[Music]
Did you also see that?
I did. Thank you. Am I good? He's just
double checking, but I think we're good.
I
think we good now.
We we tested but you know. All right. Go
for it. Well, I wanted to thank Light
and Power
for Keith and Eddie. Thank you for
allowing us to use the room. The
community auditorium was quite crowded
tonight with another pre-scheduled
meeting. Also want to thank you for
popcorn. A wonderful addition of the
meeting.
So, we got one of those in the budget
for
admin. And also, of course, thank you to
the council and to the resident members
of the budget committee for for being
here
tonight. So, my comments are going to
total about 10 minutes and then I'm
going to turn it over to Paul and it's
going to be kind of a Paul Downey show.
Paul has a
PowerPoint some slides I think
Paul my comments are intended to kind of
just provide an overall framework. Uh
really tonight's focus is the general
fund. Um and the general fund has a
couple characteristics to just be
mindful of and this is especially for
those that are um either new to the
budget committee um or um have have been
new to us for for the past couple years.
But the the general fund's a little bit
different in that not quite half but
about 42% of it is funded by property
taxes in the local option levy. Um and
that's composed of a permanent rate of 3
what's 3.96 3.96 and then you add the
local action levy and I believe it's for
a total of 5.5 per thousand. Um, the
general fund is discretionary and so
what that means is it's a fund source
that's not limited or a certain purpose
and it could be spent on the delivery of
several different services in this case
police, fire, library, parks and
recreation and some components of
administration and community
development. This is different from some
of the other rates and fees that you're
going to hear about throughout this
budget process that are more self-
sustaining. And an example of that are
limited in nature. Those would be like
the gas tax, electricity bill, building
fees that are paid at the time of
development. Those are all what's called
restricted funds and they are restricted
for the use in which that charge is for.
So in those particular cases, the gas
tax is restricted for uh for roads and
and I believe it's also eligible for
pedestrian uh electric bills are
restricted to light power. Um and of
course building fees are restricted for
building compliance and we'll see if
about that. There's other ones. Those
are just kind of examples. So, but
that's the difference between the
general fund and kind of all of the rest
of the other funds is that
discretionary versus that restricted
purpose. Paul and I will go into detail
for each fund, including any changes
from last year and any staff proposals
for that specific fund. We want to thank
those who submitted questions ahead of
time. Chair Anderson, we received your
questions. Thank you. We really
appreciate getting those in advance.
that helps us to be able to research
those topics and get back to you with a
with an answer. We will address those
questions and any other questions that
you have when we discuss the fund source
that those questions will pertain to.
Um so for this year, this is the first
time in the first year that we've ever
done a banial budget. Um it was
admittedly a lot of work up front. Uh
and there is going to be what we would
characterize as some midcycle
adjustments. Those would be adjustments
same time, same place next year uh that
we would have to make. Some people call
it a a supplemental process. You can
call it a midcycle adjustments process.
Either way, there's going to be some
kind of tweaking to the budget, if you
will, but it's not going to be to the
extent that you would otherwise have in
an annual budget. It's going to be a
minor component, not necessarily a major
component.
Um, by all accounts, this process has
fostered longerterm conversations and
more closely aligned with the council's
values of strategic planning and
financial stu financial stewardship. I
was I was talking with director Lane
earlier. Um, oftentimes when staff has a
lot of meetings prior to a proposed
budget, there's a lot of concepts that
are put out. There's a lot of proposals
that are put out. And it was really
interesting this year unlike in prior
years by adding one year to the
conversation. I mean kind of literally
one year from going from one year to two
years. That second year conversation
really facilitated conversations about
the third year and the fourth year and
in some cases the fifth year and in
doing so the first two years in a lot of
cases actually changed. Some things
would get bumped forward, some things
would get bumped back, some things would
be spread out over three to five years.
So even even though that may not have
been the intent to do some strategic
planning over five years, oftentimes the
outcome was exactly that by just simply
adding that extra year of the process.
So in terms of facilitating these
strategic discussions, it it uh was a
resounding success. Um there are several
distinct themes that you're going to
hear for this year's budget. Um first,
it attempts to reflect the council's
values, goals, and objectives. We
covered what those were in the first
budget committee meeting.
I think principally it seeks to meet the
city's commitment to the voters under
the local option levy to implement
public safety to excuse me to improve
public safety by adding police and
firefighters and in doing so reduce
response times for these services. Chief
is not able to join us tonight. I talked
with him on the phone this morning. He
is not feeling well and no offense chief
if you're on the line but you didn't
sound well either. Uh so he's not going
to be able to be with us tonight. We do
have Chief
Ryman. So, thank you for being here.
Also, we have I should have I was
remiss. We have director Ann Lane from
Arts and Rec. We have director Brian P
from community development, of course,
director Colleen Winters from the
library. And I would be remiss if I
didn't say Jamie. Thank you so much for
saying all this. Yes.
Overall, the fiscal health of the city.
Excuse me. I I left out a couple things.
I apologize. Um, you'll notice that we
have some proposals for staffing. We
have some proposals for programs. I do
want to emphasize that in that analysis,
we used current and comparable
performance metrics and or amp
operational metrics on which to base our
proposals. We did as much research as we
could prior to making the proposals. I'm
not sure that we'll have all the answers
to all the questions that you have, but
we'll certainly have as many as we could
as we could find. So, feel free to
please ask
questions. Do our best to to answer
this. And then last, we really sought to
find innovative ways to approach
different staffing challenges that are
not just forest growth, but are really
kind of shared by municipalities. Um,
two that kind of come to mind are GIS
and information technology. We're seeing
that be
somewhat not just in us, but in cities
of our size, we've seen very similar
challenges. Overall, the fiscal health
of the city is stable.
That's measured by the amount of
reserves that we have, where our
actualized revenue was the past two
years versus where our projected revenue
is also projected to be, what our annual
audits are standing, and where our
industry bond ratings are. Think of
those in combination. All of those are
stable and all of those are good. Some
top level attributes to help inform
today's meeting. At just over 27,000
people, population at Forestville
continues to grow at slightly more than
about 1% per year. It's done that over
the past four years. This has outpaced
the county, the state, and Portland,
which have experienced either flat or in
some cases declining populations.
Uh we've had
272 housing units, that's both
multifamily and residential that have
been constructed over the past decade or
about a little over 200 units per year,
including both single family and multif
family. We also have about 540 building
permits in the pipeline that have yet to
be constructed.
So and looking out over this bianium, we
expect that population trend to continue
based on the building permits and based
on what we think the housing units will
be constructed over the next two
years. The city's industrial and
commercial vacancy rates remain near
zero, indicating a strong business
demand. Additionally, Forest Grove
continues to receive commercial and
industrial interest with several
projects in progress for both commercial
and for industrial.
Assessed value of residences, which
directly correlates with general fund
revenues, has increased 6.27 and 4.8%
over the past two years. Staff is
projecting slower growth over the next
two years and has budgeted our revenues
at increasing by 4.5% in each year of
the
bianium. Expenses, however, have also
increased in some cases higher than
projected revenue and in other cases
less. Regarding increases that are
higher than expected revenues, insurance
premiums for general liability, property
and auto are projected to increase
between 5 to 9% in each of the next two
years. Cumulatively that would be 10 to
18%. Medical premiums are expected to
increase between 7 to 13% in each of the
next two years. Again, cumulatively that
would be 14 to 26%.
PERS is increasing 8% this year, but
then is flat and no increase next year.
Effectively, that's a little bit more
than a 4% increase each year because the
increase is realized in the first year.
It's not exactly where our projected
revenues are or our projected growth,
but it's pretty close. So, another way
to say it is our PERS
expenses sustained at pace and maybe a
little bit below what our projected
revenue is. the city's defined benefit
plan which is now closed. If you recall,
we have three retirement plans at the
city. One is defined contribution, we
have defined benefit, and then we have
PERS. But the city's defined benefit
plan, which is now closed, is decreasing
its annual expense a little over a half
a million dollars due primarily to
strong investment returns in the market
last year. The city expects this lower
amount to continue. When I say lower
amount, that reduced amount that we have
to put into budget for our defined
benefit plan. We expect that to continue
provided the rate of return for the
investment meets the assumed rate of
return of
5.25% for the investment fund. And
that's a number which I want to mention
has strategically been brought down or
lowered over the past decade due to
intentional stewardship by this
committee and by the city
council. There's been more contributions
to the investment fund to lower that
rate of return. Previously called it was
probably 7%. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. I think
it started at seven. It's strategically
been bought down over the past 5 to 10
years to 5.25%. And it's done that to
really reduce the risk to the city. And
so provided that we can have an
annualized rate of return of
5.25% that reduction of half a million
dollars per year should maintain us. If
we make less than that, then we would
have to contribute more of the fund. If
we make more, we should actually maybe
have even less.
