you educating us with all the departments coming in.

I'd call it a strategic planning session again of any one, and we reevaluate everything we've done for this coming time, and then look at it.

So, with that move forward, unless there's something else.

Uh, I know you have other slides.

Mayor?

Yes.

May I make a comment before we go on to utility funds?

Yeah, yes, Ms.

Duff.

Uh I just want to kind of, you know, I've enjoyed um, you know, a little over seven years now on council, and so I just want to back up and the perspective uh what has evolved over time.

We had the structural balance, we had really um coming out of the stimulus dollars and such, we're very robust amount of revenue coming in and where we're doing things.

And then the state, you know, then those dollars runs out, and you know, we're pulling back at the same time.

We have the state making reductions in our revenues, the rental sales tax, we had the flat tax, we're the state shared revenue.

We've gone through all these, a huge amount of reductions.

So it's not like all is well, and suddenly, you know, we are running deficits.

It's because the state, like all of a sudden, if you look back even to the 24-25, it's it's very close as we start weaning ourselves off of all those revenues.

But the complicated compounded effect, we are trying to move an entire ship as quickly as we can, but it's difficult to make up those, you know, 30, 40 million dollars with a loss of revenues in one year.

As at the same time that there were growing and adding public safety personnel and um and needing to pay more benefits and uh all and and everything, keep up with all the demands that we need to do on our personnel side, keeping up with all the growth demands, having a big cut, and then adjusting our spending.

So we're just kind of like our utility funds, where we take gradual adjustments.

We can't just have a year and say, you know, let's take a 20% cut this year, because that is extremely painful in the quality of life and we can do.

We're getting there.

It's just redirecting on how we uh amend things.

So I don't I feel like with the city gets thrown under the bus because of um, you know, big adjustments that we have to make do from the state mandate.

We're trying we're trying to get there.

I think we're doing a great job considering all the demands we have.

And so I wanted to say thank you to everybody involved.

I know we're continuing to make the cuts, but for the general public, you gotta understand this isn't a static situation.

This is very dynamic with what we need to do with the growth and cuts at the same time.

Um I did have a question on sales tax.

Does that include construction sales tax when we say uh sales tax figures?

Thank you for the question, Mayor.

Uh Councilmember Duff.

That does include.

So when I when I mentioned sales tax, city sales tax, that does include contracting.

And the other um point I wanted to kind of make too is that with the the forecasting of the sales tax.

I I believe I mentioned this during the forecast presentation back in February, is that even though we are um seeing unin uh more revenue than what we're budgeted, the actual sales tax collections for the last three fiscal years for the city has been flat.

So luckily it's been we um when we forecast our revenues, we're a little more conservative.

Uh and so with that, if we would have forecasted even more, we probably would have forecasted above what we were collecting because the last three fiscal years, the actual collections have been flat um across the board for the actual retail side of it and not.

So that so may Mayor, Councilmember Duff, that is yes, that's it's retail, it's utilities, it's contracting, um, commercial um rentals, all of those categories, the total city sales tax collection as part of those has been um flat for the last three fiscal years, the actual collections.

I think to clarify on that too, Mayor and Council, um Brian's right when you look at the overall category.

But what what's inherent in him saying that though is what has saved us when you when you take residential rental tax out of the equation and you take some of these other changes, it has been a robust growth in retail sales um and there may be another category, but retail in particular.

People have stayed spending money, which is great because that's allowed us um to be able to weather the storm easier uh hadn't had it not seen an uptick in retail.

If retail had been flat, we would have we'd be hurting.

Um but the fact that people are eating out, they're shopping, they're buying cars, they're doing all that has really been um a saving grace through all this.

So the resiliency of the consumer has helped us um mitigate some of the negative impacts of that loss of revenue that can from the state that council member duff just referenced.

Sorry, can I just clarify, Brian?

I think I was looking at something.

So when you say it's remained flat due to the reduction, if you took the reduction out, that's what you're saying.

It's actually sales have increased year over year.

Am I did I hear that right?

So mayor council member go forth what I believe I'm seeing what your question is.

So you it's re the total collections have remained flat, which you when we take out residential rental, so we're not receiving residential rental anymore.

Um what the city manager was mentioning is so we take that $30 million, roughly $30 million a year out.

We took that out.

However, retail sales, utilities, bars and restaurants, and the other categories have increased to offset that reduction.

So despite the reduction, we've remained from remain flat.

Okay.

Yeah, and that's what I mean.

It's it's inherent, and I'm sorry, uh Mayor and Councilmember, it's inherent when we talk about sales tax.

You audit we our brains automatically, maybe not an OMB, but the rest of us automatically go to retail sales because that's you know what we know is live and die by, and and as Brian just said, and and you you said it very well, in spite of the fact that we had these reductions from the state, we were still flat.

That's actually a positive, right?

Really pretty impressive.

Yeah, it's really a very good thing, but we have not seen Brian's got some great charts that just show historically just the you know the normal inflationary growth of sales tax that this community's seen that goes back decades, and then all of a sudden you have a flatlining uh that happened all at one time.

And and that you know really does go to um what council member Heredia was saying, uh and I I know I've said this before, but I it's gotta be reiterated.

This community did such a good job.

Other neighbors maybe didn't uh of being very constrained of putting that unexpected post-COVID bump into our um into our rainy day fund, putting it into our reserves.

A lot of communities started spending that money, and fortunately, um the council and city management, everyone made the determination of we're gonna build up those reserves.

And so now we can responsibly to council member Heredia's point, um, you know, we we are way above our goal, right?

