I lead the band to a good good old Creole beast and golly water spirit and you can only hear it a downtown face and see your kids will disappear and when you hear Hallelujah old Santa is there when it's Christmas time and new Yes when is Christmas time it's Christmas time in New Holly Oh holy night the stars are brightly shine it is the night of the dear saviors birth long lay the world in sin and air upon till he appeared and the soul felt his word a thrill the weary will rejoice for yonder place a new and glorious morning for me oh here the angel voice says oh now when Christ was born oh now oh night oh now when Christ was born oh night oh night you're watching WSTV digital media can you hear me better now I got a rough crowd in here today we have police here to get rough I'll call to order the December meeting of the finance committee of the city clerk will please call the roll chairman council member clerk here vice chair mayor pray Tim Adams here council member Sipio present and council member Taylor okay we're here as usual we will do the consent first are there any items anyone would want to be pulled off of consent Mr.

We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Didi, you go like this or that.

Did you votes aye as well?

That is approved.

Thank you very much.

We will now go to the general agenda.

We have two items.

The church city clerk will please approve G1.

Item G1 resolution accepting the underrepresented communities grant for East Winston Herbal Renewal Documentation and Mars Hill Baptist Church National Register update.

Okay.

Mr.

Bennett, are you gonna approve present this to us?

Yes, I'm gonna go right ahead.

Thank you.

Um we recently received notice from the National Park Service that we would be receiving a 75,000 dollar uh grant under the underrepresented communities grant for the East Winston Urban Renewal Area and the Mars Hill Baptist Church for a national register update.

Um this type of grant supports the survey, inventory, and designation of historic areas that are not on the national register yet.

Um given them a 2.8 year timeline, and then the match is in the is in the form of staff time uh to manage the grant.

Uh you can see the um grant area on the right, and this was the East Winston General Neighborhood Renewal Plan that was started in the 1950s and ended in the 1970s, and this is that urban renewal uh time period.

Um I have Michelle McCullough, our one of our historic resources officers here with me.

And she can tell you a little bit more why we applied for this and how the project will work.

Ms.

McCullough, you please come forward.

Thank you.

Councilmember Clark, Mayor Joyce, Councilmembers, thank you for letting me come here today.

Um we are excited about receiving this.

Um staff had gone to a conference in Florida and found out from the uh woman who runs the program, the underrepresented community grant.

She says, I have millions of dollars sitting here.

Will somebody please apply for some money for some projects?

So we came back and we looked at our our needs, and as you know, we have a pragmatic agreement with the State Historic Preservation Office where our historic resources staff reviews all of our HUD-funded projects so that like our housing and neighborhood services department does.

Instead of them having to send them to Raleigh and sit there for 30 days, we get to review those and we can expedite that process.

Well, one of the issues we've been running into in the East and Northeast ward is um our survey is from the the late 70s, early 80s of our African American resources, and when we updated the Winston Salem survey, we we found some more things, but we really wanted to do look at a target look at at this area to make sure that we have things documented and that we're getting things um properly watched after that need to be.

So that's why we use the um the urban renewal areas again.

It's not an arbitrary back boundary, it is literally what they used back in the 50s and 60s for that area, and this is just the first step.

Again, urban renewal was in many other areas, but for East Winston, this is the section, the first like actually three sections.

Um that's why that area was chosen.

The grant requires us that um a point that the final product, we can do some survey work, which is really what we wanted to do with this area, but it has to end in either a national register nomination or an amendment to an existing nomination.

And here in North Carolina, the national register process is a two-step process.

You have to get on the study list of North Carolina first, which can take a year or two, and then you do your national register.

So, right there, we wouldn't be able to qualify for this funds because we wouldn't get to that end, that finishing line.

We need to that we're required to.

So we had to amend a nomination, and the nominations that we had, there were only three in this area, and Mars Hill was one of those, and again, this is one of those urban renewal maps with that outline there.

Um, and Mars Hill was one of those areas and one of those national register applications that already was listed in 1999.

There is another church, Golder Metropolitan, um, AME Zion, and then the Reynolds Town District, which had just been nominated in 2007-2008.

So that was fairly new.

In my world, that's fairly new.

Um, but we chose Mars Hill because when it was documented in 1999, it had only been an African American congregation for four years.

