Good evening everyone.

Welcome to the very first meetings of Fast President.

Commissioner of We're gonna first get some organizational business out the way.

If they offer them and then you have a oh that we sit on the scene.

So I suppose committee and a vice chair president.

Oh, I think we both have Councillor Andrew Brah is absent, Councilwoman Graves.

Yeah.

Councilwoman Peterson is absent, Councillor Sanchez.

Chairman Taylor.

You have to be present to ask the other part.

Now the voting.

Um I'm gonna entertain a motion for the chair person.

Yeah, is there a second possible on the suit?

Are there any other nominations?

And the last with no further nomination city clerk, so I'm gonna need directly to Kathy.

I'll go to nominate Charlesman Joe Chair.

I have a second.

Is there any other nominations?

Are there any other nominations?

All in favor?

There being no further nomination to city clerk, yeah.

The vice president I'm talking about.

So now I'll be happy to take it to the go.

And Council President Rachel Miller.

We have a lot of our staff too here that's gonna be very engaged throughout this process on the council staff.

So big shout out to our chief staff and our policy folks.

Mikhail Young's Brandon and folks from our locations office.

So we're gonna I'm gonna ask for a motion uh to uh take some things order.

Um I guess we're shouldn't take item seven and eight out of order second seven you want to continue.

Yes.

So we'll seven will continue that for us and then to item eight.

Okay.

Um so I'll uh entertain a motion to continue uh to continue item seven.

So second.

Thank you.

Uh now uh motion to uh take item eight out of order.

So move to seven.

Thank you.

Uh by uh we think of item eight.

And uh is anyone here from the administration or uh uh folks that are gonna present on item eight.

Um we're gonna discuss it more in in the budget conversation, but since we have folks uh here specifically for item eight, I want to keep all waiting here all night.

So um anyone's gonna testify.

You can get it this morning uh now and take these lovely seats.

Um yeah, that's easier for folks.

Please raise your right hands.

Do you swear when you can see the emergency that's what I'm about to do?

This is true.

Oh, truth.

I do can please state the name since I was working on our street up.

So we have seen Chief from Halls.

Thank you.

Wow, as soon as you guys seem so far away from now.

Thank you, uh Crystal and Elizabeth uh for coming in and so um so proposed with the operating budget was an advanced uh coordinates which establishes a technology fee for municipal court chickens.

Uh the current technology fee is assessed at two dollars per tree at ten.

However, when we gather getting into budget this year, it was discovered that the last we came to the knowledge that the vendor cost is actually six dollars per ticket.

And so for us to um to pay for this service on every ticket issued in the city of Providence, it's an additional cost of about 1.8 million dollars.

The city has gone ahead and budgeted that 1.8 million dollars because we have this technology will pass.

Uh the court administrator has rely on the software and collaborate more on what's for her and the court system.

Um exactly the first term is that uh the city has to get an increase in finance revenue since the court administrator um this and I think part of that speaker that has this tool that helps with track.

I was holding it.

Good hard.

So this court software, I came and I spoke with you guys about a year, year and a half ago.

Um it is doing wonders for the court, and it keeps everything transparent, keeps everyone engaged.

Um it keeps the court at a level that everyone can understand and follow, so it takes that secrecy away from everything.

Um so as the court receives more tickets coming through the system, we did a dramatic increase.

We started with uh violations and then we got to moving violations, the more serious um violations that you can hear in the municipal court.

Now we're ready for part of grab lights and whatever else has to come through the court.

So that way, everyone has that same transparency and opportunity uh to follow for this and thank you.

Um I know we are currently uh discussing other uh software uh interact or intersect with existing work software.

Um is the I know you guys are working through to make sure they're all on par because are those conversations it's it's actually been really refreshing to work with the new vendors uh that we can have the pipeline, which I've had for several years now.

Um I think we're out of place with the new vendors that's converged with the software where everyone's on the same page and everyone has the same mission, so it's it's been very nice to continue that method of transparency reporting and availability of that case we have with the vendors that we currently have that are discussions.

Awesome, thank you.

Um so just to clarify, I think what what's happening here.

So from my understanding, we have the existing uh that states that it's a two dollar fee, and we are updating uh this ordinance to state that it's a six dollar fee.

Is that correct?

Yes, we are requesting that we update the ordinance to cover the actual cost of the software, which is six dollars in the transaction.

Sounds good.

Um committee members they want to have questions up to meeting, so they all stop there.

The leaders the parking leaders I believe the new leaders involved in the installing function.

Yes, and like the kiosk is handyers are all set, and they can speak to the new software as well.

So everything will be in the white system very slow box.

Uh zero meeting.

Um is there any other council members here that have any questions or comments?

Uh council rotary charcoal.

Just a uh clarification in terms of the organizing from 250 to six stops.

Um what was the cost of the software?

Based on the fact that we charge six hours.

No, so the software we the city was subsidizing the cost of the software previously.