That's I think a pretty important point
because some of the surpluses that have
been made in the past years have from
the from the general fund and from the
overall budget have been made to kind of
shore that investment account up if you
will. We're seeing some of the benefits
of that long-term thinking here
today. By way of comparison, Oregon
Spurs assumed rate of return is
6.9%. So ours is 5.25. So that's the
expectation is still at 6.9%.
The main component of expenses is
personnel wages. Recall approximately
80% of the city's workforce is
represented by a fund of four bargaining
unit bargaining units. We have ASME or
the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees. We have police
officers association, firefighters
association, and international
brotherhood of electrical workers or
IBW.
Prior to the onset of every negotiation,
the city conducts a thorough wage
assessment utilizing similarly situated
cities to ensure that our wages do not
fall behind. Here's what we can expect
over the bienium in terms of wages.
Buyer's contract covers both years of
the budget or bargaining contract. So
the wages are set and they're set at 4%
each year by
contract. Ask me and IBW's contracts
will go through half of the bianium or
one year. They both expire June 30th of
next year. Those wages are set by
contract for the first year of the
bianium at 2.7 and
3.5%. Those contracts will have to be
negotiated. We will have to do a bid
cycle supplemental related to what those
contracts come out. Lisa's contract is
it's expiring on June 30th and we're
presently in negotiations. So we'll have
to look at potentially budget amendment
for that. And then the remaining
employees at the city or approximately
20% of the workforce are referred to as
what is called
unrepresented staff is proposing a wage
increase of 3% per year for those. Those
wages are typically tied to the west
coast CPI. The consumer price index we
are seeing the consumer price index in
the west coast dip slightly. It's
starting to go slightly right now. It's
actually 2.7%. If that continues to
fall, uh we may adjust that downward in
the midcycle adjustment depending on
what that West Coast CPI does. But at
least for the budget as a placeholder
now, we put in 3% for both both
years. Regarding employees, staff is
proposing to add 6.3 positions and
attrition two positions for a total ad
of 4.3 positions over the two years for
an increase of about 1% in employment
per year.
Each position is detailed in the budget
message and will be reviewed with the
committee. Similarly, we plan to hold
three positions vacant until more is
known about the operational, structural,
and funding changes associated with each
of those positions. All three of those
positions processes are actively in
place right now. Um, and so this was
something that was kind of thought
about. We're looking at the status of
those. We'll have more of those. In some
cases, we'll have more on those soon. Um
but those are being held at least for
right now
vacant. Prior to closing my message, I
do want to acknowledge that there was an
error in the budget message. The new
program that we have, you have to copy
from Word and then you have to paste it
into the budget message. There was one
section that got mostly copied
and kind of half pasted, I guess.
No, I just when we did the when I went
Oh, I'll take this. When I went to copy
over, I missed it. So, it didn't get
copied over. It's like power section.
Yeah. So, the light and power section
had last year's budget message. Our
apologies for the inter error. It's
since been corrected. Actually, that
fund will be discussed next week. Um, so
if you have any questions on that
section, please call or help. Um, in
closing, staff recognized this year
would be more work, and it was, but the
additional year injected more thought,
analysis, and strategic consideration
into the process. And it really did
paint a clearer picture of the next two
years than you would have otherwise got
if you just did it one year plus one
year. While there will be a midcycle
reconciliation, notwithstanding new
items, another benefit to this process
is when we do the reconciliation because
we will have talked about those items
tonight, those items will be known and
it won't be starting from fresh. We'll
be starting from midway through the
cycle and it can be something that can
uh kind of hit the ground running if you
will.
This budget allows the city to maintain
services in all areas and enhance
services in others. And that's in
keeping with the public's desire to
increase public safety and the city's
commitment to voters under the local
option levy to do likewise. My sincere
appreciation to the city council, the
budget committee, and the city staff for
the direction of initiated by budget and
for the patience and consideration to
work through it in the best interest of
the city. And of course, I have to close
by thanking Paul Downey. Let's go for
some very long days and some very late
nights. Wrangle about a hundred
different requests and some 30 oathons
into the computer to make them balance
and to make them understandable,
transparent, and importantly accountable
to our city's residents. With that, turn
back to you, chair. Thank you.
I think we'll just roll right into Paul
then.
Oh, I'm
ready. Slight confession before we
start. We didn't have any computers
yesterday. So, we had a major IT issue.
I was going to work on the presentation
yesterday and today. So, I only worked
on this today. So if it could be a
little rough and he didn't have time to
review it.
So could be a little sketchy as
possible. There's not a copy and a paste
and you'll understand. Yeah, you won't
know it if you get the actual paper copy
in the file
until we see people.
Well, can you just check really quick to
make sure that your
Oh, it might not be on.
We'll work our way through this. Before
we start, just going to make time
process for the meetings. We're planning
on doing three meetings
and quite a bit to discuss and there's
actually
some hefty topics to discuss this
year. We plan on doing three. So the
third meeting is where we'll ask you to
approve both the city's budget and
budget.
And man said when will it when the
police facility bond passes next week
you're going to see the third week
you'll see an addition to the budget
where I'll be adding the the money to
build the police building plus the debt
circle. So you'll see about a 30
something million dollar addition to the
proposed budget at the last meeting. So
just wanted to make that note. Okay. Um
so first screen purpose of tonight is to
get a review proposed budget and then
also get any public comment if there's
any.
So we have theformational meeting on
April 16th where we talk about some of
the stuff Jesse talked about. I'll have
some slides but I'll skip through the
information where Jesse's already
brought some of it up. We had some of
those slides. You see the first thing is
the total budget. You'll see on all
these things, all these slides, if I
change the years correctly, we'll have
school year 25 through 27 as the lead.
And you'll see the total budget,
proposed budget is
$253.6 million roughly. That compares to
last year's about
$160.2 million. So, you may ask
yourself, why why why don't we have a
$320 million two-year proposed budget?
The difference is we don't have the be
the ending fund balance in the first
year which translates to the beginning
fund balance in the second year. So
there's no fund balance change over
those two
years for those two years. And that's
that's why the two-year budget is not
double what the what this what the
current budget
is. So what we're going to do tonight
talk about information. Jesse's already
talked about the budget message and you
can read those information funds
resources individual general funds
proposed budgets and a few other funds
managed by general fund department
directors for that way principally Ann
and Ann and Brian don't have to come
back to the next meeting if they don't
want to. So we we try to get their
budgets in for them. um conduct the
first public hearing on the state shared
revenue. They can comment on the public
on the public budget and then we'll also
have the first meeting for budget budget
meeting this week. Guess who the budget
message moving into this next slide
general fund revenue like said revenue
is going to be strong. We grew 4.9% for
property taxes due to the increased
assessed
value. We had projected
4% budgeting four and a half% for the
next two years each of the next two
years. Interest rates have peaked kind
of and they're projected to start
declining sometime. We anticipate our
interest rates going to remain high
because due to strong cash balances in
most funds and also we're replacing some
lower earning interest maturing
investments with higher maturing
investments. Couple years ago we were
when we were the pool balance we're
having to invest money at 25% interest
or point half a percent interest but
that's what the interest rates were at
the time. You put your money out for two
or three years at that rate didn't get a
lot a lot of the times. Now we're
replacing it for almost 4%. So that's a
significant interest rate. So that's why
we're anticipating some of the interest
earnings to remain
strong. All utility rates were increased
last year and staff requests increasing
utility rates again. BPA is proposing
power and transmission rate increases at
October 1st,
2025. We're going to review the
potential rate effect forest grow
customers reported by the council in
August of 2025. FBA is supposed to
finalize it to have their final rate
increases out in August 2025. That point
time we'll finalize it. We'll talk about
life power rates next week. We talk
about life power. Water rates were being
reviewed as part of a water rate SDC
study. We're going to propose a 3% in
the interim. So we keep graduating
gradual smaller increases going instead
of trying to do having to do a larger
rate increase.
