Surah in budget hearing.

Go ahead.

All right.

Again, thank you.

Um continuation of MBD.

We have our Sora budget meeting.

Um we a couple of people ran out for a second, they'll be back.

But we we have Helen, uh Counselor Hudson, Counselor, I think Aaron Reich, uh, Counselor Moore, Counselor Nave, Counselor Claudwell, myself, Counselor Jones Rousser, President Piniagua, Counselor Monto Williams Left.

Is he coming back?

He's gone.

Okay.

He's here in spirit.

He's in spirit.

Okay.

All right.

So we are now joined by um MBD and our Sora?

You aren't what's your title again?

Uh Commissioner of Finance.

Commissioner of Finance.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

How are you guys?

Anyway, and I can got a lot of budget here.

She's just happy to see you all.

Okay.

All right.

So again, I'm Diane Nestry.

I'm the Commissioner of Finance for the City of Syracuse, and I help put together the budget for the Sura entity.

Um okay, so Surah, it's not a traditional.

Oh, you need a magnetic time.

No, it's okay.

Okay.

I'll work on the printing for next time.

I apologize about the small text.

Um, but I just want to open up with explaining that Surah is not a traditional operating department.

It is a public benefit corporation that was established in 1962.

It allows the city to deliver housing and redevelopment initiatives with greater flexibility.

Uh it operates under a three-member board consisting of the mayor, the president of common council, and the commissioner of finance, which is why I'm here.

Um so you know, in practice, we um have Surah staff that operate within city departments to support the core functions, and uh key priority is continuing to align how this activity is presented to you guys.

So, you know, the small print will improve that.

I do want to map out how this ties into the city's budget for you all.

Um that analysis is not in your packet this year.

Um, so I'll have to follow up with that because there are variances that I'd like to look into why before I present you with information that I don't I can't explain.

Okay.

Um so I know like last year they had broke out the um employee, the Sora employees um per department, um, which helped us out a lot.

Um looks like you did it again this year, but is very small.

How many employees are actually under Sora?

So that's in the summary page, the last page in the packet.

Uh for fiscal 27, we are budgeting 88 full-time employees or roles and 13 part-time.

Uh five of which are current are accounted for as vacant at the moment, but fiscal 27.

Hopefully, we'll fill it.

Yeah, yeah, it it's just a spot and time of where it is right now since these positions go across different departments.

Uh and when you look at the the part-time, like that would include things such as interest.

You said you didn't have the numbers from last year this year.

Uh if you counselor, if you if you look at um uh positions in FY26, the first line, you'll see that there is a reduction in the number of positions.

Yeah, we so we start with fiscal 26 positions, uh call out the eliminated positions, the created positions, and then that rolls us into the fiscal 27 positions.

Okay, and any of or any of those employees remote or hybrid.

Yeah, not that I'm okay.

So was it eliminated because it was moved to a different department, or was it eliminated because you eliminated out of here?

So uh when you look at the number of positions that are eliminated, and correct me if I'm wrong, some of them happen to be things such as the uh uh police cadet program, which is uh not they're they're not predicting that that's gonna be uh and again this is a calendar year budget that we're looking at, but uh my understanding is SPD is not uh expecting to have those positions filled in the calendar year 26 if there's any way of finding out which of those positions may or maybe hybrid or remote.

Yeah, we can we can we can check with the other yeah sure uh but I'm not gonna say the question.

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a great question.

Uh we can reach out to the other uh uh department heads.

And the other thing is is there any way we could get this in based on department, like what's out of the mayor's office, what's out of MBD, what's out of police, what's out of so when we're looking at the budget, it's here, but it's like in different ways, right?

So we really don't know just what it's like.

Uh it's it's the first column is department, yeah.

Yeah, do you want me to walk you through?

I have again, I'm sorry about the small print.

But the first area shows our FY26 position.

And the first column is the department, then we have job title, emplo uh employee information and salary, and then we flow into fiscal 27 positions.

We have a status column that helps to identify if it's new, if the position's been eliminated, then we roll into the department column, a job title.

