I'm so sorry that same thing.

Uh Eddie, you all good?

All right, let's see here.

Yep.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Tempe City Council work study session agenda.

Item number one is called order.

Call council meetings can be watched in real time via Cox Cable Channel 11 and at Tempe.gov slash Tempe11.

Members of the public may also attend the meeting virtually through Microsoft Teams.

Guidelines for conduct of city council meetings are on the table near the entrance for those in attendance at this afternoon's meeting.

We will now play a video with the proper protocol for ensuring the appropriate conduct at City Council meetings.

This includes behavior both inside and outside of the council chambers.

Should individuals inside the council chambers become disruptive so that city business is not able to be conducted.

There will be time for public comment during the call to the audience portion of the meeting.

If no cooperation, the mayor will issue a verbal warning and let them know that the continued disruptive behavior will lead to removal from the council chambers.

If there is still no cooperation, the mayor will issue a second verbal warning and let them know that the continued disruptive behavior will lead to removal from the council chambers.

If there is no cooperation after asking and two verbal warnings, then the mayor will ask security officers to remove only those individuals who were causing the disruption.

Security personnel should not engage in any way, but only escort them from the council chambers.

If individuals refuse to leave, security personnel shall warn them that they are trespassing and that the next step will be arrest by a Tempe police officer.

Tempe officers may have to arrest if individuals refuse to leave.

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Please state your name and city of residence.

You have three minutes.

My name is David Sokolowski, I live in Tempe.

I want Tempe to increase funding for low-income housing because the city has one of the worst housing shortages in the state and is a leading cause of the housing crisis.

The city's housing report says we have 86,421 units with 50% low income.

The email from the city on July 22nd said in 2030, Tempe will have 33,504 low-income units.

That means Tempe's housing ratio will drop to 30% in the next five years.

The report says we need to build 15,000 low-income units.

And the general plan has 31,000 units.

That means Tempe would need to build 50% low income because Tempe can build 90% market rate housing and keep a 50% ratio.

I think it's very difficult to build 50% low income.

And we're going to need a lot of permit fees and money from the general fund.

We should create a very generous density bonus program.

The general plan has 71,000 new jobs.

And that brings a total to 30,000 low-income units.

It's possible to maintain a 50% ratio.

But Tempe needs to build 50% low income and also double the current rate of construction.

I think the city will be considered negligent if it fails.

Tempe's low-income housing shortage would increase 80% in five years to 28,000 units.

If the city was doing everything in its ability, we could reduce our housing shortage, build low-income housing, reduce homelessness, and fix our local housing crisis.

Tempe is not doing everything, and the city has other priorities.

It limits market rate housing like the Leo and the standard.

It limits low-income housing like Gracie's Village or Dorsey Station.

The city will cut funding for low-income housing.

And I assume you approve of the federal government cutting section eight.

If Tempe can cut low income housing, why not the federal government?

The city shows we have 50% low-income housing ratio, but it doesn't count the current low-income housing shortage or the future need.

It doesn't count overcrowding or homelessness.

It would take Tempe 60 years to eliminate our total housing shortage.

And we're projected to lose low-income units every day.

But the city thinks we're setting an example for the rest of the state.

Tempe is in a state of denial.

The city needs to build 50% low-income housing, and we'll also need to double the current rate of construction.

I recommend the city increase funding to build low-income housing.

And that's what I want to hear from all council members today.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Mr.

City Attorney, can I comment on one aspect of that since it's on the agenda?

Or if not, yes, Mayor, since it's an agenda, I am you can't.

Okay.

Just wanted to make sure too, Mr.

Sokoloski's, and I normally don't do this, just uh he made one statement.

We always appreciate people participating, but uh one of the things he said was I assume that you're okay with cutting section eight benefits.

I will tell you right now, and I don't want to speak for everyone on this council, but I'm fairly confident that I can say this.

I am, of course, not in favor in any way, shape, or form of anyone cutting Section 8 benefits.

Those are people in our community who need a tremendous amount of support.

And I can tell you from working with all the people sitting up here, that is definitely not in keeping with the values of the city council or the nearly 2,000 people who work here for the city of Tempe.

So I definitely appreciate Mr.

Sokoloski's comments, but I can guarantee you there is not a person up here who wants to see benefits cut to the most vulnerable people among us.

So I wanted to make sure to say that.

Um is there anyone else in the audience uh wishing to speak?

And and I said that respectfully, Mr.

Sokoloski.

I don't know he meant anything by that.

I just wanted to make sure to correct the record.

So um is everyone else in the audience wishing to address the council on any of these items?

Uh let's see.

Madam Clerk, do we have any other cards?

No other cards received.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Uh anyone in the audience, I'm gonna look out to see if there's anyone who wants to speak.

All right, seeing none, I will move forward then and go to item three A, which is our 2025 community and business survey results.

And I see Waddell Holmes coming up, our strategic management and innovation director.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

You'll notice that I have an empty seat beside me.

And uh for our community and business surveys tonight, Chris Tatum will be calling in from very cold Olatha, Kansas.

And we want to share some condolences in regards to recent loss of his family, a member.

And so with that, um, we'll begin our presentation this evening.

Um, just as a reminder that um City of Tempe is a data-driven government.

And so from that, and most importantly, we want to hear from our residents and our businesses and our community members.

So for that, we do an annual community survey as well as a business survey on alternating years from our employee survey.

The city council's five strategic priorities have over about 101 performance measures.

And on our screen tonight, you have the most associated ones in regards to decision making with our community, data driven governance, and then also our quality of our business services.

So we always try to align all of our work in regards to the council priorities and the related performance measures.

Before I introduce Chris, I would like to say that this is his third presentation today.

Earlier today, we invited our partners with downtown Tempe Authority, Tempe Tourism, the Chamber of Commerce, as well as LISC.

And we had a special session so that we could take a little bit of a deeper dive into our partnership with the business survey results.

And so we will do some follow-up also with those agencies board of directors in the next three weeks.

We have multiple presentations scheduled there.

So we value their partnership, their participation with the community survey, as well as their ability to help us reach to our community and our business members in regards to the business survey.

So with that, I will turn it over to Chris Tatham.

Thank you, Wadell Mayor, members of the council.

It's great to be with you again, even if it's remote.

Uh coming to Tempe making presentations has become like my birthday.

I come about every year.

I think there's only been uh one other year in 2020 that I haven't been on site.

So appreciate your understanding.

What I'm gonna do tonight is kind of walk you through uh the results of this year's survey.

Uh, we did both a business and resident survey.

So I'm gonna start with the resident survey, go through some of those highlights, and I'll be happy to answer some questions.

So anyway, is there a way uh we can pull that up on the screen so I can see uh it on my monitor?

There we go.

Great.

Uh for people at home or in the council or who are there who don't are not familiar with our firm ETC Institute.

We're based in Kansas City, but we do work all over the world.

Uh, one of the things I'll be commenting on are how Tempe stacks up to other communities, and that's based on national research uh that we do.

We do our own national surveys.

Uh, we conduct surveys for about three to four hundred communities every year.

Uh, and we've conducted surveys for more than four million people in communities around the world since 2012.

So, some of the things I'll be saying, I'll try to put into context, even with regard to some of the recent events that are happening nationally on certain issues.

So, with that, let me get into uh this year's agenda as kind of first walk through the resident or community survey results.

I'm then gonna walk through the business survey, and then at the end, if we have any questions, I'll be happy uh to answer them.

So let's start with the the resident survey.

Uh, the community surveys have been administered almost annually since 2005, but the city of Tempe has actually been getting input from residents dating back to the 1980s.

Our firm's been doing it for the past 20 years, and it's been used to objectively assess what residents think about city services to get their input about community priorities, assess how the city is doing over time, and see how you compare to other communities.

So as one of the cities uh over the many years is rated in the top 10% of all communities, and I'll share some of that information a little later uh in the presentation.

This year's survey was similar to last year's survey.

In fact, the past several surveys, uh, we did the last one in 2024.

Uh, this year we completed a little over a thousand surveys.

Our goal each year is to get input from at least a hundred residents at random in each of the city's eight character areas.

We then weight that data based on the relative population of each of the character areas to make sure it's representative of the city with regard to the populations of the character areas, age, and a wide variety of other demographics.

Uh the accuracy of the survey has a precision of about plus or minus 3% at the 95% level of confidence.

And that just simply means if we did the survey a hundred times, we get these same results within about plus or minus 3%, 95 times out of 100.

And these days we have to use all sorts of methods to allow people to respond.

Uh we people respond by mail, phone, online, and we do a lot of effort to encourage participation by following up with text, postcards, and even direct social media ads.

So, all in all, though, very pleased the city's residents continue to respond very, very well.

The business community does too.

So, with that, uh let me uh get into oh, I guess the final chart I'm gonna share is just the geographic uh representation.

This map just shows with the red dots, the location of respondents.

We don't actually record their exact address.

We record it to what we call the block level.

So instead of being 725 West Main Street, we record 700 Main Street, and that allows the city to basically see how services and priorities are being delivered and also change over time within each of the eight character areas.