Um it was somewhat affordable because there were not all of the cases going through municipal courts.

Um, but when we started to factor in putting 330 cases through this software at $6, that loss on $4 a unit is was not something we could afford in this year's budget.

And so bringing the fee up to $6 is making the city whole for the cost of the uh impact uh the uh the residents in terms of the tickets going.

I the ticket fee itself would not go up.

This is a technology being talking.

Um does any of you have any questions about this argument?

Seeing that there's none.

Um Elizabeth, thank you so much for uh taking time to come to our uh uh committee hearing today, and of course, thank you for all that great work that you and municipal court uh does for the city.

Thank you for having me.

Um item number eight.

Uh motion by uh councilman Taylor, second by council.

Um motion uh item three is approved.

Thank you.

And now we go uh through items uh two uh six.

Um we wave the readers I uh item number two through six and uh just in the record.

Okay, thank you.

Hello, finance team.

Um, we're gonna go this way.

Let's start with just a little overview of how we are here and over crystal is free to take you through a presentation.

So we will not be going through the back UI.

Yeah, yeah, no, just two minutes.

Um just first of all, I like to come to this meeting to take a minute to thank Ms.

T and Carlani for all the hard work and this budget.

Um the process that we go through when we start is significant.

Then we need to spare hours, hours, and hours to get to this budget works so hard.

The transparency in our budget is unmatchable in the state.

So I want to start with a second.

When we went into this budget, I feel like every year I come before you would say this was on our budget.

It does take the patients harder every year.

So when we started this budget, kind of setting the table, we knew we did not have tolerance for a tax increase or any fees to guides to our residents.

We knew we had investments we wanted to make.

Some of them came from feedback from all of you, things that we've heard you say on here, which you wanted us to be doing, things that we we wanted to be calling investments we're asking for.

And we knew we we always are looking at passing the budget that we can stick to.

Um set targets that we need realistic.

So you can see in departments that we're always looking at trends and trying to match our spending to trend, but also being realistic about how we're doing that, so then we're passing a budget together that we don't have to.

So the budget you have before you as a percentage growth of one and three quarter percent, 1.75.

Um I went back and looked the previous five years average was just over four percent.

Growth of 1.75 in the context of 70 plus inflation is really good.

Um and shows how hard we work to keep the budget as constrained as possible.

Um, I'll also note that last year we got with you all a lot, so there wasn't a lot left for us to constrain.

So again, we looked at every dollar spent and said to be absolutely fists, something that provides a service to residents that we have to pay them.

Um, and then when you look at revenues, you're gonna see that our our revenues were like 0.62 percent, 3.8 million dollars net on a you know, 635 million dollar budget.

That's basically negligible.

So there wasn't a new money coming in for us to um you're gonna see that.

Crystal, that's because there were bridge productions and increases of um Crystal does this terrifying exercise where she loads all of the wish list items from departments, all of their asks into a budget and brings it to us as a starting point.

Uh this year at that starting point showed a $35 million deficit that we had to work from.

And that is just, you know, I say that to recognize that like there are always things we want to be doing.

Um, but it is unfortunately our jobs to make sure that we are managing expenses and prioritizing things and setting expectations.

And so the work we do is looking at those priorities and determining what is is um you know what we should limit, what we should invest a little bit about me.

Um and so the investments that you'll see that the mayor ultimately challenged us to figure out was our our housing package, which is good reporting already.

Crystal and Sarah to talk to you about how that's going to come through the budget, what we do we needed to provide for me to cross-carbon uh renters.

Um we wanted to always continue to invest in city services, which are great investments you're gonna see, or things that are being burned from all the new uh utilities, code enforcement, uh, you know, really small investments that people continue to move the needle.

Um and you know, I think you know, trying to make sure that the departments continue to do remote to be as efficient as possible.

So you'll see things about scanning, you'll see things about um structural.

Um the final thing that you'll see is the capital improvement plan, which is modest this year, it's only a 25 million dollar borrowing.

We've asked your committee to consider taking the CIP verbally in the process because in my experience the last three budgets, we all worked on the budget, and then we asked CIP, and everyone's just had enough.

And so we believe we have to take out the CIG first, helpful to everyone else to see that coming soon.

Those are investments in the streets and sidewalks and parks and um things in that future.

Um so with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Crystal, who will take you through this presentation to show the more claimer and carrying Sarah.

Thank you, Crystal.

Of course, sir, uh, I'd like to say um, I do want to give you guys a huge shout out for your IT department as well, or our IT department.

Super uh user-friendly um here, anyone here uh has uh access that I guess we've got to see uh portal.

Um just in the sense of transparency, uh we have uh to actually uh here CIP uh next Thursday.

So folks could start planning for that.

Take us uh through all your magical work, Chris.

Wonderful, thank you, Chairman.

Uh Mr.

Chair, or can we uh budget into something?

I'm sorry, uh before we continue.

Can I uh hear a motion to uh call it item exhibit one?