I uh threw in a full-time part-time column uh to help organize some of this work uh to help roll up into our summary personnel comparison for year over year.

And then again, yeah, we have employee information and salary.

Diana, is there a total on the uh the police cuts that you eliminated?

If you have an like an estimate, how much savings is there?

I don't uh I do see that we had them in the budget for a little over 27,000 each.

And there's 14 eliminated, so 27 grand times 14.

So 340,000 total.

Good enough.

I'm I mean raw.

I think last year, which made it easy.

I mean, it's not on you guys, but we requested um with the departments, like so.

For instance, we just went over MBD, MBD had their budget, but then on the bottom we said this is also MBD, this is under SER.

So we knew that.

You know what I mean?

Okay, so because now we're looking at MBD again, right?

But in a whole nother, you know, I mean, so it still lines up, even though it's out of a different pocket, we still would have known that it was MBD, but it's under SER.

Yes.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think because the way Sura works, it it's a component union of the city.

So anybody that you guys account for in the NBD budget that is a Sura employee is on line 54170.

Yeah, right.

That's that mystery number we all be asking about.

So to add to what Diane's saying, uh one the the budget team uh has included that in uh in the department budgets.

So what what we're looking specifically at is Surah.

The when the reason I'm here isn't so much at hey NBD, you know, this is another NBD hearing.

Uh it's it's twofold.

One is uh so Diane started with hey, here are the three directors of Sura, mayor, president of the common council, commissioner of finance, the commissioner of neighborhood business development is a is not a director of the agency, so there's no voting, but is by title the secretary, and also as uh we have the the largest number of employees uh that happen to be on Sura because of the flexibility of the work that is aligned with uh what Sura does.

So it's not necessarily this is another NBD budget hearing, it's specifically for the Sura budget hearing, and the information that you're looking for by department is in the budget by department.

I say that correctly, right?

We still support transfer money over SER just recently, so it still makes sense to understand.

Oh, we want you to understand this every way you can.

So we're we're gonna get you all the information, but that that's a really great point.

And uh we'll see that within uh what Diane walks through with the budget, and the fact that one of the tools of Surah that we've gone back into using is its ability to move money into the community.

Uh and that's something we're we just hadn't previously been doing that.

And just so I'm correct, um the employees under Sora are separate from the city based on the um uh health plan, what is it called?

No, but they they still have all the same uh benefits, uh retirement, health insurance, all of that.

Okay, oh okay, all right, okay.

Commissioner question for you, right?

So, how many people are on the Surah payroll now?

Because I know we have we had we're trying to get the number down, but it seems like it's got it back up.

Uh looking at the summary sheet uh that Diane's put together, uh in FY26.

We're looking at a total of 108 positions, FY27 101 positions.

So it's uh when you take a look look at the last sheet, it's the top section all the way over on the right.

So where's the budget at?

Right, okay.

So with just me just questioning with the budget in MBD, really quick, and it's just it's just so I can because it's not broken down in that way.

You guys eliminated one you took over one, but did you add any so some of the positions that uh when you look at the way that uh our department, and this is the same for for other departments as well, as the uh the needs shift uh and position sift, yeah.

Then some of those positions will be SURA positions, some of them will be civil service positions, some of them uh will just be I understand that, but did we add any new MBD meet the positions in SERA?

Did we add any new so the uh the director uh not director, excuse me, the uh the position that is the um why am I blanking on the term that yeah, thank you.

Environmental review.

There we go.

This is I will tell you if you're ever at a meeting like this and you can have Mary just in your ear, you do it really well.

There is not a hearing that I've done to date in all my years here where Mary hasn't held me out.

But they've just been added SER.

That so that's what we were saying last year, because what happens is there is positions, it might look like it was subtracted in the regular budget, but it really was added to SERA, so it makes it like so we don't get a real picture of how many people are in the department.

That's what we're seeing last year.

If we knew exactly like so for here, it gives you a false sense that oh, there was a position and they take, but no, it really wasn't.

It was four new positions added to MBD.