So with that, let me hop into this year's results.

And I'm gonna start off with what I consider to be good news.

Uh, the city of Tempe performs very well across the board, and that continues this year as we look at some of the comparatives.

Uh, a couple of the questions I consider most important on the survey as we go through here, I'm gonna highlight.

But as you see these charts, you're going to see the city of Tempe's results are in dark blue.

The national averages in the light blue or the green.

And then you can see the mid-size averages at the bottom.

And these are results from national and regional surveys that we do every year, and we update them accordingly.

And you can see one of the things that stands out in the this page when you see perceptions of the city is just how much better the city of Tempe performs in other communities across the country.

Overall quality of services ranked 34% above the average mid-size city in the United States.

The availability of information, you can see ranks 32% above the national average, overall quality of customer service, which I consider to be one of the most important indicators of how your employees are actually interacting with the public.

You can see us 31% above the national average.

And what I like about the city of Tempe is you're consistent year after year after year.

Things change a little bit, and some issues become more important at one period of time than another, but you seem to always respond to those changing situations.

The next chart shows a little bit more about some of the quality of life issues and some of the city services that were measured.

You'll notice residential trash collection, 37% above the national average.

Same thing with your bulk trash and removal services.

And you can see other things like recycling, the appearance of the city, your maintenance of your recreation community centers, and your library all stand head and shoulders.

And I might highlight that if you'll notice between the last slide and this slide, things like customer service, things like communication and for information are some of the city's best strengths compared to other communities around the country.

Next slide continues and shows some of the other areas that we looked at with regard to quality of life.

You'll see image, the quality of the recreation programs and services, your efforts to promote access, diversity and inclusiveness, street lighting, maintenance of your landscape maintenance along streets and sidewalks, and even code enforcement, all of those areas rank significantly better than other communities.

And I feel like a broken record as I go through all of these because you rate so well that it's it may seem common to you because I come every year and share these results because they're very, very good, but this is not a normal presentation for me.

As you go to the next slide, I'll show some areas regarding public safety.

And this a few years ago, you might remember it's still important, but there were some concerns.

But you can see that the overall ratings for your major public safety services like fire, ambulance, and police.

Police is the fifth one down, significantly above.

In fact, they all rate 20% or more above the national averages.

People's overall feeling of safety at 71% compared to 57 and 58% for the national and mid-size averages, and even your efforts to prevent crime.

You'll see the one area that kind of stands out a little bit differently compared to other mid-sized cities, is the efforts, uh ratings for efforts to for enforcement of local traffic laws.

You can see a slightly lower, a little above the national average, but slightly below the mid-size city average.

And if you go to the next chart, it shows the sustainable and grow areas of growth and development that were assessed.

And you can see things like walking and biking paths, 32% above the national average, your transit service 30% above the national average, and pretty much everything else on this list, even though streets and some of the other things you'll see are high priorities.

You'll still see the condition of streets and neighborhoods, your streets and sidewalks that are major, and also the condition of your street signs all rate above the national average.

So again, to be congratulated on many things.

And it doesn't surprise me then for this last chart, uh, which shows the overall perception of the value that residents think they get for their city taxes and fees.

Uh, you can see that that's 26% above the US average and 25% above the mid-size average.

So again, congratulations.

And that's actually up a percent from last year.

So you're doing a lot of really, really good things and want to highlight at the that at the beginning.

So, with that said, let me move in and talk a little bit about the trends.

And this year is a pretty much maybe a slightly down, but for the most part, it's about the same.

Uh, we had 116 items that were rated uh the same in both 2024 and 2025.

And of those 116 items, 82 uh changed by less than the margin of error in the survey.

So we did see 25 go down uh beyond the margin of error, and nine actually increased.

So there was a slight downshift, but I'm gonna point out in a little bit that a lot of the areas that went down are some of the areas that you rate the very best compared to other communities.

So for that reason, I don't have any major concerns.

If you go to the next chart, it'll show you the highlights for increases.

And I actually broke these down into a couple areas.

The first area, if you take a look, has to do with kind of codes and appearance.

That's an area you've promoted, or you've seen some substantial improvement, everything from alleys near people's homes, landscape maintenance along streets and sidewalks, enforcement of construction codes, and alley maintenance codes, and then even the requirements for business property, those have all improved significantly compared to a year ago.

In addition, if you take a look at the things related to safety, which is the next chart, you can actually see that overall perceptions of safety at night in desert parks, that's up significantly, as well as the overall failing of safety and city athletic and recreational facilities at night.

So again, those were high priorities in the past, and we saw notable increases in all those areas this year.

On the other side are some of the decreases, and I highlighted these within a couple areas.

And the next chart kind of shows the first category of areas we saw some decreases, and these have to do mainly with customer service.

You'll see things like recycling, trash collection, very highly related to customer service, the hours and days of services available, even perception, the courtees of the people, people who talk to on the phone, and the overall quality of services were down.

But I might highlight that if you just saw a few slides ago, two of the real strengths were Tempi rated heads and shoulders above the rest of the nation, were in regard to customer service issues.

And so they are down slightly this year, but most of the decreases are parallel to things that we've seen nationally.

So even though uh they are down, you still rank heads and shoulders among most other communities.

Another area collectively, we saw some decreases.

And the sort is shown on the next chart where we see some of the issues related to information and engagement.

Uh, you can see things like leadership of city elected officials.

I know some of you are probably like, oh my gosh, this is down.

It's pretty much dropped in about the same as the national average from a year ago.

We're generally seeing lower ratings for leadership across the country the past year.

So that's not a real surprise.

And you might recall that your ratings are still significantly above on the previous chart that I showed you above the national average.

Things related to election information, people's ability to participate in decisions and just overall availability of information, all of which these areas are you rank typically above the national average.

The availability of information is one of your best ratings on the survey.

They drop, but they basically dropped along the same lines that we've seen across the rest of the country.

So I think you're probably being more impacted by national issues than you are necessarily local issues in some of these decreases.

So next slide gets into some of the priorities that we found in the survey.

One of the questions we do on the survey is we ask people what they think the top issues or priorities for improvement are.

And the issue related to services for individuals experience home experiencing homelessness is still a high priority to residents.

Uh condition of streets, police services, neighborhoods, and infrastructure.

And I only had five items listed on this item, but people who were attended the business meeting earlier today were quick to point out that the number six is economic and business development.

And then you can see traffic safety and some of the others round out the top set of issues.

And one of the things that we do for you each year is we don't just look at how important things are, but we also look at the ratings for those items, and we give you what we call the important satisfaction rating.

This is actually a way to look at perhaps what are the things that you could work on or emphasize most that would probably have the biggest increase in satisfaction over the next few years.

And you see conditions of streets is at the top of the list.

It's the most important item.

Uh, the rank was 14th among city services, specific city services that were rated, police, traffic safety, economic and business development neighborhoods kind of round out the top list, but you can see that most of the items have a value in the IS rating below 0.1.

And that's usually our threshold for at least some level of concern.

So when you see all of the items having such low ratings, that usually indicates that your resource allocation is aligned with expectations of residents.

So right now, the only thing, and I think you have plans to address it, are some of the concerns that people have about city streets.

So with that, I'm gonna move on and talk about the business survey next.

And the business survey is very similar to what we've done in previous years.

Uh, it's designed like the resident survey to objectively gather input from businesses about city services and priorities.

It also has a lot of questions just about the characteristics of businesses, what they're experiencing as far as growth and decline, uh, views of workforce and a lot of other information that's helpful that I'm not sharing tonight.

Uh, the overall survey is much more extensive than I'm gonna share over the next few minutes.

And part of this is used to obviously assess trends over time.

This year's business survey was very similar to the one we conducted in 2023.

You might recall that on every other year we do the business survey, and then on the off years, we do a survey of employees.

And then on the off years, we do a survey of employees.

This year is our goal was to get 400 businesses to participate.

We actually had 449.

So excellent participation.

And this is a really long survey.

It's one of the longest surveys or excuse me, business surveys we do for any communities.

But the engagement and partnership I think you have with a lot of the community business organizations helps encourage a high level of participation.

And as with the resident survey, we now have to have a hybrid methodology for participating because one size doesn't fit all.

So we offer phone, online mail, and we do the same sort of follow-up of text postcards and even direct social media ads to encourage participation.

So that let me share some of the things that we found.

First, some of the high-level perceptions, which I thought were very encouraging, is we asked, do you think the city of business of Tempe is business friendly?

We actually saw a 7% increase.

It's been high for many years, but we had seen a decrease from 21 to 23%, and it actually rebounded to 90% this year.

We also asked people on the next question whether or not they saw uh Tempe as a welcoming destination for visitors and tourists.

And that's again been high for the last few surveys, but it went up slightly from 88 to 90.

And you can see the reciprocal decrease from 12 to 10.

And then the third question we asked regarding perceptions is do you value the economic and community-wide benefits of tourism that tourism brings to Tempe?

And you can see the vast majority, 85% said yes.

It's a little bit lower than it was in 2021, but about the same as it was two years ago.

