Good evening.

Let us pray.

We pray for our city's leaders.

May they lead with justice and fairness on their lips.

May they hold in highest esteem the value of human life and liberty.

May they ever forget those who elected them, nor those who did not.

Many of us are worried, anxious, afraid.

Who will uphold our basic human rights?

Who will protect us from rollbacks on liberties?

Who will lead us through the shadows?

Who will remember us?

Spirit of life and love, holy presence all around.

Embrace us with your wisdom and peace.

Surround us with reassurance, fill our hearts with purpose, empower us to do what is right.

May our hearts be expanded as the time comes for us to comfort each other.

May our minds be charged with creativity as we find our way forward.

May our spirits be guided by our values.

May our lives speak.

Be they gentle and angry or loud and clear.

May we remain united in our mission as people of goodwill to connect deeply, to grow together, and to serve one another.

Blessed be.

May it be so and amen.

For those watching at home, I believe it's still accessible through the YouTube, City of Rockford government, as well as if you go to the City Rock's webpage and click on there as well.

Thank you.

I'll keep a timer going for three minutes when I say your time is up.

It will be the end of your time to speak, and you can always speak again.

First, we have uh John Tack Brantley.

John here.

Good evening.

It's on.

It's on.

Yep.

Okay.

Good evening there.

Good evening, our arguments and our citizens of Rockville, Illinois.

You know, this past weekend was uh Father's Day uh weekend, but I just want to bring y'all back to uh where we are today with uh Donald Trump.

You know, in South Africa they call it a Pak Dye.

Here and uh in the United States, we call it Jim Crow, or another nice polite word is called white privilege.

Here we uh got Camp Grant.

Camp Grant is uh sitting where they want to build the data center at.

I'm totally against them building the data center at Camp Grant.

Camp Grant was uh where our Buffalo soldiers was located at and um World War I and World War II.

Our Buffalo soldiers couldn't go nowhere but to Booker Washington Center.

Camp Grant was uh was run with the uh colonel by the name of Charles Young.

He was his parents were slaves, but then he became the third West Point uh uh cadet to be uh Camp the lead the uh West Cadet.

He also led the Buffalo soldiers who captured Geronimo.

He also rode with the Rough Riders with Teddy uh Roosevelt.

What bothered me the most about Camp Grant is they had 200 and 2,500 POW soldiers at Camp Grant and they got fed, the German and Italian soldiers got fed better than our Buffalo soldiers.

So now you want to take Camp Grant and put a data center there?

I'm totally against you putting a data center there.

How about if we dig up like I took the uh people to the pyramid and we checked out the pyramid?

How about if we dig up the Nair's uh family graves and build a data center on top of his grave, on top of his family's graveyard?

Our data center should not, that data center should not be built on Camp Grant.

That's holy ground and and I can go on and on and whatnot.

But the uh talk about the pyramid.

Our pyramid was built five 500 BC uh and the Native Americans was uh uh darker than anybody in this here room and had long dreaddock hair.

She shared something that I will never forget.

How can you desecrate our pyramid, desecrate our sanctuary, and then turn around and steal the gold and silver from the pyramids, the three pyramids here in Illinois, and then you turn around and make a commercial out of it where you making where you're making uh money off of our ancestors' graveyard.

The building I live in, North Main Manor is built on top of uh a graveyard, Indian graveyard.

I can go on and on and talk about that.

But I'm also highly upset with our African Americans just in position and supposed to be there to help us instead of them helping us, they more they more showing tuning in to helping our former slave mass.

I'm against the data center.

Our next speaker is Janie Wilson Cook.

Hi, I am Janie Wilson Cook.

I live at 1622 Montague Street in Rockford.

I am not representing, but I am a member of the environmental committee of the League of Women Voters of Greater Rockford.

I am a retired technology implementer from Northern Illinois University, and I owned a computer business here in Rockford for 13 years.

I understand technology.

Everyone talks about a tech bubble, but right now we're in a speculative bubble.

The reason why we need to build so many data centers today is because there's a race to be early in the IPO process before government oversight and retail investors in America realize there's no there.

We're ahead of our skis on calling machine learning AI before it's truly generative AI.

When we look at how private equity firms are backing property developers to build data centers to sell to big tech, what we're doing is selling our children's birthright instead of demanding guarantees that these companies will even be here in 10 years.

The narratives from investment companies are always the same.

Whether they're building six or sixteen centers, there's always 200 jobs.

Why?

Because it's enough jobs to look beneficial, but not enough to break your school system.

These are marketing approaches to overcome hurdles to get tax zoning and environmental allowances so they can build it.

By the time the workers are on site and trade union contracts are verified, they will say the planned closed loop cooling system.

Yeah, that's going to be too expensive.

Now it needs to be an open loop.

But you can't stop it because we've already broken ground.

By the time we see whether or not there are 200 jobs to even be had, the people who sign the contracts won't even be exist anymore in terms of corporations.

So what we need to do is do a registered capital bond.

It's a collaborative agreement between the state, the county, and whatever municipality is hosting these, where if you tell us there's going to be 200 jobs, what are those salaries total times 10 for 10 years, and then that money goes into a bond on day one.

That day, if they collapse, at least the community and those municipalities will have some form of capital to repair the blight that is left behind when this industry either collapses or shrinks the way all speculative bubbles do.

Even though the TIFF that you're planning the past was amended to include not to include data centers in the tax abatement, you're certainly intending on approving a data center because you see dollar signs, but we will pay in ways much more than money.

When that time comes, the League of Women Voters of Greater Rockford, we'll be back for that discussion.

You betcha.

Next we have Prophet Yusuf.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

In the book of Proverbs, the 22nd chapter, the ninth verse, it says a generous man will himself be blessed.

Well, he shares his fool with the poor.

What I want to speak about tonight, confronting the homeless epidemic in the United States.

Here's a staggering number.

553,000.

Imagine what you would do if 553,000 were deposited into your bank account today.

Imagine what you can see if you travel 553,000 miles around the world.

That is a significant number.

The truth is that's the number of homeless people recorded in the United States.

Yes, the most developed country in the world allows a whopping 17% of its population to live on the streets.