Okay, so from an MBD perspective, so when we handed this out to you, that tells you across the top the number of positions in each division.

So but not from last year to this year.

Oh, it's it's that's right here.

Roughly the same.

No, it's back to Surah's not no, it's in Sarah now.

They added new positions in Sarah.

Got it.

So the so uh counselor you you can look at it a couple different ways.

If we're looking at total positions within the budget, if we're looking at total divisions within the department, or if we're looking at uh total divisions that are in uh positions that are in the department that are off the budget.

The simplest way to look at it is if you want to know how many positions are in NBD, it's this sheet that I handed out in the last meeting.

Um I was about to ask something that asked you people have funded.

Oh the lead um the lead coordinator.

Um I see it in Sora, but also in MBD, but I really want to know like uh is that eliminated, or I think it says eliminated in the Surah, but it's on MBD is just zeroed out.

Did someone move?

Are we eliminating that?

So we we've just so it had been uh eliminated when we didn't have the grant.

We have the grant again.

Okay, uh that um uh position is filled and currently in Philadelphia for training as required by HUD.

Right, right uh and it's a required position with the grant.

Okay.

Yep.

Uh so sorry to clarify is it under Sura or is it under the department?

That particular one I do have it.

Yeah, I so I think so.

Yeah, it is under Surah.

That might be a correction we need to make to this one.

Uh because the the timing of that, like that that's a position that we filled within the last.

Oh, I think he officially started Monday.

Um it's just a timing, yeah.

So it's just a timing thing.

Okay.

That that is always the challenge with budgets, is they are the uh the best snapshot in the moment in which they were created.

So does that change the total employee number to 102?

Uh for it which employ which employee number are we talking about?

For department or for SERA?

Surah positions are 101.

Would that make it 102 because may make it 102?

Okay, okay, okay.

Just so we know.

All right.

So Michael.

So we eliminated one code enforcer from the police department.

Does that now go into the code's budget?

So no, that that was the um uh remind me which page you're on so I can make sure I'm talking about the right thing.

Three.

You're on page three, correct.

Yeah, uh and code so that that was a desired position that we were not able to fill that was that was along with uh the ordinance enforcement.

Okay, so then some of these aluminate were never filled.

That one we've not been able to fill.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, good.

Okay.

What other questions can we answer?

No, I just I just know.

I mean, I get where it's at, it's under that phone number, but it's on a more of a visual.

Like when you're looking at it, I I totally see how you did it.

Um I mean, if everyone else is cool with it, but on a visual, when you're looking at the budget, even though it's one budget over here, one but it's still one department, right?

So there's the wrong, right?

Uh counselor, that this is not when when you're we're going across department budgets, we're going in in a variety.

We're doing everything that we can to make sure that the information that is important to you is available, visible, understandable.

I don't know.

You guys are doing a great job.

I just like to very happy to find other words.

The people, right?

To say, okay, we're looking at the budget and the whole, we gotta look at Surah.

Yeah, we gotta look at the whole budget.

If we look at, and I'm not picking neighborhood MBD off by no means.

No, it's just a good example because I'm right here.

Absolutely, right?

So I'm gonna send somebody else next time.

No, that's fine.

But that where is there going to know?

But does it say out of SIRA?

It doesn't say where it's oh that's fine.

So I see where it's saying the new positions, but it doesn't say where, like, where it's coming.

Like if it generated originally at the if they were an employee at the city and then they became an employee of Surah, and I can get we can work together to get some of that information here doesn't work that way, right?

Yeah, and even like on this one, I mean, it's I see it.

You just have to look for instead of saying, hey, oh, this MBD, okay, they got all these positions, and on the bottom, they have another 10, but these are Surah positions, and these are another 54 positions and maybe six new, right?

Yeah, so the so when you look at the budget for NBD, what we're showing you are the positions that are funded through the budget.

There are because of the fact that we have so many different funding sources, it it which makes the department unique.

Uh there are positions that are required through them.

There are position work that simply can't be done without these other positions, and fortunately they're funded because we we get really creative about how are we able to use the admin money and the support of SEDCO and SIRA.