So, with regard to perceptions of safety, we actually had done some focus groups for the city a couple years ago to better understand some of the concerns that we had seen in previous surveys.

And so one of the first things we asked them about safety is whether or not they think their employees and customers feel safe in their location during the day.

And you can see the overall percent that said unsafe and even somewhat safe stayed about the same from last time, but we saw a pretty significant shift from people saying they were safe to very safe.

You see, it went from 32 to 49.

So the combined safe and very safe is about the same, but we actually saw a pretty big shift in the intensity of people feeling really good about being safe in the day.

Perhaps more importantly, though, is the perceptions at night.

We actually saw the percentage of very safe and safe increase together by 8% from 2023.

And you can see that actually went up in both areas, both the safe percentage and the very safe percentage both increased.

And overall percent that are unsafe or very unsafe was 18% this year, which was down from 23% in 2023.

As far as some of the overall satisfaction or perceptions of the city, one of the things that we ask people is whether or not they'd interacted with city employees or had worked with city staff.

And some of the results on this chart are very impressive because of the intense positive ratings that we see in several areas.

And what I'm referring to there is the percentage of people who give excellent ratings.

You look at fire.

So again, of people who have interacted with fire services staff or emergency medical services staff, or even if you come down further, police services staff you had, and the city manager's office, you had more than 50% actually rate that interaction as excellent.

And there are really not many services that have any significant numbers above that are giving below or poor averages.

We have code compliance as a little bit higher than some of the others, and also some concerns about streets and traffic.

But overall, the results are very good.

And you'll see even things like stormwater flood management, it's the lowest rated based on the percentage of good and excellent ratings, but that was only 14 respondents.

In fact, the city manager's office, sustainability, green infrastructure, water conservation, and stormwater were the ones that had fewer than 30 respondents.

All the others had more than 30 respondents.

In fact, I think it was police that had the highest levels of interaction, which shows that when the police interact with the business community, they're having a very positive impression on the businesses that they're working with.

So that's very, very encouraging, at least from my perspective for you.

If you go to the next chart, talk a little bit about the trends.

Although the survey is long, it's not as long as the resident survey.

And we had 48 items that were comparably rated in both 2023 and 2025.

And for the most part, things stayed about the same.

Half the items changed by less than the margin of error.

We had nine increases and 15 decreases.

So you could say the results are slightly lower across the board this year, but nothing that I'm very concerned about on your behalf.

And if you take a look at some of the notable uh increases, which is on the next chart, I've highlighted some of the areas.

Communication is one of the areas we saw some of the biggest increases with businesses.

Interesting, we saw some decreases on the resident side, but it's one of the areas we saw some improvement on the business side.

You can see particularly with how well Tempe communicates with business owners and managers was up 14%.

And even the issues related to parking and signing signage regulations, those are typically a function of communication, and those were both up significantly.

Another area we saw some significant improvements has to do with ratings for the workforce.

Availability, uh, quality of workers and the stability of the city's workforce were all significantly higher than they were two years ago.

And the last area I might highlight is the perceptions of safety.

Uh, you can see that that was up eight percent uh from the last survey, particularly safety at night, uh, which was a tremendous finding.

If you go to the next slide, we talk about some of the notable deep notable decreases.

And interestingly, while we saw a lot of increases on the resident side for codes and appearance, sometimes when we see residents rate things better, we see uh businesses rate them a little bit worse.

And that's kind of what we saw this year in the survey.

I've kind of ignored the stormwater drainage.

It went, it was the lowest or the area that went down the most, but we only had 14 respondents.

But you can see for the other areas, construction codes, street maintenance, uh ratings of physical appearance of business location and enforcement of codes and ordinances, those are some of the areas that we saw the biggest decrease this year.

Uh we also saw some decrease in value for businesses had uh for their city taxes and fees, but we've actually seen that again happening in most of the business surveys this year.

A lot of that's probably related to some of the economic and other issues uh that have happened.

So, as far as the uh priorities or opportunities for improvement, one of the things that we ask uh the business survey respondents is which city services uh are the most important to them.

And you'll see police, fire, overall feeling of safety, economic and business development and traffic on city streets were the top five, and you can kind of see the full list.

I won't read it all to you.

It doesn't mean the things that are lower in the list aren't important, uh, but the the items I flagged here in this little box are the most important.

And when we do some of our analysis to identify where the opportunities to increase satisfaction are, it's similar to what we do on the residence survey.

We look at the importance, we also then look at the satisfaction to identify opportunities to increase satisfaction, and you'll see streets, safety, police, economic and business development, and street maintenance around out the top five.

But if you look at the IS rating on these, they're all below 0.1, which I indicated before is kind of our threshold for concerns.

So we don't really have any concerns flagged for you.

I've simply identified the top areas that will likely have the biggest impact, but all in all, you're doing a pretty good job aligning your resources with the expectations of the business community.

So, with all this said, let me summarize uh resident survey.

I hope you walk away with here, just remembering that you're continuing to set the standard for service delivery.

And even though of the areas that decreased on the resident survey, the biggest decreases, many of them were related to information and customer service, you're still ranking significantly above other communities across the country because we've seen decreases in these areas pretty much across the country this year, and you're certainly setting the standard when it comes to value for taxes, which was actually up a year, up a point from a year ago.

With regard to the changes overall, the resident survey stayed about the same, slightly more decreases and increases.

Uh, the biggest decreases, as I mentioned, were in customer service and communication, but you made some significant improvements in code of codes and appearance and also safety issues.

And to keep moving forward, continuing to address the issues related to homelessness and your streets are the things that I would emphasize most.

And I also did a little additional analysis, and one of the things I noticed in the survey, and it's not unique to Tempe, but it's probably something the city should be aware of, is that residents who are age 18 and 30 are generally significantly less satisfied on a lot of issues than other uh residents in the community.

So finding ways to more effectively engage younger adults, I think should be something to be looking forward.

But again, it's not unique to Tempe.

So it's probably looking around at what's working other places may be uh good a strategy.

As far as the business survey summary, uh it doesn't get much better than having 90% of your business owners think that you're business friendly.

That was up 7% uh from 2023.

Uh, one of the issues we had last time were concerns related to safety and safety at night, particularly improved since 2023.

And over again, much like with the residence survey, there were some increases and decreases, but for the most part, the survey was very similar to the results that we saw last time.

Increases in communication, workforce perceptions and safety issues were some of the decreases that were the largest related to the appearance and maintenance uh issues.

And again, to sustain high levels of satisfaction in the future, continuing to focus on traffic management, police safety, economic development, and street maintenance were the top issues for the business community.

So that again, it's great to be with you.

Sorry, I'm not there in present, but I appreciate your understanding, and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Excellent, Chris.

Thank you so much.

Really, really appreciate it.

Councilmember Keating.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have a question, just kind of a general statement.

Every year we do this, and every year it's just so cool to see that we we try to focus on one particular thing and or several different things at a time, but we try to make improvements around the city, and then you see those improvements come to fruition and then be reflected in the next year's survey results as we survey the public.

So that's kind of a really cool aspect of the job.

So kudos to uh staff for implementing um you know the changes and making sure that the residents continue to see improvement in the city.

And I think the numbers speak for themselves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on council.

Sounds good.

Uh Whidel, anything else on your end or I I do.

I have a couple other things in regards to some of our next steps.

We find the utility of the data very important here in Tempe.

We value it in order to inform actions, as uh Councilmember Keating just noted.

So we um have about 249 business respondents that wanted more information about city programs and services.

So one of our next steps is we forward that information, their contact information that ETC has collected for us voluntarily from the respondents to each of the departments in their service areas so that they can intentionally follow up with those businesses so that we're closing the loop on that and not just asking for any more follow-up, but we were actually following um following up with them to provide the areas of interest that they were that they noted.

Um, we also are considering some type of mini-poll or even perhaps focus groups in regards to traffic safety.

You saw that with traffic management.

Um, just to note that the survey was conducted in June and July, and this was right on the heels of launching our photo enforcement, um, our 14 intersections with radars.

So wanted to just come as we're looking to see what else we might learn from that.

Um, again, following up with our board of directors, um, and then possibly also including LISC in that, as they were one of our first time they've attended our session today.

And one of the things that I'm really excited about, and it's because we have such a wonderful team now in strategic management and the innovation office.

So I really want to thank Stephanie Martinez, our strategic initiatives manager.

She'll be mad at me, but I'm gonna have her stand up.

And Amber Asbury, who's our strategic management analyst, and Megan Beardon, who's our administrative analyst, they help put all of this analysis together alongside ETC, and they further.

Widell, I want to just point out that none of them stood up.

So I was wondering if you were going to force them to do so.

I'm like higher than that.

I'm a mom at all.

Um I'm really excited because they're joining to the Tempi team.

Um, first of all, they're cream of the crop.

Um, they are really elevating our capabilities for analysis of the results by our program areas, the quality of the work that we're able to produce from our office to most importantly support you and our departments and the work that's so important to our community and our businesses.

Um, the other thing that is one of the things that we always offer is our dashboard training.

Uh, Chris didn't um tout his horn on this one, but we do have three interactive dashboards.

