The meeting of the Cook County Independent Revenue Forecast and Commission will now come to order. I will now call the roll. Chair, Commissioner Davila, Commissioner Merman, Commissioner Falen, chair, you have a quorum.
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our meeting of the Independent Revenue Forecasting Commission and my first is chair. It's nice to be here with all of you tonight.
Before we begin tonight's agenda items, I wish to recognize the hard work and collect the efforts of everyone in this room, the Bureau of Finance and the Dynamic Commissioners. Thank you for everything you do.
Today, we are going to discuss some potential recommendations of the IRFC, which will not be finalized until August.
Additionally, we will provide quarterly updates, which include updates on our persistent ability.
We are also going to go through some exploratory scenarios, assessing methods to grow existing revenues.
I think this can be a useful thought exercise to understand and refine our modeling and to get a more comprehensive look.
Foundies revenue picture.
I look forward to this group's inside an input and finally we will also be diving into the county sales tax.
So again, thank you to everyone for being here and we can get started with the meeting.
The first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the meeting of June 30, 26.
Fair, we need a motion to approve the minutes to proceed.
Is there a motion to approve the minutes?
Yes.
Is there a second?
Okay.
Okay, the motion to approve has been moved by Commissioner Feynland and second by Commissioner Miramon.
All of those in favor signify by saying aye.
Any opinion of the chair?
Aye.
All of those opposed to signify by saying aye.
Any opinion of the chair?
The A's have it and I'm sorry, and the meeting minutes will be found with the Cook County Secretary of the Board.
The next item on the agenda is a presentation from the team covering quarterly updates.
The county sales tax and the preliminary IRFC recommendations.
Thank you, Angela.
So I will have some updates this evening on some of our deliverables as they relate to the principles of the aisle.
See here on your recommendations of this body, which we'll get into on the next slide.
Regarding the impact of Boba, the open provisions on the health enterprise fund.
We recently analyzed the past budget rough states.
There wasn't a lot of information in there that would change any guidance as far as forecasting goes to the health fund.
So you know, we'll be continuing to monitor any information that comes down to the state.
Continuing to work partner with our friends at the hospital.
One thing to note those at the state is continuing to fund health benefit for immigrant seniors, their budget, which we have built in.
We'd be a reflective that in our June forecast.
Our VISTA state of Billy.
The county that is currently flying to your name is allocation.
It's better to keep the offer reserved.
It should have set up a couple of years ago.
And then revenue growth options, which will dive into on the next couple of slides.
So this year, the team, we conducted an analysis of county tax revenues, identifying reasons for.
Smaller declining growth in some revenues.
Understanding why they're stagnant.
We shared some updates at the January and April meetings on our findings.
But on the next batch of slides here, we'll walk through some exploratory scenarios.
What modifications would look like to existing taxes in the county's budget.
Okay, so as Angela noted, we'll be going through some of the county's revenue sources in this section.
Exploring some scenarios.
What different modifications.
And yes, the major revenue impacts would potentially look like as well as providing some background into our methodologies to estimate these impacts.
And so the first revenue here that we looked at is sales tax.
Seeing what a potential modification would look like in the county's sales tax.
So the county's current sales tax read is 1.75%.
And so we have a scenario of here of what that would look like if it were to increase a quarter percent to two percent.
So to estimate what the revenue impact would be from this modification.
And we'll also be talking about the sales tax of it.
And the presentation.
But we use our current sales tax model, which is a regression model that is used to predict the sales tax base.
We adjusted the tax rate to 2% affected January 127, which would be right now the earliest of the county would be able to implement that change per state.
So this January one effective date would mean that the county would begin seeing an impact from the modification in April of 2027.
Which accounts for the lag from when the state who administered the tax for us collects it and eventually disperses it to the county.
A key assumption in this modification is no change in the purchasing behavior of consumers from this potential rate increase.
So the projected revenue impact from this modification here is that we're estimating fiscal year 2027 would be approximately $141 million higher from the current projection of the prior forecast of the sales tax.
But then in the impact would be about 220 to 230 million and 2028 and into the out years.
So this full year impact of 201 million, it's about 14% higher than the forecast of projections for 2028 and to the fifth the out years.
So the sales tax rate is going to go up.
Maybe I think you might have gone up today.
Right.
Because it's.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's going to go up.
Do you have any projections about what.
You know, that to lower your revenue if it pushes out sales.
You have a projection of that.
And then.
You know, the projection of this would also perhaps be there's an interactive about that.
So I just wonder.
Do you have any idea what that would do.
We haven't explored that yet.
What's.
Surrounding.
If that were to increase how that would impact our pace and potential sales.
So guess.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then.
I guess.
So the 14% difference 40% increase in revenue.
But it's essentially you're essentially assuming it's.
Just linear is because it's 25% over 1.75 is.
Yeah, I'm trying to do the math in my head.
But that sounds about right.
That's essentially what you're saying.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I think we have some discussions before we, you know, we would say that's optimistic.
I assume that, you know, if I cause some drop off in sales.
So it just seems like I should know that.
Yeah.
Correct.
Yeah.
This is no.
That's the point.
It's not that.
Here.
This is just.
No change in.
Well, it's the base.
I've been sooner than here.
Mm-hmm.
Is there a way to look at past increases to.
Confirm that or to sort of back that out.
Yeah.
We could certainly take a look at that.
I'm sure we have data to be able to do that.
I have very few actual instances that we could look at.
So I mean, you could do an analysis, but I'm not sure how.
Well, there's, there's one is the implementation and whether or not it rules out perfectly.
But then you're also, when I'm looking at a handful of instances where we would.
We would be directly impacted.
So you're going to have a sample size that would be.
Great.
Yeah.
You could make some assumptions.
I think the issue is that right now in most of online sales are covered.
Mm-hmm.
So before when there would have been an increase, there would have been a bigger opportunity for avoidance.
Because a lot of the goods were still being touched at the six and quarter percent.
There was no.
You've got pretty much everything being touched at the house.
Right.
So I'd say more of the reduction in consumption rather than any kind of deviation.
I hope we have you are going to Wisconsin or North Carolina because that's pretty much tough.
Back to David's point.
Did you look at the RTS to mountain where they put with the estimate in terms of elasticity for their revenue increase?
Um, I did not look at it.
Personally, um, I think my coal may have.
Unfortunately it's not here, but um.
I think that might be a hell of a conversation to have.
Because that would have been discussed.
I would think of life in the state of legislature.
Yeah.
They cover.
Is that restricted to the county or it's a bigger area?
It's bigger.
It's a bigger area.
Yeah.
I guess one I just concerned because the rate is very high in July.
We talked about the highest rate in the nation.
And I'm just worried that there's a breaking point.
That's why.
So is it.
Well, would it be a, like.
What do you mean by breaking point?
We already just people had effects people's consumption or houses taxable.
You know, I mean, I'm really, I'm really doing hand waving here.
But at some point people had to say, you know, this is ridiculous.
