Walking down the hall.

Just myself.

Yeah, it is.

Oh, perfect, thank you.

Hi.

Calling the thank you, I'll just do this one more time.

Calling the finance and budget committee of the St.

Paul City Council to order.

We have five present, two absent absences being uh councilmember Bowie and Councilmember Johnson.

Um today we are having um two presentations packed in sort of one PowerPoint, but today we are reviewing everyone's favorite department, the Office of Financial Services and presenting from that department.

We welcome our interim director of OFS, Laura Loxon to present the 2026 budget for OFS.

So welcome to the chambers.

This will be pretty dense, so we're gonna get rolling and uh we have 90 minutes.

I kind of suspect we're gonna fill that time, so we'll kick it right off to you.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Great, thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Um for the record, my name is Laura Logson.

I'm the interim director of the Office of Financial Services.

Um really looking forward to sharing the great work that OFS does and talking about our 2026 budget proposal.

Um after my presentation, Nishelle Botcoe Woods will come and present on the CIB budget, and then after Nichelle Neil Younghands will present about um city debt.

So we do have a lot to get through.

Um happy to answer any questions as they come up.

So first, just for the agenda, um I'll be giving a summary of the 2026 budget for OFS, review some key highlights, um kind of budget recap from 2025.

Um I'll get into details of the 2026 budget, our spending, FTEs, as well as some ARPA updates and updates about OFS revenues.

So our high-level executive summary first.

Um I want to start by saying what a privilege it is to work with the very dedicated, highly skilled and inspiring team at the Office of Financial Services.

Um department is responsible for the daily functioning of the city, um, all of the money, cash that moves in and out of the city and all of our programs, the accounting for every transaction, planning, spending, um, adhering to budgets, um, investments, debt management, major um capital projects, real estate projects, and our fleet and vehicle maintenance.

We have a really diverse set of work and our grants team, which I'll be talking about more.

Um, so we're responsible for just really a high level of work at the city and making sure that the city can function and our work is really foundational.

So I'm just super grateful to work with this team.

Um, in addition to that, our 2026 goals and priorities are really focused on prioritizing our staff, staff development, succession planning, and meeting our hiring goals.

Um, we're constantly thinking about and implementing ways to innovate and increase our efficiency.

Um, some kind of key projects that we've been working on and we're gonna keep working on are um advancing and finalizing a citywide finance manual, continuing the timeliness that we've gained in our annual financial reporting, um, advancing our electronic payment projects and creating more efficiency there, and just ongoing process and policy documentation.

Um we're also really engaged with um supporting long-term planning by departments related to grant funded initiatives and um in the coming year a shift to priority-based budgeting.

Um, and then just at a high level, some key changes from 2025 in our general fund, our general fund allocation is increasing slightly by about 34,000.

Um, there are several kind of reductions and shifts and increases that total that 34,000.

So I will get into those details further down.

So to recap our 2025 um budget, and it's been a really big year for OFS.

Um, in 2025, we shifted um a high-level accountant position from special funds into the general fund.

Um, and that um person supports citywide grants, so that's been super important, and that's been fully staffed all year.

Um, there was a similar shift from on the Office of Financial Empowerment Team from a grant from a grant funded position, and the grant was ending into the city general fund, and that's been staffed all year as well.

Um also this year, $90,000 was added for events and um events and festivals grant program, bringing that total budget to 155,000.

Um, and that remains unspent for the year.

In 2025, OFS's attrition budget was increased by 96,000, bringing our total attrition budget to a little over 300,000.

And one thing to note here so while OFS has over 90 FTEs, only 30 of our FTEs are funded in the general fund.

So to meet an attrition budget of 300,000, we would have to hold about you know three FTEs open per year, which means our attrition rate would be at 10% for those 30 FTEs.

Kind of looking long term, that's not a super sustainable rate for OFS to keep you know three out of 30 positions open all year.

So in the 2026 proposed budget, we've reduced our attrition budget.

Also in 2025, there were investments related to climate initiatives.

An FTE was added for our climate action coordinator, and that's been staffed all year, and then funds were also added for the Power of Home program.

And then finally, as you're all aware, 2025 has been a really significant year.

There's been a ton of huge financial pressures on the city, and OFS has been really leading citywide efforts to limit spending for the rest of this year to ensure that we come in on budget citywide.

Some updates on recent initiatives.

Our grants director, grants administrator, grants specialist, and then our accountant position that I just mentioned.

All of those positions have been fully staffed.

And in a short amount of time, that team has really accomplished an incredible amount of work.

It's been a huge value add for the city to have this small but mighty team.

So some of their key accomplishments are highlighted on this slide, including supporting 27.5 million dollars in department-led grant submissions this year and over 73 million dollars in federal earmark submissions.

Supporting kind of cross-departmental grant spend down this summer that ensured that the city fully spent a grant that would have otherwise gone back to the state and allowed us to have some really much needed general fund relief in that process.

So that's really key.

So really great work there.

One of the key ones is that the team, the OFS Treasury and Accounting Team implemented payment works, which is a cloud-based software that really changes the way that we onboard and pay vendors.

So since this spring, the city has onboarded over 1,700 vendors to that system, of which 80% are receiving electronic payments.

That's a huge achievement for the city.

The vast majority of our vendor payments are still and have been by paper check.

And those type of payments are the highest risk for fraud.

And so moving to electronic payments is just a key accomplishment for the city.

All right.

And I'm gonna stop you quickly.

Thanks so much, uh Chair, and thanks, Director, and kudos on this is it's exemplary work and really appreciate the way that you're you're highlighting it here.

I'm I'm curious about the grants division.

I know when we talked about creating the division, adding the four FTEs, we had some conversation about these folks might actually pay for themselves in the sense that they'll help us pull down more federal and state grants than we were able to do before we had this coordinated function.

Um I see the numbers for 2025, but do you have a sense of how those numbers compare to before we had the grants team in place and and are these folks sort of paying for themselves as we thought that they might?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

Um Chair Kim and Councilmember, Council President, excuse me.

Um I think I probably need to get back to you with kind of specific information.

We have done some tracking of kind of prior year grant applications, how much was going out the door.

Um is that the city doesn't have a central grant system, um, and so there's a lot of manual work that goes into trying to figure out how much did we previously apply for as compared to you know what we're tracking kind of manually now.

Um, but I think we do have some information that we can get you for sure.

I guess one specific example that I can highlight is the city was awarded a federal grant under the prior under the Biden administration when the Trump administration took over, that was halted.

And our grants team worked very closely with the city attorney's office on a strategy to ensure that we can still advance that grant opportunity and other grant opportunities without agreeing to terms and conditions that do not adhere to the city's own values.

And so kind of through that work of our grants team and CAO, we were able to unlock that grant, which is over $800,000.

So that wouldn't have happened, I think otherwise.

So having a central grants team that's just one example very tangible of like real money that the city got in because of that team.

That piece would not have happened without the grants team as they were really working on coordinating across departments.

So where that grant may have just been lost or returned, it was able to be repurposed and reused.

So I would say that that whole 1.1 million is a direct results of the grants team as well.

Great.

Thank you.

So on this slide, I'll get more into the details.

This and the next slide of the 2026 proposed changes for OFS.

So this slide focuses on our general fund changes, which as I mentioned comes to it's almost neutral, you know, $34,000 increase, but there's a lot changing kind of within that $34,000.