We're we're above our heightened goal um as far as our reserve, so we can responsibly pull down some of that one-time revenue um that we that we stored away in order to mitigate the impacts of what the state did to us um and and let the natural inflationary growth of our other categories catch back up with it.

So um, so we are striking, I think, that balance and and trying to make sure that you know we don't have to make dramatic cuts to services because we see the normal growth of sales tax in this community go back to historic trends, and it really was this unprecedented multiple things all happening at the same time.

But thank goodness our reserve fund was to a point the highest levels in the city's history so that we can draw that down responsibly and do it in a way that avoids major cuts to services to our residents.

So can I make one more comment on that?

Yes, Ms.

Go ahead.

One one thought I have on the sales tax is previously we had a projection and it was growing year after year.

We made our five-year projection based on that growth.

And I appreciate that we haven't lost ground because of the cuts, but we haven't really we don't have that robust growth that was originally projected.

We're maintaining, yay.

But anyway, what we looked at uh a couple of years ago, before all this disruption, what the projections were much different than they are after the mandates.

And I think we're doing a good job trying to adjust to it.

And I'm thankful that we're able to get the sales tax that we don't see the you know the rough adjustments, but I just want council not to be so upset, like you know, we're still at we're still in the adjustment period.

Thanks.

I was just gonna say point taken, Sky, and I I agree, even though I think residents want us to, you know, spend within our means, so to say, they also want stability.

And so they don't want us whiplashing, reducing services this year because in four years we we have you know, uh a lower um net sources and uses for a justified reason, you know, four years out, um, because we have a reserve that's a the responsible thing to do to to continue a continuum, a stability of services.

So I, you know, it's a balance, right?

And and it's a good conversation to have.

It's a good conversation to have because residents understand we're having it, we're aware that you know our priority is to use the funds efficiently and responsibly, but it's also imperative on us to have a stability of services.

So I think that's the responsible thing to do as well.

So thank you, Jen, for your comments.

Mayor Council member go forth.

Um, yes, I completely agree, and thank you um for saying that.

And I and also agree though, too.

I don't, and I'll just reiterate, I agree with everything council member Taylor said as well.

We're gonna continue to look at those efficiencies just because we can pull from the reserves to help us weather the storm doesn't mean that we're you know letting that um you know be the solution for this because um we've heard you and we we agree.

I mean, every company, public, private, large, small, is always looking to see if the way it spends money is in line with the values and the times of that company and the needs of that company, and that's what we've got to continue to do to do too.

And we're you know, we're an older, more senior organization, right?

We've been doing things uh in this community for a very long time, and some of those things may not be necessary.

Maybe there's other ways that residents are receiving those needs.

Maybe there's different uh delivery methods that are that are different and and more cost effective.

And those are the things we're gonna continue to evaluate, and um, and and that will be an ongoing annual discussion about how we can continue to get better as as a organization providing essential services to the community.

Thank you, Scott.

Yeah, I recognize that and I regulate I resonate those thoughts, pro those thoughts as well.

And just one final thought.

As we are looking at proposals that come to our council for the future, and we're looking at how we are here discussing right now what we need to cut, what we need to keep, balancing our budget this year, next year, and looking at the future.

Um let's make sure that we are in line with what we're saying today when things are being proposed to us for future spending.

And how we are discerning whether that future spending is actually for the quote general welfare of all the taxpayers that are pouring into this system and not just because there might be proposed economic development as a result of a thing that we are being asked to spend a lot of money on because we have some stuff that's gonna come to council this year, and here we are talking about being conservative with our budget, being wise with our money, benefiting our taxpayers, having a good quality of life, but in that we also have to recognize that we are here to represent the people who are pouring into the system.

And when we go forward with proposals to spend money as a city, we should remember what we've said today and not be hypocritical or contradictory of our own statements here.

I think this is a great discussion.

I just want to say that I feel incredibly convicted and accountable for saying I want a balanced budget, I want to make sure that we're conservative, but creating a city economy that benefits our taxpayers and being wise and discerning with it.

People that live in our various districts that trust us that respect us, don't say, hey, you said this at your budget meeting, but here you are saying yes to unnecessary spending that's not going to benefit our community.

So I can't thank you enough for those comments, and I resonate with what you're saying, Scott.

Thank you.

And thank you, Brian, for doing this this presentation.

Mr.

Smith.

Mayor and Council, I know we've already talked about it a lot, but uh it part of it it seems to me that the word budget is a misnomer in part.

And so it really it's not the same sort of budget that what you use at your home or your business.

It's an expenditure authorization, is the sort of the larger concept.

To put it in context of your home budget, let's say you had to adopt a budget for the next year, and you had to stay within those means.

And so you have to plan for all the contingencies.

I might have to buy a new car, might have to replace my roof, I might need to replace my air conditioner.

So I'm gonna put that all in the budget.

But in order to do that, I'm gonna have to dip into my savings.

You have to build that in as a government budget.

You have to have that authorization.

Otherwise, you're not able to spend it.

In other words, you have to put you have to put contingencies in that you know all those all those events aren't going to happen.

This is an authorization for expenditure.

It's not a budget in the sense of a traditional budget.

And that that change and that sort of nomenclature, I think trips up both the public and council almost every year.

If if you go back to slide eight, if you look at the actuals for 24-25, I believe when that budget was adopted, um, that was also net uses and sources what was in the negative.

As the vice mas vice mayor pointed out um last year during the budget process, he he looked at I think the last five years or 10 years, and he looked back over time.

The vast, the vast oh, okay.

The vast majority of of those cases, the the budget that was adopted was in the net sources, showed negative, but in the end, the actuals came in positive.