It's going to make me effort to to go to a different county or do something to avoid the.
The sales tax becomes really, you know, this goal when it's.
Yeah, and I think, you know, I think that's worthwhile research and like what opportunities would there be.
To go to another county to get a lower tax rate because I'm not sure with all these recent changes at the steel level.
I think of a factor.
That is anymore.
I mean, it used to be like, you know, we need to be still out of the gas and say, we're at somewhere.
But I'm not so sure that it's so I would just see an overall reduction in consumption.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I think the most kind of the most relevant point for policy is just to set, you know, give it some low upper bound that's a lower bound.
I think you're really at the upper bound.
Yeah.
And what's a reasonable lower bound.
Yeah.
And it might be a signal.
Another way, it might not just be that like price goes up.
They stop buying it or you look to buy somewhere else.
But essentially your budget is to clean it at some point.
So you don't buy something.
Yeah.
And that way.
It's not like this concept.
We can think this about your constraint that gets hit at a certain point.
So you don't end up going up that extra me or something.
So I'm some level of reduced consumption associated with the increase in sales.
That's possible.
You could look at the.
I've got it that with people spend their money on the consumer.
Whatever.
Because if it's services, they're more likely to drop off.
Then it doesn't matter because they're not taxed.
When I said, I don't know, I'm being flip and it's not going to affect your sales tax.
Your sales tax revenue.
If people reduce their consumption of services.
But if they're concerned.
If they're constrained forces them to reduce their consumption of goods.
Then that's a different.
equation.
Yeah.
I mean, it's helpful to know.
I think we've we talked about this a little bit.
It would be helpful to know really where your sales tax revenue is coming.
But what are the what are the big drivers.
My.
As I see code perspective, if you will or.
It's like sick code sick.
Yeah, I don't know if.
Yeah, I mean now you have data like you actually have data that level of.
It's helpful of the entity.
Right.
And.
Maybe you could do some analysis of that.
To think about like where's the volatility in that.
And I don't know how much you can fix.
What kinds of things are selling is it is it like restaurants.
Look, I always think of it as cars, but it's not cars.
It's apparently because it's handled differently.
Here. So, I don't know what really the components are. It's driving since that's where I've been in the account. It's pretty key then across all of the sick codes that we have.
That's how we call an app to look at it. I'm pretty sure we have. I think we have an analysis in our rating. You can see presentations. It speaks directly to the industry.
That our self reported regarding like the sales tax collection rate and the whole thing that we always say when we present that slide is that, you know, it's it's pretty.
We've been across all of the different areas. There's no like.
In like one particular component that is outweigh like the rest of what the nation see.
I mean, it's good. That's it's diversified. That's probably something to say.
Yeah. That's the arts and the side.
I think the S side seek hold categorization and I'm sure you know this is not to be relied upon because it's arbitrary if they don't choose.
It's supposed to be the top two things that are so it could be anything.
But to do it's quite not that you have the data for like some big players. So just looking at them by not by the S I see code.
But by their volume and then I think you're right. I think there's nothing that really dominates.
But just to verify that that's the case and then you know you should judgment on what industry or what else I see come to what makes code or whatever they should fall into.
And like it's more relying on that as I see code data is problematic.
Yeah.
I've ever caught talking about this. You've just like internally of like the last couple years.
Like we kept that out of presentation for that reason.
Yeah.
It's like so much.
Yeah, you don't want to make too many judgments from that.
It is self-reported.
Yeah.
But we have we have started with having more data now to things like top 100.
Yeah.
And you know starting to compile that.
That's something different from a high level.
So yeah, we like we can continue to expand on that.
But obviously categorize it.
Different ways.
But it's beautiful.
And like obviously report that information publicly.
No.
Yeah.
Or internal purposes we could you look at say the top sellers.
In terms of.
Contributes to the sales.
Certainly.
Like the idea of having a balance.
Right.
And what could be potential.
Yeah.
In fact, our elasticity.
The reduction in consumption.
Of certain.
I think that makes a lot sense.
We're creating to our forecasts.
And make a judgment call about.
Well, we are incorporated into our estimates.
Using the kind of straight methodology forecast is our base.
Just to be a little bit more conservative.
So that's so the next revenue we put that is our property tax.
Let me.
Specifically house of.
A lot of petitions.
The property back.
Would impact the allocation of that.
That goes into the general fund.
So just some background.
Cook counties property tax revenue comes from.
A base tax.
Let me as well as from expiring tiff districts.
Expiring.
Excentive incentives as well as.
New property construction.
So the county's base property tax.
Levy is.
Excently 720 million.
That amount has not been adjusted.
Thin back to the 1990s.
And in addition to that.
Based property tax the total.
Levy for this clear 2026.
And included about a hundred million dollars.
And property tax is captured.
From these new properties.
The expiring tiff districts.
And.
Expiring incentives.
He motive from previous years.
So after this call like a gross levy is calculated.
Orations of that levy are allocated for the purposes covering.
That service obligations.
Allocations to the annuity and benefit funds.
Afro projects.
As well as the election funds.
A portion of the levy is also allocated.
Has been allocated each year to support.
Help the health enterprise funds for their operations.
And then the remaining amount is.
Is what's allocated into the general fund.
So in fiscal year 2026.
Approximately.
Approximately 120 million dollars was.
And property tax revenue is allocated.
And the general fund.
So one.
A scenario we explored is.
Adjusting the base levy.
That's 720 million.
Increasing the base to keep pace with inflation.
Starting in 2027 and into the out years.
We utilized.
Moody's baseline CPI forecast.
For the Chicago metropolitan statistical area.
While it was not a factor in our.
Projections.
We also would have assumed a cap on the annual inflation.
So that an increase in the base levy would not ask.
A percent.
And any given year.
Um.
The revenue impact to the general fund.
Would be about 20 million dollars.
Of additional property tax revenue allocated.
The general fund in 2027.
That's about.
17% greater than the amount.
We had.
We're projecting for 2027 before this.
And as you can see that amount increases at 2028.
Uh, and into the out years.
Um, as the the base would increase with inflation.
Uh, and then a second scenario we explored is.
Um, a one time adjustment to the total gross levy.
Retro active to 2020.
So increasing the base levy as well as the levy coming from these expiring incentives tips.
Um, and new properties.
If they had both from annually with inflation dating back to 2020.
So the revenue impact to the general funds.
From this one time adjustment would be about 170 million dollars.
Um.
And fiscal year 2027 and into the out years.
Uh, since it would be just.
Uh, in the scenario one time increase.
And so we utilized.
Uh, CPI.
Uh, for all our urban consumers for the BLS.
Uh, to come up with these estimates for the second, uh, scenario here.
All right.
Miss, can you say when the last time the base levy was adjusted.
Just.
I think it was 1996.
Yeah.
I know, nominally it's been flat, but I guess it's like real.
It's been.
I'll see.
That's a.
Some.
I should.
Does that's almost 24% increase?
Yeah.