So first, there's an increase of just over $300,000 for current service level adjustments.

That's really inflationary.

Inflationary salary and benefit changes.

There's just over $100,000 to remove OFS's attrition or reduce our attrition budget, bringing it back down to about $200,000, which is more manageable within our general fund FTE structure.

A big change then here is next, we're shifting 1.5 FTEs out of our general fund and into special funds.

So while it shows you know kind of looks like a reduction here in the general fund, it's actually just a shift.

So OFS is not losing any FTEs there.

We're just moving them to special funds.

So that is half of our fleet manager position.

So half of that position will stay in the general fund and half will move to the fleet fund.

And then our full FTE for a business support manager will move into a special fund.

There's a small increase here related to state of Minnesota paid leave.

And then there's a reduction of a vacant position on our accounting team.

That's an accounting clerk one position.

We're reducing that.

And then we're also reducing our general professional services budget.

In terms of special funds, there are a few increases, a few one-time and then one ongoing proposal that OFS would oversee.

First, grants management software.

So I just mentioned that the city does not have a central grants management system.

And we would like to have one.

It would be incredibly beneficial to have an enterprise-wide system where we can track all of the grants that the city is applying for, has received all of our funding sources, all of our spend down, reporting deadlines and requirements.

Right now, every department basically manages that on their own and varying SharePoint sites, spreadsheets, Word docs, people's brains, and we really want to get it all in a system that our grants team can manage and oversee.

We think it'd be very similar to like our budget system that you know every department accesses, but our budget team manages.

That is an ongoing investment.

It's in the central service fund, and we're able to cover that by reducing our current expenses related to our budget system and shifting that over to a grant system.

It came on within the last few years, and so we've had kind of a higher level of support from the vendor as we've continued to get that system like ingrained, and now that it is, we can back off of some of that vendor support and reallocate for the grants team.

So that's the proposal there.

Excuse me.

The next two are one-time requests, again, still in the central service fund.

One is, and they're both 100,000.

One is to bring on a consultant to support the city's shift to priority-based budgeting, and that would be overseen by our budget team.

And then the other is to conduct a facilities management study that would allow us to look at our facility management practices across the city compared to best practices, think about technology, and also help us with some capital planning, kind of financing around all of our facilities management.

All right.

Next we have the last five-year history of OFS's general fund budget to actuals.

So the main anomaly here in general, our general fund sits at around four to five million dollars.

The big anomaly is 2022 when there was one time funding that was budgeted in OFS's general fund budget to transfer to the debt fund and pay off some of the city's debt.

So OFS did not actually spend 22 million dollars on OFS that year.

Most of that was a transfer.

And take very seriously the responsibility of ensuring that the city comes in on budget like as a whole.

So OFS is often used as a balancer basically for the rest of the city.

So we know overspending is happening somewhere else.

We need to ensure that we kind of hold our our spending down to help balance that out.

We've got a question from Councilmember Johnson.

Yeah, thank you so much.

And I just wanted to I wanted to be able to, I guess, ask this question in two fold, one specific to I think the Office of Financial Services, and then I think it gets to some of the stuff that I'm seeing kind of cross-departmental.

Um the budget to actuals this year varies about 1.5 million as of this month.

Right.

Um and I know that with that there's gonna be some budget solving at the end of the year, but I it it is noticeable to me that that is like a significant off from budget to actuals for this year.

And it's something that I'm seeing kind of go across the board, and then when I look into next year's forecast of like what's being proposed for OFS, and then also other departments, that number doesn't seem to be going down any.

And I was wondering if you could share with me, like just from what we budget to what we actually spend, how do we, you know, when we have such a significant variance?

I would personally I would interpret 45% of a variance as significant.

Just wondering from like a lens of how we are how we are adjusting or accounting or learning from that, um, if we're seeing that across the board, and are any other sorts of you know, are there any other departments that maybe have a variance of that nature?

Sure.

Um, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson, thank you for the question.

Um, I would say the amount of underspending right now in OFS is I think is is different than we've seen in other years.

Part of that is when the cyber incident occurred in July, um, kind of immediately at that point, we knew in OFS the city would need to really limit spending because of how much spending was happening related to the cyber incident.

So kind of right off the bat there, um, I think things that we may have looked to do near the end of this year with some salary savings, we just knew we weren't gonna do.

Um, so of this, you know, 1.5 million, I think um a few hundred thousand is from our like materials budget and our services budget.

It's like we're not gonna enter into any other contracts this year, um, and we're not gonna buy new desks, even though a bunch of our staff need them, you know.

So, like there's probably like a four to five hundred thousand amount there that is in that kind of materials and services bucket.

Um, I think the other key factors here is we've had a few long-term vacancies this year, and I'll get into that on a later slide as well.

But um, you know, I I've been the interim director since May, um, and so our deputy director position is vacant.

Um, we've held vacant a position since February because we knew it was going to be cut in next year's budget.

Um, and we have another vacancy, um, kind of a high-level vacancy since June that is getting cut from our budget, and the funds are getting shifted to the city attorney's office for um the data practices team.

So there's been a few kind of key vacancies that um are being intentionally left vacant this year because of cuts coming next year, and then um just planned intentional not spending because of the cyber incident.

Um so and that that really adds up.

Um does that get at your question?

Yeah, and then as a follow-up, um could you just can you remind me again just the 2026 general fund proposal the proposed total budget for OFS?

The total budget for OFS, so the total change is an increase of 34,000.

The total budget 2026 proposed on the next slide is 5.1 million.

Say that again, I'm sorry.

Yeah, um, so sorry, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson.

Um, OFS's general fund 2026 proposed budget is 5.1 million, and that's on slide nine.

Okay, and then like along that vein for some of the planned vacancies and some of the planned funding spendings, funding spending.

Is there you know, movement on, I guess I'm assuming the director role is one of the roles that would be accounted for next year.

But like for some of the other variances and other changes and things that weren't filled this year, is there plans to fill them next year?

Is that why we're still accounting them and carrying them on the general fund role for the department?

Sure.

So Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson, um, I I believe, yes, there are plans to officially hire an OFS director next year.

Um so then that position will be filled and the deputy role would be filled again.

Um the two other key vacancies that I mentioned are being cut from our budget next year.

Um so that's how they're kind of accounted for next year.

Okay, thank you.

Definitely.

Um, I think I will stay on this slide.

So this slide gives our overall budget summary by fund.

Um you can see our first three funds really stay fairly steady over this time period.

That's the general fund, the grant fund, and then fund 211.

Um the big changes are occurring in fund 215, our assessments fund, um, and then to a lesser extent, um, fund 700, the internal loan fund, and fund 710, which is the central service fund.

I'm just gonna jump to the next slide where we can look at the visual and then I can talk about those funds a little bit more.

So what this really demonstrates, like I mentioned, is that most of our funds have been fairly um steady.

The budgets have been fairly steady over this time period.

Um, the big increases, the huge one that we can see fund 700, that dark line that jumps way up in 2024.

That's the city's internal loan fund.

Um, in 2024, that um fund had a significant increase because of two internal loans.

One was for the port authority.

There was a 10 million dollar internal loan related to the Heights project, and so far the port authority has not drawn down on that at all.

Um, but the budget you know remains.

Um, and then there's also there was a loan that year also to the HRA of $8 million related to Highland Bridge.

Um, and the HRA has drawn down, I think $3.9 million so far.

So that's why that big jump happened in the internal loan fund in that year.