So when you look at this chart, you should probably focus on the actuals in large part and then look at the sort of the the future, but realize it's not a budget in the sense of like your household budget.

It's an authorization for expenditures.

And so if you ever get to a point where all those futures are positive or zero, you will have cut many departments and services, and the and the ending reserve balance will just balloon up.

Because you'll definitely I mean your 16.8 million dollars in the positive on a year in which the budget, the expenditure authorization showed negative on the net uses and sources.

So you have to balance that sort of those per the expenditure authorization budget with what is actually happening to really sort of balance it.

So this the sort of these numbers in the future, that's showing, you know, sort of worst case scenario authorization.

It's not showing like what you think of as a budget for your home or your business.

And so you have to sort of look at that aspect.

And this goes back to what council member Haredia said, having been on the council so long.

If you start cutting, doing a bunch of cuts on this for something that's shown in the future, you will cut services, which may end up not needing to be cut, because you know, if you'd cut it in the act for 2425 to get to a balance, you know, where it was zero, it ends up your 16.8 in the positive.

So really you have to really sort of that nuance difference between what traditional people think of a budget and expenditure authorization because of the state statute makes a huge difference.

And so I just want to make sure we're aware of that as opposed to saying in the future we're showing these as like we're upside down almost.

No, that's that's an authorization.

That's in case we lose the fridge, the roof, the all those things go bad.

Um, we have the authorization, because if you don't have the authorization, you literally can't, you can't go fix those things.

I mayor, I appreciate what Mr.

Smith just said because this is much the way I operate my trade association.

Um in that role, I'm pretty much what Mr.

Butler is, and my board is pretty much what the council is.

And when I present a budget, it is it is parameters.

Whatever that total line is, I can spend no more than that.

I have the authority to move numbers around in different expense categories, but when I tell them I'll I'll spend no more than X.

Um that's that's what I'm there to do, is I'm there to manage how that's spent.

I can't exceed it.

If I have to, I come back and say, look, we've had an unusual event.

So I really appreciate you clarifying that, because I think a good number members of the public who are interested in the community who take investment, they look at it like you described you do the household budget.

Um so I I think that was a very valuable explanation, and I appreciate it.

I would agree, and I propose we call it expenditure authorization from now on.

I'm disturbed you remember these conversations.

Brian, when do you expect the actuals for 25-26 to be presented?

So Mayor, we usually get those final uh actual numbers uh usually around September.

Um because we go through finance goes through the month and close and has to close out all of the uh the accounts and things like that.

So when we do that, we usually have an estimated uh year end uh around the September time frame.

Good.

We we're excited about that.

Why don't you carry on in your presentation?

I think you may be halfway done.

Mayor, I believe so.

So the other thing that uh the city prioritizes is the recruitment and retention of quality employees.

So I wanted to mention a couple of things here.

Um there's a salary uh market adjustment and a five percent step for eligible sworn personnel covered by the MOU.

Uh, and then there's an up to four percent step pay increase for all eligible employees not covered uh under the MOU.

And this would uh this four up to four percent would go effective with the uh paycheck on July 16th.

Um and then also there will be uh there, as I believe that was mentioned before, vacation and sick leave policy revisions.

I believe this will be coming uh to council at a later date uh for more um detailed explanation by HR.

So I'll just leave it at that.

But there is some budget impact to the next fiscal year that we that we do have in there.

So that wraps up the uh general governmental fund.

Now on the you on the utility fund, I I did the same.

Um we've talked about this, I think a little bit more, and there isn't as um big of impact changes.

Um here is uh the utility fund uh that was adopted.

And so as you what I want to focus on was the budget um year, fiscal year 25-26.

So when we when council adopted the budget on the 19th, the tentative budget, um, we had a negative net sources and uses of 28.4 uh when we adopted and 12.7 um percent.

And then it was um going out.

Um our negative our negative net sources and uses continued, and our reserve balance uh went below our um both principles and our um policy, and so the uh city did a uh a concerted effort on uh taking a look at those.

And so going to the next slide, um what was presented by the in the forecast that we presented in February.

Um you see that the negative net sources and uses in in 2526 are still about the 23, but as you see going out, um they um become positive, and that is uh due to the uh capacity fee projects being removed.

So that's the biggest change uh in the forecast between the adopted budget and then was uh taking those about 400 million dollars of capacity uh projects, taking them out of the operating fund, uh, and then also we we're able to move some of the deferred maintenance um that we had for water and wastewater and move some of that back in.

But as you see, it has a uh a healthy ending reserve balance, but also the um ending reserve balance.

We get back to the our principal of 20 percent towards the end of the forecast.

And then coming to the the proposed budget on April 20 uh or April 2nd, uh compared to the forecast of the net sources and uses, um some of the reductions uh or some of the uh improvements in there are the reductions and um revised estimates.

So we go through um as a I believe mentioned before we do uh uh quarter year end estimates on revenues and expenses, and some of those adjustments are included in here, but also the reductions.

So we have a slight improvement in the net sources and uses, which then you see a slight improvement in the ending reserve balance percentage uh going on out.

And then we come to uh today for the budget update.

Um the um really the only change is carryover, so we're added carryover to the budget for 26-27, and that is really the only change.

Everything else um pretty much stayed the same, a few with a few minor adjustments of enhancements and and some reductions.

Um but the the utility fund um as a whole is uh is healthy with the healthy fund balance, but also healthy fund balance reserve.

And what this also includes, what I want to um mention to council and um the citizens is that the rate adjustments that were presented to the city council uh in the forecast uh back in uh December, November and December, those have not changed, those have stayed the same.