I see just.
When we met before when you breathe me.
I'm just that one one other way to think about it would be thinking about.
Keeping the tax rate.
Rather than the.
Of gross amount of constant.
Uh.
Which you, you know, you could pick whatever year's tax rate.
You want the tax rates.
I've just been falling.
Um.
Because that base is coming up.
That.
Yeah.
So.
We sort of.
It's sort of like.
Keeping the tax rate constant is almost like saying.
The.
Property tax burden.
And this per dollar.
Real estate wealth is not going up.
Well, I think about it.
Sorry.
Given what for it.
That is by the.
The decision of new property.
The decision.
You've just fired to inspiring.
Um, incentives.
So we try to capture that natural growth in the tax base.
Whenever the issue whenever we.
Develop the lobby.
Um.
Started doing that.
I think in.
I don't remember the exact day, but it was probably about seven years ago.
Um.
I don't know.
But yeah.
Is that.
Is that kind of.
Because kind of look.
What we're doing.
But like I think like what you were you were.
You were suggesting it's like.
What did be that.
What if we knew the assessed value beforehand.
Right.
And then back into our total property tax.
Let me based on that.
And I don't think we would know that until.
I'll let's be looked retroactively.
Well, I mean, you could look at what the rate was.
You know the rate's been going down.
And so it's supposed to be.
It's not down by.
E percent.
Yeah.
But if that if you raised or whether by eight percent.
You sort of get to the same place.
I mean, you can do something on the science.
Yeah.
I don't know this necessarily better than this.
It's.
I'm going to be feeling it.
But where I.
I would think about it.
That kind of what you're doing with the sales.
Tax.
I guess.
With the sales.
You're adjusting the.
I guess.
With the sales.
Just.
All right.
Just for our jumping.
Um.
This slide will go over.
A.
Um.
To give some context currently.
A.
structure and the addition of streaming tax base. We saw a lot of opportunity here. As we
see, the city of Chicago already implements a streaming tax. So our Department of Revenue
conducted an analysis of cities revenue from streaming. We incorporated those estimates into
the county forecast for amusement in the out years. And for streaming alone, that would bring
and 33 million annually. The breakdown of the tier restructure, this is shown in the methodology
section. The address minutes were drafted to be consistent with the cities of amusement ordinance
language. This means tier one now be exempt tier two and three are both tax at the flat rate of
three percent. For tiers one and two, the criteria changed and 60 percent of tier one would be
a reclassified and elevated tier two. Ultimately increasing that tier two base. And with both
of these changes, the tier restructure and the streaming, we can see the total impact of proposed
two is around $45 million in additional revenue. And the streaming is taxed at 3%. So when we did the
analysis on the city of Chicago, the tax at 10%. So the tax at 10.25, I think it is. So our
estimate right here will probably be along those levels. Just for the string, I know.
Oh, she knows her. She knows her jump to India. Tina go ahead. I believe that this reflects the tax rate of
three percent on the taxable base that we assessed from the city's records from no data.
The proposal should be the taxes the same way. Yeah, three percent. You're adding string into your base
up. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.
We know anything, I guess that I also wonder about the vision of avoidance from stringing.
I don't know. I don't know, is that it's the bridge to a different address. It's not the impacts or something.
I guess you had a call. City of Chicago will find out.
You think this would be more elastic to that in terms of like projections. Again, you're assuming that there's no change in pattern.
You know, you can get entertainment in different ways of newspapers or whatever, so this might be, this might be more, more elastic, basically.
In Chicago City, it was a 10% tax when you're adding to that. People are going to feel it.
We have to be less to city with the other, where we put it in.
Pass for your land now.
Okay.
I don't need four months.
Yeah, passwork, share the same.
But you can, you could still create a, I mean, like, you could, you could avoid these taxes.
Yeah.
I don't know if there's a literature on it at all, but anyway, again, it's probably just to say this is a very optimistic effort.
You know, so be there.
And I think with some of the consumption things that I meant before I was, it'd be interactive effects.
You know, so like, these are estimates in isolation of an individual tax.
But if three of them were implemented, then some of those things might come to bite a little bit more.
Good.
And here we have gambling machine tax.
For gambling machine tax, we administer emblems for public gaming machines.
We thought the opportunity here was to increase the cost of video gaming terminals.
Also called BGTs.
The cost of these emblems from 200 to 500.
VGTs are just gaming terminals.
But these are ones usually found in mom and pop stores, not casinos.
We have a different category for casino video game channels.
Our methodology consisted of using our 2025 revenue data to find a number of emblems issue and apply that new rate.
The resulting percentage increase was then implied to the forecast to project the out years.
And we can see this roughly create three million in annual impact.
Thanks for watching.
If anyone on the call can verify that they can hear me, that would be great.
I have a thumbs up and can you see my presentation.
Yes.
Okay, it's not going to share the screen, but we're sharing in the meeting.
Is that acceptable? Are you recording?
Okay, and then I think we can just look at our printed out copies.
And pivot there.
So we're currently still on gambling machine tax.
And then if anyone on the call, like it cuts out, please feel free to jump in and verify us.
gambling machine tax.
I think David finished and concluded this slide if there's any commentary.
To let us know now.
Otherwise, we'll move on to the next slide.
I think that's just wondering what's this branding and this revenue source with the phone line.
That.
Oh, like.
Oh, it's a quality market.
Like, I suppose the ports back as the IP things that they had a funding revenue source.
I think you'll have to invest more so impacting the teachings as it's more because we also have a sports wagering tax.
That has been that has been more volatile.
So it's it's been hard to parse out how those.
Prediction market apps.
I guess we'd say have been impacting because it is this sports wagering tax still.
I'll absolutely.
You can be counting.
But for the the the VGT revenue was really driven by.
The amount of establishments.
And how many machine they have the most you could have is six terminals in your establishments.
And so we'll look at the.
I think that's the key thing to keep getting boards reports of it all the sheets month.
Let's see how that's been.
Uh, trying to get as far as I can.
South.
It's usually all the establishments backs out.
There's about 45 of them in the counties.
That you have these these terminals.
It has been in.
I haven't haven't stayed for four revenues over the last couple of years.
So I think it's more so just the.
Or is the ceiling with the number of establishments.
So we've tried to forecast that.
Yeah.
Okay, moving on to alcoholic beverage tax.
So the alcoholic beverage taxes currently structured as a hybrid tax with flat per gallon rate taxes on beer and liquor.
And rates dependent on alcohol by volume for wine and similar products.
Um, I seen in the table just below.
So the revenue growth proposal here would be to increase all rates by applying the cumulative.
Inflations and so rates were last increased, which was in 2012.
Um, and that would be a 41% increase, which was then applied to the rates.
Um, in terms of methodology, we apply the new rates to the 2025 tax base is that's the last year of complete data that we have for each tier.
And then this calculated the revenues that would have been generated at these new rates.
And then we calculated the additional revenues for these out years in the forecast by applying this percentage increase to our baseline forecast.