Uh group button by consumer two, second meetings, five, thank you.

All in favor, any opposed uh will all my council colleagues have to back here to follow along uh such a go ahead, Crystal.

Wonderful, thank you, Chairman.

Um so as the chief alluded to earlier, the budget process begins in November of the prior year.

Um we began working on our plan in November for a budget workshop.

That often was the first ever actually with all of our CIP budgeters, and it was a really interactive and wonderful experience.

It was a full two hours, they had tons of questions.

Um, and you will see in the new CIA budget book that there's a lot of additional project details that not be able to easily provide, but I think we'd be actually helpful to this committee and council and general public as a whole.

Um we then move into December where we have our operating budget workshop.

So it's a similar concept over the department, what the expectations of deadlines are for the government operating budget even.

Uh CIP budget submissions were due to January 2nd.

I was a very hard sticker on that deadline despite it being after a holiday most people take.

Um, I will say that all of our departments met actually both the operating and CIP, everyone got their budgets in the on time and in the right format, which is first in my career division budget.

Um, and I was just so proud to be on a team that was like willing to be able to participate and do that.

There was a lot of work that was into this department's pretty treatments on the work and thought into what they're asking for in the upcoming year.

Uh so once we have the budget submissions back, uh, the button market analysts and I have been living to rant, we review the submissions, we're gonna be together, sit down with departments and make sure we understand what it is that they're trying to do.

Um, you know, one of our biggest roles in finance is to advocate on department's behalf that there's you know presenting the budget too, but they may or not be there or may not be in the room.

And so those important meetings are extremely helpful in understanding what our controls and initiatives are for the upcoming fiscal care.

Once we have that gathered and populated, we prepare uh the master finder uh for the mayor and senior district indeed leadership to go through all the budget proposal.

Um as often mentioned, we start with about a 35 million dollar deficit that we can slowly chip delay through.

Um, basically up until April 3rd, right before Western.

Um we spent the next couple of weeks balancing the budget, getting the ordinances ready, and so that they would be comfy into the clerk and maybe see what you're talking about.

Um we are now in the committee hearing phase of this this process, which you're all very familiar with.

Um here is much more committee so that we can only make first and second passage in early June and getting tax bills out as quick as we can only by July 1st.

Um it's really important to us that taxpayers have that bill as soon as possible and giving them here so that they have adequate time to make their payments.

Um, oftentimes when bills are delayed, it results as financial hardships for folks who haven't necessarily been into maybe two quarters of payments by December April.

Any questions on that time?

Um operating budget of just over $635 million.

This budget takes two years for a few things.

One, it's funding PPSD in accordance with our side agreement, which is uh a major accomplishment.

I believe this is the second year in a row that the city and the district have budgeted the same amount of funding from the city of Clark, which I think is a great accomplishment.

Additionally, it is a balance budget, and it includes $100,000 incorporation to the review date fund, which is required by the instructions.

We just wait till it's the end, or is there a different sections?

So there's different sections in here for um you know different sections of the budget.

But if you'd like to ask questions as they have arise, I'm happy to do that unless you have to reform that.

That works for me.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so the biggest person draft one for the city is tax revenue.

That revenue is a way from our tax, which does change year over year.

The fiscal year 2027 levy is the proposed levy is a reduction from last year, which is um of first in my experience of the city project.

Um the chart included on this sheet uh shows the levy change by category.

Um, I have summed up real estate so we can see how that tax category is comparing to tangible personal property.

I've also listed the current tax rates, which are unchanged from fiscal year 2026.

Uh tax revenue in fiscal year 2027 is budgeting increased by 7.3 million dollars for what we want to be settled to spent.

This is not due to natural growth and typically see in the budget year.

This is due to a increase in the student rate of collection of these taxes.

So if you all recall in this year 2026 budget, um, while we were preparing to pass on that budget, Roger Williams Medical Center was going through some financial troubles.

We knew that we um it would be in the best interest and we should be issuing a bill to Roger Willows Medical Center, although they felt confidently that it could not be in fiscal year 2026, and so we reduced the collection rate to account for the fact that we may not be receiving that revenue.

Um that is looking like a smart move based on where we're at today, and that is how we're able to partially balance 2026.

Um so uh this additional change in revenue is resulting or this change in collection rate is resulting in additional revenue for $73.

Um, so so what are we what's changing, I guess, to expect that we'll be able to go back.

Well, the project center is not being fixed.

It's not in the levy, it's not in the tax stabilization number.

So we have a cleaner levy going into this year than we had last year.

That that was been mitigated, and so what we went and looked at historical trends on tax collections and felt very confident that 94.

So the collection rate is just a calculation of like the dollars that people knew we're gonna get out of the total levy.

So now that Roger Williams Medical Center is in the denominator, the rate could come up because um it's not being brought down.