And then as we go through um the coming uh summer and fall, we'll be revising those, but taking a look at what our actuals come in.

But just wanted to let you know that these rate adjustments are the the same rate adjustments that were presented to uh council um back in December and November of last year.

Okay.

So with that, the next slide compares the changes from adopted budget of 2526 to the proposed budget here.

And as you see, um the uh net sources and uses improves due to the capacity fee, also the ending reserve and our uh percentages uh um increase um and become uh a healthy reserve towards the end of the uh the forecasted period.

But the major um contributor to that as I mentioned is the capacity fee and and adopting that.

So with that, I want to move forward.

Brian, before you leave there.

Do we was there something in there about the state shared revenue that we receive in this budgeting forecast?

You know, we have our three funding streams TPT, state shared revenue, and the utility fund transfer.

I didn't hear about what monies we receive from state shared revenue or thank you, Mayor.

Um so the state shared revenues goes into the general governmental fund, and those are three the three three.

Sorry, the three sources that we receive are the income tax or urban revenue sharing, the a share of the state sales tax, and also the vehicle license tax.

So those those three revenue sources go into the general governmental fund.

Um what is in here, which you mentioned about the general fund transfer, that is part of this forecast is the general fund transfer from the utility fund into the general governmental fund, and that is part of the forecast also.

Okay.

Carry on.

So moving on to the five-year capital improvement program.

What I wanted to show here is this is the capital improvement program that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, but putting numbers to the presentation.

Um this is for the five-year capital improvement program, so fiscal years 27 through 31.

And what we did here is by category.

So you can see the general government, um, parks and culture, public safety, transportation, and utilities uh by category, and then down below we also have some operations and and maintenance as as part of that uh plan is mentioned.

The so the first fiscal year, fiscal year 2627 is what we are looking at, including to include into the budget for 2627 that council would adopt as authorization.

It doesn't mean that we'll be spending it, but it's authorization to spend.

The rest of the the program is just a plan that would be adopted as part of the CIP, um, which is part of the charter for council to adopt the five-year plan.

But as mentioned before, those those can change depending on priorities, depending on funding, things like that.

But the first year is what we would look to include the 2627 into the uh a budget considered for adoption in uh May and June.

And just to highlight the utilities there does also include the capacity fee projects.

So moving on to the next slide.

This is the same type of numbers, but this is the funding source.

So as you see, we've got some uh enterprise fund uh cash projects.

Some of those are um Falcon Field as we consider part of the enterprise, but also some of the utilities.

Um we have general fund cash uh for some of the projects, uh, general obligation bonds, grants, joint ventures, the joint ventures is uh the um the greenfield water work reclamation plant, um, and then restricted there is uh transportation.

So we consider transportation funds as restricted because it's part of the the sales tax and HERF.

So that is what uh majority of that is uh restricted is the transportation funds.

And then we then you see down there the the utility pledging capacity fee as far part of the funding sources.

So mayor and council, we wanted to break it down and show it to you this way.

I think it was actually council member go forth who had um raised this as we were talking about the CIP a few weeks ago, and so just want to give you a snapshot uh to so you can see the diverse funding sources.

I know sometimes a lot of times we we just think of the geo bonds and how that fits into it, but this is a reflection of kind of that overall all the different um sources that come in to fund our capital improvement program.

Hey Scott, this is Council Member Taylor.

I just was curious to know um do we ever as a council receive a very simplified or is is it on our website even?

Because I I don't think I've looked for this list of proposed projects by department for the coming year with when we approve the the total amount of the funds to be used for various projects.

Do we have some sort of list that's like you know, for transportation, here's the 10 things we want.

Here's what we want to do for aquatic centers.

That kind of a very easy to understand.

Yeah, mayor, council member Taylor, yes, we do.

We can get you and get you a copy of that um where we have our our detailed well might be the the tougher uh the tougher, but we do have a comprehensive list in our CIP plan that breaks it down by department and all the different projects planned for that fiscal year, so that when you actually adopt the CIP concurrently with the budget, it those are the list of projects that are being assumed that would have an expenditure this coming year.

I I mean I think we have the five years, but I think I had asked for just what we're voting on if we could just get that.

And I think that's what you're asking for, Councilmember Taylor, right?

Just to call that 20 seconds, exactly.

Yeah, so I mean, because you you give that comprehensive, and that's awesome because we get to see all five years, but it's kind of all together, and we have to pull out for the next fiscal year that we're actually voting on.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, we're gonna do that.

Yes, Mayor, council member go forth.

But I I want to kind of preface that too, is that you're actually also voting on the capital improvement program, which is required by the charter.

So that's why we give the five year is because you're voting on that as the capital improvement program, which is required by the charter for council to adopt a five-year program.

And so that's why we include all that.

We can definitely get you a uh um try to get you a simplified um fiscal year 26-27 projects by department, and we can work on that to present to council or to to give to council.

But that's why we include the five years because of the adoption of the plan.

Okay.

That that is the distinction between the budget, because you're you're literally only voting for the upcoming fiscal year when you adopt the budget.

But with the CIP, uh that is as mandated by state law, that's a five-year look ahead on that.

That's our charter.

Excuse me.

Yeah, under the charter.

Um that that we're required to do that.

And so that's so that may not from my point of view, I don't know about councilmember Taylor.

That may not be necessary because you did name several of the large projects that for next year.

Um, you know, you didn't pull it out all of them out, but you did name several of them in our last in the presentation for that.

So for for me, I'm fine.

I don't know about it.

Let us see though what we can we'll we'll take that information that we gave you previously, see if there's any other um key projects that we should highlight in addition to that.

So let us see before um we get to the adoption if if there's some additional information we can give you.