Previous to that, it wasn't a white congregation.

So this would give us an opportunity to update it with all the information we're finding out in that area through the urban renewal through the civil rights period.

What happened in this church?

What happened at this place?

And it's something we could get done in that time frame so that we could get those funds.

So that kind of addresses why we chose this area, why we chose Mars Hill.

Um, yes, there's other areas that were affiliated with urban renewal.

We're not saying there's not, but we had two years.

And so that's it.

This is a lot for um there's like 629, I think, properties somebody's gonna have to survey the consultant that we that we pick.

So who will do the work?

So we will hire a consultant.

We will do an RFP and hire a consultant that will do the survey and do the national register amendment.

They must meet the criteria that's set out by the National Um Park Service.

So the Secretary of Interior Standards has professional credentials you have to meet to do that type of work.

Um so we will hire someone.

Staff doesn't have the staff time to do it.

We are qualified, but we don't have the time to do it.

So any questions, comments?

Ms.

Sepio, this is your area, I believe.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, I am so excited about this on two levels.

First, I think the city needs to continuously go after grants to get some of the work that's needed for the city.

So it is a grant, and I know that the money is there for various things.

I'm excited that we have gone forth to apply for this, and I hope there'll be other opportunities that we can look to apply for to that we can get certain kinds of information needed for the city.

I'm excited also because having grown up here, I saw many of the changes in the neighborhoods.

I know Morris Hills Church, I know the whole urban renewal area.

My family and friends are impacted by it in the 50s and the 60s, 70s.

We are now still suffering from some of that, those changes when came back did not make a great big giant step in improvement in many ways.

It's led to some of the highest poverty rated census tracts in the city.

Uh when that was not supposed to be the case.

So I'm excited about this.

Um, and we do need to document African American history.

In our city, we don't have a lot of physical evidence of what went on here.

And so I'm excited that we're going to at least attempt to document in this area some of the things that did happen.

There are very few people left who are living witnesses to what happened or in this city.

We just lost one dear friend, uh CP Booker, who's 98.

He walked the streets of this redevelopment area as the district manager for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance.

Um, and he's now gone.

So many of those who lived in these and could tell us those rich stories are no longer with us.

So I'm excited about this.

Uh I I look forward to what's going to be compiled.

And the few people that I know who still living who are actual witnesses and have memories that they can call on.

I'd be very happy to help connect our staff and a consultant to them.

So I uh fully support this.

Thank you.

Get a motion from you.

Yes, I move that for approval of uh G1.

Motion is second on G1.

All in favor, please say aye.

Said aye.

That is approved.

Thank you very much.

Second item I have the city clerk, please read G2.

Update on downtown Winston-Salem Business Improvement District.

Mr.

Rao, you're gonna start this off.

Good afternoon.

Chairman Clark, Mayor Joins, Mayor Pratin Poiri Adams, Council members.

I'm pinch hitting from Ken Millett this afternoon, so I'll be talking through the uh the presentation uh here.

So this is really just kind of an update on where we are with the downtown Winston Salem Business Improvement District.

Uh we're in the last year of a five-year agreement with the downtown Winston Salem partnership to provide uh the enhanced services for the the bid, as we call it.

Um, and just wanted to give you a little bit of a primer on the business improvement district and also just kind of our next steps in the in the process for uh continuing uh to provide an enhanced level of service in in the area.

So just a little bit of background.

Uh what we call the bid is technically called a municipal service district, which uh is a designated area in which the governing body uh levies an additional property tax to provide an enhanced uh services for the residents or property owners in the district.

So with our downtown Winston Salem Business Approved District, you all created that district in 2013.

Uh the current uh additional tax rate that's applied to the property in the in the bid is nine cents per 100 evaluation.

That has not changed since you implemented the bid.

Uh that's right now projected to generate approximately 765,000 dollars for the current fiscal year.

And to help oversee uh the services that are provided uh in the bid, you all did create a downtown Winston-Salem bid advisory committee.

It's an 11-person committee that you all appoint.

There are two ex officio uh members, non-voting ex officio members of that committee, the city manager or his designee and a financial professional to advise the committee on uh managing the the revenues and expenses for the bid.