And you know, the reason we talked about this in the day last year, but just to make sure it's clear the reason we did that was that we wanted to be able to have a legal avenue, which we still have to pursue that money, we'd taken it out of the levy.

We wouldn't have a check to the stop.

So putting it in the levy and reducing the collection rate is a way to pursue for you know to preserve our legal options while also not budgeting for money that's uh things, Courtney.

Well, we're on this topic real quick.

What's um we're gonna have a conversation?

I know there's been talks and negotiations and has that come before the pilot.

Is the agreement with the the new owners?

I guess by understanding there's money owed.

So there's there's like two pounds of money.

There's the pre-petition money that was owned and then the post-bankruptcy money.

They paid the pre-petition money.

Um the post-petition money has to be handled in bankruptcy court.

Um, and so in that court is in Texas, and so we will have lawyers represent us in Texas.

Um agreement as part of the transaction, the operator committed to negotiating the files in the state that is okay.

Thank you.

Uh state revenues.

Uh the state is a tier date funder for the city of government budget.

Um the 2025 staff 32 million dollars in state revenues.

2026 is above 13 million dollars.

Uh, however, most of that pick up is attributed to two things.

One is mainly leverage tax, which is pass-through tax, um, and is based on consumption in the city of province, which is up.

The other is full debt construction payments, which while it's reported as an increase, the city is actually receiving $1.5 million less than it should be receiving with school debt construction.

The governor did not believe fund the cost of reimbursing all cities and towns for their school construction in this over 236.

And as a result, the city's reimbursement for prior debt service paid is going to be paid over a three-year period in time.

That is a $1.5 million to our operating budget this year.

Additionally, there is a plan to phase the reimbursement for our revolving fund expenditures into a three-year repayment period.

So if you're not familiar, um in 2022, the city school district established a capital revolution fund for the benefit of governments and local schools.

Since 2023, that 22, that fund has successfully involved 25 million dollars in school capital projects.

So that $8 million today has turned into $25 million in school projects, $6 million, and on top of that, we're anticipating $60 million for this fiscal year.

We would typically be reimbursed for all such million dollars of that spend in next fiscal year so that we can plan and spend and utilize those dollars into forms in that care.

And unfortunately, we're only going to be getting one-third of what we expected to receive, which means that next year we can do less projects over the three-year period of time.

It's about $14 million in lost projects for the city programs of that production.

So quick question.

So is that a decision that was made last year, or is that negotiations right now at the same house?

Is there a world of received more than that?

There is a world in which the yes, the legislature does add additional funding to the this pool of funds and that the cities or all cities and towns are available.

This is affecting not just profit and moving forward to see if we need some very significant hits.

Anyone that's been doing a lot of school construction.

Yes, yes, really.

Anyone who's been doing a lot of school construction is really feeling that this year, particularly schools that are completing this year, are um I think struggling to make some service payments.

Um additionally, we are taking a $2.6 million hit on uh payment taxes to be the state.

Uh that is a direct result of the reduction in the commercial tax rate.

Uh there's currently legislation um that we're hoping to have passed that would increase the state pilot percentage from 27 to 30 percent.

They're estimating that that would result in um $4 million in additional revenue to the city to actually produce line into last year's budget.

Uh distressed city revenue has also been decreased, partially due to the fact that the formula that is that probably six because the terminal property means less distress aid, um, but about 400,000 of that reduction is due to providence being eligible for distress community.

Um, so the pot of funds available has not grown, but the amount of uh states and towns are pulling from it is larger than it was last year.

Oh crystal.

Um I'm pretty sure I don't really answer to this, just want to confirm.

Um, so when the city proposes their budget, you guys use uh the governor's proposed budget uh for funds.

Correct.

Yes, but we do uh sometimes take into account um trend in spend and projections and forecasting.

So for example, meal and beverage tax that means we have a higher number than what the governor is proposing, but we did some considerable analysis um and felt very comfortable that we would come in with budget.

So uh just on the thank you.

Uh revenue mentioned that speech province participating because they're uh yeah, this is a very complicated formula um driven by so many records that we did levy and all sorts of things.

Yeah, yep, wealth index, so they have now hit that threshold where they follow the province uh distress level increase or decrease based on our schools.

So ours based on the formulas, ours only have decreased naturally by about 400,000.

That was because wealthy correct.

Thank you.

Okay, on slide.

Uh departmental revenue finance is uh departmental revenue years by 2.7 million dollars of that 2.7 million dollars, 1.8 isn't is representative of the ordinance that was just or just approved out of this committee.

So thank you all very much.

Um that line with the budget.

Um fee revenues have increased by 2.3 million dollars.

Uh this is mostly uh you know better collections and better management really obviously for um earlier tonight.

We are seeing additional taxes like that.

Uh tax stabilization agreement revenue has decreased by 4.3 million dollars.

Um, some of those uh items have come on the levy.

Uh some of that was the Roger Williams Medical Center that we discussed previously.

Um, and local pilot revenues are just decreased by 400,000 for this game on payment schedule at this point in time.