Why don't you break down utility pledge?

Remind us what that is and how that works.

So, yes, mayor, council member, the utility pledge is the obligation.

So when council just previously, um I think a week or two ago approved the sale of um some bonds and uh utility obligations, that's what we use for um funding the utility projects itself.

So for instance, um we're taking out utility pledge for some of the um repairs and maintenance for and but also we took some out for I believe the um the central Mesa reuse pipeline, but then also we're taking out capacity fee debt for the signal butte expansion.

So it's really those obligations that debt that we are um issuing for those projects itself.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you.

So this is just to show uh a graphical pie chart of the fiscal year and kind of how it is broken out in percentages for the five-year CIP summary.

And what I wanted to kind of what I wanted to um point out here is that as you see the utility capacity fee and utility pledge, that is over uh 50% of our CIP is basically utilities, and then you have all some of the other ones, the GO bonds is uh only 21%.

Um we've got the restricted funds, which is 12, which is mentioned that is uh transportation, and joint ventures, which is a good size one, too, is is at 11 percent.

So I just want to kind of show as a pie chart uh graphical representation of um what percentage of those are per the categories.

Brian, how do you see that utility capacity fee and utility pledge mix changing over time?

Is it is it just gonna be the same nine percent, or do we think more of the capacity fee is gonna pick up for the infrastructure?

So, mayor and council uh mayor and vice mayor, good question.

We'd have to see how that goes because the capacity fee is for growth, so depending on how quickly the uh city grows in some of those areas, um it could over time start diminishing.

And then the utility pledge may grow, but we'll probably see it fluctuate with until the city goes into um kind of a um build out stage, and then we'll probably it'll fluctuate, but I'm not sure if it'll fluctuate to where a majority of it is utility capacity.

Uh, but I do believe that that nine percent will start fluctuating here and there.

Okay, thank you.

So, kind of wrapping up the budget, final finalizing the budget.

A couple of points I wanted to make here.

Um we've kind of talked about it is carryover.

So, what I want to mention about carryover is uh the state statute kind of require requires that all expenditures occurring in the fiscal year be included in the annual legal appropriation, and that's what the state calls the budget.

So as um uh Mr.

Smith was talking about that it is required that um it's kind of an expenditure limit, and then the expenditures related to projects and contracts that will not be completed at the year end.

Uh wanted to show here some of the carryover.

So in fiscal year 26-27, we're budgeting the budget includes a 446 million dollar carryover, and uh significant amount of that is capital projects.

And just to give you a a highlight of a majority of that carryover, is we have seven projects that equal about 110 million dollars of carryover, and so that's why our carryover is significant.

So one of those projects is PDHQ.

We have a couple of fire stations that we're doing that we know that aren't going to um be done by June 30th, so we're carrying those that budget capacity over.

Um, we also have uh a couple of major transportation projects that we need to carry over.

One is Ellsworth, the widening of Ellsworth, but then also the Valvista uh street uh from the 60 to Pueblo.

So those big projects, and that's why you see the carryover are part of we were budgeting them this fiscal year, but since they're multi-year projects, we need to be able to carry those that authorization over to be able to spend that in the next fiscal year.

So the next topic I wanted to talk about was contingency, and this is kind of where Mr.

Smith was always also talking about was we do include a contingency, and it is part of the uh adopted financial policies that council adopted for our financial policies, and that the city will have a contingency fund, and that is for any uh it allows capacity for unanticipated expenditures or to allow for spending of unanticipated revenues.

And what I mean by that is say we get um a grant or any funding that was not anticipated.

Um, we're able to then reallocate that contingency over to where it's needed.

It's just an authorization, it's not we're not doing any any money transfers, it's really just the authorization for whoever needs it to be able to utilize that capacity.

So, for instance, one of the big ones was CARES when we got the CARES funding, that was completely unanticipated.

Luckily, we had uh a contingency, so we're able to shift that allocation to be able to do that.

Also, some of the other ones is maybe transportation, it's a different fund.

If they have something that gets moved forward, moved up into their process um per direction by either council or uh city management, and they don't have the capacity for that fiscal year, we will let them have some of that allocation of that contingency to be able to start that project or that design, things like that.

So it helps us with um with any unanticipated expenditures or any unanticipated revenues that the city receives that are able to spend.

Is it a dollar amount?

Do you have to contingency fund or how how yeah?

So mayor, council member go forth.

It is a separate fund that we do have, it's a contingency fund, and it is uh a dollar amount that we look to have uh just just in case it has been roughly about 70 to 80 million dollars in uh the past fiscal years, and as I mentioned with CARES, we were probably down to about a million dollars in our contingency fund.

So we don't know what's going on.

So to have a healthy contingency, we've we've been able we have it on some other ones where we used it with the um Falcon Field Um storm damage.

That was about 20 million dollars.

So we were able to use some of that.

That's why we kind of keep it around there.

Um we do review it on an annual basis to see okay, what do we have going on?

What do we feel that the the right amount of contingency is?

And when for past practices, it's been about 70 to 80 million dollars.

And this and this goes back to as we were saying earlier, in expenditure authority that the but this isn't committing, we're we're obviously not trying to spend our contingency.

It's that under state law, we have to be able to account for the upper end of our spending.

And so if we did have a micro burst and we uh obviously did not budget 20 million dollars into our budget to uh plan for repairs at Falconfield um for for that, then you know we would we would then be forced with what are we going to cut in order to create capacity?

So this is just a tool to give us capacity in case uninspected expenses or grants, and sometimes they're good things, sometimes they're bad things, but the ability to spend those dollars without negatively impacting the rest of the program.