California holds a total of $165,000 abandoned homeless and the village.

This represents 20% of all homeless people in the United States.

Approximately 15,179 are veterans like me.

People in this country are turning a blind eye as if this is some new norm.

We have abandoned our neighbors, and homeless is a clear something.

I live each day fighting poverty and homelessness.

During my career, I have encountered veterans who once fought for our country, now defeated, and something from PTSD, drug and alcohol addiction, and hopefully.

I spoke with women who, through life, circumstance, were now selling their bodies to have a place to say, I see children who should be living Capri filled with hope for the future.

We're begging for food.

I still remember my first encounter on the streets of Chicago, Skid Row, March 29th, 45 years ago.

Like most people, I had no comprehension of the magnitude of the problem of homeless abandoned until I saw men, women, and children, yes, children, who lived on the street for years.

The decay of precious lies had a life of its own.

And the idea of survival had a shallow response.

Digest this for one month.

Abandoned citizens by homeless in the streets each day.

But it doesn't make the evening news ever wonder why.

Could it be because the problem is a soul reflection on all of us in the United States?

Imagine senior citizens who live back golden years in fool insecurity.

Our children who go to bed hungry every night.

Imagine the little girl who's afraid whole parents will be taken away due because she's an immigrant.

I imagine families who don't make a living wage and living below the poverty line and can't afford to take their sick child to the due to inequity and health care.

Imagine having to decide to pay for full a young utility bill or medica for all ill family members or babies, not in diapers.

Just imagine.

My solution to solve this problem in America.

First, we need one million affordable homes.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

It's time to wake up.

Next we have Christopher Baer.

I've brought it.

Plenty of copies.

Not sure we get it too.

That was the clerk or someone else.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll speak rule out and clear.

Okay.

So tonight I want to talk about the TIFF vote.

Specifically, you know, this global trade park south area.

Hopefully I'm getting it all right.

It seems to have a lot of names and really hard to keep track of all these details, but nonetheless.

From what I understand, this area was designated as a TIFF in 2011.

The RPA and TIFF were able to be created under the Jobs Recovery Act, as it did not, and arguably still does not qualify for the TIFF designation.

Currently, my understanding of the Jobs Recovery Act states that no redevelopment plan shall be adopted by a municipality without findings that the redevelopment plan is reasonably expected to create or retain a significant number of permanent full-time jobs.

So my current understanding is that this TIF as it stands today has been here since 2011.

It has done nothing.

Nothing has happened.

The whole reason it exists is not for blight, not for reason of inhospitable land or conditions or toxic waste.

It was used in accordance to an act passed by the state about job recovery, about other areas have more jobs than us.

Fine.

Fair and square.

That's how it was written.

That's how it was enacted.

But let's not look past that.

That's exactly what it was.

That's how it should remain.

It shouldn't change whatsoever, because that's how it was intended.

So just stay the course.

Per the TIFF, as of the fiscal year 2024 memo filed in 2025, Global Trade Park South TIFF Fund has a balance of $351,000 and $600, sorry, $351,613.

And the city has yet to provide, and this is a quote, this is not my own.

The city has yet to provide TIFF funding for infrastructure or economic development projects in the district.

So my understanding is that no movement has happened whatsoever.

Again, no activity on this intended area since 2011.

In fact, a balance of 351,613 has accrued.

No issue with the fact that nothing's been done with it, but just noting the facts.

Again, following the facts of what we're talking about here.

Whole lot of nothing.

That being said, I did bring a visual aid or at least a little bit of what I'm understanding as I'm learning along with many of the folks behind me.

Monarch Energy had a promotional video showing their development area, which remarkably resembles the TIFF district.

So when we talk about the TIFF district and the multiple uh investors engaging, we're talking about basically Monarch and then who knows how many people because from what I'm seeing in that diagram, following the shape here, Monarch controls a remarkably huge majority of that area.

So just to keep that in perspective.

So you know, just to keep up with with current events here, Governor Pritzker has directed the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to halt tax incentives for data centers starting July 1st.

The best course of action is to delay any decision for a period of two weeks.

Just delay it.

Thank you.

Stay the course.

Delay it.

Next, uh Pam Clark Ridenbach.

Good evening.

And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you in support of the mobile grocery store initiative designed to address food insecurity and improve access to healthy affordable food within underserved neighborhoods in Rockford.

Far too many individuals and families face significant barriers to accessing fresh produce, nutritious groceries, and essential household items due to limited transportation, geographic isolation, economic hardship, or the absence of nearby full service grocery stores.

An estimated 15.8% of Winnebago County residents are food insecure.

The need is particularly acute for youth with local food insecurity at 20% compared to the state average of 11.3%.

Mobile grocery store is an initiative and practical solution that that directly brings healthy food options to neighborhoods where they're needed most.

With this cross-sector approach, driven by collaboration of over 75 individuals that make up the food and security task force.

This initiative has the potential to make a meaningful long-term impact.

Mobile grocery services are essentially valuable for seniors, individuals with disabilities, and low-income families who may otherwise struggle to obtain nutritious food.

But meeting people where they are, this program helps remove barriers that contribute to food insecurity and poor health outcomes.

The mobile grocery store will bring a healthy food-to-people grocery store to their neighborhoods for a discounted price, but will not compete or replace the critical emergency food services provided by local pantries and food banks.

Now, some of you may say we need a brick and mortar store or that the project is too expensive.

A brick and mortar is all of our desire.

But until we are able to address disposable income and density barriers associated with that goal, and conduct the optimal location research through the mobile grocery store, we will know the right location and be in a position to address barriers to build.

As for the expense of a mobile grocery, let's compare it to the cost of a brick and mortar.

Consulting construction expert experts, I learned that the cost of a building, the shell is about 125 to 175 per foot.

The interior improvements would run around 60 to 120 per foot.

Grocery specific equipment is 75 to 150 per foot, and site parking utilities, stormwater estimated around 30 to 80 per foot.

These ranges aligned with the recent retail, recent retail and grocery construction estimates showing grocery stores among the most expensive retail building types due to refrigeration, food preparation areas, and complex MEP systems.