They're very robust, and so one of the things is each year we try to advance the utilization of those dashboards for kind of analysis at your fingertips, if you will.

And so our team's done a lot of work with his team on what really our needs are and how to best present that information.

So very excited to continue that.

That's noted in your packet for tonight.

And I would be remiss if I also didn't note for the record that we will be adding a revision to the findings packet.

We noticed a couple uh minor items, but we want the pack to packet to be accurate, so we'll be adding those um as part of the final agenda and materials for this work study session.

So, with that again, I just want to thank Chris from ETC and his team, and then also not only our team here at SMIO, but all of our departments because they really engage with this information.

Um, we had many employees on our on our teleconference today about the surveys asking very insightful questions.

So, again, I think that's reflected of TIMP being a platinum certified data-driven city.

And so, really, um, just want to thank our team here in Tempe, including yourselves.

Thank you, White L.

Uh, anyone else, any further comments or questions?

All right.

Thank you, Waddell.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

Really appreciate the presentation.

And I want to also make a note uh, because I know White L's not going to be going far for the next item here.

We now have the incredible uh Brudetta Hodge joining us here as well.

Council Member.

Good to see you.

Just as a note, once again, she was online before she just uh showed up here, so she's been part of this entire meeting.

I'm gonna move then to item three B, strategic management update, performance-led budgeting, and strategy tool for aligning resources for TEMPE processes.

And once again, White Old Holmes, our strategic management and innovation director to give the presentation.

So again, thank you, Mayor and Council.

I'm glad to be here tonight to have this opportunity to just give you an annual update regarding your portfolio of performance measures, the index that we have, the goals that we've established collectively as a city, and then also noting that this is our kickoff to our performance-led budgeting and your strategy tool for aligning resources for Tempee.

So I'll be going over a few pieces of that information tonight.

First of all, we'll talk a little bit about some of the performance measures, some minor revisions that we've made.

We always try to stay up to date.

And again, our performance-led budgeting, Tempy is very unique in that we try to look at where do we want to be, and then let's align our resources that way.

That is not as an MPA student, uh former student I should say.

That is not typical of most governments.

They tell they always start with what's the budget and what can we do.

We always say what should we be doing, and make that alignment.

And so we do that with the strategy tool, which I know is near and dear to your hearts.

And then I also want to introduce and remind you about a program that we started last year, and that's our TAP program, and it's an acceleration program for the focus on those performance measures that you identify through the start tool.

So uh first, I'd like to just share that we have uh in the gray here several performance measures, and these are all noted in your index document in your packet that we have some revised methodology.

This can occur because either we found a better benchmark that really reflects a high performing organization, or we've had to modify perhaps we went back and recalculated some of the baseline numbers, so therefore we might have adjusted the target to be again high performing.

And then also there are times when we have uh an availability of data to kind of continue for for the historic performance of that performance measure.

So we look at those on an annual basis, working with our performance measure owners and their strategy teams to make those adjustments.

So those are noted in gray here on the chart.

I do want to note also that we have a couple performance measures that we're integrating.

So this is always about continuous improvement.

And so we are integrating our housing inventory ratio, our unemployment rate, alongside our households that have three months of savings to create a measure that really is reflective of economic stability for our households in Temp B.

And so our housing measures also become part of that index, our employment rate, and then our new um one of our other predictors, so that you have enough savings when you have an emergency and you're not at that tipping point in regards to homelessness or drastic things happening in your household.

So we are really excited about moving that forward, um, and that'll be in collaboration with our community health and human services department.

So, with that, uh wanted to reintroduce the start tool.

Again, this we start our budget process with then.

And yes, there's a pun intended there.

Um, this is an opportunity for you all to provide early direction to us as staff.

And just as a reminder to you and our audience here, this is not an allocation of funding, it is just an exercise.

We also conduct this exercise with our community and our mayor's youth advisory commission, and we'll return with you with those results as well.

Um, once you identify where you want early emphasis on, we will work with departments for collaboration, strategy development, accelerating strategies, innovation, and we don't really put an emphasis on new resources and new funding.

We look at just different alignment, and that is an art in and of itself.

And all of that information that you will provide us from the start tool will begin to inform our capital improvement program on our operating budgets.

Uh so just to highlight that you will be uh given, not really, but theoretically, 100, and uh we ask that you distribute them across the 101 performance measures.

You have a minimum distribution distribution amount of $10 and a maximum distribution amount of $30.

And the reason for this is that we want to do things with excellence, and so that starts to narrow our focus and your focus as we move into the budget cycle as well as into strategy development.

Um, in the tool, you also can export any previous participation that you've had with the start tool.

And if there's any challenges, um, we have had a great training with your council aides, and we also have Megan Beardon from Strategic Management Innovation.

She will be your resource.

She will also give you a lot of friendly nudges to please get the start tool done so that we can come back to you with the December 11th work study session.

Uh, just to share how the start tool works, you're able to track where you've distributed across those 101 performance measures.

At the top of the tool, you'll see kind of a progress bar.

You'll also be able to click on every single one of the performance measures that are in your index tonight.

You'll be able to see what the performance measure statement is, what's the target, what's the benchmark, go immediately to the dashboard as another link to see what the strategies are, and then also we've noted whether the target whether the performance measure is meeting target or whether it's currently accelerated from the 25-26 start tool process.

Another item that I think also emphasizes what Chris Tatum just said about our utilization of data, and I say our collectively, is the points of emphasis document that's in your packet.

We note and try to align to the best of our ability or best alignment, as I always say, the performance measures to those areas that needed some more attention in regards to lower satisfaction but greater importance to our community and our businesses.

So you'll notice that that is also noted on your start tool for you per each performance measure.

Again, you have dashboards and other data, you have our office as a support tool for this.

You have the strategic plan and noted updates in the index documents in your packet, and then we have our 25-26 performance measures that we accelerated, which I do have a brief update on that, and then your points of emphasis document.

And again, all of this starts our award-winning, or I should say not just our your award-winning city council priority program that we have.

Um, just to know we've had recent sessions with people in Virginia, um city and Brazil, as well as people in England over the years.

So we get a lot of inquiries about how do you do this?

What does it take to do this?

And so I'm always very proud to share that story of our collective efforts here in TIMPE.

So, as a points of emphasis, Chris noted in the previous presentation, uh, condition of city streets, business and economic development, as well as traffic safety, that is in that lower right hand quadrant.

Again, it's just a reminder that those are areas that are of high importance to our community members but have lower satisfaction.

So, again, an opportunity for improvement there.

And then for a business survey, similarly, high importance but lower satisfaction in regards to feeling of safety in the city, our street maintenance.

Um, ironically, our internet service providers.

So I know that we don't have our own internet provider, but we do work with our utilities.

So we can certainly look at that and see where there's any correlations that we can investigate, and then again, traffic on city streets.

This is just an example of your points of emphasis document where we've tried to align each performance measure with the items that are opportunities for improvement.

Um, as far as our performance-led budget, once you identify your collective top priorities of the performance measures, we will work with the performance measure owners and their strategy partners to collaborate on accelerated strategies, innovative strategies, as well as how do we shift resources.

And again, we try to narrow the focus so that we can accomplish this work with excellence in TIMPE's tradition.

So for our performance measures from 25-26, you had five, several of them had been accelerated the previous year.

And I'd like to go a little bit just very briefly into each one of these.

And the reason for that is because of our TAP team.

And our model is in practice.

This is putting strategy and performance in action.

So these are data-driven facilitated sessions, they occur every other week with focus from the performance measure owner and their strategy partners.

One of the things that this does is it's about collaboration and innovation because if without that focus and that attention, it's really easy to get caught up in all the other daily work that we do.

And so we set aside this time to make sure that there's intentional work being done on the performance measures.

And then I always like to share that.

So these are kind of those soft skills, whether it's succession planning, accountability, showing up, sharing when you're struggling, providing and clearing the path for others.

So those are the organizational behaviors that this program is intended, intended to support and advance.

Those biweekly meetings, again, it's about collaboration and alignment.

My goal as a director of strategic management innovation is that every contributor in this organization has a clear line of sight between the day-to-day work that they do and the outcomes that we've set for ourselves from your council priorities.

And if we're not doing that, then we we have opportunity that we can continue to prove upon.

Again, always about continuous improvement and visible results.

So it's one thing to do a lot of the work and not really share the results or see where we really were we really performing, where do we might need a little bit more support and attention.

So the TAP program begins to address that across the board.

So you had five performance measures from 25-26 that were accelerated.

Ending homelessness is trending in the right direction.

You recently in your Friday packet received information about the performance and our point in time counts from summer and winter, and that we are moving in the right direction there.

So the on the left-hand side of this screen, you'll see the green dots.

That just means that the strategies are performing and moving forward on the pace that they have been anticipated and planned.

Our housing inventory ratio, again, this will be integrated with our household economic stability performance measure.

We are holding back in 2016-2017.

We worked with Bloomberg Philanthropies, and basically the research and our work indicated that if we were to hold ground with about 48.6%, I believe, housing that was affordable, we would be doing very well compared to our counterparts nationally.