But it's not us, it's not the authorization that we still have to have the money to spend.

So adding in contingency does not boost our spending.

It's just the ability that we would have to spend money if we did receive grants or if we did need to use emergency funds.

Go ahead, Brian.

So with that, my last slide is the budget calendar.

Only a couple of steps left.

Uh May 18th is when the tentative uh budget will be presented to uh council for um consideration for adoption, and then on June 1st, the capital improvement program public hearing and adoption uh would be for council approval, then also the annual budget and secondary property tax public hearing, and then the adoption of the final budget on June 1st, and then on July uh 20th, the first council uh meeting back from break, uh the secondary property tax levy adoption would be presented to council.

And that would wrap it all up.

Council, any further questions uh for those that are distance away, Ms.

D.

Brian.

Yeah, I did have a question on slide 19 on operations and maintenance.

So those figures are allocated to the capital improvements that we're making per year.

Um that's related to the total expenditure.

I'm trying to understand what how that what that figure is.

No, thank you for the question, Mayor, Councilmember Duff.

Yes, that operation and maintenance that we have programmed in there is part of the project itself.

So for instance, when we were um budgeting for the library that operations and maintenance for staff in in future is in that number for the operations and maintenance.

It's not we try to separate those uh types of ongoing to um those projects, and so we can isolate those two.

And mayor, council member Duff, the increase for 2627 is related to the expansion at SignalBu.

So it's gonna be providing that additional operations and maintenance budget related to that expansion.

Okay, so but that is a general fund expenditure.

I I mean I'm just trying to understand it will be a mixture of funds.

So for signal butte, that's gonna be the water enterprise fund.

If it relates to um, if we look at 2728, there's an additional MR unit for fire in there that related to the geo project of the neighborhood response facility.

So depending upon where the project is being funded out of and where that operations is dependent upon then what the funding would be.

So signal butte would be utilities.

Exactly.

Okay, so the operations and maintenance, these expenditures are found in our enterprise or general fund budgets, right?

Mayor Council member.

So you're pulling them out separately and including in CIP.

Mayor Councilmember Duff, they will appear in our operations and maintenance budgets, which is gonna be your utility fund and your general fund.

So this is gonna be the cost related to these large capital projects to continue running those.

The capital expenses up top will just be to build that asset, and then the operations and maintenance would be the ongoing costs to run those facilities.

So these are the additions that we're putting into the budget because of these capital improvements.

Correct.

Okay, great, got it.

Thank you.

Yeah, mayor, council member Duff, that that's yeah another layer to make sure that we're being conservative in the way we allocate this because sometimes you have the mu the funds to build the facility, but do you have the funds to staff it and operate it?

And so we have to look at both, right?

Because even if we were to have maybe bond approval to go out and build a building, uh, do we have then the operating funds that tag along with that to staff that facility to do all the things to outfit that facility, all you know, all the things that are required for that?

Anything else, Ms.

Duff.

Um, no, sorry, thank you.

I appreciate the explanation.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Ms.

Taylor, anything else?

Um, I actually also had a question on slide 19, and Jen got some of it answered for me.

So thank you.

I was curious to know on that particular slide.

I see that general government uh what what is a general government project?

Is that like infrastructure underground or sidewalks or I'm sorry, I just don't understand that category particularly.

Great, Mayor, Councilmember Taylor.

General governmentals could be kind of more city facilities that we're looking at as general operations.

So in those numbers for like the 2627, the large projects that we're looking at is fuel station improvements at fire stations, the downtown facade of um projects, the restaurant incubator, the parking garage structural repairs that's in the budget.

So it's gonna be those city owned facilities that we're looking at from the capital side.

It thank you.

And then to follow up on that, is there any particular reason that there's just nothing listed for 3031?

Is that because we just don't know that far out what we might be?

I'm assuming I was kind of under that assumption.

Mayor, council member Taylor, that that is correct.

So there will be projects added on as we go through this over the next three or four years.

Well, you'll see 3031.

There, if we took take a look at 2627, we've identified projects like the parking garage structural repairs and or the fuel station improvements at fire stations.

There's projects that are going to pop up over the next two or three years that we're just unaware of right now.

And as those come on and we realize what those are as facilities working through their asset management planning, we'll start to build in those types of projects into the five-year planning.

So then, oh sorry.

Oh no, I was just gonna add, Councilmember Taylor.

Um of these categories, because of life cycle and and other factors, they can they can predict out several years in advance exactly when uh some of those large projects would would need would need to happen.

I think what you see on the general governmental side is that though those are a lot more of the unknowns, as as was just stated.

I mean, we talk about structural repairs that probably four years ago we we didn't know um we needed uh fuel tank replacements, and so you're gonna see again one of the one of the things that's been really important to me has been to try to get our arms around the deferred maintenance uh of city facilities.

So we're going to continue as funding becomes available to continue to chip away at that.

And and I think you'll see as we identify those, and Tony and his group and facilities have been working diligently to do that.

Um, and as funding allows, we would then be adding projects into that in order to um try to make sure that we're staying on top of that.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

Does so then based on what you just said, so that we all have an understanding, or at least just me, um, when we move out to fiscal years 28, 29, and 2930, and then the correlated operations and maintenance where it jumps up to 12.7 million and then really high to 21.5.

Are those just kind of assumed like we're budget we're quote budgeting this in as a just in case this is how expensive it could be.

We want council to give us permission to to spend up to this amount.

I guess are those just assumed prices or costs.

So, mayor, uh council member Taylor, these are estimated costs for the project.

So, for instance, we'll take um the um aquatic centers.