This is a total cost of 5.8 to 10.5 million dollars per site.

Multiply that by 10 sites that this mobile grocery will visit, and that is conservatively 58 million dollars for brick and mortar construction.

So consider how affordable it will be to bring healthy food options to 10 food deserts and food swamp areas in our community to better ensure healthy Rockford residents through a mobile grocery store.

Please support this initiative and help to enhance the health of individuals you represent.

I deeply appreciate your consideration.

All right, that ends the public speaking.

Moving on to the finance and personnel committee meeting.

Under information only, we have the 2025 audit presentation.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, everyone.

We have uh Michael Mullat from Baker Tilly and Patty Rowdy, our accounting manager, joining me tonight.

Um Mike's gonna give an overview of the 2025 audit process.

And um you all have copies of the um the draft audit and Baker Tilly's uh insights uh which is the separate document um on your desks.

We also emailed those last week when the the documents are finalized, which they should be shortly, we'll get those posted on the city's website as well.

Hand it over.

All right, thank you everybody for your time this evening.

Um I won't take too long when I give kind of an overview.

I'm not gonna get into too many numbers to bore everybody here.

Um before I do get started, I would want to thank Carrie and Patty.

Um without having a finance team that is responsive, professional and does everything that we ask them to do in the midst of their day job.

We're not able to be here today to issue the city's audit.

So I just want to thank them for all their hard work and effort.

It's about a six month process from the day we start to the day we issue.

Um not just includes them, but many other people at the city who have to contribute and answer our questions and provide a bunch of random things we asked for and clean up behind us when we leave.

So again, thank you for all their help in the process this year.

So I'm gonna go through each of the different reports that get issued as part of the audit process, kind of explain what they are, what they represent, what the result is.

Um as Carrie mentioned, they are draft reports we have in front of you today.

The plan is for us to issue final reports tomorrow in PDF format.

Uh we are waiting on some third party information outside of the city's control.

Uh we received that late last week, so we're able to move forward and finalizing everything.

The first document we're gonna talk about this evening is the annual comprehensive financial report.

That is the big document.

That's kind of the fulcrum, if you will, of all the different things we're gonna talk about here.

It presents the picture of the city's complete financial performance and health as of 1231 25, um and all you know, all aspects of operations of the city.

I do want to note that it does include a couple different components that we do not audit that we have to kind of assume into the report for the Rockford Mass Transit District as well as the RAVE, um, their component units, but they are brought in and we rely upon the work done by other auditors for that work.

Um the information in there, it's the city's information.

We help put it in all the prescribed formats to ensure that it's in compliance with all the accounting standards and GFOA award uh applications and things of that nature.

But really, it is the city's numbers and information.

Everything in there except for three pages is in your is your words or your numbers putting put out to the users of the financial statements, the public, for yourselves, bondholders, whoever it may be who needs the city's financial statements.

The only information coming from us in our words is the independent auditors report.

And what that section says is can you rely upon the information in here?

Is it something that you can that is presenting an accurate, clear depiction of the city's financial health?

Um proud to present to you what's going to be an unmodified opinion.

That's the highest level of assurance we can provide in accordance with the the auditing standards.

That doesn't mean we look at every dollar, but means that within the scale of the operations of the city, the information in there can be relied upon to understand what happened during the year and where you sit as a 1231.

Um if you're gonna read anything, it's a big report.

You know, as you go, it goes from kind of high level to the further you get in, really nitty-gritty detail.

If you're gonna read any section, I do recommend always reading the transmit a letter in the management discussion and analysis sections.

Uh those two sections I always use kind of tandem documents.

Uh the management discussion and analysis presents a lot of kind of big picture of what numbers, which what changed how things went up and down during the year, whereas the transmitted letter provides a lot of non-financial context of what happened, what you know, some historical data as well as what's on the horizon in the future.

So between the two of those presents a really good high-level picture of you know where the city city is, where it went during the year, and what it expects to happen in the future.

The only number I like to point out in that report is either the section related to pension funded status and there's historical information.

It's not always clear in the statements how that is impacting uh the city, but all three pension plans this year had substantial improvements in their funded status.

IMRF went up about eight percent actually being overfunded, which is great.

Um and the police pension and fire pension both went up about five to six percent.

What that means over the course of time is that you have to contribute fewer dollars per pensionable wage to the plan going forward.

Because you have enough resources, more resources in there means it kind of works for you.

So the investments go and generate a greater return, which a lot requ allows you to contribute less to the plan while still funding it appropriately, letting those other resources do the lot of the heavy lifting.

So uh there's a really strong investment performance by both of the consolidated plans this year, about 17% for each was really helped out the plans this year.

So there's a lot of information in that report.

Obviously, it's about six months old at this point, so I don't get any other number of details there, but obviously if you have questions, don't feel free to interrupt.

Um there are a lot of other reports we issue as part of the audit process.

There are 31 TIFFs in which we issue an opinion on compliance.

Uh that includes both what money was spent during the year within those TIFS, you know, with the resources generated by the TIFFs, making sure they're allowable, as well as some other statutory requirements associated with that.

We anticipate issuing uh those opinions as well.

That there's two TIFFs where there was an adjustment made as part of the audit process, nothing substantial and it was corrected.

Um the other 29 are going to have clean clean uh bills of health on those uh TIFFs during the year.

There were two new TIFS in 2025, uh the um the Madison and Oak and Maine and Mulberry TIFFs that were created, but they are not required to be tested for compliance until they generate a cumulative 100,000 dollars of revenue.

So if the the once a TIFF starts gets going and starts generating some taxes associated with it, over time it hits a number, then we have to start testing it.

So those two were new and weren't tested this year.

So more just kind of the FYI.

In addition to that, to the work we do there, we also do a deep dive into your federal spending.

It's called the single audit or the report on federal awards, which we'll issue.

Uh you had about 37.8 million in federal expenditures during 2025.

We tested four major programs of that making about 20 million dollars of your total spending that we dove into this year.

So the four major programs we looked into were uh the ARPA programs, the kind of the last go rounds of the ARPA funding, uh Head Start, the drinking water revolving fund, and the low-income home energy assistance program, LIHEAP.