Um fund 215, the yellow line, that's the assessments fund.

Um that fund is increasing.

We've seen that increase over time because the um assessments are used as part of the funding mechanism for street projects, and now that we have the local option sales tax coming in, we are doing more street projects than we did previously.

Um, and so between the lost funds and the assessment funds, um, that's how we're funding those increased street projects.

So the more street projects that we have, the more that the assessments fund is going to increase.

All right, this is our FTE summary by fund.

Um, you can see from 2025 to 2026, not much of a change and a slight decrease of a half an FTE, but really over this whole time period from 22 to 26, we've had um a significant increase in investment in FTEs in OFS, which has been incredibly appreciated.

Um, and I think we we're seeing um just huge benefits from that investment.

So I've already mentioned this a bit in the general fund though.

Um, we've added four FTEs related to our grants team, and we added one FTE for a deputy director position last year.

Um in our fund 211, that one FTE is the climate action coordinator position that I mentioned, and then in fund 710 over time, um, we've added two positions to our um treasury team in OFS, which has been super super beneficial.

Um the 1.5 FTEs being added to fund 731, that's our fleet fund.

Um, half is just a shift of the fleet manager out of the general fund and into the fleet fund, and then that um one FCE is also a shift, but from um public works into fleet.

Um, there's a position related to supporting garbage truck um vehicle maintenance that is moving from public works into fleet because that's where that person will work.

This slide just shows our vacant positions.

I've talked about this a little bit already as well.

But that accounting clerk one position, it's been vacant since February, and we were starting a hiring process, but then as we got into the actual budget, mayor's proposed budget, we decided to put that position up as a cut to help meet overall reduction targets.

So we intentionally have not filled that because we knew the position was going to be proposed to be cut.

The OFS director position is vacant.

I've been filling in as interim since May.

There's a management assistant for position on in the Office of Financial Empowerment that's also vacant related to the interim director position there.

And then there's a program administrator in OFS that has been vacant since June that is getting cut from our budget, and the funds are being shifted to the city attorney's office to support the creation of a data practices team there.

All right.

A few updates on projects that were previously funded by ARPA and that OFS oversees.

So I've mentioned the electronic payments project.

We've had a ton of success there with implementing our payment works system.

We have several other projects and kind of assessments lined up that are listed here.

Excuse me, we're evaluating electronic payment options with US bank, looking at doing an RFP related to our merchant card provider.

And then this PCI qualified security assessor, that's really a compliance assessment related to citywide credit card use.

So these are all just a variety of initiatives that we've been overseeing and undertaking that really increases the city's ability to do electronic payments more consistently and effectively.

Funds have been used to match other grant sources, allowing the city to really leverage more grants over the time that we've had these funds.

So the remaining funds are all allocated specifically for matching requirements and public works with some of the grants that they've received for EV Spot Network.

And then finally, the city payroll project is one again that has been ongoing for the kind of life of the ARPA funds.

The funds have allowed us to support additional staff needs related to grants management and payroll legal needs or reporting all related to the federal pandemic funds.

We've phased off of those funds over time, and so the remaining amount is really just for staff that are continuing to work on grant administration, payroll, and annual financial reporting.

The last slide that I have is a review of OFS's special fund revenues and kind of some changes over time.

We looked at this a bit on the slide that showed you know the line graph of all of our revenues, but um fund 215 assessments, um, these are special assessments.

It varies based on projects, and like I mentioned, we have a lot more street projects now because of the last funding, and so that revenue keeps going up.

Um our internal loan fund mentioned that one as well.

That revenue comes in from loan repayments.

It varies based on needs and usage.

Um 710, our central service fund.

Um, this fund, the revenue is based on charges.

Uh it comes in from charges to other city funds.

So the general fund and special funds all pay in to central service, and that's based on the cost for finance and technology needs.

And then our OFS fleet fund, fund 731, that revenue is generated based on charges to parks and public works for the use of fleet services for their vehicle maintenance.

That's been steady for years.

So I think that is all I have.

Um there are several slides in the appendix section for your reference, um, but I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Councilmember Johnson.

Um thank you so much, uh Director Blocksman.

I wanted to just ask you a question more so about where it's it's like related to the budget, but not necessarily specific to yours.

Um I am more so wondering just from a lens of if the goal or if some of the goal or appetite from the council is to see us be able to get you know our but have a more frequent budget to actuals conversation where we're actually seeing you know the actual real-time numbers for the city throughout the year and not just you know, we have a budget cycle, we potentially hear about it at the beginning of the spring of 2026 for the years of 2025, so it doesn't inform any sort of budget conversations or our budget process.

Um, if the goal was quarterly, how would you recommend that we get there?

Sure.

Um, Chair Kim and Councilmember Johnson, you know, very very happy to have that conversation and talk through how that could work.

Um the budget to actuals information is available on a daily basis in in for, which is our ERP system.

Um I believe that some council staff have access to that and can pull the you know kind of daily budget to actuals for all funds, all departments.

So that's that's should be available.

Um the caution generally is that there are certain expenses that only happen um you know once a year or twice a year.

Um so the budget to actuals on any given day may not, you know, reflect um what's what's really going to happen.

Um the main example there is transfers.

So there are tons of transfers budgeted across every single fund.

Um, and there are different times of year when transfers occur depending on the department, depending on the fund.

Some transfers don't occur until all the revenue comes in, and then it gets transferred out.

Some transfers don't occur until the following year when we know they're actually needed.

So there's um there's just some like variability basically in budget to actuals.

Um, so there's always like a qualification with any any data that we're looking at on a daily basis.

Um does that answer your question?

Yeah, so council staff don't like because you know, some of the council staff don't have access.

I don't I don't believe my legislative aid, for example, has ever been through the in for system to plug numbers.

That's not something that I would be able to kind of just frequently assign and expect her to fully understand the widths of the budget.

The thing I'm kind of talking about is the budget to actual like reporting style that gets back to council that shows the budget to actuals.

Um, and I think transparently, I I really um have been watching this in a way that you know, especially being a part of the HRA and sharing the HRA this year, one of the struggles that we've had um in some way, shape or form has been our transfers, and some of the transfers only happen once a year at the end of the year.

And so really tracking some of the actual spending for the city is really hard to do.

And I know that we've had some, you know, I've had HR HRA staff, I've had council staff and OFS staff working together, which have been really great, when I which I've been really glad to see.

I it concerns me sometimes that we aren't able to just actually have those numbers in real time uh on the impor system, or we aren't able to just like real time track those numbers because there's so many things that maybe staff aren't pervy to because there's a transfer that's happening or pending.

Um, and so I'm just wondering like uh what process points would you potentially recommend that could could get us there?

You know, I recognize that it'll be like a multi-you know I think it'll be a couple years before we actually get to a place where we have the budget to actuals readily available when we need them to make inform other decisions.

But when we're seeing variances by department, and we do see it throughout the city for whatever reason, vacancies, something happens, and I know there's a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes, and your team works really hard to do that.

What I think would be really helpful though in some of the budget conversations though, is understanding a little bit more about those things in real time.

And so I'm just wondering like if the goal was to have budget to actual reporting realistically, including transfers, including things that we would be able to hypothetically see the budget at a glimpse in full quarterly.

What would we need to do to be able to do that?

Sure.

So Chair Kim and Council Johnson, um, I think we would, yeah, we would need to meet and map out how that would work.