City sewer and surface water portions of
those rates are proposed to increase 4%
respectively. Clean water services
proposing to raise their rates by 4%
their sewers rates by
4%. Any questions on
that? overall
expenses. When we bud the budget assumes
full employment, meaning we we budget
that all positions will be filled at all
times during the year and obviously that
doesn't
happen. We'll have some vacancy during
parts of the year. We try to fill some
positions. Actually, pay leave or also
starting to affect some of the salaries.
Employees don't pay leave organ. We're
not paying their city salaries. So,
there's there's some lower cost in the
budget for them. not being there during
that time causes some angst to the
remaining staff and some departments,
but that's part of part of what we have
to deal
with. And then we've had some
significant savings in fiscal year 2425
due the vacancies in the administrative
services, police, fire departments. So
you probably read in the budget message
we had about of the surplus we had.
We'll talk about that even later.
Inflation curves leveling off continues
to affect costs. some of the personnel
contracts that are labor contracts are
expiring. Some of the unions are wanting
to have make up for some of that
inflation, higher inflation during the
time where they already what they have
lower lower cost of living rates in
effect. So they're asking for higher
cost of living rates now than what the
CPI is now because they're trying to
pick up more what they consider loss
loss wages inflation.
Um we've already talked about weighted
benefits major drivers of the cost in
the general
fund. Um other expenses like vehicle
expenses and certain supplies continue
to increase significantly be affected by
inflation. Property liability premiums
are racing higher than inflation due the
higher cost throughout the insurance
industry here and a lot of the claims
experience. That does reflect even
though we're even though we're with city
county insurance services which is pool
of local or pool of local or governments
they're still affected by the experience
industrywide because they go out they
buy reinsurance they insure up to a
certain point themselves then they go
out and buy reinsurance for losses above
a certain amount when you go out to the
reinsurance market you get all that's
where the total market comes into
play they are experiencing larger cost
because of
that certainly Large equipment purchases
such as some of
the light power and the boom trucks and
some of the fire apparatus need to be
challenging the time it takes to acquire
the
equipment what we are ordering two to
three years prior the time that we want
to put the equipment into service. So
it's having it's affecting our planning
and some of our cash flows as we're
having to do deposits some of that
equipment might like
to this kind of slide I always put in I
just kind of I like to put this in every
year. What it what this does is looks at
the other larger cities in Washington
County, takes the certified population
estimate at July 1st, 2024, and looks at
the assessed value for each of those at
July 1st,
2024. Now, then we calculate what I call
the assessed value per
capita. That's so that's for each person
at Forest Grove, we have an assessed
value per capita of about $87,000.
Notice Talton which is about our size
has an assessed value per capita of
about $14,000 per person. So makes a
large difference where you see these
cities with the larger assessed value
per capita they tend to have more
commercial and industrial or both. So
it's so that's that's the story there.
accordingly is a forest grove or towards
the bottom of the list and it's you
don't have the commercial or the
industrial in the town that the other
one has. So, you know, it's not the only
story. You'll notice tax
rates the tax rates are significantly
different from some doesn't have a local
option like we do. Their tax rates
lower about what ours is fairly close to
what ours is.
Yeah, I got a mistake on this thing. The
uh the actually I don't the cities that
are highlighted in green we own and
operate our own fire departments. The
other fire the other cities are part of
12 valley fire and rescue and
add something.
Their rate currently is 208 but I
believe it's going up to 230 something
235 next year. So you have to add say
for like Tala you have to add $2 right
now $28 or for next year $2.35 to that
rate where you see Tala R their rate
would be about 459 or 460 so it's it's
getting you know it's getting closer to
ours I just can I just interrupt I guess
there's another thing that might be a
little bit misleading about that is some
of those municipalities also have a
parks district water district and a fire
district so if you look at the city
Beaverton for example, Beaverton's
effective tax rate for the city is 4.17.
But if you add in all of those special
districts, some of the current estimates
are 13 dollars per thousand, which is
more than double what horse is. And
that's that kind of inter relationship
between special districts, what the
municipality does with a special
district with a different board,
different taxation, different powers
does, and a city such as Forest Grove
that's full service that offers all of
those services in a
combined tax. So that would be I think
that would be a really powerful
communication tool at some point to
display the this column that you have
and then the effective tax rate put.
We we we actually
have that slide chair and we can uh
we'll make a note and we can bring that
back to the next budget committee
meeting. We had that slide when we did
an annual town meeting at one point what
the effective tax rate is and it's even
more interesting when
yeah time of course is right to
influence the current election for the
police station but um this kind of
information is helpful for citizens who
wonder why things are so expensive just
look it back and say this is the most
expensive city on the
But of course it's not. But it looks
that way. Sometimes it feels that way.
But yeah, I think that would be a bring
that back. Powerful message to have not
just for this group, but at other points
of time when you need to help people
understand why things are what they
are. The wages benefits. We're going to
talk about some Jesse's talked about
quite a few things on this page. So
we'll
Like I said, it's we things we don't
know about the other ones we do. So I
think Jesse must cover this and it's it
is down to the medical you know the
major major changes are regions going up
7% tires is going up 13% for medical and
3% for dental most other dental premiums
going up
7%. And we uh project sort of the same
increases for this final year budget.
little conservative not get conf but it
hopefully it'll be less we'll have some
savings but you won't know till
later and like I say with the 3% from
the non rep we look at last year's CPI
which was 2.7 but we also look at what
other comparable cities that we have
that we compare ourselves to are doing
one thing we don't want to do is fall
too far behind in comparable wages
because then when we do a we do a wage
and benefit study, our wage studies
every three years. If we don't somewhat
keep up with what the other goals the
other cities are giving, then we fall
behind market, then we have to do a spot
adjustment when we do those wage and
salary studies every three years. So, we
take a look at it. It doesn't drive it
because some cities are getting like 4%
this year, but we're only trying not to
be too far below, too far out of pace.
myself. So when when Paul mentions the
spot adjustment, essentially that is the
market come if the physician comes in 3%
under the market, it's a spot adjustment
to get it back to zero, if you will, and
it's independent of the cost of living
increases that are otherwise negotiated
in. So if you have a 4% cola for that
year and you have a spot adjustment for
that position and it's normally specific
to that position, that position would
effectively have 7%
raised that year 3% for the spot
adjustment to reconcile it back to the
market and then the kick in from
there.
Hey, workers compensation premiums are
expected to increase by about 10% next
year. However, we're not changing the
budgeted charges to each of the
departments for the departments because
we have enough
reserve reserve in our risk management
fund to cover the cost of the increase
without increasing the cost of the
department. So, I've tried to keep the
workers compensation charges flat for
the departments from year to year.
Sometimes they go up, sometimes they go
down, but I try to keep them keep them
at a level keep them at a level premium
if I can so they're not bouncing all
over adjust them all the time. As Jesse
said, the defined benefit plan earned
11.82% which is more than our assumed
rate of return of
5.25%. So due to those earnings, the
defined benefit contributions will
decrease that should
say by
$532,000 to a total of 400 for me
$138,000. Of that
$532,000 increase,
$377,000 will go to the general
fund. About 94 to fire, about 101 to
police and the rest of the other
departments in the general fund.
$96,000 will go to like power and
$59,000 will go to public works. I have
the actuaries calculate the
contributions by general employees,
police, fire, light, power, public
works. So I know specifically what all
those contributions are those various
funds. We didn't budget to increase
those
contributions in uh in the second year
of the bianium and they should not
increase unless the earnings go below
two 5.25%. If they do, contributions may
go up. But as you remember, some of you
remember the general fund has set aside
$900,000 in smoothing reserves in the
general fund so we can absorb some
defined benefit plan increases without
having to raise the premium
without expenses to the funds. We don't
expect to have to use any of the
smoothie reserves to your budget.
right now. I'm gonna say right now
because there's a month and a half to
still screw me up. Even with all the
fluctuations we've had up and down in
the retirement plan, we're still
slightly above our super chart right
now. So hopefully we can hopefully can
hold on for the rest of the
year. Uh PERS rates are
increasing over the two-year period. Uh
the rates will stay the same for the two
years after the July 1.
safety for those in the guardian
public service retirement plan for
snippers or officer some people call it
tier three will increase the rates will
change from 22.25 to
24.22% and from 23.92 to 25.35 for tier
1 tier 2 employees for public safety
employees the observe rate for general
employees increase 17.46 46 to 7
18.95%. Those rates include the 6%
employee contribution. So that so that
18.95 12.95 is employer contribution. 6%
is the employee contribution but the
city makes the employee contribution and
employer contribution. We agreed that's
something the council agreed to do when
we switched when we started moving
people of hers back in 2016.