And so I'm very pleased to see that that we are doing that this year as well.

Some of the strategies that are moving forward are regarding the rezoning and building permitted processes to improve the speed to market.

I think you also saw the level of satisfaction that our businesses have with that in the in the business survey, as well as the completed identification of the mixed use and high density sites in our 2050 general plan, and that will attract qualified developers for the mixed uses and mixed income housing that's so needed in Temp B.

The other performance measures feeling of safety in your neighborhood.

Um feeling of safety in the in this city has increased, and especially at night, as you saw from our business survey.

So we're definitely trending in the right direction.

Again, all of our performance measures we benchmark against top 10% cities, especially when it comes to a lot of perceptional data.

And so I'm just really excited that we exceeded our goals for the cameras that are connected to our real-time op center, and we've also had a lot of positive results through our operation Street Shield in regards to seizures of firearms, and that all contributes to that feeling of safety.

So very excited to see as we continue to develop these strategies throughout the rest of this fiscal year.

And then also we have police services satisfaction.

The chart on the right, I just want to note it's not the actual performance measure, but this is the increase in what we call proactive police interactions.

So remember when Mr.

Taven said that when our police services interact with businesses, there was, I think it was over 62 to maybe 67% satisfaction for those who said yes, and this is part of the reason.

It's not the total story, but I attribute the proactive interactions to that on view activity, not waiting until something happens before you have an interaction with our community and our business members.

And so I want to really share that congratulation with the changes that we've made in our police department through Chief McCoy's leadership and our city management's leadership.

You'll notice if you're on social media a lot, they're knocking it out of the ballpark in regards to the communication plan that was designed and is tracked every single week in this huddle.

Did we do it?

Did we not do it?

And so really want to share that this mechanism works in regards to accelerating and achieving results for the city.

And then finally, um, since we've been working on pavement quality since I know we really started to put focus in 2016, we continue to hover around around 60.

A lot of factors with that, material cost, pandemics, um, shifting of resources.

I believe there was a couple economic crisis in the meantime there.

And so I'm just really pleased that since the November 2024 bond election, our PI, our PQI score has gone up by five points, and we are on track to exceed our goal of 70, which is an industry standard, all the way up into the 80s over the next four years.

So very excited about the focus and the energy that's been put behind this performance measure, and that has been, as you can see on the bottom right of the site, accelerated for many years.

So now we see the policy, the resource alignment, the shifting of resources really parlaying into results.

And then just as a reminder, um, sorry about some shifting on the screen here.

But in October, we worked on the surveys, we've also had our first quarter tap report out, which means our performance measure owners or one of their designees, part of our succession planning reports out to city management about their performance measure and the status of the strategies, and we are doing that on a quarterly basis.

So we have some early information within your slides now about some early Q1 results.

Um, November 14th, tomorrow happens to be my 27th anniversary with my husband.

So on that day, we will release the start tool for you.

Um he probably thinks that one has nothing to do with the other, but just wanted to share that um in regards to after in the afternoon.

You will probably receive an email.

You will receive that probably uh with a link, and it's a you it's a universal link, but it's your login that is unique, and you're able to then start um distributing.

Remember, not allocating dollars, but distributing your points basically to the performance measures that you would like to see acceleration on.

Um when you meet that timeline of uh December 1st, we will come back to you in December 11th at the work study session with your results.

Just as a reminder, uh, your results are public by individual distribution as well as by collective distribution on the start tool.

And then once we um have that discussion and receive your direction, we'll start working again on the accelerated performance measures as part of your council priorities.

So, with that, I will conclude and I'll get ready for my next presentation.

No, just get in.

You want to see me again this evening.

Well, thank you, White L, and of course, uh happy early 27th anniversary.

Um Council Purkini.

Yeah, just to comment.

Um the increase in PQI is probably completely from my neighborhood.

Is it yes?

Since it had the it had the the worst PQI in the city and recently got redone, and I was at their game night, and they were just as happy as could be with the conditions of the streets, and so I'm I'm looking forward to it going across the rest of the city as well.

Add to that, uh, the focus on neighborhood streets was critical because that was part of what we've seen in previous uh community surveys.

And then I also wanted to celebrate that I've been informed that the Elliott and the Elliott Road improvements are also ahead of schedule.

So kudos to our colleagues for working that hard to make all of that happen.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Uh Council Baraj.

Um, you know what?

A lot of people I I do realize that it is much importance to people about the pavement and quality.

Is that something that we have on our website just showing the the graph of it going up and down and absolutely on performance.tempe.gov, thank you for letting me make that plug.

We have uh all of our performance measures, and on that particular one, not only do you have the similar to the slide that I just showed you, you also can see a map of the planned projects and their timelines as well as the condition of those segments of streets.

So we try to provide the information, you know, to our community to know what's happening, when is it happening?

And the other thing that I should note is that even when we overlay where do we have the most need, we also balance that with where's the equity in our approach and our strategies of where we're going to start the work and continue the work.

So um, thank you for asking that question.

Thank you.

Uh, anyone else on council?

Council Bramberg.

Yeah, too.

Uh piggyback on that.

I will just say an added problem of fixing all of those streets, especially in my neighborhood.

Then we started getting um complaints from neighbors that people were driving too fast because the potholes were no longer slowing down the ledge.

So yeah.

Okay.

It's a constant game of whack-a-bole, you know.

So it can be.

Um, but I would have to say that um for that, I would encourage our community members to contact our um transportation and engineering team through our vision zero program because we can help with that on some maybe some mitigations, some studies that will help us know what's the best thing to do, even without the potholes mitigating speed.

Um, so we're always happy to work with our residents on solutions.

So yeah, to that we actually I did have Shelly in the transportation department came out and did the did the stuff, and I was shocked that it came out as I think the the average was 25 now, albeit that is the average, meaning that there were a lot of people going a little bit above that.

Um but thank goodness for all of those uh I say landscapers that are only going like five miles an hour through the neighborhood because they lowered that average a little bit.

Thank you, Council Bramberg.

Uh anyone else, any further comments or questions for what else?

No, seeing none.

White L.

I just want to say thank you.

It's a privilege to always represent my colleagues and fellow directors with the work that their departments do.

So thank you.

Also, why don't before you go?

You also have a birthday coming up, isn't that correct as well?

So not only happy anniversary, but also happy birthday to you.

Can we sing happy birthday to her?

I don't I I don't I don't want to I don't want to ruin it with my voice.

At the end, can we sing happy birthday to her?

Sounds good.

Okay, at the end, sure.

I'm joking.

You're the other two presentations.

I'm here for the end.

I'm here for the durations.

Well, thank you again.

I appreciate the birthday wishes.

And um have a good evening.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

All right, that we're gonna bring me the item three C long range financial forecast update.

And that will be Lissette Camacho, our deputy city manager and chief financial officer and Robert Baer, our municipal budget director, to give a presentation on item three C.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

Again, Lassette Camacho, Deputy City Manager.

And with me today is Robert Baer, our municipal budget director.

We're kicking off our budget process, and today's our first presentation on our long range forecast.

Before we get into the details in the forecast, I wanted to take you back two years ago in November 2023.

And that's the first time we introduced to mayor and council the impact of the loss of residential rental revenue.

And that loss is 21 million on an annual basis across three funds the general fund, the transit fund, and the arts and culture fund.

In 2023, in that forecast, we didn't we didn't anticipate the slow growth in sales tax revenue that we saw in fiscal year 2024 and 2025.

Going back to November 2023, also wanted to remind council that at that time we implemented measures to preserve our reserves or our fund balance.

Primarily the measure that we implemented was to ensure that we don't expand new services or on our existing services and no growth in our staffing levels except for any contractual obligations that we may have.

And over the last two years, we've implemented additional measures to preserve our fund balance and to ensure the financial stability in the general fund.

I'm coming to you today and to let you know that again we've lowered our revenue forecast for sales tax.

However, I have good news because the measures we've implemented over the two years did preserve our fund balance, and we have sufficient reserves to fund existing programs and maintain the current staffing level that we have.

That will allow us to continue to provide the excellent service that you saw in the business and community survey earlier to our community.

Also happy to report that all the major funds maintain fund balance within the council adopted financial policy.

I will caution you that this forecast does not include any assumptions for an economic recession or any major economic slowdown.

That's consistent with what we're seeing from our forecast partners.

Most recently, yesterday, I attended uh an economic forecast and saw three presentations, one from the chief economist from PNC Bank, one from ASU, and also from the Federal Reserve of Bank of New York.

And all three um economists did not um forecast a recession.

They're continuing to see growth in the US economy.

So that's consistent with the forecast that we're providing to you today.

So this presentation will cover a brief economic update.

Robert will cover that.

I'll also provide an update on sales tax trends.

Then we'll go into the forecast for all the major funds.

And at the end of the presentation, we'll open it up for questions.

Um, before I turn over the presentation to Robert, I'd like to thank our budget team for all the work that they put into preparing this forecast.

So that's Lori Osikowski, Scott Gruber, Kevin Di Dominico, Carrie Taylor, and Vinicia Benson.