They're budgeting considering that carrying alone will be 350,000 in fiscal year 2027, and is my percent look for the so the current uh pilot is through fiscal year initially fiscal year 2025.

I mean, we could if we uh assign the agreement before we get you guys are negotiating.

Benefits had a very modest increase at 1.2 million dollars, uh which we'll talk about a little bit later in this packet.

Uh debt service has gone up by monthly six million or one point one million dollars with global sixty percent.

Um school appropriation is at two point six million dollars.

Okay, additional slides on that.

Uh purchases are up amongst that supplies are developed just over half a percent.

Capital is down by $485,000.

That is due to the ARC funds that have been previously budgeted in the general fund budgeted with the property funds have been fully expended, and we're gonna push anything else.

Um there was previously also an uh revenue that was offsetting that expenditure, so both the revenue and expenditure have been eliminated in this is um is the bigger change in utilities due to uh work uh stability it is yeah, yeah.

This has been done based on um our director of energy's projections.

Um he's looking at them very thoroughly.

I can say that he is um a little concerned as of today based on the current um you know status that economic climate in the world we're seeing that things are costing more than we were gonna cost um you know in February when these budgets were submitted is like the absolute budget cost asset is something we should be maybe looking at and taking another deep dive into our check cost of living increases uh count for cost of 35.2 million dollars with the increase in salaries.

Uh there's a few buying increases for time three, which is about one point three million dollars, three point five percent increase for all money union staff, which is about something five thousand dollars.

The least union is receiving a four point two five percent increase, which costs the state about one point seven million, and the fire department is receiving a four percent increase, uh which results in about a one three million dollar increase in that.

Our medical insurance is going up by a very modest 1.3 percent.

Um, I can tell you that I've made you now to external parties because people else are seeing I know the nonprofit I'm speaking to be 16% increase in our medical insurance.

Um local with the interlocule trust, which is the trust that's responsible for insurance easy towns too is being like above the 10% increase in their local expenses.

And so um, this really is a good indicator of what the city's doing to mitigate costs and really control what is uh an expensive you know keeper unpredictable to circumstances um consigned for us going forward.

Our pension payment, uh the budgeted pension payment is increasing by 1.37 percent or uh almost 1.4 million dollars.

However, it's important to note that pension and medical expenses have been reduced by $3.5 million and disappeared 2027 because of the costs and safer grants that have for our producing firefighters.

Um we are seeing those reimbursements this year, and we are talking that we can move them to next year's budget.

So that is helping us get quite a bit of money um in the next year.

Um you guys just quickly remind uh the committee what like how long those are and what the dollar balance has to those grants are.

I don't know if I can get that for you before the public safety hearings.

Um year staffer, so there'll be two more years, but um I'll the deputy commissioner has all of this put down together, so I'll make sure we're prepared to talk.

First question.

Uh this is my uh obligatory spreadsheet I put together every year.

Uh as we know that the city's budget is is very constrained.

Um almost 97% of our costs are what are considered fixed.

Um the remaining 3.4% markets are discretionary.

We're looking on our budget of $635 million.

That's only $21 million.

Um, some examples of discretionary expenses maybe things that are a little surprising.

Um I have dropped a highlighted list of some that that might stand out to you all.

So included in that discretionary number are all of our grant expenditures, which are about 7.5 of that 21 million dollars.

Um also considered discretionary, our supplies for the animal control area, mounting command is considered discretionary, auto parts are considered discretionary.

So oftentimes these are things that are very critical of city services, however, because we can turn them on or turn them off or dial them up and down and consider discretionary.

So would you consider all supplies discretionary?

No, because some of them are tied to you know certain contractual requirements.

Um what I have done in well, I will kind of commend this administration a few years ago.

I said I need a budget tool, and they said go for it.

Um, and so since we've had this budget tool available, I've been able to create consistent reporting and coding certain costs that fixed or discretionary so that I can do it, apples to apples and person year over year of how these trends are moving.

Um, and it's been tremendously helpful, I think, to everybody to understand kind of what builds this budget.

Um, you know, we've been in a great place where we've been able to reduce our discretionary costs by about 30 percent, but eventually this 21 million dollars is going to, you know, we're already down nine million dollars.

It's not right there.

Yeah, it's it's just a little scary.

So I just want everyone to be kind of aware of what we kind of look into and where the the levers are it is very difficult to work within our community.

I appreciate that.

So I think that's something that we can all uh continue to do while we host community meetings and public hearings.

Um fully transparent community.

We know people here are $650 million budget.

It is a lot of money, but when we break it down to what we can actually uh change or increase or decrease um, there is a very limited pool of light.

So I think we're messaging and communicating that are um based uh it's again she had uh moving ask your screen.

This is our biggest expenditure in our operating budget to spend education.

Uh this year's uh budget has been uh proposed at gosh, how do I not have this number off the top of my head?