And as I mentioned, currently we have a contract with the downtown Winston Salem Partnership that runs through this fiscal year.

So the map here, uh this is the downtown Winston Salem Business Improvement District, and you can see there that it's uh bound by uh Martin Luther King Drive and 8th Street on the on the north, uh Patterson and Church Street on the east, Salem Parkway to the south, and then Spruce, Broad, and Marshall uh to the west.

I will note that uh we do have also a central business district, uh, and I'll talk a little bit about that here in a moment, but it it uh it's bounded a little bit wider area than uh what you see here with the downtown business improvement district.

So the scope of services that uh we contract with the downtown Winston Salem Partnership to provide include uh the following cleaner environment and they uh the partnership contracts with a company to provide uh those services.

You see probably that that staff out in uh usually orange uniforms walking around the business improvement district providing those services.

So cleaner environment, uh stronger marketing and promotion, accelerated development, enhanced physical appearance, and then part of the the revenue that's generated uh is goes towards administration on the part of the partnership uh overseeing uh this this these uh these services.

Um just again to note that the city government does provide services in the downtown area.

So this represents a an enhanced level of service within the bid.

But if you go outside of that in the central business district, you'd see city departments providing services on a regular basis uh in the downtown area as well.

And I think one of the easiest examples is the garbage collection that we provide, six-day-a-week garbage collection.

That's that's a base level of service that we provide, not only in the bid, but in the central business district.

So just to give you some examples of uh these particular service areas under cleaner environment, that includes, as you've seen, you know, pan and broom uh cleaning along the sidewalks, graffiti removal, and pressure washing and snow and ice removal.

For a stronger marketing and promotion, that includes promotion of downtown as a destination, increased marketing materials, and event sponsorship.

And then uh under accelerated development, we have business support, recruitment and retention, uh, visitor information and implementation of the downtown plan, and then enhanced fiscal appearance, uh, wayfinding directional signage, and that was a project that took place, I think it's a few years ago.

Uh small landscaping and beautification projects.

Uh an example of that would be the tree wells that were installed along 4th Street to kind of enhance the appearance uh along that corridor, and then uh new street furniture and garbage receptacles.

So those are just so many examples of the enhanced level of service that uh is provided in the bid through that nine cents uh property tax rate.

And this just gives you a breakdown in terms of uh you know how the budget is allocated among these particular uh services, so 63 percent for cleaner environment, that's the largest part of that budget, and you can see the breakdown there.

Uh in addition to those areas there, there is a small part of the the budget that does go towards property tax collection because the county does collect the taxes on behalf of the city, and we do budget a small contingency uh as well to address any special projects or or unforeseen needs that that may uh come up.

So, in terms of um our next steps in our process of of uh securing a provider for bid services, uh as I mentioned the the contract that we have with the downtown Wins of Southern partnership expires June 30th, 2026.

So this is uh a timeline uh for what we plan to do next, obviously providing you all an update today.

And so under state law, we have to seek public input on the type of services that residents and property owners in the bid would like to see, and so we are going to kick off that process probably early next week.

We say December 10th, but it'll probably be early next week to kind of post it uh to just leave an opportunity open for folks to submit uh input about the services that are provided, and then we're also required to provide a public hearing uh on the bid.

And uh right now our plan is to do that on January 6th.

So get all that public input, uh feedback to help us develop the request for proposal that will then advertise in on January 12th, sometime in mid-January, uh, with the intent of leaving the advertising that for about a month, and then we'll accept proposals, review those proposals at a staff level, uh, share with the downtown what's the sale and bid advisory committee the the information that we received, and then a recommendation will come forward to the general government committee in March with council approval uh after that, and then that should give us enough lead time that uh you know depending on who the service provider is, you know, to provide enough lead time to be prepared to assume those uh services July 1st of 2026.

So, with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions or comments?

I also like to just mention that Jason Thiel, president of the dance of is here.

All right, thank you very much.

That's for information only.

At yesterday's general government committee, several items were presented that have significant financial impact, which is our responsibility.

Uh they're not officially on our agenda, but I've asked the city manager to comment on them so that everyone is aware of them.

So Mr.

Pate, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I the I think two areas that we want to uh to highlight today.

The one one from actually from public safety committee, uh, which was the contract for police technology, and then the uh fire classification market study from uh general government committee uh yesterday.