Um, because what what you're describing is a significant amount of work for staff.

So we would just need to work through what information is needed and how how we can do it with kind of current reporting and try to limit the amount of like manual um qualifications and you know additional information that are needed.

There's just so much variability across departments and funds with when transactions are occurring.

Um just need to meet to walk through it.

And not to believe for the point, but I think one of the goals for the city, you know, is to also be able to have their, I don't know if it's what the proper term is, but I know when they're reporting their year, their month end spending, or I don't know what it's it's called.

Um I think it's like like the month end bookend spending or that they're doing uh that they're supposed to do it monthly, or like the hypothetically that's the goal, right?

Like it's like we're supposed to be able to see the reports from departments monthly.

Um I think it would be really great to get to that place um in a space where that's not just aspirational, but that that's something that we actually implement in process.

And so I'm really interested in knowing, you know, from a process and standpoint, especially with some of the savings from OFS.

Like last year, you know, one of the things that I talked with at the time, Director McCarthy about was about um the audit process and also about some of the budget to actual discussions.

Like this is something that's I will just share as a personal priority of our office to see our like city reporting mechanisms get a little bit tighter in ways that I feel like maybe it requires additional investment, maybe it requires additional staffing, maybe it requires additional capacity, whatever the case may be.

But when we have conversations about transitioning from an annual budget process to a biannual pro, like you know, to two years, um, a two-year budget process, there's gonna be a lot of work that goes into that, and I think being realistic about what the what that could look like, you know, because we wouldn't be able to go two years without having budget to actual conversations and budget budget to actual reporting.

We probably would be able to make that closer if we have two year budget cycles to have quarterly reporting, and that's probably all LinkedIn.

Um, but in so many different ways, like I would appreciate that kind of follow-up in-depth conversation, in particular starting with the HRA budget.

Um, but that's just because I'm the HRA chair and I care about our HRA audits, and I would love to see them done on time.

And separately, when we're having budget to actual conversations, there's just been numerous times this year where knowing when the transfer is happening, maybe accounting board next year, have helping to help uh you know have the transfers and such out earlier on our end would be really helpful to know just from what would be beneficial to OFS.

And so I welcome that conversation, and it's something that I just want to be transparent to my colleagues about.

Like I think, you know, in one way when we're handling the budget in spaces and overseeing things or making financial decisions.

It's hard to do that when you're not getting that information before we have to make a budget vote.

Um millions could be out there that we don't know about until the end of the year.

Um, and so it's hard sometimes to know like, do we need this funding here?

Do we need the funding here?

And so, in many ways, I'm sure your team empathi empathizes with that because that's your day to day.

But I think the reporting piece is just as equally as important as seeing it in real time.

And I can't tell all quite a few of the council staff about infer and how to just go pull the numbers.

Um it takes a specific person, which I'm really thankful for our chief budget officer and our you know, and having a director that has an accounting background is important too.

But if you don't, how are you accessing that information unless it's readily available?

And so it would be nice to see us eventually get to a quarterly reporting basis.

Sure, thank you.

Um I've got just a quick general question, um, and then just a very brief comment on that.

I appreciate you lifting that up.

Uh, council member Johnson.

Um, I've been writing down what the what the funds are.

Um, is there an and I'm sorry if this exists, is there an index that kind of helps us refer like what is fund 100?

What is you know, 100 is general fund, 200 is ARPA.

I kind of quickly jotted down, you know, uh 710 is central service, but is there uh an index somewhere we can kind of quickly reference that?

Is that included in our appendix by chance?

Um Chair Kim, it's not included in our PowerPoint, but it's in the budget book.

So in the budget book um in the OFS section, all of our funds are listed by number and name, and then um there's a description of what each fund is for, and that's the same across all departments.

Okay, perfect.

I appreciate you pointing to me to the correct resource.

Um the other thought is that um one of the questions that I had sort of during one of our one of the pre-presentation meetings was about um the professional services, and there was a I had a I guess a general concern about it, but more so because um there was uh an interest in investing in sort of moving towards the project-based budgeting and sort of that effort of looking at like what is a biannual budget look like and kind of like where what types of reports are we looking for.

So I was rest assured it was included.

Um, but I think um to compound the point that councilmember Johnson made, feeding into sort of those quarterly reports and what it looks like and what we're even asking for is is definitely a topic of conversation we're interested in.

Um so we're gonna keep it pushing.

Um I think that was the end of our interim director's presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We really appreciate it.

Welcome up.

Hello.

I'm Michelle Botkawood.

I am um a senior budget analyst here, and I am the primary person who is staffing the CIB committee, and then I just wanted to recognize Shannon in the yellow over there.

She is also a senior budget analyst.

She is the other person who works with me on CIB and has been amazing.

Um I'm here to talk about CIB.

This is a pretty general overview of the of the process, which is actually honestly pretty complicated.

So stop me if you have questions.

It helps me to feel less nervous, and um also I'm used to it because it is complicated.

But today I'm gonna go over the just the overview of what the CIB budget bonds and committee are.

Um talk about our proposed budget, and then also just sort of touch on our upcoming and current processes that we're working through.

So capital improvement budget, and one of the things that I spend a lot of time talking with residents with potential committee members about is that CIB can mean a lot of different things.

CIB, like within the same paragraph, I will use CIB to mean the committee, the bonds themselves, and the CIB budget book.

CIB budget book is what we're talking about here.

This capital improvement budget is our is how we fund our infrastructure, it's our physical spaces, um, and it primarily funds projects in public works, parks, libraries, but essentially any place that has a physical um physical capital.

Um I always include these types of pictures because I think that when we think about the CIB budget, we're often thinking about um projects like our fire stations, our parks, our rec centers, our big projects, and those are a big portion of what we love about the CIB budget, but it's also a lot of other types of projects, things like pedestrian safety, bump out, school, safe roads to schools, um and it is and all of those are important and part of part of the budget.

Um the budget is uh not managed.

The advisory committee is the CIV committee budget committee.

So the Capital Improvement Budget Committee was established in state law in the 60s, and um it is an 18-member resident, well resident mostly, sorry, uh board appointed by the mayor.

They uh meet monthly, they review all budget amendments, and I think they're the best people you'll ever meet.

I'm really excited that I have the privilege to be able to warn our departments that they're gonna ask a lot of in-depth questions, and um, yeah.

I I recommend I recommend hanging out with them once a month.

Um they review the process for funding, funding process for capital improvement bonds, and they also review budget amendments for any uh funding source that comes through.

So that's where you'll see budget um the CIB statement on some of your uh resolutions you pass.

They review community the they have the CIB bond process project processes, which I'll go over, uh which include community proposal and department process.

They also review CDBG funding recommendations for projects, and um capital maintenance, which we'll go into every single year.

So all of our processes kind of follow the same structure, which mirrors the operating budget.

And I always take time to talk about this because I think that it's important.

So every single year the Capital Improvement Budget Committee works through June when they need to send a letter of recommendation to the mayor to review the proposals for that year, to review tentative recommendations they maybe have previously had, and depending on the year, they have different processes.

They send a letter of recommendation for the CIB to the mayor, who then creates the proposed budget, and then similar to the operating budget, you work through this process all through the fall and pass an adopted budget by winter.

I always just mention this because I do also often work with people who have proposed funds who want to maybe advocate for more funding, and I send them to you guys at this time of year.

So that's I think important to know is just like that I may be maybe directing folks to come talk to you.