We still have a defined contribution
plan for roughly 12 asking employees,
maybe fewer now. I have one or two may
have left. That rate remains at 12%.
Those will be employees chose not for
the service for some reason.
Um, Jesse's already talked about
property liability insurance premiums.
Turn
on. It's just not cooperating.
There we go. That one's not too far.
All right, we're just going to quickly
go over some
benefits, personnel cost type
information. You'll
see Lily Pyr on the right hand side.
Glad I got my glasses on. Um this year
2425 if you look at personnel it's 100%
of this circle we've got here wages were
about
58% and total benefits benefit portions
are about
42%. For 257 the wages are about 59 a.5%
and benefits are about 40 and a half%.
good portion of that change in the gr
the two charts are due to the uh half
$532,000 reduction in the defined
benefit
contributions some of which are
obviously the wage increases as
well you look at
benefits can't really look at on here
we're not going to spend you long on
this the biggest chunk there is is for
the retirement retirement is over
retirement costs are over half of all
the benefits we pay out. Medical
premiums are roughly about 29% of what
we pay out on
benefits by would be about 11% of the
total benefits. So just showing you the
retirement is a retirement benefits ours
portion of our benefits
cost. If you like it in table form
that's the same thing in table form read
one you see retirement costs for the
next name are about
3% total benefits come down about
29%. So the other page so that's they
don't haven't changed a whole lot. They
typically don't change a lot unless the
retirement changes
significantly
resources total generalium is 67.4 $4
million fund balance is expected to be
about over $10 million which is an
increase of about $2.8 million over June
June 30th 205 projecting in fund
balance about $7.2 million which we
projected a year ago most of that
increase is projected to occur on July
21st is beginning fund balance was
higher this last year probably about
$1.4 $4 million we projected plus those
personnel vacancies in several
departments and and some
increased interest earnings over what we
projected. We talked about the general
assess value grow by
4.5%. A total of 2.46 46 billion for the
next year
and four and a half% about 2.57 billion
for fiscal year
2627. All property tax revenue goes into
the general fund is projected to account
for 49.1% of the operating revenue in
the next
benium. State shared revenue declined in
2425 compared to budgeted amount. Some
of that was population differences over
years and also some of the actual actual
per capita amounts the state paid out
went down and the 2020 for the next
banium. We base state shared revenue on
the per capita revenue that we get from
this estimates that we get from the
state of Oregon and the estimated
population state university population
center and those are expect to start
increasing slightly or flat. Most of our
other revenues are projected to remain
flat for the
next things of that
nature. Not too
hard. The fee study for the parks and
recreation is ongoing and the fee
changes for those services will be based
off of the
study. So I show when the completion
time is on that. They're still going
through through some iterations of
policy discussions that has come to the
council policy discussions. Franchise
fees are lower than budgeted this year
due to decline in Northwest Natural Gas
Tele franchise fees. Northwest natural
gas fluctuate quite a bit depending on
how cold the winter is.
[Music]
Yeah, it's 5% of their revenue for what
they collected inside city for
gro this year was $300,000. The year
before was like
$330,000.
So that went down.
Um, we're budgeting franchise fees for
the next ban which remain relatively
flat based on our act based on what
we're thinking we're going to get from
this year's proposed franchise fees. Do
we charge franchise fees for the
internet providers?
No, you get you get TV cable fee, but
you don't get them from the internet
providers. Why is that? You can get them
from the internet providers when
potentially if they run if they put in
their own stuff. So like Comcast for
what it does for its internet fees, you
don't get. But Ziply has fiber optic,
right? Ziply has fiber optic. Yeah, you
get Ziply for their TV cable fee, for
their TV cable, plus for their
telephone, but not for their
internet. That's something we don't get
to choose. No, chooses that.
The U because you know anymore internet
is going to surpass any other
service. But some of these companies
just putting putting just broadband in
broadband in we we do like the one that
the school district putting in for the
school
district name. I've not been working on
numbers in the past month. We will
actually get a a fee off of those
because that is their principal use of
the rightway for like but for like Zippy
and Comcast their internet they had
their rightway stuff in before the
internet came and so we had they were
unable to add the internet fees because
it's you know you're not using any
additional rightway so they say on the
internet but for other broadband
companies where that's their only use of
right away we're collect
So the legislature could redefine that
if they chose to, couldn't they? If they
chose, that'd be a nice
fight. We got I can go quickly go
through some charts summarizing the
general fund
resources. First one's the general fund
summary. That's broken out by what we
call the resource allocation summary,
local taxes, and re
grants you providing grants and
government revenue. So their grants
basically another form of government
revenue and grants lot smaller charges
for services licenses permit fees fines
miscellaneous revenue transfers from
other funds and fund balance available.
You'll see in 2627 there's no fund
balance available because it's two-year
benium. So there's no beginning fund
balance since we're doing a two-year
budget. all the charges for services. Um
that doesn't include building permits,
right? Because that's a separate fund.
That'll be a fee. No, that doesn't
incl That's the big chunk of those.
And this is a little graph that you
can't read because the colors look
better. You'll see it's come to focus
now. Local taxes are all local taxes
include franchise fees are about 53% of
the revenue. Uh charter services are
about 25% transfers about 7.2 and money
from other governments about 11 and a
half%. So we got our money from various
sources.
This what this spreadsheet I mean what
you see every year attempts to do is it
puts down for each department it takes
the categories of revenue that we assign
to them i.e intergovernmental and
grants, charge services, etc. And we
total that up for each department.
That's the assigned revenue. And so if
you go over to the right column on the
total, you'll see the totals for each
department. For example, admin services
for the next planning is about $9.1
million beside revenue. Most of that
overhead charge. And you'll see down at
the bottom, total assigned revenue for
all departments is about 20.3
million. So we have discretionary
revenue of about $37 million which we
don't specify in any
department and we have about $10 million
fund balance which is also considered
discretionary revenue. So about $47
million over the next bianium for
discretionary. So what we what I do then
is I
take you'll see I have each department
in the general fund
listed. You'll see the you'll see them
department number and department name.
Then you'll see their proposed budget
for 2025 27 the total budget for both
years. When I subtract out the revenue
assigned and then the right column it
says
discretionary general fund for
department. That's how much
discretionary revenue it takes to run
each department for the next
bianium. You'll see that for police
we're take we're about $19.35 million
discretionary revenue over the next
bendium. Fire is about
11.8. Municipal court is basically break
even at the moment because of the
changes proposal tonight. And
um you can see what the other
departments are doing. You'll see public
safety is about is you know about 70
almost 78% of the discretionary revenue.
So for every dollar discretionary
revenue we have public safety uses about
78 cents of
it. All right. So this is this is that
right hand column this in a chart you'll
see police just about half of
discretionary revenue fires slightly
over a quarter and then all the other
departments
are combined it's just slightly less
than a quarter of the
piece planning takes about
3% legislative executive 2% my
department administrative services four
library four aquatics three parks six
and recreation 1%
So, so when you say we're a full service
city, this is an important thing to look
at to say, you know, what do we have to
spend money on that somebody else does?
Well, just to clarify, those are
bananas. Yeah, those totals over the
bay are the totals over
the so getting into the general fun
departments
themselves. All right, legislative and
executive
um revenue for this most of the revenue
comes from these general fund sport
services charges which is what we always
call the
overhead. The one change in expense
funds that we made is we budgeted funds
for counselor travel and training. We've
separated that into amounts for each
counselor over the next
bianium the each counselor the mayor. So
in for each council we budgeted one one
trip to the national lead of c city's
conference and two LC conferences we
budgeted that equivalent amount of
training if they want to do other
training then
that's yeah the mayor has more funding
due to train due to attending other
conferences such as the mayor's
association other stuff she does so she
has more funding than the others we've
also included funding for up to one trip
for three students involved with city
boards and commissions and the chaperon
to attend the National League of Cities
conferences once during the two-year
period.