Uh those are the four programs we did a deep dive into, not just on how you spent the money on during the year, but a bunch of other requirements that the federal government in each federal agency requires related to those programs.

And not just looking at were you compliant this year, but do you have the infrastructure and process in in place to ensure you remain compliant going forward?

That's really what these agencies are most concerned.

Yes, question.

So it's the it's the uh coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery program, which is the ARPA funding, uh stimulus funding, uh head start program, uh the drinking water revolving fund, uh revolving loan program, as well as the low-income home energy assistance program.

Um give me an idea of why do we choose two minutes services?

Right.

So it's it is not a so there's a there's a kind of a process we have to follow, and it's mandated by the Office of Management and Budget.

So they dictate a kind of a methodology we have to follow to identify programs.

Basically, it starts out what are the biggest funded programs first?

What would you spend the most money on during the year?

They uh it's any program going over a certain dollar threshold, we immediately have to evaluate.

And if it hasn't been tested within three last three years, we automatically have to test.

Then we go through a process to evaluate evaluate risks of those programs potentially having issues.

Then there's another second tier of programs we look at to make sure none of them are required to be tested no matter what if they hit that.

And then from there we have to hit a certain percentage of coverage of expenditures we test.

So there's kind of a metric we follow.

We don't actually create it, it's it's governed by the federal government.

Um that's what kicked out those four four programs this year.

I believe two, and I could two of the programs believe had not been tested in a while, which is why they had to be.

There was no choice around it.

Once I hit that dollar threshold, we have to look at it.

The ARPA program and the Head Start program, they're just big dollar programs that we had to basically cover our bases on to make sure we were good to go.

And I and the final final report has that information on there as terms of what programs they are.

But it is mandated by the federal government how we approach that.

We don't have a lot of there's not any art behind that.

It's pure it's pure numbers and science and step-by-step process.

So it's part of the testing of those four programs, as I mentioned, we do look at what you spent the money on during the year, um, various other requirements associated with those programs.

Uh in addition, we look at the processes and controls around them.

So, you know, in a given year, you could be completely compliant.

But what the federal government is concerned about is are you in a situation where that compliance was luck or by intention?

Do you have controls in place?

Do people review everything?

Or you know, are there different controls in place to ensure those programs are being operated appropriately, not just now, but are set to be run appropriately going forward.

Um we issue two opinions in that single audit report.

One relates to our testing of those programs, and we'll issue a clean opinion on those programs, meaning we identified no major issues associated with them that would indicate noncompliance with federal regulations, which is great because we find stuff in the programs all the time.

Um that is a really big thumbs up to have a clean bill health on all four programs we looked at.

In addition, we have to do some work for the for the city as a whole evaluating controls, processes, risks, things of that nature.

It's called the government auditing standards report.

And that's also in that same document.

It's just required to be included in there.

And that's where we look at not just grant programs, we look at the city's operations as a whole.

And we don't look at everything, but we look at the most substantial and significant operations of the city.

Um this year we are able to issue that opinion with no findings in there, which is uh last year there were something.

So it's sort of some improvements made, some things we work through, and this year there was a clean bill of health issued on that.

So that's great.

I mean, that's a huge, a huge win uh for the city in terms of making sure that those risks that were identified in the past have been addressed and remediated and are within the range of expectation.

Doesn't mean there's not things there, we don't look at everything, but it means in those big high volume dollar value transactions that the city uh operates on an annual basis, we've looked at and identified no major issues.

So it's a it's a it's a great improvement.

Sorry, say that again.

So most year is primarily some some of the the accounting things in the financial statements, and we had some restatements in the 2024 report that we worked through with the with finance to to correct and remediate and those were resolved and there were no issues this year associated with that.

Otherwise, the controls and process were were are rigorous and they're in a they're generally considered best practice.

Yes.

Yeah, and just to allude to the other women, um is there somewhere in here where the description of those um risks and from the prior years that have been resolved?

So in it won't be in that report.

So in the report on federal awards, which I know I don't think you have a hard copy of that, but that will be issued in final form.

There is a page at the very end of that that identifies the prior year findings and what basically whether they've been resolved or not, or if they continue on, or if they're kind of partially fixed.

Uh it's basically here's what was last year, here was the resolution of that in the current year.

So that will be in that report in the results and letter that I'll get into a little bit.

Um it doesn't speak to that, but it also doesn't speak to the fact that there's anything new this year as well.

Uh so in the single audit, basically clean bill health across the board.

There are others, there are also some statutory requirements that the city has as part of the audit process.

The consolidated year and financial report is a report that has to be prepared and appined on by us for the government accountability and transparency unit that is a centralized, basically portal organization, you know, agency within the state uh where they are served as a kind of a repository of financial information for any entity, whether it be a government or somebody else who receives funding from the state.

So all the state agencies use the information that is uh submitted to them.

It's basically a way to regurgitate your financial information in their prescribed format.

Uh we opine upon that and issue that in conjunction with the audit.

Uh also the comptroller's annual financial report, which is a required submission every year.

We don't apply on it, but we compile it on your behalf and submit it along with the audit to the state uh to make sure you are in compliance with that and issue that on time and submit that on time.

So those are all the different kind of audit reports we issue.

The last document, which is the other uh handout was today was the results and insights letter.

And what that is is a letter from us to you as the governing body.

Uh it basically is a summarization of all the various required communications we need to do in accordance with the audit standards.

Uh it covers a wide spectrum of things.

Uh responsibilities, a really high level of what our plan was and did everything go according to plan, what were some of the significant risk we went in assuming existed in terms of you know audit areas that we have to look at and what areas we spent the most amount of time on and a bunch of other results.

Did anything bad happen?

I view that report as if there's nothing exciting in there, that is a victory.

There's nothing good that is ever in that letter.

It is designed to tell you when things went wrong.

The kind of the gold star is getting the clean audit opinion.

That document is to tell you where you're screwed up.

And I'm glad to report to you tonight that it it's the very boring report.

The audit process went according to plan, it went very smoothly.