So for FY27, we would generate approximately 14.8 million while the out years were anticipating an additional 14.5.
And this dip accounts for the dip in trends of alcohol consumption.
Um, and there's we're forecasting a trend and reduced alcohol consumption.
And then the increases are per gallon.
Not all of them. So beer and liquor are per gallon rates.
So it's a flow.
But like, if you say 34 cents.
Yeah.
What's the 30% for cents for what?
Um.
That we're out.
What's that?
Oh, it is per.
That would be very good.
Okay.
But based on unvolume of what's in the liquor.
So these.
Great.
Really.
I thought we just surprised.
And this is what you do now, too.
But it really jacks up.
These are about 20%.
So that's I guess that's that's really more of that talking about.
Maybe it's one.
Yeah.
So it's a lot higher.
Yeah.
So we talked about changes in alcohol consumption.
And I'm hearing that.
People were built in.
Yes.
I don't know if we're doing the marijuana consumption trade off is incorporated.
Department of revenue can speak to that.
I don't know if Tina wants to jump in.
So this is showing a one time reduction in revenue.
We're going from 27 to 20 and then constant.
Right.
The rest of the period.
Disapp.
Yeah.
I believe.
Reasonable.
Based on previous trends.
Before it.
I mean, isn't this just a source that is declining over time.
Yeah.
We haven't seen it.
The planning in the last couple of years.
I think against our.
June forecast.
We had really forecast.
And that was as flat.
Um, I think that's why this probably showing it.
Um, that's just the same.
You're over here amounts.
Um, Tina, I noticed you unmuted.
Did you want to add to that?
I heard you say something about the I didn't hear the question.
I heard something about marijuana and.
Department of revenue.
And so I didn't know if you wanted to speak.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
We're going to do this.
Make your time.
No.
We've been kind of that before.
Uh,
Let me know.
Wi-Fi's back up.
So we're going to try and better.
I know.
Sorry for all the.
Uh,
Thanks for everyone's flexibility.
Um,
Tina,
One of them.
You're definitely.
Tina, do you want to jump in now?
Maybe we can hear you.
Um,
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Great.
So I said I did not know if you wanted me.
I heard.
I couldn't hear the.
Question, I heard marijuana, and I heard Department of Revenue and I didn't really hear what the question was, so I don't know if you wanted me to weigh in anything.
I think the relevant thing is why is the projection of revenue increase for alcohol, black, insumption is the climate.
So it has been declining overall in the last few years.
I did not do these projections, but we did look at the individual categories in this.
And beer continues to decline each year.
Hard liquor is actually it's spiked after covid in 2021 and that has been kind of volatile since then.
And wine and which is like the generally the category under 14% is wine.
And then 14 to 20% those have been pretty stable. So if beer is the main component that continues to decline.
I think that it should remain relatively stable.
I mean, I'm not sure if it's how long beer will continue to decline.
So.
I'm not sure what the, I wasn't a very good answer, but I'm not sure what the thought process behind the leaving it flat for the outline years.
Maybe someone assumed it was going to just level off at some point.
Yeah, I think I think that was the thinking and past iterations of the forecast is that there would be some bottoming out of that that.
You know, beer would just continue to decline perpetuity.
I think that was the main reason why.
Well, that's true.
Thank you.
You just asked the question. So you said wine is trending stable, but you see some volatility in.
What was the other kind of liquor?
Hard liquor above 20%. So I think everyone was doing shots after covid.
I think it was a lot of shots and then it kind of went down back up a little bit.
And so it's hard to say where that will go.
Not category.
I guess just to be clear, this.
You have looked into the longer term forecast, but I'm particularly familiar with wine.
And that it's my understanding that the trend is downwards.
But the expectation that that will continue because younger people aren't drinking as much as older people.
I don't know what percent of the revenue source wine makes up of these three categories.
I don't I'm not familiar with the trends and beer.
Our hard liquor.
So I'm just wondering can we make sure we've looked at the market.
Yeah.
Ask for these things and make sure that this this transient reasonable for the revenue forecast.
Yeah, I think we can work.
It's a reptile nest and see what the yellow breakdown is as far as it's different categories.
Um, with out for a question.
I will go on that side, which is our proposal for other tobacco products.
So the revenue growth option that we explored for the other tobacco products tax is a two part proposal.
Um, so first we are proposing an adjustment to expand the definition of products subject to the other tobacco products tax.
So that it would now include observable nicotine.
Um, this would include new nicotine products and product lines such as nicotine pouches that are not currently captured in the county's tax base.
Um, state of Illinois and other states have already expanded their definitions to include these products.
The second part of this proposal would revise the definition of consumable products.
subject to the other tobacco products tax and this would clarify the ordinance language to include all vapor products regardless of nicotine content.
Um, and to ensure that the county taxes capturing all the products on the market regardless of nicotine 5.
As far as methodology for both of these.
Uh, we were reliant on our Department of Revenue's preliminary estimate estimates which they performed by sampling invoices to estimate the total number of these products.
Ordered from Cliff County retail tobacco dealers for both types of products.
Our proposal currently assumes a 5 cent per unit tax on the absorable nicotine products.
And a 20 cent tax per milliliter on vapor products regardless of nicotine content.
Um, both of our estimates assume a conservative compliance rate of 25% which would generate additional revenue of 1.1 million.
For each of these parts of the proposals, so total it would be approximately 2.2 million.
Um, dollars worth of additional revenue for either.
So, um.
I guess.
Uh, where does the compliance rate 25% come from?
Um, that came from our Department of Revenue.
Um, I.
I don't know if that's their history with again, if you know what's the jump in, they gave us 25% rate of compliance and if 50% rate of compliance.
Um, and so really a low badge.
Yeah, we understand, so I don't know that's typically the trend with incorporating new taxes or new rates or expanding the base.
So if I think you're not immediate, so if you want to jump in there.
Um, so it is our experience with this type of product, not taxes in general, but these,
rape and, um, and nicotine products that they're selling, um,
at these convenience stores and those types of stores that, um, they tend to,
they tend to sell products that maybe they get from non-compliant wholesalers.
Um, and so where it's a, um, a continuous effort to, um, inspect these businesses and,
and, you know, we issue a lot of, um, citations to them, but so 25% is just a pretty,
um, especially over, you know, in the first couple of years, um, it's a conservative
estimate, and you think are the compliance rates that low for the tax tobacco products too?