Um it's a $2.6 billion increase over last year's budget or 1.8 percent.

Um this increase represents 24% of the total budget increase in this year 2027.

So allowing uh the city has to enable you know a huge portion of its resources or available resources directly to the school department.

Um, this is in accordance with the settlement agreement.

Um, at the time the budget was proposed, uh, we only had the governor's recommended budget, which was shown about a 1.8% increase.

Uh while I was working on this precipitation today, I discovered that the state had actually updated their enrollment numbers, which does update the state eight number.

Um state aid is now adding 2.2 percent increase.

So, in order to meet the city's obligation under the settlement agreement, we will need to find about $544,000 in this budget for the next couple of months uh to meet the terms of that agreement.

Um the number will likely change again for the final budget, so I think that's another thing that we're going to have to think about in the plan for.

Um, we are committed to matching whatever the state increases to education throughout the state, and so depending on what happens with the final budget number, we're required to pay different difficulty.

So, what do you think the anticipated timeline on that is uh usually has a budget done by by June first?

I think so.

Yeah, it's usually depends your year.

Um comments.

I would say uh the first test is to like we know at a minute bottom.

We need five to five hundred feet for first test as we're going through budget system.

I will say the up the good news of this is that as a result of the margin, the district is receiving additional aid, so their aid has gone up six hundred thousand dollars.

They are still receiving less DVD than they received last year, but it's only a four million dollar reduction, we're gonna be two reduction.

Yeah, just a reminder to sell and size are increased to be increased to the state and just and I will say even a two percent increase is significantly less than what we had forecasted.

The average increase in the past few years was over five percent, and so um, you know, there's some exposure there, but uh you know think this is one period that we have to risk going into 2027 and it's too work out from our feet.

Okay, it's a really good exercise for all of us because we are committed to increasing the age of schools annually because it's the right thing to do, and we don't want to get into position for way behind all of our making.

So thinking about like what percentage of our levy should go to schools is a thing that I'm interested in trying to figure out solution going forward.

We have a 10 million dollar growth in our levy and it's 25 percent.

We know that's what so I think it starts to help us practice that and do it in next year.

Um hopefully get to a place where schools can take the spectacles.

Chief, has there um has there ever been a year where there's not a lot of growth in the levy?

Like this year.

Oh, this is a year to refer to the crystal assessment.

We check and assess the record.

Um we'd like to say forecast because we do the five-year clear.

Well, we don't know that we believe in a non revalue.

At least the number that's completely making additions in that category.

I don't think greater than two percent and not re-value value.

We can't take it until that's because these value this is unique year.

This is the stag and discuss that breed of detail when we get to that period.

Um your colleagues have any questions on education question.

Okay, I know we've start on the education uh any projection in terms of what uh is eventging to the school account's uh funding.

Uh two reveal.

They're still working.

Yeah, okay.

They are scheduled.

Yeah, uh towards the end of May.

Um, there are some what were previously fixed costs that have been reduced.

Uh the first are landfill fees, that is we pay to random risk recovery for processing our trash.

Um, they've reduced them by 500,000 by 10 percent.

We are already seeing this fiscal year better compliance and most likely due to these new parts, and so we're cautiously optimistic that we'll get the state residents' money as a result of this new initiative.

Um also are some others, the inspection board research.

Like I've never seen you know, we have new environmentally inspection work that's being done to help residents understand where they're recycling law and fix it, is like come by with the parts.

It's exactly the right mention, it's really extended until you use the deal and um encourage all of you to like get involved in that because we're going out for awards because it really is I was gonna get a I was gonna get a blog until we said it's uh meeting about five a yeah.

I'll know how we go further with that little week.

Um, budget is thinking about 1.4 million dollars due to the uh current pending acquisition of 444 Westminster Street.

Um and additionally, because we have renegotiated the revenue generated camera fees or bid for those services, we are expecting to save about 124 million dollars to receive the same amount of revenue.

Uh so proposed to that fund uh uh so this prepared one budget and ex million dollars in funding for happy reports supports to be funded by the bill of funding funding semester I'll mention.

Uh the city's charter does require the proceeds from the sale of all capital assets to be just five-fitted into the capital asset fund.

That's when we 50 cents.

Um the city administration will be working with this team to submit an ordinance that's going to request that the funds associated with these transactions be transferred to the city's general fund.

This will help us free up dollars that were pending plan to pay for existing debt service, and we will use the debt service fund that we're planning on paying to cover these housing supports.

Um so that includes a million dollars for the rent fund, five hundred thousand dollars for advice defense, five hundred thousand dollars for the IS rebonding fund, and fifteen thousand dollars for land fund education.

So we're gonna bring a new ordinance after like those buildings quotes that will make this change, and that will need to be a fundamental five budget.

We can't we couldn't include in this budget until those funds into this account, so that will happen the first will happen in May and the second property.

So anyone have a question about that.

Okay, multiple times.

Okay, so this is the one that that we talked about.