So I won't start with the uh with the uh public safety uh issue that came up as which is the axon um contract.

Uh this is a uh is an important issue for us because it's two two things.

One is that it's it's outside of our normal budget cycle process, which is why it's being brought to what's being brought to council now, but it is would not normally be brought to council because this would have been included as a part of our budget discussions.

Uh I will pre see this by saying the recommendation we're bringing to you doesn't preclude uh this going back through the budget process and having to become a priority of council uh as opposed to other things that that you might want to fund.

The the city currently has a variety of contracts uh for technology with Axon.

Those include things like our body worn cameras, uh our drones, uh that includes the uh in vehicle cameras that we have, it includes the tasers that we have, it includes um records management, and then there's some other things going on with uh artificial intelligence, some language access um improvements that are going on.

So there's a whole variety of things that are wrapped up into this one particular contract.

The issue coming up is that the that corporation we have a contract for the bulk of that, which is primarily the tasers and the body worn cameras that is going to expire in 26.

The police department has been negotiating with uh with various vendors, and Axon is the uh right now is the preeminent player in the market on this one, and there are certain things that the state has actually required us to continue to do with that particular program, like evidence retrieval by the district attorney's office or by this by the state judicial system has to go through an axon product.

So we're going to have some relationship with them no matter what happens uh long term.

The the long and short of it is in looking at and trying to bundle all of those items together or looking at the cost of those, you know, like your cell services or other things.

If we bundle them, then they're offering us a discount.

Uh that discount there for this bundle program is for this calendar year, which is the the year of their time frame.

So their points to us is that the prices will go up significantly in 26 beginning in January.

So in working with the police department, they negotiated out a price, which um has uh some caveats that are very unique to this for the city and unique to what the council has done in the past.

What they have proposed is a 10-year contract uh with the city for uh roughly 4.3 million dollars a year to provide a series of all of this technology upgrades and some other things.

So I encourage you if you didn't weren't on the committee to go back and look at the full presentation by the police department uh on those various activities.

The the problem is that currently we're spending about 1.7 million on these contracts.

There are certain other things that we're still ferreting out in the police department of things that we would be contracting for that we would get under this contract, which we think we've identified a few hundred thousand more dollars, but roughly the jump there is again from current contract of 1.7 to a proposed contract of 4.3 million dollars.

So that's a very steep and significant increase, and not saying that it's it's that's their going rate for these products.

Uh they they also told the public safety committee that they basically in doing that are given us about a 26 million dollar discount over what they say the uh rack rate is for those products.

Um in order to lock in that amount, they have asked us to sign a letter of intent basically to negotiate to complete this to move on to these products, and a big caveat of that, as I explained to the public safety committee, is that we also have a non-appropriation clause as a part of that.

So what we have what we're asking uh council is to uh what our intent is is to go ahead and sign that contract with can basically council's understanding that we're doing that with the non-appropriation clause in it, so that council can then come back as a part of the overall budget process and look at can we afford to do this amongst the other things that are going on.

So it so it locks us into those prices.

There are a few things that we can still negotiate with them.

Uh the how we the total price is the same, how we how we structure that can be altered a little bit, potentially the 10 years.

I know some people have concerns with that.

There's a possibility of doing something uh perhaps uh on a five-year and a five-year extension.

So there are a few caveats that we can still go in and talk to them.

But the big issue is going to be for council is are we gonna continue to use all of these technologies that are a part of this contract, or or is that something we can't afford to do ultimately?

So I'll stop for a couple of things.

It takes every bit of my patience not to scream when a company says they're doing me a deal by going from 1.7 to 4.3.

You mentioned that the states requiring us to be able to transmit certain information through Axon to the state uh district.

That is correct.

If it wasn't for that requirement, would we still would we have a bigger option?

Um not to my understanding of how we do that.

The things that we uh the base part of this bid is things like uh again our body worn cameras, uh the the there's unlimited document storage, so again, with all of the camera they they do the cameras that come into our real-time crime center, so the the translation of the whatever the various businesses have those cameras on, and that feed that comes to us, this system will translate that into our a readable and storable fashion that our police department can keep in uh in the cloud, basically, to use.

So all of those things have are things that we are doing as a municipality that we believe council and the community would want us to continue to do.