We had no major significant deficiencies or material weaknesses to report this year in terms of your your risk and control issues, uh, as well as just really no challenges during the course of the audit that we'd have to communicate to you today.

Just the indication of it, it was a very smooth audit process.

Our second year working with the city, it was um really kind of went off without a hitch.

Um there's some other communications there.

Uh in particular, I always like to point out you know, while we work with Carrie and Patty for the audit on the day to day, uh, ultimately we're engaged and hired by you to complete the audit.

Um so if there's any question, thing you like to talk about or know about, I'm always available, my team's always available at any point.

So not just here tonight for the audit, but throughout the course of year, we're always available too.

So if you do ever want to reach out, we're always here for you.

So that concludes my prepared remarks.

Alvin Tumber.

Thank you, Chairman.

Um it was good to see that uh I read that you encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management.

So thank you to administrator uh for being on its best behavior.

Um the capital or on the uh appreciation of the IMRF and the police and fire uh pension fund.

That number is that include capital appreciation and contributions both.

Correct.

So if you look at how the pensions are funded, right?

There's really two main three drivers of funding.

Uh it's employer contributions, employee contributions, and investment income.

This year, investment income did a lot of heavy lifting, which is helps you know basically exceed you know the the money coming in, exceeding the money going out in terms of pensional benefits being paid out in a given year.

So that's what's key, is it the hot the bigger that bank you have kind of set aside, the more that can go to work for you.

Now, it's highly dependent on investment performance, of course, and to this year was a great year.

That could always change, but it gives you a foundation to work on, and the stronger that foundation is even during a dip, it gives you that kind of cushion to bounce back.

And we've seen this with IMRF over the years, they were always so well funded.

They able to kind of withstand some of the really bad economic times and investment you know periods that they had to bounce back.

So in that in the detailed report, will there be a percentage breakdown as far as the percentage gap of appreciation to contributions?

Not necessarily.

We'll see that in August when our XRA presents on the 2025 results.

Thank you, Correct.

Alden Trina.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

You mentioned though there was two areas that we should specifically focus on.

One was the MDNA, and what was the other one?

The transmit a letter or the letter of transmitter.

I forget how you're perfect.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Aldement Sargano.

Yeah, just real quick.

Um to Otomantun Burke's uh question.

Um what what has been our liability uh when it comes to the pensions uh based on our last actual and are we based on our contributions and so forth.

I'll pull it open right now.

The uh IMRF plan is actually in an asset position, which means your your your act your investments that are being held by AMRF for the city exceeds their uh actual liability.

Uh the page in here specifically almost there.

So there is a page where we summarize all that information across all three plans.

It's page 81 in the report.

Uh so the IMRF plan is sitting at 10.6 million dollar surplus effectively.

Um that's called a net pension asset, uh, where police is a net pension liability of 218 million and the firefighters' pension is 239.4 million.

And that is so that's the actual liability less uh the fiduciary net position, which is basically your investment balances.

Alden Beach.

Thank you, sir.

Because of the appreciation fund, are you in a position to recommend how much less we'd need to contribute?

That would be an actuary's decision.

That's way outside my lane.

Well, well, I guess I heard this face.

Well, it it uh it does, I mean it factors into the actuary's calculations where your funded in at a very broad sense.

It's uh it's yeah, the better funded position is the more the investment income in theory is going to support future benefits versus more contributions.

But the actuary determines what that is and how long that runway is because there's so many other different factors that play into that as well.

Almond Turkey.

Thank you, Chairman.

Uh just a uh additional clarification.

We paid ahead.

We have additional things to our pension.

And you made a comment about uh that would relieve some of the stress in the future, should we we need that?

But I think some of us our intention was to to pay into contribute into the pension fund with the intent of continuing the discipline with a regular contribution.

Correct, correct.

I mean you're your police, yeah.

Your police and fire plans are not healthy enough where you can lean a hundred they're in the 40 percentile right now, which is better than a lot of cities, but still catching up.

Uh and obviously it's your very large city, so it's a challenge.

Um so that just a one-time contribution front is it's one of many steps you're gonna have to continue to take going forward to build that funded status up.

Given the market looked like it was a good thing to do.

Yep.

All right.

Um if there's no other questions, just so um I just emailed to you all the 2024 single audit um and pointed to the page where the um issues that were identified are described, so you can take a look at that.

Um I also I I want to thank you know, this is our second year with Baker Tilly, and um the transition has been about as smooth as changing audit firms can go, and they've been great partners.

Um we really appreciate the relationship.

I do just want to say um, you know, Patty is here, she manages the audit process on the on the city side and does an amazing job.

Um, but the the work of compiling this financial report um involves staff throughout the organization um doing their job on a daily basis and doing it well, and this is really a team effort, and I just want to thank all of the staff that are involved, not only with um daily transactions, but also putting specific work together um for the completion of the audit.

Thank you.

You stole my thunder.

I it's so good that we have a a boring uh audit report and you're not here with the hit list of nine things where we where we've deviated from the generally accepted accounting principles involving municipalities.

So that's fantastic.

And I want to thank Patty.

I know how hard you work on this, and the fact that we did not have any hiccups is a testament to carry it in your entire staff.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

Thank you.

You guys thank you, everybody.

Moving on to committee reports.

Item number one is approval of vouchers in the amount of 15 million four hundred and eighty thousand five hundred and seventy-one dollars and forty-eight cents.

Is there a motion to approve vouchers?

Second.

Any questions or comments on vouchers?

Seeing none, all is in favor indicate by aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Matter passes.

Item two is an approval of a lien reduction request from Z financial to release liens on various properties from 1987 to 2017 in the total amount of 15,495.50 cents upon payment in a full of $10,000.

Is there a motion to approve?

So any questions or comments for staff?

Yes, ultimately grant.

So is this uh are they gonna be building something here or what where what is the um asked?

I believe I can answer that question, Chairman.

Um this request came in to our our legal department, it is over multiple parcels, some that have existing structures uh on this.

Um the owner is looking to, as I understand, dispose of the properties and trying to clean up these outstanding fines and liens.