So that's there's
about $16,000 for that for those four
people to
attend administrative services. probably
going to go on administrative services
for a while. Staffing changes we
discussed and revenues consists mostly
of support service charges and fees or
utility billing related services and
business licenses providing most of the
additional
revenue. I'm going to start with
professional services. That's the one
that I'm going to talk about materials
and services. As I'm going through here,
if you've looked at the budget, you have
any other questions on materials and
services and any detail line items, go
ahead and ask us. But we can't answer it
tonight. We'll get the answer answer for
next week. Personal services and
employed
funding a one time expense for 62,900
for economic development expenses
resulting from revenue from enterprise
zone repayments carried over current
fiscal year. If an enterprise industry
that gets in enterprise tax break does
not meet its conditions, it has to repay
some of that money and that money can
only be used for certain economic
development purposes. Right now the
city's got
$62,900 so I don't lose track of it. I
kept it in my professional services
given I see it everywhere.
So budget 11,000 replaced with the 2040
vision and action plan first year
benium. So hopefully we won't eat all of
that, but you got the the adoption
scheduled for July. But there's quite a
bit of work to get done to wrap it up.
$7,000 each year for continued
translation
services, English and
Spanish, $15,000 each year for the
annual goals objective
process. $15,000 for facilitation
services each year. First year will be
for recreational services
facilitation with Cornelius Forsboro
School District Pacific University. The
other participants are going to
reimburse the city for about half of
that $15,000 share of their costs.
Second year, we don't have specific
facilitation services in mind, but I'm
assuming with the 2040 action plan and
some other things we're council look at,
we're going to do some additional
facilitation services those years. So I
put $15,000 for those
years that number four in the list is
the bulk of that expense for the
facilitator
because it's it's not you know it's not
just a matter of holding the meeting on
that Saturday. There's a lot of
preparation work that that person let
the city manager and Jesse go through
and this she will interview a lot of
she'll interview a lot of people
individually before she before we even
get to the retreats and that. So she
does she does a lot of ground work
before the retreat and then there's
quite a bit of work after the retreat
putting all the information together and
having a couple work sessions with
council. I guess the only thing I would
add is that might change some over the
biodium with the completion of the 2040.
There was a work
session last night on that and I think
there was some conversation with
council about what does that kind of
reconciliation process between 2040 and
annual rules and objectives look like
and so look at that as
as that might be fluid. So we'll just
kind of we got to see how that picture
kind of paints itself what that cost
function might be. don't need the money
for the second
year. You can look at it's not a large
expense, you know, that you want to do a
midyear adjustment on per se, but it's
it's something you can look at. I'm sure
something else will come up in the
meantime,
too. Last one, we budgeted about $21,000
in each of the each year the banial
budget for IT management services. I'll
talk about that here when I talk about
the IT
manager or
two. Our intent is to contract all IT
services with the exception of everyday
PC desktop services and some software
access issues that come up from
employees. So we'll talk about talk
about some more talk about that more
when we get to the IT manager
position. Next we're going to go into
the positions.
several staffing changes proposed with
departments. One of the proposed changes
obviously affects also affects the
legisl executive department, but I put
it all in here. And if you read the
budget budget message, excuse me, you're
probably going to get more information
on that on this position change than
what I what I actually put the slides.
First is to add the position of
full-time assistant city manager which
will allow the current position of city
assistant city manager finance director
be separated into two full-time
positions of assistant city manager and
finance
director change is in response to
council objective 2.6 Six, which asks
the staff to evaluate staff capacity and
city
administration. Underlying factors post
change are workload
volume. However, city Washington County
offers more services and we have a lot
of departments resulting in more direct
reports for the city manager and also
assistance in their finance
director. This is tended to result in
less responsiveness and less time for
strategic planning. You just don't have
the time sometimes to dig in as quickly
as you like to on some stuff. You just
have to keep moving and be more
reactive. Search will be able to change
some of that post
change. Resiliency adding this position
will reduce the risk of many functions
the responsibility of one position. I
need there's a lot of areas I have that
will get split up between these between
these two new positions
and will allow the three positions to
focus more on areas assigned to them and
spend more time planning and as I said
last less time be reactive to things
that come
up how the duties be divided is almost
finalized as with any
change probably look at some of the
duties will be reviewed after two
position two two positions have been in
their respective position as well. After
the assistant city managers on see how
things are working, it may make sense to
swap one function or another function
between between those two positions.
This will also allow the city manager
budget message says to have less direct
reports. He
has direct reports right now 12 looks
like going down to nine which is still
like which is still a lot but it's not
just you know when you're thinking of it
it's not just the director reports these
director reports he has to work but it's
also the seven city councilors. So it's
got there's quite a bit of time spent by
the city manager managing department
heads
plus working with the city council
I don't know the next
um the only thing I would add and thanks
for raising in that poll is is as I
mentioned in my message, we did do some
kind of comparative analytics with other
cities on this. Um, and the cities that
we looked
at were some of similar size, some
larger, but the cities of similar size
were Sherwood, walking new, Oregon City,
Wilsonville, and
Towatin.
So, we didn't know this kind of going
into it, but all of those cities have a
have an assistant city
manager. Cornelius has one. It's very
similar to our position now. It's a
tandem position, assistant city manager,
finance
director. We looked at some larger
cities. Um, and I don't know if this is
necessarily comparable, but Hillsboro,
they have an interesting structure where
they have three assistant city managers,
but each is responsible for various
functions. And then the only other city
we looked at was Tigard, which
has assistant city manager and then also
kind of a unique position beside that
position
that's almost like a development
director kind of position that has some
kind of additional responsibility. So
anyways, I just wanted to add that we
did do some kind of comparative
analytics to Forest Grove. I I would
just kind of also mention that of all
those municipalities with the exception
of maybe Hillsbor because they actually
have their own internet service. We
offer more if not more offer more
services if not the same than more of
those. So that's all
terms of FD increases. Is this a 1.0
increase or how? It's well it be a
full-time city manager and a full-time
finance director or this is kind of one
of the as far as total FD increases.
This is kind of where we've looked at
we're removing the potential removal of
the interim city manager position ID
manager. There'll be some savings there.
And so some of the some of that savings
we're moving over to the assistant city
manager. We tried to make the assistant
city manager between to the the cost of
the general fund as cost neutral as
possible. Just some savings that we're
getting in some some other areas plus
some of the allocations out to the to
the appropriate departments that this
position is scheduled to supervise.
Guess another way if I could add to that
answer
is last year in the budget the budget
committee the council approved a 0.5
account
position one of the reasons we're
holding that position vacant is not a
recognition that that we don't need help
in accounting we do I think it is trying
to provide a recognition
that for the finance director position
depending on what responsibilities are
moved out from under that position and
put over to the assistant city manager
position that that will free up time for
that finance director. And if there is
enough free time that's kind of filled,
you know, that's freed up essentially to
be able to really focus on the budget,
accounting, municipal court, utility
billing,
etc. We're just kind of holding that
until that structural that potential
structural changes in place to see if we
still need that resource there. So there
could potentially be a savings, but I
don't want to create that expectation
now because we just don't know. But we
are keeping that position vacant. It's
vacant right now and we are keeping it
vacant until depending depending the
budget process some structural changes
to see if they come to fruition and what
might happen to that position. That
makes sense. So that's the other
position that has a nexus to this. Um
but it's not clear what the outcome of
that is going to be and we probably
won't know that for a little little
while. But we are being cautious in
terms of what looks like part-time
accountants is staying as an authorized
position but we did not fund it this
year but it's funded in the second year
of the plan.
Will creating
another type of position require
additional administrative support?
Um we don't believe so because the uh
depending on where the positions sit
where they're located we haven't decided
yet. I'm assuming assistant city manager
probably be around where Jesse is and so
Jamie will support those two positions.
Finance director probably there's going
to have one of the administrative
specialist
downstairs that's helps with some of the
finance areas probably have that person
get some administrative help to the
finance director.
So, so we think we spread it out with
positions we already have downstairs. We
have administrative specialists for
utility billing and also for municipal
court
and yeah, so we think that that was can
support finance director in the same way
that that Jamie is supporting both Paul
and I now that would just move to the
assistant city manager and the finance
director to get that support downstairs.