No, tobacco products, well, I mean, we do issue, we do find a lot of legal cigarettes out there, but, um,
it's definitely not as it's, these these products are harder to, to police, um,
you know, they get a lot, it's, we work with the state of Illinois and the state of Chicago,
and, you know, we go to, um, like these conferences and, um, there's just a lot of
contraband or, I guess you could, would say that, you know, they get from other countries and, um,
well, yeah, it's, you know, and, and with cigarettes, we can, it seems like there's not as much,
um, non-compliance with cigarettes, these, these seem, you know, no big with cigarettes,
there's, there's, you know, a lot of that cigarettes stuff, you know, the cigarettes, it's a very,
it's not so easy to sell cigarettes, they'll legal it without tax sanction,
it's, it's pretty easy to catch people, there's a lot of regulation to catch people, um, but,
uh, I guess I'm wondering about the paper, anyway, it's, I don't want to go too deeply in this because it's not that much money,
but, I mean, it seems to me, I just, I'll just say, it seems terrible policy to be taxing
non tobacco products, the same as tobacco products, except if we don't really know which is which, maybe it's not
a terrible policy. I mean, you know, we, we're taxing tobacco for a reason, so we don't want to tax
of a products that don't have nicotine, but in the other hand, if there's a lot of non-compliance,
maybe the ones that say they don't have nicotine do have nicotine. So, I don't,
I don't think Frank's on the call, but Frank and the Department of Revenue explains me too that
there's kind of like a threshold before you have to list on the product that it does have nicotine,
so there might be some products that do have nicotine in them, but because they don't surface
the certain thresholds, they can get away with not having to.
I think they're for get captured as a tax.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
No, I don't think so.
Okay, thank you so much.
I'm going to make advice on all.
Thank you.
For moving on to the next slide, then.
Our boss.
So this is just an update for back in 2020 for the coming establish the art of sustainability reserve and the idea
that was to carve a stair step into our fiscal cliff, associated with the kind of the American Rescue Act Rescue
program.
We knew that the county would not be able to continue to provide funding for all of the offer programs.
We had about 72 different programs.
And so the reserve was created for the state of purpose of reducing the amount allocated from it each year
between 2027 and 2029.
And in order to establish which programs just be what the state engaged in,
we need to be surveys and high for local conversations and as a result of those conversations.
And with coordination within the office of the president about which programs we could.
We could sustain an opportunity.
We were able to identify these 12 programs to choose see on the right and we will be sustaining those programs.
Funding as identified in that table.
And FY 2020.
7 will be the first year that we use the American Rescue Plan Act reserve to sustain some of our programs.
And we'll be allocating a 52.7.
$5.6 million.
Next slide.
In 2028, we will need to start addressing the expected gaps between these estimated costs and the art of the
reserve.
At this point, we have a shuttle projected gap that we bought.
We'll need to know the dollars between 2028 and 2030.
And we'll be working closely with the departments to develop gap reduction strategies that include
seeking to identify external funds from the landscape and other external sources where we can.
Generating revenues from the programs themselves.
And we'll be working with the help of possible and leveraging county funds or scaling down initiatives when necessary.
All with the goal of savings programs.
And it's in the future.
We think we can do.
Any questions on that slide?
That's for 2030.
The identified gap is 23.3.
But the total is 20.
On the previous slide.
That's right.
We have $20 million in funding.
It's $23.3 million.
About 50, we $20.3.4 million in.
That's.
It's the blue.
It's just funding.
The best one.
I know.
20 million dollars.
Funding.
A return to selling different allocations of the resources.
If you wanted to kind of get a sense of what the cost would be.
You could look at that 2027 table.
And that's pretty consistent across.
The process.
These.
Some of the program.
I thought.
They out here.
And we see something.
Two systems.
They're projected.
But those are going to change.
They're.
As you get closer to that.
We can find that.
We can.
Awesome.
I just.
I don't know.
So I think now at this point.
Right.
We've been populated.
Those.
The channel expenses in here are.
Long term financial forecast.
And when you look at the tail end of our.
Alligator slide is we're in our department.
Let's see that.
Part of.
We've.
It's mild. So, it was a good sign of orderly updates. Next, we're going to take a look at our sales
impacts. So, I can only see you run through just how our assumptions of sales tax has changed over the
life the last year and a half. How we think legislative changes, what we're seeing have impacted,
especially in 2025 and 2026. And whether or not we can expect to see the recent high year
year growth in the county sales tax, if that will continue into future years. So, on the next slide here,
this is just some of the phasor legislation that was enacted, which has impacted a lot of the county's
collection, a lot of local governments, collections in state. I'll really focus on second and third pieces
here, public act 101, 31, which is the leveling, the playing field act. So, this altered this
the, the telling occupation tax to be from a origin-based sales tax to like destination-based
sales tax. So, there are many, many of most businesses out of state for paying some kind of revenue
to the state of Illinois, but legislation that went into effect here had changed the way that the sales
were taxed. So, a lot of these businesses were just remitting use tax, and so they wouldn't have to pay
locally for those taxes. So, the leveling, the playing field, the tax changed that so that out of state
sellers would then remit the locally owned taxes. And then enacted in 2025, January, there was a
a change where we saw an inclusion of out-of-state sellers that have some kind of physical presence in
Illinois. So, for example, a company that has a rep or sales office in Illinois, but shipping products
to customers from a warehouse that was outside of the state, they used to just pay like the use tax rate
for the state of six and a quarter, bypassing the local rates, they would now be captured and also
pay locally in most sales taxes. So, these are two major drivers over the last five years that have
impacted favorably the county's sales tax collections. And so, on the next slide here, we wanted to
take a look at counties, sales tax, and we're portion of the county's sales tax versus the
state's gross sales tax that goes into their general fund. So, there's what's referred to as PL or
permanent location. There's a part of the county's sales tax that gets categorized as this. And this is
per the state's website, from retail sales, from a permanent location, within the tax injuries,
jurisdictions. So, think of more like brick and mortar stores. And if you look at the chart here,
you know, the volume of revenue is obviously quite different, but we wanted to show just an
way of how we think the state's gross sales tax in our PL tax revenue has been relatively
close and trending over the past five years. But then on the next slide, we have here including
PL tax payers, which is the changing location, from payers who have no permanent place of business
within the taxing jurisdiction. But they do conduct intermittent retail sales within the
jurisdiction. So, you could see from 2021 here, this revenue has been trending higher over time.
This is what we think is from what we understand is the impact of revenue from the recently enacted
legislation. And so, in 2025, you could see it really jumps up and has continued to 2026.
This slide here, we're looking at the seat-out of taxpayers. So, the data that we get from the state,
we've been seeing pretty steep increases in these CL tax payers, especially in January of 2025,
when public acts, 103, 93, what into effects. So, you could see from a nominal standpoint chart on the left,
quite a jump, almost doubling the average monthly revenue. And we're also seeing increases in
2026. And then on the chart, on the right here, this is the CL's as a proportion of the total
county sale facts. So, you know, prior to 2025, this CL revenue made up about 15 to 20% of the county sales tax.
We've seen that really jump up in 2025 and continuing to increase in this latest fiscal year
or is now in the range of 30 to 35%.
Okay, that's a question. So, I guess we should, but so there's the sort of the delayed response to the
legislation. I guess the thinking is that there was just so much of this had these sort of
in-state presence that it wasn't didn't really bite because it's all those maps,
is that kind of how we should think about this? Well, I think you could think of it as like the second
legislation of 2025. It's like a standard of pace surfing. There was all these payers who were paying.