Um we had some questions two weeks ago when it came up related to uh you know whether the ownership was under the existing ownership when these fines and things came about.

I believe that is the case on all if not a majority of them.

Uh we went back to the individual and suggested that their settlement amount of five thousand dollars was insufficient and requested ten thousand dollars, and then they agreed to it, and that's why it's back on the agenda tonight.

So they're going to sell they're gonna pay the liens off, and then they're gonna somebody said they're gonna sell the properties to someone.

That's my understanding.

Okay, any other questions?

See none, all is in favor indicate by aye.

Aye, opposed, matter passes.

Item three is an approval of a memorandum of agreement with ASP Local 1058 regarding financial incentives for telecommunicators.

So motion to approve.

So moved.

Any questions or comments for staff?

Alderman Beach.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um I I do have a couple of questions here.

Um if someone's on vacation or taking a leave and they ask to come back for whatever reason, are they paid differently?

What is repay at that time?

Uh I'm having difficult time here seeing that we're suggesting that we pay people to come back to work.

Ah, I I need just somebody I'm reading it here uh online here.

It says uh that for employees who voluntarily accept overtime assignments to cover last minute statute, and then it says here uh that um we're gonna be paid twice the amount, and I guess someone needs to help me understand uh why if the department is suffering and they need help.

The employees wouldn't want to help without having to have incentive to come and help.

So it's helped me get over that hump to understand that.

I'll let Chief take a crack at maybe the first question and good luck on the second.

Thank you.

Uh we have historically um you know struggled to keep full staffing in the 911 center for certain positions, and so this is not a unique situation for us.

Um but in order to address some of the staffing shortages that we have immediately over the summer months, and when people call in, it's that we're calling in sick.

So the incentive is that you know we we ensure that people are coming to work on a regular lease scheduled shift as far as voluntary um sign-ups for overtime.

Well, we don't want to get into a situation where we're constantly forcing people back into the 911 center, so this is just an incentive to number one um uh incentivize showing up on a regular scheduled shift, and number two um just making sure that we're able to cover the open spots with voluntary um overtime versus mandatory overtime.

And we are currently working um to increase our staffing level.

Uh it just takes a little bit longer on the 911 side of things to get someone through the training and then on to the floor where they have another six to eight months uh of training before they're actually signed off to count count toward the staffing number.

Is it possible?

Is it possible to outsource shortages from time to time?

Uh we do not have that option at this time.

I mean, can we or we just aren't allowed to we have um contractual obligations will ask which asked me and local 413 for those positions, so that would be not allowable under those um bargaining agreements.

Thank you for your report, appreciate that any further questions.

Seeing none all is in favor indicate by aye.

Aye, opposed, no matter passes.

Item four is approval of an IGA between the city and an RHA in the amount to be determined per weatherized scattered site unit.

The agreement does not require a cost match.

The agreement term is from the date of the execution with a potential one year extension.

Is there a motion to approve the IGA?

Some vote.

Second.

Any questions or comments for staff?

Seeing then all is a favorite indicate by aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Matter passes.

Moving on to resolution.

So one is an award of bid for city yards wash bay drain replacement repairs to DPI construction in the amount of 118,630.

It's a one-time project, the funding source of the property fund.

Is there a motion to approve the bid?

Some vote.

Thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Staff.

I just had one.

Um were there more than one bid received?

Uh, there was one bid for this.

There was just one one that you received.

Correct.

And it was within the the guidelines of what you thought would work.

It was close to our estimation, slightly however slightly higher, but very close.

Okay.

We re-bed it.

Uh not at this time.

No, we estimated it would be roughly a hundred thousand dollars for this project.

Thank you.

Uh all right, seeing no further questions.

All those in favor indicate by aye.

Post, matter passes.

Item two is awarded bid for rails to trails, Rock River, where line repair-haver construction in the amount of five hundred and seventy thousand five hundred and eighty two dollars and ninety-four cents.

The contract duration is through October 16, 2026, and the funding source is the one percent infrastructure sales tax.

Is there a motion to approve the bid?

Some of it.

Any questions or comments for staff?

Seeing none, all is in favor indicate by aye.

Aye.

Post, matter passes.

Item three is a resolution approving appropriation of motor fuel tax funds for improvement under the Illinois Highway Code Region 1 Planning Council fiscal year 2027 funding in the amount of 91,308 dollars and 49 cents.

Is there a motion to approve?

Some of you any questions or comments for staff?

Alderman meets.

Thank you so much for allowing me to speak on your committee.

Um, can I just get a little backstory on this on the on um this fund?

On the motor fuel tax funds, no on the region one planning council and the 91,000.

I just kind of looked at the something with the Department of Transportation.

There was an application.

We we fund, we contribute to R1 as as a participating organization under an intergovernmental agreement.

So this resolution is authorizing the city required by IDOT for when we expend motor fuel tax funds.

We're just asking for council to approve using motor fuel tax funds to uh fund the existing obligation that we have under an IGA with R1 for our contribution to the organization.

Okay, so the application that was a tax that that is just an application required by IDOT any time we spend motor fuel tax funding.

Okay, and so when we we fill out that application whenever there's like a uh program or proposals, yep, if when we're when it's a construction project related to motor fuel tax or we're using it to pay for road salt or something along those lines every time we use we have to fill out that application.

Gotcha.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, all is a favorite indicate by I.26 cents.

This is a one-time purchase.

The funding source is the state drug asset and forfeiture funds.

So move any questions or comments for staff?

Alderman Pronti.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I believe the the police department worked with Rock River Ford to identify vehicle used vehicles, these are not new vehicle purchases, but to identify used vehicles that would meet the specific needs of that operation.

Correct.

Thank you.

Alderman two merged.

Alderman Two were I just like to note the those two vehicles are coming with a six-year 60,000 mile warranty as well.

So thanks to point that out.

All right.

Any other questions?

All right, seeing that all is a favorite data by I.

Aye.

Post?

Item five is an authorization user request for proposals for the development of eight town home units at 966 North Court Street.

Some both.

Any questions or comments for staff?

Were you gonna have her explaining?

All right.

Sure.

Yeah, could you give us a little bit more of a of a overview of the pro of this item five?