So those all have to be done anyways.

If we don't accept this contract, there probably are smaller players out there that do individual pieces of this.

So we would be looking at in in terms of instead of having a holistic solution to this, looking at a variety of uh of piecemeal solutions that would we don't know what that would actually add up to and what the service level would be.

But that's something that we certainly can explore between now and and budget adoption.

I was now you you're telling I asked you this question yesterday.

The clause we have in there, the appropriation clause says that we as a council cannot make future commitments to future generations of uh correct.

Uh nor can I make a commitment to next year as to what you will approve in the budget.

So almost all things that we do as a municipality, because you are by law required to do a balanced annual budget.

We cannot commit to do things that you may not fund.

So the non-appropriation clause basically means is if if we put this out in the as the budget proposal for next year.

So we we basically say we put 4.3 million in there, and counsel comes back in and says you only have 1.7 million, then this contract will be null, and we won't will tell them we do not have the money to enter into this contract, and then we will have to seek other solutions.

I would recommend, I don't know if you have an association of city managers in the state, but to chat with everybody, I I just think this is just unbelievably uh I'm tempted to send a letter to the president and mention this company's name and tell him to go after them.

Uh that's just criminal.

That kind of increase.

Uh because they have no competition for one up here.

I would encourage you to look to see if we can't buy it a la carte versus.

We we will certainly take a look at our.

Is there anyone from the company in here?

I they should not be here.

They were here yesterday.

Okay.

I I will tell you that that our we have talked to our colleagues from other communities.

I'm sure they will.

Uh but we have talked to other colleagues, so we are comparing the pricing that we've got and the contract terms to what our other colleagues across the state are doing as well.

And again, you've got to sometimes it's apples to apples, sometimes it's not.

You've got to look at size and what we're providing.

And as the police department said yesterday, uh, from a technology standpoint, it was not somebody was saying, are we going from the you know from the Stone Ages into the into the Star Trek era?

No, we're we're a fairly well uh supplied department that that is that is using technology to a very extreme, not I don't want to say extreme, but to a to a complete concept.

So we so we're doing a lot of things with technology, and and they had that has been helpful, and they will have got statistics to show how that helps with solving crimes and our our our the rates that we that we basically bring people to to justice when they need to be.

So a lot of those are tied into our use of technology and particularly the real-time crime center.

So but again, and so that's not what everybody is doing.

People look at what we're doing as a model across the country.

So we are kind of the leading edge of a lot of this technology, and this does continue to keep us uh at that point of having technology that will serve the needs of the community.

I've got to get closer to the microphone.

Uh please take a look.

This over uh it's almost a 200 percent increase.

But yes, that's correct.

150 percent or something.

It's just astronomical uh for basically the same service.

I they they will argue, and I think the police department will argue as well that there are this getting us services that we can have for the next 10 years.

So it does replace a lot of our technology, some of our technology that we have, and a part of why our prices are low is that some of this we are on long-term contracts and haven't renegotiated in quite some time.

There are things like uh cameras in our uh investigation rooms that will be upgraded on this.

The tasers have to be upgraded uh on a periodic base.

I think they're on a five-year replacement cycle.

So there are uh a whole variety of built-in items to this that that keep us current with the latest technology that that we would fall behind in if we did not.

If every department brought this increase, we would be bankrupt.

That is leave it at that, it's a problem I think it needs to be worked.

I'm not sure I'm even going to support it, but it's fair.

Um anyway, the CPO, you you you started this thing yesterday.

I just had a question.

Uh I know the contract is uh it includes a whole lot of things, including upgrades that tend to cost a lot with technology.

Once you have to upgrade it, sometimes you have to change all of the equipment to get to the next level.

Um, and I suspect they built in various estimated cost on things that's gonna happen over the next 10 years.

In our contract that's being proposed, is there a clause that allows the cost to go down if they don't go up for us?

So if there is no increased cost of technology that they built into this contract, is there also a clause that says that our costs could be reduced if certain things don't happen.

Yes, yes, ma'am.

I the the way I understand that the contract we got written is actually it it's it works to to both on on both ends of that.

There is no escalation in the cost, so that this is a set cost we would have for 10 years uh on an annual basis, so you would not be seeing increases in the over the next 10 years to provide the technology, but that but it also does not incur any decreases in those costs.

