So I'm gonna ask you Vinny and you Dave to give us again an overview of the department.

Yeah, happy to uh appreciate the opportunity.

Uh you can uh as you know, I was just sitting here for API's budget hearing.

Uh and as the deputy mayor had explained, uh with the some changes earlier this year.

Uh currently working I'm currently working with the digital services and uh IT teams, even though they're a little bit separate at this point.

We can get to that conversation in a little bit.

Uh but uh I don't think Dave is a new face to you all, and I'll let Dave uh introduce himself, but uh I think just generally you all know that uh um you know IT is a longstanding uh department here that provides what I would describe the special uh in particular as uh functional technology, right?

Uh essentially the equivalent of keeping the lights on, I would say uh uh but in a digital sense.

So um Dave, morning counselors.

Always a pleasure.

We're ready for any questions you might have about our budget.

Oh, okay, so we're just gonna dive right in.

All right, so we're gonna start on page eighty-five.

I see uh LAN technical support specialist.

There were none, and now you're looking for one, correct?

Yep.

Well, so uh not necessarily that we're looking for one, but uh this was a transfer that came from the parks department to Central IT, as we'll just call it.

So uh it's um I I would say across the the budget overall wouldn't necessarily be reflected as a a new ass for an increase, but shifting uh what was a position uh the same position in parks over to the central IT team to help augment.

Several of the larger departments have somebody on their staff in place there that does t IT work.

We consider them a part of our group, but they don't show up on the the org chart that way.

But this was an example of somebody that came from parks and now is formerly a part of our group.

So where are we at?

Um we have um well we've lost a couple of people over the last three years, have not replaced them.

Uh we are the embodiment of doing more with less, or at least the same with less.

It's a challenge.

We talked about it here last year too, when there's a job posting, and that same job pays more in the county, and that same job pays more in the school district.

And neither of those have the residency requirements we do.

That makes hiring a challenge.

Yeah.

That really helped that really helped close the gap.

That really helped close the gap.

I think it makes us at the very least competitive.

We're now we're in the ball game.

But we still have that residency requirement.

It may be a big deal for some people and maybe not for others, but that uh salary increase was long overdue.

Um the adjustments are across the board, and it gives us a fighting chance now.

Before we really didn't.

So were we able to pick up anybody from right ways raising the wages?

We have not.

Technology changes all the time.

So we've been able to absorb those workloads with current staff.

And we have for a long time and continue to have a relatively a large dependence on some key consultants.

That's just how we're built now.

In a perfect world, we'd have triple the staff, but we don't.

And as Vinny alluded to, we look at ourselves here as the nuts and bolts folks.

We got to keep the buses moving.

So we have not increased staff since the two departures three years ago.

So when we use a consultant, isn't that a more costly way of doing that?

I don't I don't disagree.

I don't disagree, but at the end of the day, our job is to get to keep the buses moving, so to speak, using that analogy.

So I'm not in love with that.

Me either.

I do want to highlight though, I think there's uh I don't think there's a world where we never have outside consultants to partner with, right?

You know, the uh there's certain initiatives where we need augmented services, right?

And I think uh to Dave's point, there's it makes me feel less comfortable when we do rely on outside consultants for what I would argue to be baseline functions, right?

And I'd like to see a world where we get to uh grow this team both I would say uh um in size and capability, right, to be able to perform those what I would argue basic internal functions uh uh or basic functions internally.

So we uh um or I think in agreement on that sentiment of uh being more costly externally, but it's uh an effort that I think over the next year we want to make an earnest or concerted effort to best align and as the deputy mayor was alluding to in the API budget hearing, looking at that, you know, uh all those teams, but then also uh looking across now that uh you know having digital services and IT work closer together as well and and make the best use of our resources.

So what's the increase?

So the the increase of about what about 280,000 dollars in the utilities and operating, what is that made up of uh part of that was reading central, right?

Yeah, so what that is is in the utilities account.