So when we put in the aquatic center uh for the capital, it would be up top in the in the parks and culture area.

And then also what we would do is to be able to staff and run those aquatic centers, those would be included in the operations and maintenance in that correlating fiscal year, either before or during that fiscal year, depending on when the staffing is.

Same with what we do with um fire stations, for instance.

So in fire stations, the fire station would be in the public safety category, but then to staff a the fire station, those personnel would be in the operations and maintenance in the year before.

So we know what that would be.

Um the only the the only year that we would be um budgeting for for authorization is the 26-27 year.

As I mentioned, that the next four years, that's really just a plan.

Hey, you know what?

We don't have the the funding, the city doesn't have the funding right now for it in the oper in the general governmental fund or the utility fund, and we wanted to push it out, we could push out that project.

That staffing would also be pushed out into the later years also.

So it's really just a plan.

So these are yeah, the larger, I'm I'm I was really focused on that general government just because that line looks so interesting and how we didn't have anything planned out for 3031, but we had an operations and maintenance planned out for 3031.

And so I was guessing these are just estimations that you have, but they could obviously fluctuate or change as we're coming into that fiscal year.

Am I correct in that understanding?

Mayor Council Member Taylor, that is correct.

The it could change as as um mentioned when if when we go through this process next year, and a project might pop up, or when we go through this process, I know um we'll be coming back to council in a couple of weeks on the um the 26 bond package.

If some projects pop up that are going to be in fiscal year 3031, then that number would fill in, that year would fill in, and then if there was any operations and maintenance, we would then also put that in that column also.

So it can fluctuate depending on uh what the priority is and how we review it every year to see what uh projects are needed.

Mayor, Councilmember Taylor, uh some clarity to it too for those numbers that you're looking at.

If they're ongoing, what you're seeing there is a cumulative total.

So with the 3.8 million that's in 2627, anything that's ongoing is then gonna move through that five-year forecast.

So that's why you see that kind of stair stepping upwards because it's oh okay.

Those additional OMs get brought on.

Got it.

That was super helpful.

Yeah, I was trying to.

That was you answered my next question.

Well done.

Um, my only other question is maybe I missed something, but I just I can't stop looking at how giant that carryover fund is.

Um and we have a big reserve fund too.

I know this is a very broad question, but have we considered anywhere in our current um forecast where we could use some of those funds to offset any deficits that we would be going into this coming year?

So thank you for the question.

Mayor, council member Taylor.

The carryover is actually obligated funds already.

So it's either we have something in contract, uh, a purchase that um we we did a purchase in June.

However, we're not going to receive it and pay it until July or August, so we have to carry those funds over, or even projects, uh multi-year projects.

As I was going through those seven projects or multi-year projects that equal about 110 million dollars in carryover, we're already contracted to do those projects, so we have to carry those funds over.

So about uh all of that is actually already obligated uh for us to to uh carry over and spend.

I see.

Okay, that answers that question well.

Thank you.

I have no other questions right now.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh budget overview, very necessary.

It's very complex, and we always have lots of questions.

I I think everyone appreciates our due diligence and everything you do.

It's it's critical.

With that, uh council, we have two appointees to the historic preservation board, Mr.

Welker, and Miss Lineman from for the DRB design review board.

Is there a motion for that?

Thank you, Mr.

Adams.

Thank you.

Mr.

Reddy, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

That motion passes.

Next is the receipt of board and committee minutes, which are the economic development advisory board, audit and finance, design review board.

Is there a motion for that?

Thank you, Miss Goldforth.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

That motion passes.

Along with next is current advanced and conferences attended.

Council members, do you have anything you wish to share?

Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

Even though I'm not there, I'm still gonna butt in.

Um I'm uh sorry I'm out of town today, but um, I will be back in town uh for this weekend because it we have Mesa Amplified, which is a music festival going on in downtown Mesa.

And um, and I just wanted to note this is in addition to the longstanding and now the largest free emerging artist festival in the country, which will be held in October this year, which is the Mesa Music Festival.

So we have two festivals going on, and um, this is we'll have the Ataris playing on Saturday night.

There's uh music throughout downtown and the businesses and a neon down dance party tomorrow night.

So check it out and downtown Mesa.com.

Um, I'm sure it's all over social, but we're very excited to bring this music festival to downtown.

Thank you.

Well, I think the DMA was is very engaged in that, and thank you for your leadership because it'll help support your downtown businesses here.

Miss Taylor, anything you'd wish to share.

I I do not have anything, but thank you for asking.

Anybody at the dais?

Sure.

Let's go for it.

Share with us.

Um I got to read to third graders, I think they were third second or third graders at uh Red Mountain Ranch last week for Arbor Day, and that was great.

Um they're they're at K3 STEM Academy.

And um doing really well out there at Red Mountain Ranch.

And then I welcome the Alpha Delta Kappa for Outstanding Women Educators here at the Delta Hotel over the weekend.

It's a great group of ladies, um uh former educators and current educators.

Um I attended the board meeting for Boulder Mountain Community with um Tyson Matheny.

That's the Irish pronunciation.

Most know him as Matheney, but he he could he said he goes by either one, but it's Irish and it's Mathany.

So anyway, Tyson, um, I'm uh uh is doing a great job again going around to the communities along the perimeter of our um wildlands to make sure that they're fire-wise, and so I appreciate his efforts.

I was there with him.

And then I attended the Longbow Stakeholders meeting yesterday.

We continue that the city continues to really put a lot of effort and resources into coming up with a vision for longbow.

And so I appreciate all the staff time and effort that went into it.

They did a phenomenal job.

We had 60 people, it was a great turnout.