They were paying like state tax, but they were paying because of like the definition of
the speed of these locally imposed tax. So, it didn't were there, it didn't are now really
factored to account in the last two years. The legislation was for it. It didn't remember what they were
capturing. What was the motivation of it? For 2026, and I was doing food, service management,
service, you know, that's right. So, I think the initial estimates couldn't be had for the
servicemen was pretty minimal. I think it was about the million dollars annual.
You know, I think that's we've got a couple more months of data. We could try to see if that
is true or if there's maybe there's still like compliance from the previous year.
So, we'll have to keep, you know, only polar reports were able to kind of get a little more
see if there's new businesses that come on and these down those in the state.
So, is this suggesting to me that the impact of the 2021's I decision was
much smaller than the 2025? Yes. Have you talked to the owner department of revenue about that?
So, I'm worried that there may be a changing definition of CL and PL because I know for sure,
100% the 25 legislation was to fix unanticipated consequences over the major legislation, which was
passed in 2021. So, yeah, I've not familiar with these codes and what's fallen into them over time.
Yeah, the sale, the big, the big, it's my understanding that the real big change came in 2021 and
everything since then has been cleaned and out unanticipated consequences in the 2021 legislation.
Okay. Yeah, we, we can reach out to the state to see you again.
So, then if that's the case, what explains the jump in revenue, the recent jump in revenue for the
count is all in the count. I think we need to know more about the definite, because I think in
this is good, but the definition has changed so much that orange is incompetent.
No, all right. So, I think I think orange was much bigger than it is using this definition of CL.
I think the definition of CL has changed over time. Or has been used on that form.
But I don't know enough to, I mean, I just think it's cool. Yeah, do you think to
visit students that were specific, it's like, like, PLs are now being. I've not familiar with the PL and
CL, but what I do know is that 2021 tried to change a situation as follows. Amazon had a warehouse in
Indiana. And it was being shipped to Chicago. And because it was out of state, the tax rate was
lower than if it was in Julia and it was in ship to Chicago. So, somehow before 2021, the Julia distribution
center was just picking up a higher tax rate than the best on product. I mean, that's how
Amazon have their stuff in more high systems. It was really, really complicated. But I don't want
us to say any more in this, because I'm just in use such, it's always been my understanding that
with 2021 legislation was the big change. And all this other stuff is at the margin. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I could be wrong, but that's, that's what I've always worked for. Yeah, I think that's
sort of asking reports seems like there was a gaming that went on because of this sort of rule. If you
had some in state presence or something, right, that would be. And if it was fig retailers with the Amazon's
of the world where it tells people about their online stuff, right? They couldn't help that.
And so expanding legislation. I think really, I'm not entirely sure. Like I think it says,
there's changing location and temporary location. I don't know how accurately they maintain those
quotes. But we've kind of come to the determination that it does represent in some fashion,
now they're the online sales that are being captured. So I think, right, like,
why don't they just call it online? Yeah. Because a vendor doesn't submit their tax return and say,
I got this amount of sales from an online scammer. And I got this amount of sales from somebody who
looked in the door. I mean, there was tons of online sales that would be in captured before 2021.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, the 2021 was to pick up. It wouldn't be in captured and what was
being captured at the state read, but not the real. Yeah. Yeah. But it just it's a lot more complicated.
And I think of the intent. It's, it's a tax return. You know, it's not like your serve and
martial fails and like, you know, where did your customers come from and what's shocked at the
by a man that did you mail to them on? You know, it's, and well, we have historically no one
going to go to nine sales were being captured before 2020, most of them. Again, this is all just
small. The data is compared to what was already being collected. Exactly. I think we've got this
surge in revenue. Yeah. So it's got to be something that explains that. Right. So some of these
came on. Yeah. Yeah. Because of the tax, the tax, no, it came applied to them. Yeah. Right.
We're start. So I'm, and then you go back. So it would have been 2020, 2020 compared 2020 compared to 2021.
And we talked about this in the phone. Then 2020 was so messed up because of COVID. Yeah. Like, so we don't
know what, how big of that jump was before 2021 and the Dow is not playing the real big
little back. And I mean, every time you do a different kind of this analysis that improves,
and the more data you get, the more data, you know, the more surprising and more than you understand.
And I just, I think we're still in a very right to tell us, even though this, this seems like a nice
clean story, but it probably isn't. It's probably more complicated than this. To me, this seemed
that way. Okay. Well, the sixth place. That makes all make sense. Yeah. But maybe it's more complicated than that.
Yeah. This is a nice explanation. Right. I mean, you're showing the things we're stable at
following the general pattern with the fiels, right? The growth of the things and the else. Yeah.
And one question I have is, you know, are we done with the growth in the cls, the kind of jumping ahead
is live here. Yeah. But it looks like we've maybe hit my toe. But yeah. But that's, that's,
it does seem that that's where the growth's coming from. Well, exactly. Some cool figures.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yes. You know, this slide here really shows far as like the annual change and the
monthly revenues for the, you can see the cls is compared to the allocation and also how that looks
on the state level two in our p.l. in the state is.
You know, tracking pretty close. But yes, just closing in 2025, that legislation. And then, you know, we think it's moderating now. And this is like what we, you know, once, as far as like getting our forecasts right. And like our dummy variable, which we have for our model.
Um, not seeing nothing that's going to be a continuation of growth in the legislation, making sure that that does is reflected in the model.
And it's going to be our not expecting this to grow up in perpetuity and cheer.
One way by the way, if you go back and slide to maybe trying to think about whether there's any room to run, is that you're getting 45% in the last few months about some more.
30, 35% of your revenue from these CL. So, like trying to compare that with like what's share of retail sales around line versus in person. Like that should be a statistic that's out there in the two should line up. Right. So if it is about 35% of sales.
Then.
And then, you know, you sort of run your course here. But if it's 40, maybe there's a little bit more, there's some people that are still out there not there.
Yeah, so it's just, could you go back and see if somebody was if.
BL at one point and became appear.
Um, I could say just I've caught or there's been one month for there's been months of the business being categorized to PL and then they change.
So the next one's B of CL. But then it seems like it gets switched back and it was kind of like a one off like maybe a narrower the way that was entered.
That doesn't seem to happen too often now.
It's more so observing more C else coming on line with each dispersed.
Okay, but not not so much chips, you know, switching between the two category categories.
There are like businesses too, where they'll still have PL lines but then they'll have a CL line to come on at some point and it seems like.
You know, there's just like another part of like I said the way that they're submitting it a class five, so there'll be two for the business of the CL and TL that we've seen as well.
But not so much like operating on the big categorized one and then switching to the other.
It's the, it's the up ones.
So what, what do you get from the.
So lecture, when these businesses were just can these kinds.
Are you getting any information from them?
Well, I think we've only been getting this data for like the last.
I think maybe two and a half or years.
So before that we weren't really getting any.
That's that's that's.