Um, people are already asking where do they go for the money?

I have no clue.

We've find out tell me so I can go get it too.

But um so this is not, and I told them you hadn't came before anything.

So we're not closing anything.

So I think the new budget.

When we pass the new budget, we will have at least the first time.

So do that.

Yeah.

By the time um we we have the ordinance and then we gotta uh still RFP uh vendors.

I mean, probably the early follow up saving.

We could if if we close it early May, like we could actually move this ahead if we wanted to.

So I think let's we can work together to determine that.

The team is like team up um we'll be ready to go.

So it is mostly about the closing of e-semester.

That would give us the first month of night, and then speaking back to one.

Um, just a quick question on this.

Has has this process been done before where we sell property and uh it goes to uh this uh capital assets fund and then council introduces an ordinance to make sure those funds go somewhere else.

That's been done.

That's like the most recent example.

I think six years ago.

Right, yeah, we should prevent each other.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so it came from property sale that we use the response that's correct, which is a lot of the points.

Um yeah, but but the every time you set a bill at the property and it doesn't go through the PRA throws to 856, and then for those funds to be allocated to something, it comes before transforms.

Yes, and that is the sale of any capital.

Right, so vehicle, like scrap metal, all sorts of things go into this fund.

Can expenses in that fund be used uh for anything that does a require council movement?

No, there are no expenditures in that fund.

So it only holds revenue, and then with council people transfer expenditures out to the general funds for our desk for Mr.

Calvin.

Thank you.

Um a good chunk of that is tied to reps.

Yes, so I believe there was one call for that, but there is at least the five million dollars that is respect to the support building, so that money must stay in the fund and fund balance until that's done.

Um that appropriation happens annually as part of the appropriation ordinance.

Um we're just going to get that you know CR so we can ask your question.

More the better.

Thank you.

Assuming that there will be no decal to the closing of either on these investor.

Um I don't know if people allocate exist for the buyers to be required to pay sometimes funds.

Is the city still then sort of on the hook?

Should not, or is this allocation dependent on we don't have any reasons to put it?

Thank you.

Um there's some large investments in this year's budget.

Our $50,000 uh festival fund that is in the archival chairman's order budget.

Uh this is a funding source that's used to assist cultural customers in their operating expenditure.

We realize these are a tremendous resource for the city and its residents, and so we want to be support of them.

Oftentimes they're remote very tight budgets, and so we want to make sure that we can help them drive particularly as we're getting into the summer season.

Additionally, there's a 272,000 dollar investment into the EISD and ink fund.

This is another really critical modernization that Director Moore has been working on.

Um we have currently completed 1950 to 1985, but this next tranche will get energy considerably further back in this path towards modernizing and digitizing all of those records.

Um, and encourage you to talk about it at least here because it's got some pretty exciting ideas for TIS.

Uh, there's also 77,000 invested in winter storms.

Uh, some of this is for additional and better quality equipment next year.

There's also a modest um budget for improved traffic technology and vehicles at about $32.

Uh, our reporter deep office has been interested in the budget property or technology.

This is uh going to protect property owners and departments for work equity if their titles are touched on their properties that they can um get ahead of any potential fraud.

Um, oftentimes our properties are helping the belt on my largest assets, and so doing this is really protecting for uh there's a modest three thousand dollar increase to each community center total thirty thousand dollars for each summer.

I believe this is the first time we're gonna use the space era.

No, they're two years fourteen years, so they're also certainly gone up for those periods of time, and this is just our shop.

Uh there's also some investments in SRV and EMS here.

Uh we can subscribe to the unfortunate round shipping and also make sure that our staff are as safe as possible when responding to events.

Um so there is $90,000 for SLUR officers and 48,000 dollars or $49,000 for the MSPers that are unfortunately have to research.

Um capital plan in detail next week, which we can give you a sneak peek of what you can expect.

Um first things first, uh Clerk may give you a little light reading.

Um the one that I've been and all of our departments have worked and working tremendously hard is our capital improvement plan book.

I really do encourage you to look through it.

We have had all of our departments put together project pages for projects that they're particularly proud of.

So you can see now where those projects are at the queue.

You can see pictures, some of them are glimmers, some of them are not very exciting.

Parks managed to fit some red pantas in.

Um so you know, this is just a really great guide note for you and our residents to see where our capital dollars are going.

It's something that I think we haven't been doing the best job of until now, and it's something I personally have been trying to make sure that we're doing much more transparent offer.

Um, so the the proposed CIP includes uh funded projects, but it also includes quite a few of my qualities projects.

These are things that we need to be thinking about all organization for the resources out there to act when we so in the proposed DIP 731 million dollars is proposed.

Um I have been in the schools of cities and please go for at least 10 over a billion dollars in school in construction for the next five years, which is a tremendous amount of construction push out.

Um definitely will be following issues in the city.

Uh another very exciting piece of this is uh chainability, which I don't think has ever been able to do with the CIP previously.