It's a little bit different than item six, correct?

Correct.

Yeah, let's start with 966 North Court Street.

Sure.

Um, so years ago, through our neighborhood stabilization program, we um were acquiring properties and demolishing uh units that were on there, or we were developing properties, or we were doing home buyer assistance.

It was a great opportunity to be able to utilize those funds within that program.

We gained four um parcels that um two of them were 966 North Court and 974 North Court.

So through our program, we have to meet national objectives, and we already did that with the demolition of the properties that are on there, and so now we have an opportunity to develop that land, and with this um RFP that we're putting out there, what we'd like to do is to have a developer come in and build eight townhomes, and then we'd also gain ownership of those uh townhome design templates that we could use throughout the community.

I probably should have shouldn't ask this, but uh is there something specific that you're looking for in the template?

Can you guys speak up, please?

Sure.

Um so the question was were we looking for something specific in the templates?

Um generally on this uh land, we can have up to eight town homes built that fit appropriately on that land, and so what we're looking for is a a developer that can go ahead and develop that land, and in those um templates, we want to be able to have ownership of that so we could go ahead and do that on other city-owned lots, or private entities could go ahead and use those same templates.

So it would just be a townhouse style single unit that can be used throughout the community.

The design of it would be up to the architect that's designing the right.

So the the advantage to doing it this way is these lots are similar to other ones that we had.

We we demolished a lot of homes throughout a lot of the wards, right?

So the plans that we would get, what we're asking is for someone to propose back to us how they would do it on these two lots, like how they would how they would envision the space, what would it look like, how what kind of plans would we end up with, like the efficiency of it, the costs of it, what would they estimate, and then um you know we bring that back to city council to award then the plans that we thought were the best ones to move forward with and we do this development.

The advantage to it is we're we're structuring it so that we don't just get these townhomes, we get the architectural designs.

The city would own that then, and then we could use that, we could find other lots where it would fit in the wards where we've done other um demos and we could build and that saves the the next builder the cost of the architectural designs.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Alderman Bell.

Thank you for allowing me to speak on your committee.

Um so this parcel is these parcels are in in the 13th war, and I had a uh just a quick question on that.

So the the this initial developer um say they granted the authorization, right?

Um, or the ability to to uh develop their plans would be used with the city's future development strategy throughout the community, so this developer would take on the burden of the cost for the drawings.

No, we would um and we we caught that in the RFP.

We're gonna specify that we would prep we would purchase the plants so that the specific would own them.

So I I actually had a developer reach out, and the their one hesitation about it was that the city would retain ownership in the architecture architectural geez, the designs, and uh the documents.

So thank you for clarifying that.

Yeah, thanks.

And um met with Alderman Granite before this and realized that was something that we need to clarify in the RFP.

So thank you.

Aldo Beach.

Thank you.

Sure.

So it'll be sure we can follow that a little bit.

If we're going out for request for proposal, are we giving the architects the specs of what we want from that proposal?

The size of it, the number of rooms, the number of bathrooms.

Are we telling them in this request for proposal?

So all of them come back the same.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what the request for proposal is.

Yeah, I guess you know, we didn't write it that way.

We wrote it to like here's the land that again, pretty similar size lots to what we have in other places.

Again, we combined these, but um, we wanted to see what they would propose and what would fit there and what would be structured best for that sites and lot.

So that's why it's an RFP is we're we're putting it out for the design professionals to say we think on this lot would be the best um or the best way to construct something on this lot.

We think we could do it efficiently, and we think we could do it for a cost that's um that would pencil out.

Um, because if we said three bedrooms, two baths potentially that we're imposing on this program, something that's too expensive and won't cash on that property.

We're we're asking them to look at it and propose back to us what the best design would be for town homes for a middle housing solution on lots that we own.

Well, I I appreciate that, and I'm not trying to suggest what you should or shouldn't do, but it seemed to me if we already know what criteria is, we already know we don't want it to be more than X number of dollars.

I mean, it seemed to me that the proposal should call for all of that, so they could be accomplished, so to speak to developing homes for this price of money, and this is almost perfect.

And I agree, I give what you so we have two.

So say comparing the two things that we're proposing tonight.

This one can end up in market rate.

So we're not offering while we want to buy the plans and we want to have it on land that we're we're providing at a different cost, um, they will end up market rate.

So the the proposal should propose a way that it pays for itself, it doesn't need an incentive and doesn't need a gap financed from us.

When we talk about the second program, that one um we're gonna have to design in a few phases, like whereas this one we're doing one proposal, these two lots.

Tell us what you think you could build here and what would make sense for the market and how you would how you would see these these properties back in production.

Um, so that's why it's a design and build.

The second one, to your point, when we want it's a single family, and we do believe that it has a little harder road to go, so we're gonna do that one in stages, and so and we can explain that one next.

Um, where we will I maybe I'll just go ahead and explain like where they'll we're gonna ask for designs for three single family homes that could be um constructed on a number of different open lots that we have, and we're asking for the designs so that then we can build out a program, a pilot program for single family infill, but we need the designs to build out the cost because we're anticipating we will need gap financing for that construction, so we have a lot more answers we've got to put together before we come back with a program for that.

We're separated out this town home one because we do believe that the market will bear this one.

There is a way for a developer to do this and to meet their cost needs, and they will not we don't believe they will have to have gap financing for the city.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um, I was just curious.

Um, if there are building codes, like I'm thinking in the future versus the plan, but um if there are building code changes, would that impact the plan in any way?

Would we have to kind of go back in and get a new plan drawn up if these changes occur within the year or something like that?

I guess potentially, but normally plans can be updated pretty um like pretty inexpensively, like we could go back for you know, with an administrative cost, things that could change um on a town home, like sometimes in the energy code, there's things like we were now in 24 that changed some things about how you test um things related to HEC system and that.

So when those kinds of changes to yeah, to your point, like will these plans last perfectly for five to ten years?

Maybe not, yeah.

But we're hoping to jump start some production now, right?

And then we can we can make I think administratively we'd be able to address some of that pretty easily.

Okay, thank you so much, Richard.

All of the bill.