And um, and I think that that's good.

Sorry.

Um, so sorry, the the two processes that the capital improvement budget committee follow is the department process and the community proposed process.

We do this every other year.

This year was a department process year.

Um where and then we will be okay.

So this year is a department process year.

We also have two other funding cycles that happen this year.

One is capital maintenance, so that is a portion of the CIB bonds that go to capital maintenance projects within the city, and they're reviewed individually by the committee.

The other is the community development block grant, which we'll talk about.

That's a federal grant program that's managed by PED.

The CIB committee just does the selection or does the initial review of project proposals for that funding.

So continuing in the overview here, just talking a little bit about the major revenue sources.

A lot of our budget is funded by local funding sources, and our local general obligation bonds is our um it's what I spend the most of my time talking about.

Capital improvement, public safety library, street reconstruction bonds.

These are the local general obligation bonds, and Neil will talk to us about them, but they're backed by our property taxes.

So as Neil will mention, they come like increasing a capital improvement bond funding comes with a necessary need to increase the taxes to sort of pay that back, right?

Other funding sources, um a lot of other funding sources make up the capital improvement budget, and they all have their own requirements for what types of projects they can fund, where they can fund them, and sort of how those things work together.

So I always like to bring up municipal state aid.

It is our portion of the state's gas tax, and um it is a it funds a lot of the work that public works does around improving streets.

However, only about 20% of our streets are actually eligible for MSA.

It has to be an MSA eligible road.

Um similarly, we have things like our St.

Paul Streets program, which is funded through um street improvement bonds and assessment funding, sort of similar to what we were talking about, the assessments for roads.

They can fund residential and arterial streets, and then we have the rest of these, but my point with this is that I think that our departments do a really good job in particular, and I know public works will talk to you about their five-year plan soon of finding the project that they're prioritizing and then using the funding sources available.

You'll see in just a moment, CIB is a small portion of the CIB, CIB bonds is a small portion of the CIB budget.

Um, and but it is considered our most flexible, which is why we tend to spend the most time talking about it, right?

So if a road is not eligible for MSA funds or other funding sources, they then tend to come to us with CIV requests as an example.

So here's my big table.

Um, this is our funding sources for project budgets in 2025 and the 2026 proposed budget.

As I had mentioned, our local financing sources make up about 82% of our budget, and only 3.7% of that is capital improvement bonds.

So another view of that is here.

It's just that lightest blue sliver um that is capital improvement bonds, which for 2026.

Um, what makes up the proposed budget for 2026 is um for CIB in particular is the city department proposal process.

This process follows the same process that I've worked through before, and it's actually really similar to how we manage all of our processes.

We have departments create proposals, so departments submitted their proposals in the spring uh work group of CIB committee members and then also department representatives reviewed those proposals and then spent time sort of discussing and trying to strategically plan to make sure that we had the ability to fund all of our projects to create a proposal which they present to the CIB committee.

The CIB committee members do review the proposals also, and then they review the recommendations from that work group.

They create a tentative recommendation that they publish, and then they have a public hearing.

And the reason I do mention this is that I do think that sometimes that tentative, those tentative recommendations can cause panic among our proposers, and so it's something that I do try to spend time um communicating to proposers to community members that I talk to, because they're not the tentative recommendations, are really intended to be just an idea for those people who are interested in um presenting to the public hearing so that they kind of know where the committee is at the public hearing and other outreach.

So we often do, or we from many of our processes we do community polls.

Um the committee members then take that information and then use that to create the recommendations.

And then I'm sorry to cut you off.

I'll let you finish the slide, but we've got a question from Councilman McCullem.

Oh, and actually, I think I'm done.

I was gonna say that, and then it goes to you guys.

Um Thank you, Chair Kim, and thank you so much.

This as somebody who is very new to all of this, this is so incredibly helpful.

And I have an extremely basic question just on terminology.

So the capital improvement bonds that are referenced um in the pie chart and the graph.

Um the local general obligation bonds, those are the capital improvement bonds, or am I completing two things?

The sorry, the like the under major revenue sources, the local general obligation bonds.

Yes.

So the local general obligation bonds would be the street reconstruction bonds and the capital improvement bonds.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Council President.

Um Thanks, Chair.

This is gonna relate to a question I have later on about a specific decision by the CIB committee, but kind of while we're talking about the general process.

Um, I'm curious how um how transparent is the decision making.

I mean, this is this is really important, right?

This is a group of 18 people who are making recommendations on all of the capital investments that we're gonna make in the city of St.

Paul.

So it's a big deal.

Um how does an applicant for that funding understand why a decision is made the way that it is.

Um Chair, Council President.

Um so I think that's a complicated question.

We try to do our best to have the community committee members include information about their reasoning and what their priorities are in their letter of recommendation to the mayor.

When we can, I think we try to work with uh community groups that have reached out who want that information.

It can be kind of hard to determine why any group of people makes a decision, right?

I think that you guys make decisions and probably for different reasons each time you do, each individual.

So we can spend time um kind of offering information about what the conversation was.

We have our minutes available.

Um so for example, CD BG funding, I think um has come up.

This year, the committee did change from their tentative recommendations following a conversation about um wanting to prioritize two projects in particular our vacant and hazardous building projects as well as the Hmong Community Center.

Um, and so that's captured in the minutes that they had wanted to do those.

I but I will say that I think that we have received feedback that that is helpful, and I think that there's tension between the fact that we need to be able to provide that, and it can be difficult because I think each year the committee members change the way that they make decisions and have conversations change and um process to process the I'm always excited to be surprised by how they how they respond and how they have conversations.

I will also say though, that we do review with them ahead of time the rubrics, we try to tailor the questions and a documents ahead of time to that, and um to I think on the front end what we try to do is develop those materials for for proposers to help guide them towards what the committee typically would like to see.

Yeah, I would just um also add that all of the meetings where um these projects are discussed and where recommendations are finalized are open to the public.

I think my and I appreciate that, and I know that there it's this is complicated.

Um I'm looking at the minutes of the meetings that in question, and I'm not seeing discussion of these specific projects.

It seems like um a lot of that decision making is happening via a poll or a survey that committee members fill out ahead of time and then discuss.

No, we don't do that.

Okay.

So if I'm not seeing a specific project discussed, is that just it may not be showing up in the minutes?

I guess I'm I'm I'm wondering whether after the presentations are made and before the committee sort of signs off on the final recommendation.

Where is the discussion happening about how to prioritize one project over another?

And should that be showing up in the minutes sort of project by project.

So I think oh gosh, that's a hard question to answer because I think it depends on which process we're actually talking about.

I when I said that I that we don't do a survey, they do do scoring individually, which we pull back together and then provide to them aggregated.

Um they do do that piece of that, and we keep that.

Um they don't have rules that they are required to like follow that scoring or even necessarily that they will keep that.

So I do think that past processes that I have seen um can be really impacted by things like who shows up to the public hearing um and that piece, but the discussion about which projects are funded is um is part of the discussion.

Although it is true that one project is prioritized over the other necessarily because all of our funding sources have are finite.

But I don't know that we would have detailed the the conversation, like the conversation around why each individual would want to select which projects to pull from to fund that.

If that I answer that.

Yeah, it does.

I'll just I'll just and I'll come back to this topic later on.

But I um I think it is really we need to figure out a way to be able to know the reasoning behind these decisions, I I think, because they are making recommendations, those go to the mayor, those come to us, and we have the ability to change those recommendations and obviously finalize the budget.