Uh, so I'm really excited to see the outcome of the comments, and they did breakout sessions, focus groups, small groups, and uh I think it went really well.

And I just want to tell staff how much I appreciate the the effort and the time that they're putting into this.

And I hope our residents recognize um that you know how how important this area is, and that we've identified it as an important opportunity area, and um we're really trying to make something of it.

So and then today we have we run Mesa at Smith Junior High with Nicole Laba, who we all know um does such a great job getting those kids active and engaged um at school.

So I think Mr.

Summers will be there over, we'll be there with me.

Anybody else?

She tried to act completely.

I don't know.

She's trying.

Anyway, thank you.

Very good.

Vice Mayor.

Sure.

So yeah, I totally worked really quickly.

Um I did a few things uh on behalf of the mayor's office, some greetings.

One was uh Mesa PD and Global Ties.

Global Ties works with international police departments on coordination uh and education efforts this year.

It happened to be Mexico, which was fantastic.

They had the opportunity to see our fusion centers, our real-time crime centers, some of the technology that we uh are integrating, but most importantly, talk about how we uh take care of our officers because it really is about the officers uh on the street that matter.

On that point, I said guys to the Mesa PD 20 years of service and promotion ceremony.

Congratulations to all our officers uh who were recognized uh either for their heroic actions uh or um the their promotion of one purple heart was actually handed out uh that day.

That's very rare, thankfully uh it was to someone who did very well uh with the injury.

Uh, we hope not to have to hand out another Purple Heart, but you know, it's part of the job.

Um also uh had the opportunity.

Scott Conn was is you know, for an IT guy, Scott Conn has is so excited.

Um he hosted the Western Regional Innovation and Technology Alliance.

I know he sent an email to council.

I I gave a brief five-minute uh welcome to Mesa uh and um told everybody to shop downtown.

Jen for you, leave your money in downtown.

Thank you.

So appreciated that.

But the Western Regional uh they they do benchmarking and efforts, collaborative efforts for our technology and innovation here.

And then uh finally I gave uh some welcoming remarks and participated in an Ireland uh delegation who are very interested in what's going on in Arizona with uh our supply chain and chip manufacturing throughout the valley.

So they had the opportunity to tour ASU, the ITSD building, uh, as well as uh some of the business that are around here.

So I participated in that conversation.

Sounds like you're about as busy as I was.

I felt it.

Yep.

So I'll just share with you a week from today.

Appreciate everybody uh coming and sharing a lot of highlights there.

It just shows how fantastic our city is, all the great things.

All the things that we're innovative with our workforce development, it blew people away.

And I I attended a couple other state of the cities this past year, and I had to have to say uh we stand out.

I we're top at tip of the spear on that.

So thank you to all the departments, police and fire, um, economic development, Mr.

Butler, your team.

Fantastic.

Along with that, uh I did an Arbor Day book reading at Robeson Elementary, third graders, and then we had National Volunteer Week, spoke at that, and Mr.

Butler and I returned last night from a GPEC executive mission, and Miss O'Donnell is on her way home this morning.

So that was very informative, learned a lot of stuff.

Uh, one thing I reached out with uh Honeywell Corporation in Arizona, I was uh amazed at how much they do in Arizona, and I challenge them, they have very little participation with Mesa, Arizona.

So we're having a conversation soon about how Honeywell can participate in career paths for uh our high school students, and they need they need employees in their businesses, and they what they build is fantastic.

So if you're on an aircraft, they probably have built uh 40 percent of the components on an air aircraft.

So safety is their minding is very much in mind with them.

With that, uh Mr.

Butler, can you share future meetings, please?

Yeah, mayor and council.

Um, first of all, thank you, Mayor, for your comments uh for staff in regards to the stay of the city.

The mayor is not exaggerating, and many of you have attended other states.

So the state of the city addresses um we have the best, and that's and that's without a doubt.

And uh folks, even at GPAC, you were talking to business leaders and community leaders from across the region, and they were they were all aware about Mesa State of the City, and those who didn't attend heard that they missed a show.

So uh we appreciate everything that goes into that.

The mayor mentioned several departments, but our Channel 11 staff who works tirelessly to produce that and get that together.

Um, really appreciate all the hard work that all of our staff uh you know.

It's a great way to spotlight the city to the business community and others in the region who may not know everything that's going on in Mesa.

So appreciate the mayor and he did a great job with that.

Um looking ahead though, uh Councilmember Duff, I appreciate you talking about Mesa Amplified.

Um appreciate everything the downtown Mesa Association's done to put put on, put together and hold this two-day music festival in downtown.

Uh a lot of activation all over the city, all over the downtown area for that.

So it'll be uh I think good weather as well.

So hopefully folks will come out and participate in that.

Uh we do have um starting on May 5th is the 20th annual Mesa Hydration Donation Campaign.

So just be ready, council, because I'm sure you'll be at a lot of photo ops for donations of water.

Great partnership between the City of Mesa and the Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

Uh that makes sure that our most vulnerable in the community have water uh during this um the tough summer months.

So appreciate all the businesses and nonprofits and and and everyone who participates in in that campaign every year.

Councilmember Heredia, a week from Friday, has his spring blast at um at uh the Roads Aquatic Center.

So he's always ready to show off his flow rider uh moves, so you can go out and see him on Friday, Friday, May 8th from 5 to 7 p.m.

But uh Mayor and Council will convene back here on Monday, May 4th uh at 5.15 for study session, followed by uh the council meeting at 545.

Thank you, Mr.

Butler.

With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Reddy.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

I ladies enjoy your time away.

Talk to you soon.

We're adjourned.