But would you have got even in the last year or 20 25 would on the five you get from the step.
You would just be getting.
Businesses.
That's had that.
I think retail.
So if they were paying the use tax they would now if they wouldn't show up on a file for you.
And even though you were getting a distribution from the wish tax more as it may be.
Like from the government government.
Yeah.
I mean it from portion.
But you don't have any transparency on whether they were.
New businesses or they were paying use tax all of a sudden they just come on.
Graphile.
We've made assumptions over the last couple.
Because.
The way that we when we talk to the state.
We ask like how could we tell what are the new what are the new revenues from the legislation.
And we were informed that you should track the C L's.
And like the business that the new businesses that come online in a month is probably related to the most recently impact and acted a legislation.
So we would track to see each month when we pull if there's like a new.
A business and account code.
And it's under C L.
Then we could kind of tag that.
As.
So it says that possible the way the question was asked and files answered that the C L.
Some of them were panic use tax.
But they're new to you.
So so you're being told.
Go all the C L's.
Yeah.
But that doesn't mean that they went over.
Yeah.
Because you know I'm a bit troubled by this.
In fact of 2020 five because it shouldn't be that.
Large.
And part to 2021.
But if there's.
If a whole bunch of new companies are showing up in your file.
Because they're pan kindly tax.
Not because they're all the sudden paying tax.
But they were always paying the use tax.
They just and I fall into your bucket.
So I guess part of that conversation is.
Like when we that the lineage matters like online taxes when we use the term online sales.
The taxes will be impaired.
They just won't be impaired at the higher rate for the kind team to get.
And I think that that I mean not about distinction is is really important.
Yeah.
Because real because that's the game going back to that.
Then tentative legislation was to buy.
The local taxes.
Whatever it was and could whatever was as you call will.
To be a lie to be collected on sales because up until that point.
There was no legal authority.
To collect anything one at six and an order.
Yeah.
I think we should.
Let's back out.
So I was just a number.
Yeah.
I think it would be helpful for me to.
I'm just a given example of what you consider a CL is that more the pop up phenomenon that we're seeing.
There's companies like organizations are coming in and standing up temporary.
Pop up locations and they're up to the next state.
This is more of like like a place facilitator.
Okay.
Like they go online platform.
Yeah.
Like you're Amazon's.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's strange to call them.
See.
That's right.
That's not going to be what's going on.
Yeah.
It's not something.
That's changing their location.
This way is the question.
Because I think it's more there's a growth in the pop up type venues.
Happening specifically in Chicago.
I'm thinking is that a driver.
But you're saying that's not the audience.
Yeah.
Okay.
Like what we're trying to highlight here is that should detail that we get.
State of Park is an exactly conducive for performing in depth analysis on.
You know, how much of our.
On all of our sales tax is related to online sales.
What we have available to us are.
In the most.
Like finest level of detail that is provided to us are three types of categorizations.
EL CL and TL and none of them are very well defined.
So we're using the best data that we can in order to identify the information and and and estimate what the components of the legislation are doing here.
And I think they've done a really good job of putting that information together.
And so I'm pretty.
I'm telling a story about, you know, how the legislation has impacted those categories.
Now whether or not those categories are accurate.
Whether those categories are a good representation of what online sales are.
I don't think it's that question.
But we can say that, you know, ostensibly, right, that the legislation has had a pretty significant impact.
On the CL tax lawyers.
We have largely attributed.
I'm telling.
Yes, so the sales are a subset of online.
Yeah.
And I think it's probably for us.
You should talk to or I can't talk to some.
I think there's very little.
Post legislation.
I third it close anymore.
Gaps loop holes.
You know, whatever.
So I think this last push.
It's going to.
Like I think there was one thing that didn't have something marginal.
And.
So I think.
I.
Still.
Can.
It can.
Can.
Do.
Can.
Just go back to like the analysis of the sales tax that you were like a blind.
I'm not sure that you.
the effect of the word, but it's easier for that to be nice.
On this next slide here, it's a,
we have like a breakout of just,
you know, the CL, the PLs,
the purple-cook sales tax.
Looking at like six months,
like just seeing the year over your changes.
And so, you know,
as what sticks out on this is CL,
as you can see,
how much significant the higher the year over here.
Sales have been as compared to the state,
the PL, the PLs of the Cook County.
But you know, when we put this together,
we were using January to be both data for 26
all the way on the right there.
And so, you could really see that the CL coming down,
as we think that's starting to moderate,
at least coming closer to what it was before 2025.
As a photo say that this is given us some insight
into like the impact of inflation versus something else,
because the growth has not been very significant in the PLs,
compared to what inflation.
Oh, but it's gone up again.
Hmm.
In 2026.
Yeah.
It's possible that growth could have faster in the PLs,
if that's where the sales growth is.
So it could still continue to grow there a little bit faster.
Yeah.
I think we would all agree that e-commerce sales are growing in a faster place
than physical locations.
So I think we're seeing this.
You know, that's somewhat reflected in this information,
but also the change in legislation.
So in this next slide here, we're highlighting how the annual sales tax
projections that we produce have changed over time,
going back to April of last year.
And so, you know, just following the colors of the rainbow here,
you could see that our forecasts is in 2025.
They were pretty close together in the out years,
but for 2026 and for 2025,
they were gradually increasing.
And then in the more recent sales tax forecast for April and June,
you could see that the base in the near term of what we're projecting
has really increased as the 2025 and 2026 collections
have just been much higher than we were projecting prior.
But if you look at the out years here in the table below,
you could see the year over your changes in 2028 through 2030.
It's pretty conservative.
You know, a red around 2%.
It's more so in 2026 that we've seen such a high increase
in the year over your projections.
And that's what's been in our forecasts for the sales tax in the out years.
And then the next slide is just the same thing.
It's more of a monthly look at the scale.
Along with some black dots here showing the actuals.
And so you could see in the left side of this line chart,
the actuals have been higher than what we were projecting over time
over the year produced earlier forecasts.
And so that's what's, as we got more data and collections,
what was driving the more recent forecast of the sales tax
to the out years.
But for the out years, you know, the projections kind of follow a similar trend.
It's just that the base has been higher as a result of more feeble references.
And then on this.
That slide here. We wanted to just show some of the recent outputs from our direction model, you know, one reason why just showing what are the different coefficients, ingredients that go into the model, you know, we factor in
funds to the senior faculty. We include a dummy, a dummy vehicle, which we update each time you're on the floor and asked.
Trying to adjust for a recent legislation. So that's sort of how it does not assume that we'll see growth into the out years.
And then we have the different economic indicators that we've used going back to April of last year, which we use retail sales for the Chicago MSA, as well as number of employed persons and number of households, both in the MSA to set the macro economic floor.
And so your model here, as far as the adjusted art square shows that about 96% of the movement in the base is reflected from the coefficients here.
So I did, I'm sorry.
Well, I was just going to say we talked about this a bit in the briefing. I just think there's a lot to dig into here and I'm going to suggest that.