And same thing about whether we're
looking to bring
in recruit from the outside or and you
asked do we have candidates identified
for each? No, we don't. They'll be open
with both positions. And your other
question of any idea how long some more
tenure people each will likely be
around?
Um, you typically don't talk about
tenure positions. That remains to be
seen. If I wish to apply for either of
the two positions coming up, I will
apply openly. I I've been totally aware
of this since it's going in or I will
more than likely I will probably be
looking toward retirement sometime early
next year depending on these positions
retire. I I'm not saying officially I'm
going to made up my mind, but it's I'm
more looking in that direction. Thank
you for being candid. That has a huge
impact on how everything rolls here. So
appiate that.
So the IT manager
um actually no longer consistency may
have one proposal is to remove the IT
manager. You can contract out our IT
services technical management of the
upper of some tech technical piece of
the system i.e
fire servers, storage arrays, firewalls,
switches, RT services while keeping the
daily PC desktop functions in house
changes being
proposed. Difficulty of attracting good
staff for one and then retaining staff
because they can earn more in other
agencies. For example, our last IT
manager went back to work for his former
employee after a
year. I guess I didn't approve that one.
So including the IT manager, there are
four currently authorized positions in
IT. So after the IT manager goes,
there'll be three. How many are staff
right now? Staff, we have three staff
right now. We have three IT people.
Three IT people right now. No manager
currently. No manager currently. Right
now I right now I currently contract for
temporary management services with a
company that's helped us over the years
and they're actually I went out I went
out for quotes for the uh for the
management services for the management
services technical services. I got three
quotes for they they declined a quote
because they use specific equipment and
we don't use some of that specific
equipment. They're specialized in that
that equipment like say Cisco firewalls.
If you don't have a Cisco firewall, they
don't work on your firewalls. So that's
not something I can use. So I got three
quotes. And so we've actually selected
the B that we're currently currently
using for the temporary management
contract. They've done some several
workers over the
years. And again, it's a full scope of
change. It's being negotiated. So the
city fully understands what our contract
service is, what projects will be new
projects outside of the scope of the
management contract because like right
now you know we will go out and contract
for certain for portions of contracts
right now because our IT management
doesn't have the technical expertise to
do some of it. So, you know, we're we're
signing up for now for IT management
services for like existing services, you
know, keep things going, but if we're
going to make a big change and do some
other stuff, you know, that's that's
technically could be outside of the
scope of the contract. So, we're just
trying to figure out what's inside the
scope of the contract and exactly what
falls outside of the scope of the
contract. So we kind of have a notion
that we're going to make this kind of a
change or look at this sort of stuff
that's going to be additional
costs and like I said current the
contract out for several projects. It's
hard for one person like the IT manager
to keep up keep up to date on everything
that's happening with all the equipment
we've had to look at and that's been one
of the other issues that we've had and
the decision proposes change took a
while is it's a major shift in approach
because we're going from having somebody
in house that does everything to a
contract service that has to be managed
and contract manager will actually
manage remaining people from a technical
standpoint while the assistance city
manager will manage the IT contract plus
the day-to-day applications and that
sort of other stuff for the two for the
people that remain for the personnel
side of it and so you know currently the
IGT manager calls a consultant to help
solve issues with particular piece
pieces of equipment as the consultant
has more experience and one of the
questions Dave had is what happens when
we have a crisis like yesterday we had a
crisis yesterday so uh so what happened
what so what happened
We had an internal power share.
I guess to resolve it though, we had to
call in outside experts to resolve it.
Yeah. I mean, we don't have any network
people in. So, we called we called our
consultant that we've had to use
temporary management. Soon as I called
them and asked them, I told them we're
dead in the water. We need this
elevated. They had somebody right on the
road heading out. Immediately
immediately came out, started working on
the project. It got it up around what
six o'clock last night. Most was back
up. the phone system. They parts of the
phone system were down today. It still
might be a little bit of phone system
out on the computer side, but the phones
are back up and working. So, what's you
know, and if we would have had this type
of problem we had yesterday, the IT
manager probably would have called these
people in anyway
because because as the the power went up
and then it went back down again. And
so, as it was going back up, everything
was rebooting. When it went down at the
same time it was going back up, that
screwed up all the reboots. So there was
multiple multiple connections between
multiple pieces of the all the equipment
got messed up and so it took person a
while to unwind all that. So we would
have had to bring somebody somebody in
anyway to have network expertise that
what our IT manager would have had. So
it's having the fulltime contract
full-time consultants probably going to
be no different anyway. Plus the whoever
we signed the contract with the consult
we're looking at all of them were all of
them would install monitoring contract
monitoring software on our on our
system. So they're they're constantly
monitoring the switches the firewalls
storage arrays the servers and they can
tell there's an issue if there's an
issue with them back in their office
right there. Lots of times they'll be
able to remote do something without us
even knowing the system happens to go
down.
I mentioned something else about this.
Is it go over to the next slide or is
this the next slide? I just want to make
sure I'm not gonna say something that
you want to say. Oh, still have more to
go. This is a long section of it.
Um, we also, one of the questions Dave
asked was what about long-term strategic
planning?
um talked about the long-term strategic
planning as we were looking at doing
this contract change and we all
acknowledged that if we were going to do
a long-term strategic plan, we would
hire a consultant anyway to help us with
that plan because the internal IT staff,
you know, while the IT manager will know
what how our system runs and how it
works, they won't he or she might not
know what technology is out there,
what's available, where the current
trends are heading, you know, what might
be the best way to look at doing
something because they're not as up
todate as say a consulting firm that's
got a lot of people working for them,
experts in all areas. They're getting,
you know, they're getting constantly
trained on things. So that we you know
we would had to hire I said the
long-term strategic plan anyway to help
us. And another question about large
about
anybody would be looking combining our
it with anybody else. We I actually
called some of the larger agencies in
the county and said, "Hey, are you
interested in hosting our network
services as a service to us and they're
charging us for it?" And at this point
in time, they do not have the capability
to provide that service either with
systems or staff. They all doing their
own internal work. Yeah, most of them
they're all doing their own internal
work. And um they have even some of the
larger agencies have some of the same
hiring issues we do. the city of
Hillsboro, which is much larger for us.
Pay is much better than us. They had a
they had a network engineer manager
position open for over a year before
they were able to fill it. So, they're
also have those cities are also having
hiring issues on some of their IT staff
as well. It's it's not a fun world out
there. And I guess just to kind of I've
talked with a lot of my colleagues at
similar sites and even some of the ones
from larger cities and we're just kind
of seeing this industrywide especially
with some of the networking systems
types functions very difficult to
recruit very difficult to retain. Um
some of the tech functions the kind of
desktop type functions you can you can
see we can recruit and we can hire those
positions. They typically do have a
little bit higher turnover rate than
normal employees. Stay very long, do
they? Yeah, they don't. No, they want to
get experience. Yeah, they want to get
experience and either kind of get
promoted. If there's a career ladder at
your agency, great. If there's not,
they're going to go to a different
agency. And so, we're seeing those
positions within the city at that PC
tech level. Those are turning over
probably one and a half to two and a
half years. That's just kind of standard
rate. The other ones we're just having a
difficult time recruiting period. We've
had recruitments. We've seen this
pattern other especially other
municipalities of our size. There was
also a question about have we looked at
kind of combining with other cities.
Oh, you were. Okay. Can I jump together
then? You can. Uh there has been a
conversation. There's a group called the
the bug broadband user group. Um and the
broadband user group is all the
municipalities that kind of talk
strategically about where we want it
broadband issues to kind of go.
There has been some active discussion
about kind of westside
municipalities, banks, murines,
Cornelius, Horse Grove, less sobro, but
maybe um actively partnering on
something IT support, it anything it um
it's an active
conversation I will say, you know,
pardon the pun, it takes a bandwidth to
kind of talk about that. there's some
type of potential intergovernmental
agreement. Um it's some type of
potential cooperative, but it is an
active discussion. Um right now it's
kind of peacemail. So you have Cornelius
for example, they're contracting out a
little bit of both. Um you have
airplanes and banks, they're they're
contracting and you know in those cases
they have a person and it is kind of
literally a person and if that person
goes everything goes kind of thing and
so there's a high risk factor.
associated with some of those smaller
municipalities. Um, yeah, it's just it's
just a challenge. So, I think we're
trying to kind of find innovative ways
where we can look outside of the
organization, find organizations that
have uh quite a bit of bandwidth, quite
a bit of depth, quite a bit of
expertise, that are solid, that are
stable, that know this, that know this,
that can help us, that can bring kind of
an outside perspective to it. Um, and
and really kind of help us out because
we we need some help.