And with that, I'll turn over the presentation to Robert.

All right, good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

Um, so tonight's presentation on the long range forecast aligns with the council strategic priorities of maintaining the triple A bond rating and keeping the general fund um balance with between 20 and 30 percent.

Um you can see those strategic priorities um on the slide here.

Going into budget development, I wanted to cover the public meetings that we have.

So in February and March, we will have our public forums on the budget.

Also in February, we will be presenting our proposed projects for capital and our long range forecast in March.

We will have our initial recommendation for capital projects.

Going into April and May, we have uh two budget review sessions, um, one April 23rd, and a second one on May 4th, if necessary.

May 14th is when we have tentative budget adoption scheduled.

June 4th is when we have final budget adoption, and June 25th is when we would uh propose to adopt the property tax levy.

Going into a few economic indicators.

So the first one we will show tonight is inflation.

So you can see back in 21, 22, 23, um, there was obviously the large spike of inflation.

We felt that in our pocketbooks, and we felt that here at the city.

Arizona was really ground central for that huge spike in inflation.

So as bad as it was for the rest of the United States, it was even worse here in Arizona.

Since then, we have seen inflation decrease.

Um, so here in Arizona, it's below, it's been below national trends.

Um, nationally, we're still above that 2% that the Fed likes to target, um, but it has decreased significantly from that peak that we saw a few years ago.

And then going into unemployment.

Um, so when we um we had um an update from the governor's uh strategic planning and budgeting um office, and what they said is this is right now we're kind of in a no hire no fire economy.

So um we saw, you know, obviously back going back into COVID times, the big spike in unemployment, um, and then um that uh rapid decrease in the fiscal years that followed.

Um we have seen that maintained.

Um right now we are seeing that unemployment rate go up a little bit, but it has not increased significantly.

And now I will hand the presentation over to Lisette.

So the next two slides will will cover the sales tax trends.

And you've seen this this chart before.

So the solid blue line that you see are is the actual revenue collected for sales tax, and it is based on a quarterly information going back to fiscal year 2018.

The dotted line that you see is the trend that we have for um the sales tax revenues.

The first dip that you see in um actual revenues in fiscal year 2020, third quarter, that's the COVID pandemic.

As you can see, sales tax um significantly drop at that time.

But as you know, Arizona didn't fully close like other states.

So you we see um recovery fairly quickly.

Um moving on to the right of the chart, you'll see also another drop below the trend line, and that's the slowdown of sales tax that we saw beginning in fiscal year 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2024, and continued on to fiscal year 25 with flat revenue.

You can see that we started to see recovery, then you see a steep, steep decline again, and that steep decline is the loss of residential rental, because you see that in the third quarter of fiscal year 25.

Um loss of residential rental began in January of 2025.

So this slide is to show how we compare to other cities.

We have two charts in front of you.

The first chart is um year over year over year over year change for sales tax revenues, including residential rental, and the chart on the left on the right excludes residential rental.

Reason for giving you a chart that excludes residential rental is um the loss of residential rental for Tempe was 9% of our sales tax revenue.

So that's gonna skew the data significantly.

So the main um takeaway from this chart on the left is that Tempe is the um the maroon line that you see at the bottom.

And um you're seeing the the um there.

And um, you can see that for Tempe, our trend is very similar to other cities, including Chandler, Mesa, Glendale.

Um, the the gray line that you're seeing is Gilbert, that you see a spike up, and you also see the green line with a spike up right there, and that's Peoria.

For Gilbert, the primary reason for their sales tax increase year over year is that they increased their tax rate from that in 1.5% to 2%.

So 0.5% increase effective January 1, 2025.

And the increase in Peoria is primarily driven with construction sales tax, so a lot of development happening in that city.

So the chart on the right, you see similar trend for other cities, same thing for Gilbert and also Peoria.

But what I wanted to point out here is that if you exclude residential rental, um, the other sales tax categories, you're seeing that there's a slight recovery there for other cities, but for Tempe, it's still very flat, but it is above, you know, zero.

So they're growing, but I by a small percentage between zero to one percent.

Quick thing, uh Lisette Councilmember Amberg has a question.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Lissette, is there a reason that Phoenix isn't on the chart?

Um, you know, we we just probably missed that, and we can add it for the next um next presentation.

So, as far as the forecast assumptions, as I mentioned earlier, the focus in uh of this forecast is to maintain our current service levels.

Um, we have continued the salary plans and employee benefits in our current memoranda of understanding.

We've I mentioned that we lowered sales tax revenue due to the elimination of residential rental, and we also lowered our state shared revenue distributions due to the incorporation of Santan Valley that took took effect last August, and we'll see the revenue reductions beginning in fiscal year 2027 or July 1, 2026.

We also lowered the interest earnings due to um plan drawdown of our fund balance.

So that means as we're drawing down our fund balance, we have less cash to invest.

And also the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates twice this year 0.25% in September and another 0.25% in October.

We are recommending implementing additional budget balancing measures in the general fund, which we'll cover in the next slide.

And you'll see here that again the focus is to use our available resources and prioritize funding for our existing programs and services.

So that means no addition for employees and also no expansion in programs for the next four years.

Also prioritizing completing projects in the current five year CIP.

And when I say the projects here, these are general fund cash funded projects.

We have also increased the drawdown of our public safety personnel retirement system reserves and our post employment benefits reserves.

Um we are proposing to reduce the transfer to the transportation fund, and also suspending the municipal arts transfer from the general fund.

The transportation fund and the arts and culture fund, you're both aware that they have dedicated funding source, sales tax for arts and culture, and the transportation fund receives the highway user revenue fund distribution or the gas tax.

So here's the the forecast scenario.

Again, you've seen this chart before.

The first chart on the left, um, the lines that you're seeing, the blue line is the revenue and the red line are you know is the expenditures.

The chart on the right is the fund balance, and the blue the blue, the yellow section is our fund balance policy of between 20 to 30 percent of revenues in the general fund.

So in the bottom section where you see the unassigned fund balance, you see the percentages and also the amount of our reserves, and then in the middle section, you'll see the actual amounts for revenues and expenditures, and also um any planned supplemental funding that we have.

Um, my main takeaway for this this slide is that you can see that throughout the forecast period, the expenditures is exceeding the revenues that we're collecting.

We're balancing our budget by utilizing our reserves, and you can see that throughout the forecast period over the last you know, the next four years, we are meeting our council adopted fund balance policy of between 20 to 30 percent.

So there are other budget considerations that's not included in this forecast.

The first one is the federal income tax conformity, and this is related to the tax cuts that were um adopted by the federal government through the one big beautiful act bill act that passed last summer.

So that that that bill increased the standard deduction and also allowed for deduction for qualified tips in overtime.

So, what that really means is that um the state of Arizona conforms to the same tax um deductions that the federal federal income tax has.

So this will result in an annual revenue loss of 2.5 million in the general fund.

Um, as I mentioned earlier, the forecast does not anticipate a recession or other major economic slowdown.

And listed here are additional budget balancing strategies that we could implement if um if there's an economic slowdown that occurs in the next year or a couple of years from now.

Um you can see that we could potentially freeze our vacant positions and we could put a process in place to allow hiring for crucial positions.

Um we could potentially reduce service levels to reduce costs and mitigate the impact of any unfilled positions.

We can shift resources to the highest priority services and program, and we could identify economic opportunities to increase our tax base.

Really quick thing, Lissette.

Um, just on that last item, and I know you're talking about just in case any of these things happen, but that last bullet about identifying uh economic opportunities.

I I always like to point this out because this is one of the things that we hear from residents sometimes is why is there so much conversation about economic development?

Why is there so much conversation about the downtown and kind of our central business district, and why is there so much concern about businesses just sort of in general?

That really, for my perspective, is exactly the reason.

The last thing that people want us to do is frankly talk about reducing positions here at the city of Tempe, which has the impact of reducing services.

Uh yeah, our residents, the ones that I talk to aren't ever asking me for fewer services.

They're frankly asking for more.

They're saying we love the work that the City of Tempe staff does.

And is there any way that we could get even more resources in our community or frankly in our specific neighborhoods?

So the reason why we spent we spend a lot of time talking about business and about economic development and why it's so important to support those efforts is the ability we have to grow our tax base and bring in more revenue, is what actually supports all of the people who work here and supports all of the services that make the city such a great place to live, which is why we talk so much about business, which is why we talk so much about tourism.

It's not about an affinity for developers or for development, it's to make sure that we have the ability to provide the highest quality services that we possibly can.

So I wanted to wanted to point that out.

I thought it was very important bullet point, but I just wanted to make that point uh for folks sitting in the audience or folks, frankly, watching at home as to why we talk about that so often and why it is so critically important.

Mayor, that's absolutely correct.

Um, local tax revenue is our largest revenue source for the general fund.

Um so with that, I'll turn over the presentation to Robert to cover the enterprise funds and also the special revenue funds.

All right, so for um our enterprise funds uh for the water and rev uh wastewater uh forecast.