No, I get it, but we also fund SIRA, so it's another way.

But that but the the so what I'm talking about though is if the position isn't showing on the budget, it may show here, but that doesn't mean that the funding is coming through the general fund.

The funding is coming through these additional sources.

I get that, but at the end of the day, so for instance, when we had to move, well, I'm not gonna get into that.

Well, it's more of an understanding of what positions are there.

So this gives you a false sense of oh, this is what it is.

But we still do fund SER.

We might not fund it this way, but we do fund it when they say, Oh, we need to move this money over to help this grant out to fund this.

We're still funding it, it's just not right here, right?

So the I and this is where I need you to correct me if I'm wrong.

The city budget funds a significant amount of Surah.

Absolutely.

It does not fund all of Surah.

No, absolutely.

No, I know that.

Yeah, right, but it's still dollars that the city is putting into Sura.

Yeah, if I'm not overstepping, I'd like to connect with you to see what we can put together to make this clearer.

It is not the clearest.

Um, it's it's actually better.

Okay.

I had it at no good predecessor.

I was able to follow his if it was somebody that wasn't looking and didn't understand, yeah, right.

I understand we have multiple streams of right pockets where things are coming from, but someone that didn't understand and say, wait a minute, they work for the city, but who is it would be very like it confusing.

It is confusing, right?

I know how many jobs and who really works here, but where's the funding source comes from?

Oh, but we moved him here now, but he's over there, but he's really under MBD.

Like, yeah, making that make sense for somebody who's trying to really understand it, right?

Um that's but I it's much better than it than it was, but it just it gives you a better understanding of what's really going on in that family.

I call it a family, right?

That's the MBD family.

This is what we got going on.

The city budget, this we do have money in Surah, but this is who helps this in order to make it make it efficient.

That's all.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

And I think clarity is a big goal of mine to provide with respect to the financials, whether it's actuals or budget of actual comparison.

And it's all about us learning because things change, it's just no different from we ask Michael, hey, do you have positions open?

He was like, Oh, yeah, I got two.

What do you really got?

Six.

Uh no, I thought the I was talking about across the department, uh, across neighborhood and neighborhood and business development uh for neighborhood sustainability.

And right, but under SIR, you got like five or six new ones, right?

Seven, seven, so yeah, so there's but not open though.

Yeah, the difference is open, is what we're talking about.

Yeah, but so there were new positions that you just created, but they're higher.

There are so what we're I got we can walk through each one with you, but what I'm telling you is we've got it, yeah.

We do have uh I think it was three that were open within so deputy commissioner, there's an admin position.

Um, I think it's four uh within NBD that are open right now.

So these positions here, just so I understand, and I'm not saying it wrong.

These positions, and like again, I'm not you're just here, so I can ask you the question.

Yeah, right.

So for the new positions for 2026, that says MBD new developmental.

I don't got my yeah, so that's actually not a new position.

Uh but it says no.

It it does.

I'm I'm making a correction.

Uh it was it was not filled last year.

Okay, but it's been an existing position.

So it's open though, right?

Yeah, so uh so that one that one is posted right now for filling.

Yeah.

So what about the rest of the the ones underneath it?

Yeah, so like FEC program uh program manager.

That's a that's the one that we're we just talked about.

Rafiki, um the uh the uh information aid, uh that one is over in codes, I believe.

Um and but it's still MBD though, right?

Yeah, that might be a clerical error on my part.

Sorry to I didn't, you know, so do you see what I'm saying?

It just looks like that's all, yeah.

Because it looks like there's all these new positions, right?

Because it says new, yeah, that is placed in MBD, but under SIR, but then over here it looks like there's only two.

That's all yeah, we'll work with better information um going forward, I hope, and partner with that's all a part of the line, it just makes it more clear because right now it looks like there's a there's more positions open, and there's really not no, and that is the goal.

That's another reason why we have four funds now to try to help show where our money is going, the four funds within Surah, um, to try to identify how these funds are using and connect it to outcomes and what we're doing.