Um and it's difficult without being able to see again.

Usually I look to sort of planning commission minutes, BZA minutes, etc.

to see the back and forth and understand the conversation that took place or to the recording of the meeting or to the scoring sheets.

But I just in this case, I'm not sure I could tell somebody, for example, you know, why this decision was made, and and therefore I'm not sure how to um support or oppose it myself.

Okay, uh seeing more hands up, I saw councilmember Bowie, and then we'll go to Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you.

Um thank you so much, Director.

Um I am on the tail end of that discussion.

I know uh I've also received um concerns from residents who you know have investments in major projects and have seen funds uh uh investments not go into ward one projects, particularly in having to sort through the minutes.

I think even we have had a conversation particularly around the process.

Uh but can you speak to because you had mentioned uh in your response that it really depends on who's in that room and who's advocating on behalf of that project, whether it's the public hearing or in the the work group are on the actual board.

Can you speak to what is the department's role in ensuring that there is equal representation amongst wards?

Um I you know, in the conversation that we have had prior, you know, I've learned that there's been quite a few vacancies on this board, uh, but there hasn't been any um notice or alerts, particularly with uh with myself as a council member, particularly in ward one, about how we can fulfill um those vacancies, and also if you can talk about you know, if there is a situation where there is a lack of representation amongst um a ward, how does the capital improvement budget process move forward, making sure that everyone has equal representation um for the projects within their district?

So right now we do have uh council are this is skipping forward a little bit, so I might have to not repeat myself um later.

But right now, the CIB committee members um are representative of every ward except for ward four.

Um we are advocating for we are working to try and recruit in ward four.

I will say both Shannon and well, we're not members, but there is always at least two ward four residents at every CIB meeting because staff have to go.

Um but um we do I it has been something that I have seen dealt with.

So what I would say is the community process last year was a really as an example of a time that we found that we did not have projects proposed from wards, and I caused some confusion in the process, but I think was important to do so.

So what we did at that point was we paused, we reopened the application process, and then spent more time advocating or working with those wards in particular to try and get additional projects.

I don't think that that is the ideal way of doing that.

Um I think that that experience and the confusion that it caused is part of what is leading the CIV through their conversations around prioritizing.

So the CIB committee is going to be spending time working with their district councils.

A lot of them are really connected to them already and other organizations within their communities, and then I think also our goal is to continue to improve the way and how we can communicate with your team to help promote those because getting the word out about capital improvement budget um can be hard, I think.

It sounds boring when you say it that way sometimes.

Um I personally worked to like try and recruit folks, and I have to convince them actually it's it's really fun and we talk about parks all the time.

Um but uh yes, I do think that we try to be cognizant, in particular of ward membership.

Um like I said, the appointments are made by Senate district, so we have a certain amount by Senate district that we need to recruit, but in addition, I do track them by district council and ward, and um because I think that from what I've experienced, people have more understanding of where their ward is than their Senate district.

Great.

Um and then we have councilmember Johnson will go, council president after.

Okay, I think I'm skipping ahead a couple slides.

Um and I I'm hoping that when we get to the so when I look at the five-year CIB budget from 2022 to 2026, you know, I I'm a couple questions just because I wasn't here during the 2023 decisions or the 2022 decisions to frontload so much of uh our resources, I think in the five-year planning.

So I guess I'm just uh my question really stems from just trying to understand like the the budget cycle.

I'm still wrapping my head around the budget cycle of CAB, CAB funding, you know, from the community project proposal phase to the this process, you know, that goes through the city that gets to us, and honestly, it's it is a little confusing, um at least from my perspective, but we're also not talking about um a significant like it's it's it's funny, it's resources, but it only goes so far.

And so I just I'm trying to understand like kind of the timing, like the five-year plan, some of the decisions around like what it looked like in 2022, 2023 when the decision was made to like front load so much of it to where the last three years have really just been kind of you know, in retrospect of like the front loading funding, the funding in comparison is not it's not the same, and then as you look into like the forecast for like uh the next cycle of things, you know, I see CIB funding recommendations for 2027, and it's heading into this other year outside of the five-year CIB budget.

And so I'm just I'm just wondering if you can help that help make sense of just you know how the money moves and when, and then also just in general, you know, uh coming into the council learning about the community projects, you know, we had to expand some of the CIB projects because the community projects were my there weren't any uh very there were very few e-sight projects overall that were submitted from community, and uh I think at the time our ward my ward had none, um, and I was just learning about that as well.

So now as we head into this project and this cycle, you know, I'm I'm glad to see some of the recommendation lists, and I did pay attention to just where some of the wards um where the ward distribution was and some of the you know just which projects and where were funded, it is harder to find the meeting minutes and things like that, but it's just more like on the basic level trying to wrap your head around some of the CIB process overall, uh, even as a council member can be difficult.

Um, but I still don't I'm still trying to understand just like the cycles, the timing, um the five-year versus oh we're now we're talking about 2027.

So could you yeah, yeah.

Well, and thank you.

Um chair and council member.

Um I am actually glad you had the question because you made several of my points that I was gonna make um here.

So one of the things that is true about this department process, so a typical process, the way that it always like it works at standard, is that every two years we bring forward the proposed budget and the tentative.

So that's what we did for 2026 proposed budget, and then the tentative recommendations.

The when I come back in two years, it'll be the next two years, right?

But our budget this year is impacted by the decisions made in 2021.

2021 they did decide to do the process differently, and they took the funding available for five years, including 2026, and um front-loaded it to fund some larger high priority projects.

So you see those here, the North End Community Center, Fire Station 7.

Um, typically with CIB budget, what they is is 11 million dollars per year of funding, and it's been sort of set at that amount forever, maybe.

Um, and the that'll so essentially what we did was we took the 11 million dollars.

Um, what you'll see there is that the annual programs were prioritized, and then to sort of pool it at the beginning so that we could do those higher priority projects.

However, what that means is that each year I've kind of brought this table back to you to highlight that which year we're at in this five-year process.

2026 is our final year of this process, and it does we do just have fewer um fewer funds available, right?

So this year it's at 3.9 million dollars in CIV bonds, um, and then 2007 will be at 11.

So really the 2026-2027 process only covered new funding for 2027 only.

Um, and then in two years, we'll be back to the two-year process.

I will say, however, I was not here in at that time either.

Um, so if you have more to add Yeah.

Sure.

Um, Chair Kim, Council Member Johnson.

Uh so when we implemented the five-year plan, we were in a really unique interest rate environment um that we uh opted to take advantage of so that we could fund these projects um essentially for cheaper.

Uh the the average funding uh capital improvement bond funding per year is 11 million, and so it's a little bit hidden in this slide, but that 11 million over five years stayed the same.

It was 55 million, it was just pushed into those earlier years so that we could take advantage of those lower interest rates.

We're not in um that same environment anymore, as Neil will talk about in the next um part of the presentation.

Um so we are shifting back to that 11 million dollars annually that you'll see starting in 2027.

Council president.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, just coming back to backward for a minute.

I just um I want to follow up on Council Member Bowie's excellent question about equity across the city.

And I just want to remind um my colleagues that our council's audit committee actually took the CIB process as our focus in our last audit.

Um, and Wilder Research presented to us a really helpful set of maps that I I will send out again, but they are fascinating and they show where our capital investments have gone over the course of the last few years citywide.