So our forecast includes the rate adjustments that were recently passed by council um and it also includes planned uh pay-go um cash fund and CIP projects, and it is um forecasted to stay within the fund balance policies.

Um, again, with solid waste, it does include the rate increases that were recently adopted by council, um, and the fund balance will be maintained in the forecast period for emergency medical transport, our ambulance uh enterprise fund.

Uh the fund is stable since inception.

Um additional uh reoccurring capital appropriation is planned for the um replacement of those ambulance vehicles in the future, and it is forecasted to stay within the fund balance policy with our special revenue funds.

So we have our transit uh transportation and arts and culture funds, so our transit fund.

Um so the residential rental um tax loss does impact um transit and also arts and culture fund.

So with transit that uh um results in a 9% tax uh revenue reduction.

The fund balance is declining in our current forecast, but it is um forecasted to remain within policy.

But this does this forecast does not include any funding for capital and operating expenses related to street car expansion for our transportation.

Um, the main revenue source for that is the highway user revenue fund, um gas tax distributed from the state.

Um, future revenues are of course subject to pending legislation at the state.

Um, we will continue to monitor the fund um to make sure expenditures are aligned with revenues, but it is forecasted to stay within the fund balance policy.

And then finally, with our arts and culture fund, um, despite the loss of residential rental um tax for this fund, the fund balance um is projected to remain stable with uh fund balances above policy level.

And with that, we'll go to questions.

Thank you very much.

Great comprehensive presentation.

Council, any comments or questions?

Councilmember Hajj.

Thank you for the presentation.

It's always, even though we do get it every year, it's always interesting to make sure to see where we at versus all of our other areas.

Now, when you said that I know about the funds with the streetcar, did we have any federal funds connected to it at all with the streetcar or is that frozen?

I can't remember that answer to that question.

I know we did have some funds with transit, but I don't know if it's with the federal councilmember Adams.

Yes, we received $13 million for the planning phase of the extension of the street car.

And uh right now we're waiting for um Is it still frozen?

No, is it no?

It's not officially frozen.

There we just haven't gotten an answer back.

Okay.

But the planning phase is already going forward.

Yes.

Okay.

That's what I wanted to know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Haj.

Always helpful when you have the chairman of Valley Metro here as well.

That works very well in moments like this.

So thank you both.

Anyone else on council, any comments or questions?

Uh, Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Lizette, I just want to thank you for a meeting with me every month since we passed the budget and I expressed concerns over um the forecast.

I've actually, Lizette has actually met with me every month and gone over the numbers each month.

So I've been staying kind of abreast of what's going on.

So I really appreciate that.

And I wanted to kind of piggyback on some of the comments that you said, because I was also going to say it as well.

Um that I mean, I think a lot of people look at some of these other cities and say, well, how are they continuing to get their revenue base?

Well, City of Tempe is landlocked.

We can't build any more communities here.

Uh city of you know, Gilbert, Queen Creek, you know, they are increasing their revenues because they're building more neighborhoods.

We can't do that here.

So as a city that is landlocked, we have to keep reinventing ourselves over and over and over again in order to get and maintain those revenues.

And since we got you know whacked by the uh legislature, you know, we've got it become even more uh what is the word I'm looking for?

Entrepreneurial, um creative and how it is that we are going to get the revenues because our citizens do deserve and expect you know the high quality you know services that we've been able to provide them over the years.

So thank you.

No, thank you, Councilman Brewer.

And I I agree.

I mean, I think it totally translates to a lot of things.

I think about the you know South Tempe Square project in South Tempe at the corner of rural and water that will not only provide a lot of great new eateries and amenities to those residents, but it also generates additional sales tax revenue that we can use to continue services and a lot of the great new local businesses that are coming into the downtown.

Same thing.

I mean, the people eating and shopping and spending money in the downtown, whether they're residents or visitors, uh, that's the kind of thing that helps us to keep everything going and allows us to keep the great services that we have as described by Witell White L and Chris Tatham earlier.

So absolutely appreciate that.

Anyone else?

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Next up, item 3D, proposed speed limit changes.

Let's see, Eric Iverson, transportation and sustainability director, but also Michelle Beckley.

No, no, you were you were second.

You're good.

Come on over.

She was like, Well I go on back and get an Eric.

Nope, it's all you.

Hi, Shelley.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Thanks for the opportunity to present on this topic this evening.

Uh, Michelle Beckley, Senior Civil Engineering and uh our traffic group.

Um, today I'll be presenting on seven roadway segments that we are proposing speed limit changes for.

So with all the growth and change that we've seen across the city, um, this could be changes in land use density, uh, a lot of different improvement projects that are encouraging people to walk and bike more.

It's a great opportunity to take a look at the speed limits that we have posted and make sure they're a good fit for um the function of the roadway and also the surrounding land use.

Um, it's also a great opportunity to look at corridors in full and make sure that um there's consistency along the full length.

And um with a lot of exciting projects coming forward in the near future with coordination with engineering and sustainability.

Um, we're looking for opportunities to make these changes at the same time.

So when we have transportation projects that are changing the look and feel of the roadway, it's a it's a great chance to implement these at the same time.

So there's several different types of speed limits, but the main uh the main focus here is speed limits themselves are really intended to uh reduce the variation in driver speed.

So by improving that uniformity, having people driving generally the same uh speed, we're we're improving safety, there's less of a risk of conflict between vehicles in terms of city council priorities.

This supports council uh this uh supports performance measure 1.08 high severity crash reduction, and it also supports our vision zero efforts as we know that research shows um crashes that occur at a higher speed have a greater likelihood of resulting in fatal or serious injury uh in injuries.

So here has a question.

Great.

Yeah, before I didn't get a chance, he mayor he kind of left before I could get to it.

When you ask that question, when you talk about measuring, do you does it add in all of like the the regional cities in it too?

So say like Southern, when you go up Southern, it hits only in Tempe a certain area, and then there it goes to different size.

And I think that kind of does do you work with the neighboring cities of Southern and Broadway and other cities, you know, the other roads to go into other cities.

That's a that's a great question.

Um it is something that we always consider of how it's tying into the the neighboring um cities.

So there's it's it's definitely something that we'll continue to look at to make sure we can further improve um consistency and see if there's support on those sides to continue that um positive improvement.

Thank you.

So here is a a list.

We'll go through in more detail in individual slides.

Um there are seven segments that we're proposing changes for.

Each of them involve a five mile an hour speed limit reduction.

Of course.

Oh, sorry, thank you.

Um slide.

You know, okay, there we go.

Okay, thank you.

Go ahead.

And we will have some more details, so um, I'll be sure to cover all of them and and we can definitely go through in more detail with any questions.

First, we'll start on Broadway Road.

This is a proposed speed change from the west city limits to priest as well as terrace to east city limits.

Both of these sections are proposed change from 45 miles an hour to 40.

Uh the section in between is already 40, so it'll bring some consistency along the full corridor.

On the outside sections, we have three lanes in each direction.

This inside section that's already 40, we have between two and three lanes per direction.

Um Broadway also has transit service along the corridor, which is the case for most of the roadways that I'll present on tonight, but just gives some context of how the rings how the roadway is used, the kind of interaction in that speed.

Some considerations in proposing this speed change.

As I mentioned, the consistency along the corridor.

And it also uh we see as an improvement on the ends where we're crossing the freeway interchanges.

These can be um more complex movements and movements at a higher speed, so we see a safety benefit there.

On the eastern segment, we also have different uh school and recreation uses.

Country Club Way provides access in and out of a school.

It's also the location of a future multi-use path crossing, and then the recreational uses off of river drive.

For priest drive, this is a proposed speed change between Alameda and Baseline from 45 to 40 miles an hour.

North and south of these sections is already 40 miles an hour, and further south as you move into Guadalupe, the uh speed reduces to 25.

This section, the northern part has two lanes in each direction from Alameda to Southern, and then south of Southern to baseline has three lanes in each direction.

So with priest drive, this would improve consistency to the sections to the north and south.

We also have uh two new pedestrian bridges that have recently opened over the I-10.

So this is at Elameda Drive as well as um near the uh Arizona Mills.

So we are hoping to see some increased bike and pet activity in the area, including on Priest Drive.

We also have the Peterson House and the adjacent park.

A lot of residential use in this area, as well as a few access points to Arizona Mills.

Um Council Barrage?

Yeah, thank you.

On priests, okay, I get what you said by Arizona Mill, but then it hits like Guadalupe and then it goes back.

Is that something that you guys looked at too?

Because that's when you that transition from Guadalupe back in the Tempe.

Is that something that we paid it that we looked at that area too, that Elliott corridor area?

Elliot corridor.

Oh, that priest, it goes, it's like a break.

Yeah, and it goes and then it hits, but it it's kind of clunky in between that when you go from Guadalupe and back into Tempe.

This is an excellent point.

I think we would like to see some of the changes in that area as well.

I think it may be covered in a in a future group of segments that we bring forward.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on next to Guadalupe, this is a proposed change from Kyrene to east city limits, proposed change from 45 to 40 miles an hour.

Guadalupe Road has two lanes in each direction, as well as bike lanes, and this change would bring the full corridor between city limits to 40 miles an hour.