Yeah, and so like where the if you go to the page back where it says data analyst at the very bottom, so that that's a one-year that's a new one.

That's a one-year grant funded position.

It's no longer vacant.

It was at the time that Diane was putting this together, but there is now somebody in that position that just started.

Oh, so but it is new, so this is a new position.

It's new, okay, and it's grant funded, and it and it ends at the end of the uh end of the grant term.

It's a one-year position.

And if you in project manager is like these uh the senior, no, uh uh we uh it was new last year.

So maybe what it's full is it filled.

Yeah, yeah.

Um so we just want to clarify, all right.

So on the chart, it has FY26, FY26 status, department, and then job title.

So in the department, the individuals work in this department, but they're paid through Surah.

Just to explain it, yes.

I I just wanted to make sure that's that.

Yes, yeah, I guess we're trying to figure it out.

Sorry, yeah, no, we just want to make sure that's we can treat best, yeah.

Because just when it's just sitting there, it's like, but they're work over here.

So what is it?

But yes.

And I wonder if we're maybe we're doing too much.

We'll have to visit what helps because you know we're comparing no, I think just the clarification compared to last year's if it wasn't there, I say new.

Yeah, yeah.

No, just clarifying.

It does say on top of the column.

When I say look, like the uh hey, these are new positions, uh like the senior project manager, it does say FY26 new, which is the current year, yeah.

It does say FY26 new, which is the current year.

Yeah.

So that when I say this was new as in current year, that's how Diane has it labeled.

Okay.

I have one question on the budget part.

Um we didn't make any money through any sales of property.

We didn't do any sales.

Uh so no, the the one uh let me go back to that part of it.

Um properties have we like had the appraisals done?

Um do you know that offhand?

Um so for the sewer properties, we haven't done I don't think unless Meg Ryan is here.

I don't think we've done any appraisals on any this year, have we?

Uh Michelle Spansky Deputy Commissioner of Neighborhood Development.

So uh within Surah itself, um Surah, pretty strategically over the last uh uh probably more than six, seven years at this point, uh has been working through the process of any uh land that it had within its uh real estate uh uh disposing of that through transfers to uh other entities.

I think at this point they're down to less than 15 parcels, 11 or 13 off the top of my head.

Um all of them uh for the most part, with the exception of two parking lots are vacant lots.

Um so there was no additional appraisals of any of those properties, but um particularly for the uh vacant lots, uh a lot of them are in locations where there's uh flood plain kind of considerations.

So um other appraisals have occurred on the side of city-owned property, but that is independent from Surah.

Okay, all right.

Um are the Surah properties the ones that have like the little picket fence type thing around it or the little farm project.

There is uh, if I recall off the top of my head, um there's one property in uh skunk city, I believe that is a Sura-owned property that does have a some signage that is located on it.

Um we could get you a list of uh the map of kind of what all their current holdings are.

Okay.

We had uh previously explored selling the the parking lot on uh uh Washington.

Um that is not something that we're expecting to move forward with this year, so that looks different in the budget for sure.

Okay, just another quick question, and I'm done.

Sarah, do how many grants do you know?

Like you keep up with like how many grants are funding these positions.

I believe it's our recurring grants that we get through NBD.

It's the C D B G E S G home uh lead and uh we have money uh from opioid uh settlement uh as well.

Yeah, and the lead and opioid are are new to us uh as being able to uh well one the lead is new to us this year, and two now that we've got the opiate moving, it's new to us this year for being able to um uh access the uh money that to support salaries.

Correct, there yeah, yeah.

Uh well no, the the uh those are the grants that we pull that we that we currently pull admin from to support the positions.

We also uh pull money from SEDCO uh and from SIDA and a little bit from the housing strategies corporation.

And that's what I was gonna say, the housing strategies corporation.

Are we continuing to look for um funding outside of what we already um okay so that it doesn't come out of the city's um well city isn't it it should it should always be a part of the city budget and we are also looking for additional funding, yes.

Okay, are we worried about any grants yes comment that we're about to think we're gonna lose that are we're not gonna get recurrence that's coming up that's kind of fed some of these people so the um uh at the federal level there's always some reason to be concerned about uh uh grants, right?