Um you can search for your ward, you can search for areas of concentrated poverty, you can map the investments over lots of different demographic data.

So we have that information.

And I also want to thank the CIB committee because I note in their letter to the mayor and also in our presentation to them in Wilder's presentation, they note that they look forward to implementing some of the process improvements that Wilder suggested as they move forward.

It res specifically with regard to equity in the community proposal process.

So I just want to make sure that that is noted and recognized, and we do have that information, and again, I'll I'll send that out.

I think one of the things that would be helpful perhaps in terms of this conversation, I feel as though we're we're triangulating a bit because you're responsible for talking to us about the committee's decisions, and the committee is not here.

Um I don't think they're here, they should speak up.

Um, I think it would be potentially in the future, and maybe even this year, great to hear directly from the chair of the CIB committee and maybe have the committee members in attendance because then the council can engage with the committee on the decisions they made rather than asking for you to be able to share back with us the thinking that went into that.

Love that recommendation and um would love to see Lauren up here.

So Councilmember Johnson.

And I think on that note, you know, I know that all of the meetings is so I should just ask.

When is the next meeting?

November 10th.

Um, I one of the things that I I know that sometimes it can be hard to get volunteers to also then come to the council meeting during the workday, etc.

But I am wondering just from that lens of along the vein, like would there be a conversation that could happen on November 10th with the council about the recommendations that they put forward?

Because one of the things that I've heard, um I I know I have I I'm trying to remember through like Ward 7 CIB membership, but like I do hear from some of the folks that do serve on the CAB from my ward.

Um just because they're you know, we have the com we have communication both in the ward, but I don't know how often they are able to have that conversation, and I know that's something that I've served on other committees uh for the city, and some of them were grant funding pieces, some of them were around the scoring rubric, and we did have like comments and we had things that we wrote that we knew that weren't gonna be necessarily publicly shared, but we had reasons and rationales behind our scoring.

And so I think just to the pieces of some of the rubrics, some folks may be more comfortable you know addressing that head on if there's questions.

I I I guess I'm wondering if there is like a kind of like a their score, but is there something that they're scoring against?

Like uh is there something to tell them like I don't know what the scale is for the scoring, but is there uh is there is there rubric guidance that they use and like kind of how they're being evaluated or how they're evaluating there is the rubric um and we go through it with them.

Um we haven't had comments on the scorecards that they provide us, so we don't have the narrative piece of that.

Yeah.

Um is the is this is the agenda two packed in November 10th to have um conversation with council members about the CIB projects for this year?

I mean, I we will find a way to unpack it.

I think that we are always excited to have any kind of uh coordination with your team.

I think that the success of the CIV and my personal job is easier when we are engaged with you as community leaders.

Um, and by that I just mean my job is easier because we'll have more members appointed, hopefully, and I don't have to hound them about forum.

Um also a myriad of reasons.

So I think that we will find ways to make it work.

We have a meeting monthly.

Um, so I December would likely would be too late.

But um we have and I think that we have a certain amount of flexibility.

They are planning to have the capital maintenance process presented to them that day.

Um, but that is not as time dependent as the adopted budget.

So I think that however you're willing, I would I would love to work with you.

Okay.

I I think it would be just really great to know.

I know that sometimes it's just as challenging to get the chair or the members of the committee during the work during this time frame, like if we did attend a.m.

budget meeting, I don't know how many people could come.

So that's something that I I don't want to volunteer with the people, but I have you know no issue coming to the next meeting to hear about their feedback to learn more so from a lens of just um I too have been looking at the recommendations and it would be great to add some context to it in ways that I feel like I'm unable at this time, you know, just about the decisions were I see the scoring.

But if I'm just looking at, you know, I see the scoring and then I see things that I would have probably chosen elsewhere that would be on the list of things that I would fund, and then it's like, oh well, I wonder what that went into.

So I don't want to volunteer my colleagues, but if someone wants to come with me November 10th, we'll put that on the calendar.

So thank you.

And we'll be at Arlington Hills.

I also say also the audit committee came and presented, and it really meant a lot to my the members of the committee, I think.

Um I think that they appreciate your time when you do have the time to give them.

So thank you.

And I look forward to working with you on that.

I am I really appreciate that.

I think the the one thing I'll lift up is sort of connecting the points of the audit committee and the concerns that council member uh Bowie spoke on.

We have a few historical organizations in the North End that apply every single year, and we see a reduction of their investment year over year.

Um, sometimes even 61% of the requests that they had made even over two years or from previous years.

So we're seeing just a significant and you know, I don't want to call it a trend of reduction of investment in uh neighborhoods that uh council member Bowie and I share like the North End.

And so sort of connecting the sort of what does equitable investment look like across the city, recognizing the work of the audit committee, given other programs that are funded through CIB and CDBG at the level of funding for specifically the North End, we are getting 25% of the historical investment as other neighborhoods with similar similar economic profiles.

So it's just to say there's sort of a diminishing investment in this neighborhood, and when this particular organization presented as CIB, there were only two members present.

And so I think the makeup and who is present at these meetings really matters because then when they go to um kind of jockey at the end for what's being invested in, and if it's an 18-person um member board, there's only two people that were there to listen to this pitch for um a neighborhood just like the east side that has a lot of uh lower wealth folks that are trying to access home ownership that are trying to build economic wealth and build economic wealth in our city.

So I just I echo that as just important emphasis that there are two organizations specifically for the north end um that have been doing business using this fund, and year over year over year over year we see just a decline in the investment in these organizations, and I don't it's not to point fingers, but it's an observation and there are worthy areas on the east side, absolutely, but so I'm lifting up the the audit committee's presentation and connecting those dots and thinking about how we're equitably distributing resources across the city to ensure that we are focusing on the areas that have the greatest amount of need.

Um so with that, and I really appreciate um uh the the candor.

So we're at 1114.

We are going to pause for questions and let um us finish the this presentation because right after this, we still have a debt presentation.

Um so we're gonna let you cruise through and we'll hold for questions until the end.

Yes, and one thing that I wanted to mention, um the presentations where we do have presenters come um are they're not meet minute meetings, they don't do business there.

There was this the meeting where we review proposals with the two folks.

We did determine to not reschedule that one.

Um it had already been rescheduled due to weather, so it happened this spring, and um it is in it to return respect the presenter's time.

We just moved with what we had there.

I do think that you're right though, that the most that we can more that we can do to document those and to have that because I think that us telling committee members that we're taking notes and we want them to take notes and share is not enough, and it also would frustrate me if I were a proposer.

So um and on an 18-person committee with two people present.

I would also say that's not equitable representation of the committee itself.

So we'll keep it pushing.

Thank you.

I appreciate the comment.

Yeah.

So um for our city department process, we did collect proposals, they fell into three categories.

Um, this was a slightly different process from previous years.

We did accepted annual programs, the 2027 department projects, and then we also collected less detailed proposals for the 28th through 2031 proposals, the goal of which is that we're trying to develop our capital improvement five-year plan as a starting structure for the next process, and to also sort of help the committee understand where our departments are going in the future based off of or for to inform their proposals this year.

Um the anything that I have here that is underlined is actually links, and then I include them later.

So I do link to a lot of our documents.

Um, the mayor's recommendation letter that they sent details some of their reasoning, but really they really prioritize annual programs.

The review of annual programs um was beneficial, and they were highly prioritized by each group that reviewed them.