Oh quick council Bramberg.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

To the Guadalupe speed limit change, has anybody done any work taking a look to see if if you're gonna move that speed limit down to 40, you're gonna push the commuter traffic to push them to baseline and Elliott because they're not gonna want to travel on that road because it's 40 miles an hour.

So has anybody done any studies on how that's going to impact the one just south and one just the major thoroughwheel thoroughfare that's just south and just north.

And I'm talking the ones that when you can get off of I-10 and move east, um, you can get off of I10 on those and travel on those corridors.

And I know baseline is a big you know problem in terms of vision zero, you're gonna push a lot of people onto baseline that would otherwise have used Guadalupe.

That is a great question.

I think we'd be happy to put some more uh review into that.

Um I think when it comes to commuter traffic and looking at those peak periods in the AM and PM.

I think people are sometimes somewhat constrained with everyone else that's on the road.

So we might not be seeing the highest speeds at that time, they might be making the best choice versus congestion on other roadways, but um I think that's a that's a great point that we can look further into.

Thank you.

On Guadalupe, um we have uh three multi-use path crossings along the corridor.

We have uh multiple parks, we have Marcos Denisa High School, and then we also have the loop 101 interchange on the near the east limits.

Moving on next to Fifth Street and Veterans Way, the proposed change is from far farmer to university.

This would be a change from 30 miles an hour to 25, bringing consistency with the rest of the corridor to the east.

Sorry, to the west.

Um there's one lane in each direction along with bike lanes, and for a portion of the corridor, we also have light rail running through the center.

We have one heavy rail crossing, two streetcar crossings, access to two ASU sports facilities, two signalized pedestrian crossings, three marked unsignalized pedestrian crossings, and many city facilities.

So we have City Hall, um police and courts, the Tempe Transportation Center, as well as access to light rail.

Next on Miller Road, the proposed change is from North City Limits near McKellups to Curry from 35 to 30 miles an hour for context further north into Scottsdale is 35 miles an hour, and south of Curry as it transitions into Playa del Norte, this is 25.

Um, so this change would be a good trend transition, bless you, between those two site sections.

Miller Road has one through lane in each direction, um, as well as bike lanes and on-street parking.

So this is one of the uh locations as I mentioned earlier that has uh project coming.

This is currently in construction, uh, bringing speed humps and planter islands to this section of Miller Road.

So this is one where the look and feel of the roadway will be changing through the project.

This is also near the Indian Benwash Park, um, the playground, and then the Indian Benwash multi-use path.

For McKellops Road, this is a proposed change from college to Scottsdale, proposed from 40 miles an hour to 35.

West of this section is 25, and then east into Scottsdale is 40 miles an hour.

So this would transition between those two areas.

McElps currently has two through lanes in each direction.

And in the historical past, it really operated more as an arterial before the construction of the loop 202.

So now, many years later, things have changed.

Um the freeway is providing that uh thoroughfare.

And so this is really operating a little bit more of a collector now.

So some exciting projects that will also change the character of McCallops.

Um we have a new roundabout that is currently under construction on the west end at McCallops and College.

We also have through coordination with the um the paving PQI project.

We will be making some changes to enhance McCallops itself.

Um so there will be on street bike uh on street bike lanes and parking, as well as some planter islands.

So as this roadway changes the character, um, we feel this is a great time to uh modify the speed limit.

Last we have Roosevelt Street.

This is between Broadway and Southern.

A proposed uh speed limit change from 35 to 30.

This is a primarily industrial area, but there are some changes and enhancements that we're seeing near the ends of the corridor.

North and south of this section transitions into single family residential with a posted speed limit of 25 miles an hour.

Um so this would be more of a transitional speed between those two areas.

Roosevelt has one lane in each direction with bike lanes.

And this is another location where we have a planned project that will be coming in the near future, the Kyreen Roosevelt Farmer Multi-use Path.

And in this section, we will be uh implementing some buffered bike lanes, encouraging more cycling, more walking, um, and I think we'll really enhance the section, uh, which we feel would be supported by the speed limit change.

So, with that, we've um presented on this topic uh earlier in September at Transportation Commission.

There was um positive support to move forward.

So we're here presenting today to you all.

And if there is council support, um, we would recommend this to move forward for the public meetings, one virtual, one in person, as well as two public hearings.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Excellent.

Thank you, Michelle.

Appreciate it.

Uh, does anyone on council have any further comments or questions?

All right, seeing none, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

That brings me to item number four call to the audience.

The city council welcomes public comment at this time for committee of the whole items on this work study session agenda.

There is a three-minute time limit per speaker.

Madam Clerk, do I have any cards?

No additional cards, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

That'll make me move to item five, committee of the whole.

5A is proposed council subcommittees.

Let's see here.

There is one item for a proposed council subcommittee this evening, but once again, per city council rule seven subsection two B.

Any two members of the council may propose the formation of a subcommittee at a work study session of the council by identifying the purpose of the proposed subcommittee and the proposed members of the subcommittee and obtaining approval of the majority of the council, which brings me to item 5A1, Tempe term limits policy review council subcommittee.

And I'm gonna look to council member Keating.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to propose a new council subcommittee for uh the exploration of creating term limits in the city of Tempe.

Proposed Oh, I'm off.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to propose a new subcommittee for the exploration of uh possibly creating term limits for elected officials here in Tempe.

The proposed subcommittee will examine potential updates to Tempe's elections process focused on mayor and council term limits with a goal of enhancing transparency, accountability, and public trust in our government.

Vice Mayor Garland and Councilmember Amberg have requested to join the subcommittee with me if approved.

Excellent.

Sounds good.

Uh anyone on the council have any comments or questions on this item?

No.

All right.

Are we good moving forward?

Fantastic.

All right, you you have consensus to move forward, Councilmember Keating.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Excellent.

Uh, are there any other proposals for new council subcommittee at this time?

For me one of the council.

Okay, not here again.

I'll go to item five B council subcommittee status updates as needed and recommendations for council direction.

So I'm now gonna go down the list.

Uh, first of all, item five, we want to know the chair's not here this evening, age-friendly Tempe Council subcommittee.

Anyone have an update on that?

Councilmember Keating.

Uh, I haven't, Mayor, thank you.

Um, the age-friendly Tempe subcommittee will continue continues to meet.

Our next meeting is scheduled for December 2nd at 4 p.m.

at the Pyle Center.

Our focus will be on the AARP Livability Index and how we can improve our ability to meet the needs of Tempe seniors.

Thank you, Councilmember Keating.

Next up, item five B to animal welfare and cruelty and Tempe Council subcommittee.

Councilmember Hodge.

Yes.

We will not have a meeting until January.

We are taking a pause for the holidays.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Item 5B, Community Engagement and Connection Council Subcommittee.

Um, I know Vice Mayor Garland's not here, but Councilmember Amberg is going to fill in.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, we actually met this past Monday and had a fantastic presentation by two of your Mayak members.

I have to tell you, those kids are going to uh be president and vice president someday.

I have every every indication of that.

Our next meeting is going to be December 4th here at Tempe City Hall at 4 p.m.

And if you've got any questions, please reach out to uh Vice Mayor Garland's office.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Item 5B4, drink spiking education and prevention council subcommittee.

Councilmember Keating.

Thank you, Mayor.

We continue to meet and have made um significant progress on uh possible proposed new ordinance.

Uh we do are going to have public comment on this effort as well in December.

Our next meeting will be um tomorrow, the 14th, right here in the council chambers.

And I'm checking my calendar at 2 p.m.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Next up, item 5v5, mixed use space council subcommittee.

Councilmember Chin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the next meeting of the mixed use subcommittee will be on uh December 8th at 1 p.m.

And it will be on the third floor of city hall.

Thank you so much.

Next up, item 5b6, motorized and electric mobility device council subcommittee.

Councilmember Adams.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I'm happy to share that the motorized and electric mobility device safety council subcommittee will hold its first meeting on Tuesday, January 7th at 2 p.m.

at Council City Hall.

We'll begin we'll begin discussing safety, accessibility, and policy options related to e-bikes, scooters, and other motorized devices in our community.

The meeting is open to the public, and I encourage residents to attend and share their perspectives.

That's all I have, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Uh next up, item 5b7, revitalization of Tempe Town Lake Council Subcommittee.

Councilmember Amberg.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Our next meeting is going to be December 1st at 3 p.m.

here in City Hall on the third floor.

All right.

That brings me to item number six, future agenda items.

Members of the city council can request that an agenda item be added to a future issue review session, but in accordance with the open meeting law, there should be no discussion on the item other than to clarify the request.

Let's see, would any council members like to add an agenda item to a future issue review session?

All right, seeing that I'll turn to item number seven, announcements from the mayor and or city manager.

I don't have any announcements.

Um, Madam City Manager.

Nothing this this evening, Mayor.

Okay, thank you so much.

That brings me to item number eight adjournment.

The next scheduled work study session will be on December 11th, 2025.

We are adjourned.

We're gonna take about a minute to turn the meeting over, and we're gonna start our housing authority meeting.