Oh, I from my own technical background,
the ideal scenario for me would be that
you
have this bug
organization collectively hire one or
two pretty high level people that are
not doing desktop support. They're not
running around unplugging and plugging
switches back in.
That's strategic planning oversight, you
know, looking. They are very much aware
where the industry is heading
technologically. they know what kind of
things to be planning for and it's not
and then you hire out all the dayto-day
the PC support and everything else to a
selected set of firms as you're doing
now because that's that's not where you
want to invest city dollars in a desktop
service
guy and that's it's I appreciate you
mentioning that because that
conversation is really focused on that
is the scope right not not the desk
stuff because that that we can kind of
do that not even monitoring the
switching service we can hire data,
switches, servers, hard, you know, it's
the where are we going to be five years
from now? What do we need to do now to
get ready to move there? How are we
going to work at lock step so that we
can get the best value for our dollars
by kind of doing things together?
Yeah, like J said, there's an effort in
Washington County, sorry, but I mean
smaller like Kell says, they're probably
not interested in that area. they'll
probably stay on their own, right? And
so of the smaller agencies, we would
actually be the biggest of the smaller
agencies that would be doing this. So So
it doesn't help. Yeah. And so it would
be like for shared technology systeming
formula. Yeah. Depends on the funding
for basically the smaller cities are
looking or smaller cities and even some
of like fire some of the smaller fire
districts have employees. Yeah. System
are kind of looking for some help. But
even if even if it would head in that
direction, that's going to take several
years put together. So we're I mean we'd
still do this in the inter room and you
know I'm proposing signing like a
one-year
contractable one-year term. So let's say
something like this became we're not
locked into a long contract
and different cities want to do
different amounts of stuff too.
It occurs to me that school districts
will have similar needs. They got
campuses.
Can I ask question? Sure. Um Paul said
you got three bits for this sort of
temporary situation. Well, three quotes
for the ongo for the ongoing on for the
lack of a manager and I'm
wondering any of those quotes or if
there's sort of a a line for contracting
the desktop type
support in the interm work.
We talked and we went through the and we
went through when we went through the
quoting process and there was there was
one purse one company only had like two
support people in the Northwest think
they gave me a relatively low price but
there's a reason for that they only have
two support people in Northwest and so
it's um the other two firms which are
both based locally they're they both
they both said keep the desktop support
service yourself you don't you do not
want to pay us for doing your everyday
PC desktop support services. It's you
can do it cheaper, they can do it and
they can hire people to do it. So they
recommended we keep the everyday stuff
ourselves on PCs.
It I know it sounded but they it's just
it's what they have to pay in the market
for. I mean, we can get the
desktop plus they, you know, they have
to send them out. They basically they'd
have to hire someone here and we
can and we did talked to one city that's
contracted out all services and they're
they're very pleased, but it's a similar
size city to us. They've got they have a
person on staff the everyday stuff and
person that manages their contract does
four or five other different things that
just you ask me but that's Cornelius has
always contracted directly services but
I don't know what their satisfaction
level was what they have right now so I
know they know the city manager looking
for different ways to do it. It's just
thin, very thin. Thin
itself and you know like yesterday Alexa
we talked about the situation we had it
was very good because one of their
senior network engineers came out but
they have experts like other components
of the system needs actually they were
actually on a team's call or the other
one of the other guy experts were voted
in and was helping and was doing some of
the parts that he was an expert on but
the senior network had less experience
in. So we're able to take take the good
experience from the from that firm and
get the right pe the right people in the
job for all components that were that we
were having issues with.
Uh the other one of the other changes is
they're proposing to move the GIS
analyst back to the engineering
department continue to focus on GIS but
at times will also do engineering
inspections as personnel we're moving
back to this back into engineering has
previously done engineering inspections.
So he used to be the engineering tech
and halftime GIS halftime engineering
tech. So we moved him as a GIS analyst
couple years ago. We're now gonna move
him back else as a GIS analyst, but
he'll do both. But he'll do both the
engineering inspection plus GIS
analyst. Um, public works is going to
start their process to convert its GIS
data from its current network to the
utilities network like light power has
done and light power is almost complete
with its transition. I think they're
about ready to roll it out. So I know T
has been very pleased with the process
process of getting this on the utilities
network. So I feel since we've hired the
consultant in the last year, we've made
we've made leaps and bounds to what
we've done in several prior years
combined. So we're we're moving ahead
moving ahead pretty fairly well with the
GIS and then so we're going to start
moving the public works data over. So
having a JS analyst in that department
will allow to public works director and
the consultant directly is where utility
networks being done. This is the
approach we use for light power and like
I said if it's been successful for them
they're about to switch over to it then
their staff will be able to take their
maps out their G their GIS maps out on
their whatever electronic device they're
using.
I was going to say is that the goal that
you shooting for is that all of the city
employees will be able to use their
portable devices to access. Yeah. All
the ones Yeah. All the ones that need
will be able to use be will be able to
do that. That's the goal of getting this
done eventually. Plus
the we're also talking with the
consultant about okay now that we've got
blind power done our public works. We
also want to start looking about looking
about how can we also make this more
public
facing start getting some more stuff out
there for the public to start another
GIS system. So what are some examples of
public facing
features like some of the basic property
maps some of the basic you know some
some utilities maps and then some of the
stuff we can't put out there because
of because of security issues. You know,
it's real hard for the terrorists to
find where our substations actually are.
They can read it on map instead of
driving past. So,
sorry.
What? Let me know what a good time would
be. Do a short bio break. Yeah, let me
finish this up real quick. Forget the
first paragraph. That's just like copied
and pasted it over the last paragraph
prior page. One question was about the
removal of the water treatment plant
engineering technician position that we
proposed adding last year. We didn't
want confusion
between that position and the moving of
the GIS analyst to the engineer back to
the engineering
department. Water treatment plant
operator tech was a hybrid position.
We had to approve like last year, but we
never filled it because the need for the
position did not
materialize. We were able to hire
sufficient water treatment plant
operators to operate the water treatment
plants. We did not need that
position. So we like I said, we never
filled it and we're asking now. So the
GIS analyst position that will remain
has no duties of the water treatment
plant. They strictly just do GIS duties
plus engineering inspections.
So the
uh and they don't you know we kind of
expect the engineering inspections to
continue to increase as we're getting
residential developments expected you
know to continue at a relatively similar
pace for the next couple years based on
the number of building lots we have
left. Um inspections for summer overlay
curb projects are continuing and we
anticipating some increased inspections
for some industrial industrial
developments that we're anticipating. So
there will be some more inspection work
coming up over the next couple
years. Already talked about parttime
accountant. So I'll talk about that.
Like I said, we had the one quick. We're
going to give the finance director and
the assistant city manager time to
evaluate the position. Once the two
positions are separate, they can kind of
see how might best be best structured
within, you know, within the
department. So that's like I said, it's
going to take a little bit of time for
them depending on when they when they
get
hired. Good time for a bridge.
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Sorry.
Yeah, we're ready.
on the municipal courts. Up on municipal
courts.
Will you test
Here it goes.
Jamie, ready?
I think so. Yeah, we're good.
All right.