Uh we have uh been confirmed though that uh for the the following uh year for C D BG ESG and home, which is really the big dollars are that uh that money is committed for us for the following year.

Uh also the lead grant is a five-year grant, so we're uh we're good with that.

Uh the opioid money, we've got a schedule that brings us out for the next several years.

It's we don't understand the formula behind it.

It goes up and up and down, but more down than up uh over the years.

Um I think that covers it for the grants.

So uh SEDCO has got I want to say 50.

No, uh I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna look because I don't have that in front of me and I'm gonna misspeak.

So the API grants that I originally through the grant we had on that is.

We're not we're not pulling uh funding off of it.

Uh I I don't uh but they understand so who funds API because they work out of that five year plan we had yeah I I can't speak to another department, sorry.

But we still have that.

Is that is that how long do you know?

Oh the API people are some uh some of the API people are, but it's coming to an end in September for the procurement grant.

That's done.

So what do we I'm sorry because you just you weren't expecting was there anything said about how we were gonna fund them after September?

Um it it will uh the person the one person that's in that position will end at that point, and we don't have any plan as far as it was a procurement grant funded position.

So the rest of the people aren't procurement grant, they're um I know we had during that Bluebird grant.

We was we got a lot of people, and which helped us try to figure out, and there's still a lot of eight people under API under this.

So I'm just curious what the original Bloomberg grant when we started API?

No, if I was that was we had the original where API started, it was called something different, yes, yes, planning and sustainability.

I think so.

That was grant funded for several years that step, then the city took over because we didn't have any grant funding anymore.

So these positions right here are just funded through um Sarah, just regular SERA API position, correct.

Okay, any other questions uh Sora Okay I I do have a question that I think I need to go back to MBD.

Can can I do that?

You got a high.

Just ask these three.

I'm I'm I'm I'm here, go for it.

Okay, um, the main street program.

Yeah, um I see that it only has three of the 14 projects completed.

What is the outlook for those remaining projects?

Um and are we people that are are more um in line with getting some of those done?

Are we like moving some money from ones that we don't foresee doing anything?

Um go for it, Brianka.

Yeah, so Brianka Hill, Director of Business Development.

So the main street program, it's been an interesting relationship as you know it's county funded.

Um the county has been doing most of the lead work, legwork with working with each of the applicants, um, ensuring that the projects are being completed, tracking the progress.

Sorry, Brianca.

Let me just clarify our the main street project.

Is this the Salina Street Main Street?

Or okay, you know what?

I was thinking it was the uh the uh downtown initiative one.

Oh the DRI one.

So this is different.

Okay, all right.

Go on.

Um, you want you still want some updates on the South Carolina?

Yeah, so we've been working very closely with them as they've been tracking each of the progress or tracking the progress for each of the projects um and getting those projects um disperse that funding where needed.

Um I know this project this program is set to be completed by the end of this year, with the county telling us that they've been working diligently with each of the applicants.

Um, and it seems like they're most of them are on track to be completed by the end of this year.

Um so there really aren't any concerns there at the moment.

And what three are completed?

Because I only know of one, which is Dunkin' Bright.

Um outside of Dunkin' Bright, um I'll have to go back to the list and tell you exactly what those other two projects are.

I do know in the works right now the Valley Plaza project regarding those facade improvements that they're doing are set to be complete within the next 60 days.

Okay.

Um so I can give you a list of those other two that are completed.

Okay, I think I might know one of them, but I don't know if they're fully complete.

They might have got like 90 percent done.

I think it's um Salvation Army and Um the other one is the Rama Clinic.

Oh, with the fence, yes.

Oh, okay, okay.

Yeah, I think those are the other two.

Okay, okay, all right.

And signage, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Thank you, Brianka.

All right, that is it for me.

No other question.

Motion to adjourn.

Oh, I thought you had a question.

Okay.

All right, I motion to adjourn.

I appreciate you guys.

Um thank you.

So move second, and you know, second, second, third, second, third.

Thank you.