And then in addition to annual programs, they prioritized existing facilities, improving and um maintaining existing facilities that we have and completing projects which we are currently working on, or which are existent.

So this is our annual programs.

These are the highlighted green ones are ones that um have been changed in addition to those two.

The CIB committee voted to reinstate the children's play area improvements annual program.

That is a program that had been removed as part of the 2021 process, I think.

Could have been 22, but um as part of uh finding cuts is in that process, but it it was determined to be really important to the way that parks manages their facilities.

Um the highlighted green items are still annual programs being funded.

The 2025 adopted is what we have annually given to those projects previously, and because the amount is not enough to complete a project each year.

Um, so for example, $10,000 for railroad crossing improvements.

Departments have historically um sort of stored those budgets until they are able to spend it.

So what we did was we are scheduling the funding for annual programs in order to fund them when they'll be funded.

So right now the budget book shows those funding for those programs in 2028, and we will reassess that as part of the next two-year budget proposal.

Um I'm really excited about this.

I think that this is a great way for us to uh budget when we're actually spending it, to spend our money when we need to, and then I think it's also um an exciting opportunity for how we work with our departments too.

Um yeah, we did, but you'll be first in the queue.

Thank you, Council President.

Keep it rolling.

Um we like no questions.

The other two projects that were funded as part of the capital improvement department process is our two transforming libraries projects, Hayden Heights and Riverview.

Um these are possible to be funded because of the amazing amount of work that libraries are doing to work with friends of libraries and outside organizations so that we were able to they were we were able to use CIB funding in conjunction conjunction in connection with those.

The other project is a 2021 project, the Randolph Avenue Bridge.

An additional three million dollars was needed to complete that funding for that project, and um so that is our final 2027 project.

In addition, we have the capital improvement budget or capital development block grant, C D B G.

Um, it's a federal grant program that so the federal funding comes to us.

The CIB committee is only involved through the project review process, so that's a lot of what we've been talking about for the process this year.

Um today, it's not managed by PED and PED works with the community groups once the funding is awarded or adopted through through your process.

Um the funding available for this process has been four million dollars per year per year um for a while.

It's based off of how much funding we receive from the federal government.

And um I did include the community price I separated them out.

It's both community groups and city departments which present proposals each year.

Um I think that a lot of times the committee spends time trying to figure out the balance between underfunding a proposal or funding more proposals.

A lot of their conversation kind of goes into that.

I think that the way that they make those decisions changes um based on the year, but um this is the this is the current list.

But and I just did want to read everybody if there are follow-ups about like additional information about history or what the proposals were, I can also send applications to your offices as you review these.

Um and then my final main piece here is the two final processes that we work through, which the current one is our capital maintenance, our capital maintenance team is currently meeting, and the CIB committee should have recommendations to you for um 2026 and 2027 capital maintenance.

Um typically those happen between December or come to you between December and of this year and February.

I think our hope is always to get it to you earlier.

Um then also we are currently working on the community proposed projects.

I did want to spend a time thanking you for dedicating your resources with the audit committee to um to the review of the CIB community proposal process.

I found that very we've we've I've received nothing but amazing feedback from the committee.

They have a subcommittee that they are working with or that they are developing to create committee recommendations around that, and in addition, um we are working to enact as many of those proposals as we can just just by staff.

And um, I think that while we don't have I don't have the actual application to give to you.

I am um hopeful, I am certain that the application will be simplified, that we will do our work to begin the process of simplifying um the experience for applicants in particular for our community members who are interested in applying, and also that that those recommendations are part of our continuous improvement steps and can kind of help us develop a process so we can keep moving forward with those.

Um honestly, if you have additional feedback on tools that can help you to promote them, so things like um I was asked for a square picture at one point to promote on social media, things like that.

I don't always know what it is you need, so if you have specific recommendations, I I think that that's helpful.

Um we should have that to you soon.

This is my um appendix, those are my links.

We will also be um updating you.

We had a review of um our capital maintenance process, which was more which is deeply in depth, um, and we are finalizing our status updates report to get to you.

These documents have I'm proud of them.

Um, and I think they've taken a lot of work to get back to being something that we can send to you.

However, they are dense.

So I also just wanted to say um as we get to you our follow-ups and finish these, that please reach out if you have questions about them or even if it's just helpful to have a walkthrough because I feel like I have to do that something with OFS folks, and we spend all day in spreadsheets.

So I know there was a question queue.

We start with council president.

Um, I just want to note the time.

So before we go to that question really quickly, we have one more presentation.

We are at time for the day, it's pretty stacked.

Um there is I think flexibility with staff to do the dead presentation pretty quickly, but I also want to be respectful of the time and energy that they put into it and not rushing through the content, and that is um admittedly one of my weaker points of the budget.

So I'm just looking at my colleagues.

Um, would folks like to there I did message them, they're um amenable to presenting um on November 5th to get kind of that more 30-minute presentation time.

Um, how are my folks my colleagues feeling around um giving the debt presentation a full 30 minutes on November 5th?

I'm seeing thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up.

Okay.

Um, we would love a lengthier presentation on November 5th.

Thank you so much for the flexibility.

So with that, we will start the queue for questions, and that's with council president.

Thanks, Chair.

Um, and thanks, Mr.

Young's for your flexibility.

Sorry about that.

We just want to give you the full time.

Um thanks again so much for the presentation and and again to the audit committee and also to you and staff.

It was or to the CIB committee for working with the audit committee and to you and staff.

It was a ton of time you put in.

And again, the audit the audits only matter if the departments we work with actually care about what they recommend.

So the fact that your staff was so helpful and the committee was so receptive and is now taking steps to move those forward really means a lot.

So thank you.

The version we're looking at is the mayor's version.

And I have a couple of questions I'll send via email, so we won't I won't spend time on them now, but I just wanted to come back to your point about the annual programs.

Um you had mentioned that historically we had kind of put money into each of these programs every year.

It wasn't always spent.

Or if not, why why would we be giving money into these annual programs rather than saying, look, whenever a department has a proposal, come to CIB committee, whether it's for asphalt, children's play area, outdoor court, and we'll decide.

But we're not gonna just keep sequestering money in these funds year over year.

Um so I will say yes, I think that those the two that were highlighted are the ones that we know are the problems that that save those up.

The other annual programs do spend down their funding more timely in a more timely way.

Um it's helpful to stage stage them as we and continually review them as we work with departments so that we continue to have the buy-in from departments.

So yes, I do think that those annual programs are spent down, but also in addition to that, I think that this will allow us to keep watching that, and so if that changes, um, because we've been successful in working through this process with departments, I think that that will bring less fear.

Um, because I do think that when I started, this was already a known issue a few years ago.

So I think I've been here three years.

Um, and it's taken several conversations to convince them that we're not trying to like cut their funding, we aren't just trying to put it to when they'll they'll use it.

Um yes, I think that they are those annual programs are spending that down, and also I hope that this makes us more flexible and more dynamic in addition to the other ways that we bond use bond funding.

In addition to the process that we've adapted to bond or go for bonds when we are using them too.

Thank you.

Did I miss a point of that question?

Thank you yet at all.

Okay, cool.

Great, wonderful.

Um, any other questions from my colleagues?

Wonderful.

Um, again, a deep appreciation for the presentation stay and the content and the flexibility for the debt presentation be scheduled.

We really appreciate it.

So with that, the uh budget and finance committee of the council is adjourned.