So it's a flat contract for 10 years.

So which again in and we could go back and try to structure it so that you had some increases every year over the next 10 years, it basically comes back to the same amount and it wouldn't be all in one chunk.

And and if we and that's something again we can discuss during the budget process of how we finance this, if this is the route we decide to go.

But right now we're the the what's in front of council for us is the is the issue of us locking in these prices so that they don't go up, and then we still have the ability over the next several months to look at if are there other options that we think are more feasible for the community from a price standpoint.

Okay.

Next next item.

Um could you get me the address that I need to address the letter to this just the the uh second one, and I've got a lot lots of I got I I don't I didn't have the police folks left me today, so that but uh but I do have oh I got one one back in the corner helping me out if I needed something.

The um I but um excuse me, have some and some additional backup on this one excuse me, but council asked us back when we were in the throes of the last budget process and and making some decisions there on a variety of items, particularly related to equalizing our benefits package.

We you also approved us going forward with what we're calling a one-third study and classification, which means our intent is to look at all positions in the city over a three-year period, so a third each of the next three years.

As a part of that, because of some other decisions that were being made, uh council asked us to look at the fire department as a part of the first third study, but along with some other positions, CDL positions are being looked at, and some other ones.

And to come back with some recommendations on the fire classification piece in this calendar year was the was the intent.

So we what we brought back to the to the general government committee was the the items that the the initial item that council adopts is pay ranges for our all of our positions.

So this we go out and do market comparison studies looking at what how what what it would take in our general market to attract people to various types of jobs.

So in this one we did a specific study on the uh fire department and looked at uh but basically they benchmarked firefighter ones, um engineers, um the fire captains and the battalion sheets as the benchmarks, and then basically came back in with a set of recommendations on the scales compared to other jurisdictions.

And I'm giving this as a background and then I'll get to the financial piece at the end of this.

So as a part of those looking at where we compare to other jurisdictions in our general market.

And they and they've got again, you can go back and look at the presentation.

You can see who we did in the market, and it's done based on where people live and work from in Weston Salem.

The bottom line is then looking at that market, they determined that the things that were there were two things that were significantly out of kilter for what we were doing.

One is that we had with what the uh our consultant PTRC said was kind of subclassifications that nobody else has.

So we had different classifications of uh like a firefighter could be in a uh a no degree category, an associates degree category, a bachelor's degree category, and there were some military issues there as well.

That's not standard in in our market with any of the other folks we looked at.

Everybody typically has one range for those various positions.

So that was one issue.

So they have recommended that we eliminate that, simplify it, and make it uh easy for folks to understand if you're a firefighter one, here's your pay range.

There was also some recommendations on how how wide those ranges are, where how they vary from each other.

Generally we have 5% grades, and then they're recommending 55% widths, so from minimum to maximum.

So in doing that and looking at where we're at, generally speaking, they came back in and said we were, if you look at the general market, because of our uh hybrid plan that we had, we tended to be eight to ten percent below market of what other people are advertising for positions.

So, as firefighter, for example, we're currently advertising for just a high school degree coming into that position, a minimum of 46,978.

The market range was 50,643, and what's been recommended is 51,000 as a starting point for firefighters in the city.

James is doing a good job figuring out where I'm at and bringing that up for you so you can see on the board now.

So it's on the board now.

And again, that that's all in there.

I'm not gonna redo the whole presentation unless you want to, and then I'll have I'll call on Dr.

Keenan or somebody to do that.

Um but they so they looked at that, they looked at the ranges, they looked at the amounts, and and have made recommendations that assuming we get a consensus from council, we're gonna come back to you and say we want you to adopt these as the ranges in our pay plan to for these firefighters basically sworn uh firefighter or certified firefighter positions.

And so doing that, then it creates a a second level of issues.

So that's that's one thing that council would have to do to implement this is to adopt those ranges.

The second part of that is then how we would implement that those ranges going forward.

So there's a couple of things that we're still getting data on.

One is the benefits package comparison with other jurisdictions, and another one is are people giving incentives for for additional uh items like additional education.

Is that clean and is that typical in the marketplace or are they all doing just in one spot?