I'm going to withhold my comments, but except we'll request that we can explore as a discuss it.
I discussed it is a lot discussed and I was, you know, just this is something I had kind of asked for.
So if that comment on a little bit one thing, it is that the coefficients are quite stable.
In each of the different forecasts and that's that's a good thing that that applies like the model was like fundamentally changing, but the underlying factors were.
Right, so in terms of thinking about all of these things, there are sort of these one off in slight jumps.
But it is remarkably stable.
Another way to sort of see that actually would be to if you go up a couple of slides back a couple of slides there.
So if you look at the rainbow chart here, which is very cool, but the slopes of the lines in the out years are basically all the same.
So essentially, in all of your forecasts, you're predicting this as like a one step young, right.
It each time each updated forecast that one time jump got a little bit bigger, but the slopes in all those out years are basically all the same.
And so it's sort of saying all along your models, see that's one time thing and it still is.
And so that's the stability of the coefficients are certainly counting to that slope.
Yeah, to your point about really for one period where there was some instability, that was I think definitely an April, if you look at like the households there, that seems to jump up or jump down I guess.
Before kind of perverted back to those sort of where it was before and you know, same with retail that really jumped up to from the previous model or come back down.
It is interesting, but the intercept jumped up. So it's like, you know, getting weird things that could just be kind of off setting each on that right.
Yeah, yeah, spend a little time with it, but I don't know that I feel like the picture.
It's helpful because that's your your forecast from these coefficients and you really are seeing quite a bit of stability especially.
So you get a better sense of that trade off between okay, a couple things jumping around in that one period, but not like the slope changed a lot and then that would make me think like, oh, the model was saying, right.
I was thinking about this as like a forever thing.
Yeah, so we went off.
So I think there's a portion on fails, that's yeah, and she got once back and so I look forward to taking a session.
So another part of the IRFC side from analyzing revenues in our forecast is.
Coming up with preliminary recommendations to be submitted to see.
I've hope is for August first and so that's what we're looking at today.
And so one of the recommendations we have here is something that we've recognized previous years, but continuing to think about fiscal sustainability from our but.
As Dean mentioned earlier, you know, we're thinking about the allocation of the reserves that we have for our programs continuing to collaborate with them.
In the coming months and year thinking about different funding options for the programs that are in place and if they will continue to remain in some years after.
The next recommendation is.
Um, evaluating.
If a witty of suffice use by the county and exploring potential modifications to existing revenues that are in the county's budget and federal fund.
So as you can see from the alligator chart here that was reference earlier in 2027 and to be out years we're looking at some pretty significant deficits and general fund.
So, you know, as the county would maybe look at different scenarios to potentially modify taxes that are currently in place in general funds.
You know, assessing the validity of the methods used by the county to determine if these are sounds.
Is this.
Are some of the ones that we've we talked about today, the examples of what we fall under this umbrella.
Yeah.
I don't think like kind of continuing that as well.
So the value of the validity of methods.
So I guess I'd like to explore that a bit further and I'm not mechanism through which.
That happens because you know, we brought up the last.
This is the first decision to be additional research surgeon.
The focus is on the methodology which we talked yes it should be.
Um.
How much direction on the methodology and questions answer more sessions.
Are we going to you guys going to be able to provide for us to fulfill that responsibility.
Yeah.
And the last recommendation.
I'm sorry.
I don't see any reason to strip this to the general fund.
So I don't know if that's implied here or not, but I guess any revenue.
I mean, I think the health care revenues are like a.
That's largely found out.
Yeah.
And he's certainly any tax.
Right.
It seems.
We should have a consistent knowledge.
I think I don't know if you are a chime in, but.
I think the general fund has a lot of our home rule taxes.
So kind of starting there.
I think with some of the thinking behind just name the general fund.
Don't think there are any taxes outside of the general.
Yeah.
There may be like on a special purpose fund.
But I can't think of anything significant.
Certainly not at the hospitals, right.
So that so it's limited to.
Taxes.
This.
This limit.
Oh, okay.
It's limited to tax.
It's not talking about.
I guess fees.
Yeah.
And I.
That's what we're not.
Justice left out there.
Yeah.
And yeah.
Sometimes you do things to come out.
But.
That's fine.
If we want to restrict it.
We want to focus on.
So it's that makes sense.
Yeah.
I think that was the.
Our preference here.
The.
So.
The.
If you'll see.
Right.
It should be consistent with the cost of.
We're.
We need to.
I wish you to make sure cost.
I said.
And so that that's.
Yeah.
That's not.
Something.
It's for consideration.
Yeah.
Well, like the.
What we're doing.
What you're doing.
But the gambling.
The gambling.
A.
Stations.
That's.
I guess it's the tax.
And that's exactly what.
Separates attacks from a fee.
That point.
Right.
Yeah.
But okay.
Yeah.
And then this third.
Frequently Asian is to establish a protocol.
To evaluate.
New and alternative.
The federal government and services.
Okay.
Oh, I think that.
Do you.
But now.
Get this.
Thank you.
But I do.
But.
So.
And sorry.
methodology and the role that we're supposed to have is a legal consideration or an implementation
feasibility considered more policy or methodology, so I would like to clear understand
that the expectations that you guys would have of me.
Okay, I agree, oh, yeah.
And so just after longer secrets, you know, there's a kind of a company in a group of
30s recommendations, you know, who also include, kind of like deliver the timelines for
these three items, and that will get submitted to the board, September.
So we'll, you know, we'll be working to draft this work and, I mean, weeks and, you know,
wouldn't want it back to incorporate that into the report, so that we can, yeah, I have
make sure there's clear guidance and direction that you guys are going to see forward.
That's good.
And then meeting calendar just some of the upcoming key to have another one next month on the
26th.
And then we're, I have a break until October, we'll be presenting the next long term forecast and the executive
recommendation for 2027.
So I'm wondering if we can move the meeting on the 26th book, because I'm teaching on Wednesday nights now,
and the October one as well as on a Wednesday night, so I wouldn't be able to attend either of those.
Yeah, we could talk after this.
Let's see if there's a better date.
I'd like to see if we could all.
Okay, if you have a.
Okay, that's better.
So I'm going to check my calendar.
I think any other day.
Okay.
Well, if you all have a chance.
Okay.
But the chair that concludes our presentation.
Please.
The next item on the agenda is public comment for what we do.
We have any public speakers.
No, we do not have any registered public speakers.
Okay.
What do we have any.
Public speakers work to start an virtual chat box.
There.
We have no registered public speakers in the chat box.
The next item on the agenda is a tournament.
Is there a motion to jump?
I'll make the motion to adjourn.
Is there a second?
Okay.
Great.
The motion to adjourn has been moved by commissioner.
Our bevel and second by commissioner.
All those in favor, sign of the chair.
The eyes have it.
The meeting is adjourned.
The next meeting.
We will be.
Wednesday, August 26.
Twenty three six.
Two six.