Thank you for allowing me to speak on your committee, Chair.

Um, really quick.

Can you share one more time the uh change that you and all the women granted discussed earlier?

No, when we were discussing, we went through the program okay um just before uh session started, and in going through it with her, notice that there wasn't a specific note that we would pay for the plants that verbiage should have been in there.

So you guys will be amending that to include okay yeah, we will clear those it was always the intention to do that.

So sorry that it wasn't clear.

Okay, so I'm I am not on this committee, but I if I was I'd probably make an amendment to include that on the floor instead of vote and then allow it to go through with staff.

I don't know proper procedure, obviously, I'm not on this committee, so I'll just share that chair.

Maybe you all can uh potentially make that amendment or how would you guys go about it?

I think legal, maybe I don't want to so basically it's it um if you're okay with this moving part, but that's the one change potentially.

I guess you could do the amendment.

Um if there was anything else that wanted to be talked over before, and maybe we did something at city council instead, but I don't know if I'll defer it.

Is that proposed to amend just house keeping matters and clear that this had it just the fact so I cannot I'm not on this committee, but do we have it in writing?

Someone take it's not required, it does be required, so we'll want to uh a motion to reflect all of the grants of the amendment that you've discussed.

I'll make a motion to add the city both change the plans.

All right, are there any questions on the amendment?

Yes, uh, just to our legal director.

Can you share for the record uh the exec verbiage that would be included?

I mean, I I don't know if I'm necessarily heard the full uh I can't hear the woman in the back of the case.

Yeah, it's pretty quiet, I guess is what I'm saying.

We don't have the mics working, so did you hear the amendment?

Okay, I think that can be that can you restate your motion?

The motion to add that the city would retain ownership of the plans after the RFP was that we I don't know why we didn't make a motion on this.

I mean, isn't the city paying for it under the pursuit of the RFP is in the city?

Right, that's paying for the uh paying for it.

We just need to clear it, like just to make sure it just needs to be clarified in it.

Clarify can you can you read what's it now?

So right now um it has in here that there's a purchase price, and at the minimum the purchase price must be current fair market value.

What that probably should have said instead of purchase price is just cost involved with it, and then had it combined and said that what are you gonna hope go ahead and purchase it for, and then our cost to have those um templates as owned by the city of Rockford so that we could do whatever we want with them in the future?

So it just has to clarify in that purchase price, it would just be cost instead.

And this is a draft, so can I can I just suggest that we'll have a clean updated version of the RFP for the council vote next week?

That'd be perfect.

Okay, thank you.

All right, uh, so that will be withdraws.

Um chairman.

Uh I appreciate this lot being uh dressed.

It was across the street from the old third ward uh map.

Um in this, it says that wards five, six, seven, eleven, and thirteen are gonna be focused on because that contains about seventy percent of the vacant lots in the city.

Uh what if a lot of the third ward uh is somebody's ready to go on that?

Can that jump in there?

Or is it are you are you really strictly dead set on those other wards?

Sure and going forth.

Thanks for the question.

Um so generally what I did was I took that directly from our con plan and annual action plan.

There are um vacant lots that the city owns throughout all of the wards, and all of them would have an opportunity to participate in any of these future programs that we're designing.

But specifically, because we're gonna be using cut funding for paying for the things that we're doing with these two programs.

We did need to acknowledge that the HUD consolidated plan says that 70% of them are in those wards.

So we do need to make sure we pay attention.

But to her point, doesn't limit it.

All right.

Just make sure we're so the third ward still does have a shot.

All right, good.

Um it's also uh it can be the up to the developer whether it is going to be used for rental or selling as homeownership, or in this case, uh apartment or town home ownership.

So that's still correct.

Um for 966 North Court, this first item that's on the agenda, uh number five, I believe it is, that can be for rent or sale.

It is up to the developer to come and present what they feel would be best for that lot.

Okay.

And again, this RFP, like this is authorization to bring the RFP out when we get when we when they come in, we will have to come back to city council to present what we which one we want to award.

So it would be another chance for you all to look at the mix of what they want to put and what audience they're saying, and make sure that you are in the way on way in on that if you want.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Uh only on nine we're still on 966 North Court Street.

Just make it clear.

Alma Beach.

I'm sorry.

Okay, you can so you're looking for actually architectural design on affordable housing to go anywhere in the city of Rockford, specifically now Court Street, not to be developed.

Or are you also in addition to design, want this developer, a developer?

Because you use that word to actually develop what they find to be that developer.

Right.

So for we are using 966 court as the first development.

So we it is that's why um we talk about it as a development that they're designing and building, but we want the two components so that we walk away with the designs.

So in the future, we can keep construction affordable by offering these plans.

So that word development there does not necessarily mean a company that's gonna build it.

You're just looking for someone to draw you a plan on housing.

No, not for the the first item you're voting on.

Um, so the the 966 North Court, that that item we want them to design, do both elements.

Design it in in a way that we end up with the architectural drawings, but we also want them to build it.

Right.

So we want to go out.

We don't know what they want to design.

What's that?

So I thanks for the question.

Um, so what we're actually getting is that a developer will go ahead and develop that land, but they have to come to us and tell us what how they're going to develop it, and they're going to pay at a minimum a fair market value to purchase that land and then build the town homes.

And they're gonna have to come back to us with plans of how they're going to develop that, and out of that, besides us being able to have some type of control on what's gonna be going at that in that land in that space, we're also gonna get the town homes to be able to utilize them as our own, we'll own them and be able to tweak them however it's needed for the future or anything like that throughout the city of Rockford because we're already owned those.

So this 966 North Court is going to be for a developer to come in, purchase that land, provide us with what they're gonna build, and then we'll have ownership to those templates to use throughout the community.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no further questions on item number five.

All those in favor indicate by aye.

Aye.

Those closed matter passes.

Moving on to item six, which is an authorization to issue an RFP for architectural design service to develop a minimum of three single family residential design templates for new residential infill programs.

Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

I'll second.

Any questions or comments for staff on this matter?

All right, seeing that all is in favor indicate by aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Mayor passes.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

So move.

Okay.

All those in favor to