The cream revolving funds project for capital equipment.

And so we have included some of the projects they would like to pursue in the capital improvement plan for next year.

Should that release approved?

We want them to be able to actually be possible on these lot of the IRA credits tied to them, and so we need to be making sure that they're getting all of our depths in a row so that we can get the maximum credit on those projects.

Do everyone have uh council water watching it.

Uh just for transparency, we're we actually think we're going up here in uh in your committee at some point, but very, very different.

Wonderful.

Yes, I'm looking forward to that happening.

Um, as you can see on slide 21, this is one of the most proposed changes to travel proof plan.

Um most projects are subject to that ordinance patent, so we should have that done prior to the CIPA option.

Um additionally, the restriction is proposing to make federally no CIP.

I have a detailed slide on what those projects include.

Uh, we're also requesting some amendments for our complete life ordinance, also known as NYART.

Um the city is requesting that the Department of Arts Culture and Tourism be able to extend grants to cultural facilities so that they can make facility.

Um that red land and fee version of this organization should be provided to because we think initial costs.

Uh so slide 22 detail the projects we've put on the 2025 uh CIP project clip.

Um there are 10 million dollars out of the CPW.

Most of that is in roads and sidewalks, which are very critical infrastructure.

Um, they are also planning on doing a bridge asset management plan.

We are finding that our bridge is already not with best shape they could be in, and so our chief engineer would like to do a comprehensive study of what it would take to rehabilitate and repair all the bridges in the city of the project.

There is a 7.6 million dollar allocation for property.

Um there is of that 7.6 to 2.5 million dollars would be a grant to the community libraries of province for them to upgrade and some of their disabilities.

Um most of the buildings in the CLP occupies are actually leased by the city from Providence Public Library, and we have CLPVD operate them on our behalf.

Um, pretty easily just when the expectation on CFPD will maintain and recurry those buildings.

And if we do with their monster operating budget, they're just being prepared to level beyond what they can fundraise for or do.

Um at this point in time, I'm not sure the exact projects they're looking for, but I know um the South Providence Library HVAC is on the top of their list.

Um mostly to do our HVAC, which directly benefits the city since we use a lot of the facilities as our resiliency centers for one use stations during emergent.

Uh additionally, there's $6.9 million dollars parts department, and uh the planning department says proposed a very exciting project that we can talk about over the sale next to for their redesign and applicant uh to make it more open and uh openly to be helpful, and that's that um so the timeline for completion on all of these projects in the next how big is that timeline for the 20 then it's the penny front?

Yeah, uh two years.

Yeah, really one thing that we've learned from the past three years is having consistency because we get these really book to them because most projects are on the two-year planning cycle, and so what they've had was previously value for something, and then they'd start the planning, and then a new CIP would pass moving on and starting off the thing, so nothing can work back up.

So now that we have you know a clear CIP, so I'm seeing departments just be able to move much more efficiently and deliver on the things that everyone's waiting for.

So I'd encourage you to just keep that in mind on the CIP comments.

That it's important for us to give them that predictability because everything takes longer than I think we explained people.

So most of these uh identified projects were identified a couple years ago, I believe.

Yeah, so so there's nothing dramatically new on this list.

These are, you know, like I alluded to earlier.

The CIP that we present has a lot of like future planning and needs that we know are going to be upcoming.

Right.

And so this year, when we had brought the concept of the move on to the departments, they were able to already tell us here's all of the things we want to do with our larger than what we can actually fund.

Um but but we are now in a place where to because we have so much data and analytics on what we have approved and what funds are available and how we're doing this and what we would like to do in the next five years, it makes it so much easier to make decisions and gives all of our project managers a lot of comfort that they know how much money we have to spend.

I will say candidly that when I started the process, that was an often question I got how much money do I even have left in this thing?

Um and so now that we have standardized reports, now that we have this all running through our VRP system and folding system.

Um we now have departments who are in project manager who are empowered, which is like you know, they have their own custom reports.

I make them, they can just look and see what their balances are by account.

Um much faster, say dollars perspective, if you spent expenses a little far this year, more than we had spent in the past three years in mind, and that's you know, not only due to the work we've done here, but the province of the building for me, which is actually responsible for processing these payments, it's done a lot of work on their end to make their process more frontly towards our project managers and vectors.

Um so as a whole, the city's really working hard to make sure that you know our bond dollars that you know we're paying used on and our massive investments are actually being put into anyone have any questions uh regarding CIP.

Um we own the uh communication building on the police then uh any other questions, console members?

Okay, thanks.

Is that wrapping up on your guys' expertise?

Anyone else to uh bring up thank you guys?

Awesome.

I'll take thank you.

Uh again, yes, continue two to six.

Here we go, uh items two through six.

So first by common tailor, second by council graves, all in favor?

Any days?

No, I haven't.

Um to adjourn.

I can't remember.

Second uh favor.

I have it.