So in any case, if you adopt those new ranges, we'll have to come back in with a new implementation of that that will move everybody within the ranges that you've approved.

So if a firefighter is below that, so if you hired if we hired somebody in the last class that was a high with a high school diploma, they are going to be below the new minimum.

And so they would get a bump in pay up to the new minimum.

We would not move anybody above the maximums as that we don't do that anywhere in our scales.

So we're gonna come back in with a full cost of doing that.

There would be two parts of that decision.

One is when we implement this.

So depending on for this year, if you're gonna implement it in this year, we're gonna have to ask you for an appropriation from fund balance to implement the these changes.

I will tell you that we're expecting to do a new fire class probably March or April.

So we are going to recommend that you implement this before we hire any additional firefighters, and that we can use this in our advertisement for the next fire class.

So the likelihood is we're gonna come and ask you for the range change to be fairly quick, probably next month if y'all agree to doing this in in January.

When you implement it, we'll make a determination as to how much we're gonna have to ask for fund balance.

So a second question that'll come back through finance committee is an appropriation to actually fund the implementation of the classification plan as it's been presented.

And so the the one piece of that is going to be raising everybody up to a minimum, and that's typically what's done for most places when they do a classification implementation.

Then you've got an issue of does that create compression issues for us inside that area?

And so that's the next issue we're looking at now is do we want to bring back some recommendations on potentially changing salaries for people that would fall with that are being paid within the range.

So they're being paid appropriately within the range, but they are not, but it might create compression that you've got folks with higher higher skill sets or higher years of experience making similar pay to somebody with less experience or less skill set, which typically we try not to do.

Now the other caveat on this one, I'll because in Jen, again, in turkey and looking at ranges, uh because I talked about the minimum, the minimum going up.

That's what everybody usually talks about.

Our maximum of the range was generally within the market.

So when you look at the new maximums that we're out that we're talking about, they generally fall close to where we're currently at uh for positions.

So we're not going to see a lot of change uh in those for Firefighter One, for example, our maximum was 77,690.

The market was only 74, 440, and the recommended based on these ranges would be 7905.

So we would we'd be a little bit higher on the top end of the market.

The other thing, if you go back and look at those studies, we also compared actual salaries or the consultant did, we didn't.

So they looked at not only the ranges, but what are our actual folks being paid?

And in those cases, the gap between where our folks are being paid and the market was generally very small within a few percentage points, which is is where you'd want to be.

But the issue is going to be do we with the compression, do we need to do something with that?

We will need to bring back a recommendation on what it would take to bring everybody up at least in the minimums to put them in the range.

A full implementation of this, uh, depending on how you do it, could can be fairly substantial.

So again, as a part of this, we're preempting the budget a little bit because you're looking to implementing this ahead of July 1st when we would typically put in paying classifications that would require council to basically to both budget out of our fund balance to pay for this what we're the remaining of this year, and because quite we are in the past, we've been able to deal with uh using salary savings to fund a lot of these increases.

We we are actually filling positions uh now.

The fire department is still stays pretty close to full when they put a class in place, they'll generally be full, and then they'll have people that leave.

The police department was the other one that was weighed, had a lot of vacancies.

They're actually once they put in a new class of uh 50 plus this upcoming, they're gonna be much closer to being fully staffed, which is one of the reasons why the other costs are going up for new body worn cameras and things to be fully staffed.

Uh so we're so we'll be bringing that back to finance as well.

I I don't want to give you any specific numbers now.

I want to we're Scott's going back and with uh with our staff looking at at those numbers, but again, I will tell you that it's the likely implementation cost for an on an annual basis is going to be substantial.

So that'll be an item that you will be allocating as a part of your budget priorities whenever you make a decision to and to change the the classes.

The other piece that I I should mention on this one is whatever we do in this one sets a precedent for what we're gonna do for all the other employees as we go through.

So just you have to be mindful of that when we bring this back when you're looking at the cost for firefighters, which is a few hundred positions in the city, we've got 2,500 permanent positions and another four or five hundred temporary or part-time positions that we're looking at.

So it's only a small portion of our total staff base that we will be looking at that we'll have to deal with for everybody else over the next couple of years.

Questions?

When do you think you'll have the benefit study finished?

Uh PTRC is hoping, so there were kind of two parts.

They did a kind of larger comprehensive benefit survey.

Um still waiting on the results of that from the majority of the comps, but they think in terms of making recommendations on kind of a hiring matrix and how we could kind of implement just the fire piece.

They're anticipating in KENA is somewhere.

Um so correct me if I get this wrong.

I think they're thinking they could have that information by the end of January, just making phone call follow-ups to folks to figure out um kind of on the pieces that will directly impact pay versus the broader benefits package.

Because I would hope, given what we learned last fall, that the changes we made to the number of vacation holidays and sick pay and all that was bringing us competitive with what other people were doing.

So I'm not expecting a big surprise there, but it would be nice be to tell the fire folks.

But it would be nice better tell the fire folks, we've done a study, your salaries competitive, and your benefits are competitive.

And absolutely.

And on the accrual side, we know that we we made those comparable and they are going to be competitive.

I think the issue for us is going to be or is our programs like health insurance, are we more generous than most of our competitors out there?

So there's a whole variety of benefits.

We have our retirement plans are tend to be better than other folks around us based on what we can tell.

So there are there are other pieces that we have to look at to make that total comparison because it is all total compensation for individuals.

Okay.

And it was brought up just to uh I will bring this up because I think uh Mayor Pro Tim brought it up.

We do offer things like uh tuition assistance for folks to go back and get degrees uh after they're employed with us.

And there are to become a battalion chief as an example, you have to have a degree.

So there are folks and they may come in as as a firefighter without that, that we are encouraging to go back and get education.

That would then they would see some bump when they did that.

Okay, thank you.

Any questions, Ms.

Supio.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I think it's very important whenever we do things that deals with people's salary and their benefits, that we take the appropriate amount of time to make sure every individual situation is thoroughly assessed and investigated, and what we offer is actually the best for that person.

One of the things that is very concerning, we have minimum and maximums and ranges.

But somebody's been a firefighter for 15, 20 years, and their salary may have been increased a little bit over those 15 years.

Someone new comes in, and because they are new and we've got a new range, their minimum is higher than what that long-term employee's salary may be.

So I think we mean we just need to be very, very careful that we look at every person and where their current salary is versus their job title.

And I guess sometimes we promote people so that they can get an increase in pay.

We we promote people when they when we have an open vacancy at a higher level that that they need that we need a position of fill in the best candidate in that, although we do have some career ladders in the fire department, so they can go from a firefighter one to a firefighter two to a master firefighter based on skill development and years of service.

I I will caution counsel just a a bit on on on your statement.

Um part of the reason why council is we have a council manager form of government and city council members don't get involved in that is because individually, I got 25,000, 2500 people, all with individual cases and interest and issues.

We absolutely cannot go back and make sure every person is whatever you whatever you think is happening, the cases on those individuals are all very different.

There are a variety of reasons why individuals move up or down in the pay ranges or or get in increases or get promotions there, or some people, when we got career ladders, they may be you got uh high achievers that are gonna move up as quickly as they possibly can, and some that are not going to do that.

So I I would just tell you you have to take it with a grain of salt when somebody comes in and compares and says then we compare this person and this person.

There are thousands of reasons why people could be different.

But I think the the point there is we want to be fair with all the folks that are there and make sure that we're have a system in place that will absolutely that we can defend and say this is why the decisions have been made at that have been made.

Which which I think is what you intended to do.

The key is to try to avoid those kinds of unpleasant situations by making sure we've done our job well and we understand that.

I know everybody is individual, but when you look at the whole mass, if someone has been unfairly treated, sometimes salary is the one of those indicators.

And I just hope we take our time to make sure we are investigating and are comfortable and accurate on what we do for each person.

Because though we have 200 and 2,500 employees, everyone is an individual.

That is correct.

And they want to be seen as an individual.

So I think it's up to us to take the appropriate time to get this done, not necessarily to rush it through just to get it done, but to take the appropriate time to do it right.

And I appreciate that comment and I totally agree.

We want to make sure we're doing things right and not just rushing through things.

Any anything else to bring before the committee?

If not, we will uh I tell you what, we're not gonna have any more meetings for the rest of the year.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Well, it's looking forward to the January Finance Committee.

Yes.

All righty, where's your giveaway?