Next section is
support operate from municipal support.
get the first $30,000 fine revenue split
5050
afterwards revenues is projected to
remain flat
number citations by
grow flat revenue be declining the
collection prior citations turned over
to collection agency department of
revenue but even those collection
procedures slow
Now one change we did make it to make it
the court also affects administrative
services I put it here the
administrative specialist in court to
allocate that 50% to court and 50% to
the administrative services to reflect
where the person's time actually being
spent. This person is crossrained some
utility billing functions frequently the
account utility
billing volumes
down we know this is more important
library department has come out as we
get to their section. I'll go through my
notes and then there's questions or
discussion may take
question working working hard with the
other county
man WCCLS is the major source of funding
for the February and is proposed to
increase by 1% for the next budget
fiscal year 25 and 26. The revenues for
26.7 are not known as the county is
considering the local option library
local option levy on the November 2025
ballot. However, for the purposes of
preparing this budget, we've assumed
receiving only a 1% increase for both
years. But right now, that's kind of the
best information that we have based on
historical. So, it used to be more like
3%. Yeah, we had traditionally received
about 3% from the county for years and
but now they're into their budget
issues, they've cut down that 3% in the
last few years to
1%. Um, and but in some years old prior
years where property taxes were
sometimes a little above the amount
projected, the county would give the
libraries additional funding known as
pool two money. And that that that's
where that that thing gave the pool two
money came from. But there's not been
pool too many distributed for several
years now that it's close to 10 years
and so how's that so much financial
challenge right now they probably the
general fund
so they they've taken essentially it
used to be a 3% increase every year from
the general fund to
WCCLS they flatten that down to 1% and
so if you look at the impact force grow
we get about a million dollars every
year from WCCLS from the county for the
library budget so the difference between
3% and 4% about $20,000 per year and
that started not
last year but the fiscal year before
that you have a chart we've been back
filling the reduction in WCC lasts fund
the city general fund dollar again will
impact the remainder of the general fund
budget um I've got a up showed you a
table last year and I've updated this
table for this year showing the impact
of the reduced revenue
There's actual 21, actual 22, budgeted
23, 24, and budgeted 24 25. The budgeted
for all all intents and purposes for
WCCCLS revenue is the same what we
actually got. So you'll see the
uh we still got the 3% between 21 and 20
between years 21 and 22 and 22 23.
years 23 to years from that next year 23
to 24 we got a 1% we're getting a 1% for
this year and you'll see the last column
is the bianial budget where there's two
years combined and so I've assumed a 1%
increase
from from 25 to 26 and I take 26
calculate the number and added another
1% to that number so that would give us
about $1.93 million for the next WCC CLS
based on 1%
increases. And then there's the there is
the expenditures.
Um you'll see the budgeted expenditure
for library for the next two years are
$3.5
million which would mean city funding of
1.5 million. And you can see how the
percentages have been going up of the
city's funding percentages over the past
2122. It's gone from 30% to the next
year's budget. picture is benium. If the
county just gave 1% to the second year,
we'd be at 44 56% for the county, 44%
the city. And you'll see the bottom
line, you see the bottom of the chart on
the bottom, which shows if we would have
got 3% the whole time there is what we
would have proceeded in the next
1.9 getting we got 2.1 million. So it's
makes us makes a difference and it makes
a difference quickly because that's that
average compounds each year.
So what we did is we didn't ask the
library to absorb all the increase, but
we asked the library to propose $40,000
reduced funding for the normal increase
over the two-year period to make up for
the loss of funding.
So, it's not that they're reducing
40,000. They're showing $40,000 less
less of an increase. A less of an
increase. Okay. Is what we're asking
what what we asked them to do. Okay. And
so, right now
the right now I've got the money coming
out of the reduction remaining pool
monies. There was about $18,000 left in
that after 10 years. And then the 10%
reduction in material expenses for each
for each of the next two years which is
38,000. We said that was close enough in
the general fund making up the
difference between the 40 and the 38. So
if I understand it right, the big
picture is we're back filling where the
WLE funds are falling shorter than they
used to be. We're doing it and we're
reducing our expenditures by cutting
back on our material budget. That's
Yeah, I mean I think Colleen is going to
probably want to potentially look at
that and evaluate it
potentially change. So the library is
reviewing changing. Right now the
library has a vacant full-time library
system. Right now they're looking at
changing that into two halftime
assistants help with scheduling
flexibility. right now with every person
just being about full time. A lot of
them they tend to have less scheduling
flexibility if they had more part time.
This will also save about $12,000 a year
in wages and benefits which could be
used to absorb part of that reduction
funding instead of potentially reducing
material items.
Colle budget will be library budget will
be reviewed at the end of the first year
of the two-year budget period. based on
the uh outcome of the county's proposed
levy and the proposed new funding
allocation that may come about passes.
So we're not sure how the second year
could look. We could get more revenue if
it passes. So we're just not just if I
can maybe add to that briefly. The
county actually right now is doing
pooling. This is going to be the second
of three polls on a proposed levy
increase of 15 cents for WCCCLS.
Um, after these poll results come in, I
think there's the reason that the county
is looking at pulling three times is
just kind of this economic uncertainty
that's out there. So, we're seeing how
that might affect what a what a
potential replacement would for the
libraries would look like. The board is
going to reconsider in August whether
they want to do a 10 or a 15 cent
increase. They are leaning toward a 15
cent increase if the balloon results
sustain
it. Uh at that point they're going to do
a third and final poll before a final
vote from the county on whether to put
it on the ballot and at what rate. The
final vote to put it on the ballot has
to be in August in time for the November
election, but there will be a third
poll. So in terms of kind of like the
other thing that's going on parallel to
this process and and Colleen knows the
details much better than I do is a
governance and funding study and the
governance and funding study is being
done by all of WCCLS's partners. Marina
and Company is the consultant that's
been hired. All of WCCLS partners
include all the municipalities and also
garden homes, Cedar Hills, county
nonprofits in
Aloa. So all the partners are involved
in this process. They are talking about
some changes. Um but um none of those
are are going to be known until and all
of these are kind of tied to the levy.
So all these efforts are kind of
intertwined. That's part of the reason
that in this vacancy that that we
have currently, we're just kind of
pausing on that. We're gonna we're not
like pausing the expenses of it. We're
just pausing the hiring of it. So the
expenses of it are in the budget and
those expenses could be used for
temporary services whether with existing
employees or maybe even hiring temporary
employees to maintain our level of
service. We really do need to get a
clearer picture after November before we
before we look at potentially a
full-time modified offer to an employee.
We need to know it has a stable funding
source. The levy doesn't pass. I think
there's a big question mark about what
WCCLS would do the next year and what
the county would do the next year. The
trend has been a 1% increase, but I
think Colleen would probably agree with
me that they've also hinted at
flat, which would be the same amount as
last year. Um, and so if that's the
case, then the compounded results that
you just saw earlier that Paul showed,
they get even more dramatic. And when
you take a percent off of a million
dollars, it's it can be significant. I
mean, it's automatically $10,000. If you
compound it over the years, that
compounds to 20 and then to 40 and then
so it's just something to kind of
consider. Paul's been going to all the
meetings. I've been going to the
meetings that I can. We've been very
tuned into it.
So the budget as we are currently
considering it would allow you to
maintain current levels of service. Is
that right? Yes. Um as Jesse said, we're
considering some temporary something
until we know the outcome of the study.
Yes.
We don't we don't think we're going to
reduce service yet. And you know I think
we're what their term would be in
November, but I think we're watching it
closely and the board is trying to make
steps to assure that there would not be
a reduction in
service. I I think that consider our
library to be shining
stars with cutting services.
Yeah, like I said, the changes on the
prior page were mine and not so much the
libraries as
the library time. So, I I made those
first decisions on where to make those
changes. So, it's and I will be having
discussions over the next couple weeks.
Don't tell me where. I'll do it myself.
So, well, some of these we didn't know
at the first initial meetings. The the
position was
was the person left. So and I'll be
discussing some stuff we may tweak with
some line items over the
next. Are there any questions for
questions? Any questions?
All right, next couple departments will
be in.
All right.
on the aquatic
center
tons. Uh the revenue is based on
projected activity for next year based
on current fee
structure which will probably include an
increased cost of living fee for current
city code while we're waiting for the
recreation fee study.
City has historically worked on the
unwritten policy of collecting trying to
recover approximately 50% of the
operating costs not including major
maintenance cost as that would be very
difficult to
recover. uh parks and recreation fees
study. The generic completion could
change projected revenue activity
depending on the results of that study
and any changes to cost recovery policy
that the council may
adopt and also when the council may
decide to put the results of that feep
into effect.
And then we did a risk assess assessment
at the aquatic center over the last 18
months. It consisted of an initial
assessment and then a follow-up visit by
the consultant. Staff's implemented many
of the recommended changes that took
current staff time or relatively small
amounts of funding to implement. One
recommendation is requiring additional
funding requires additional funding is
to increase the number of training hours
for lifeguards instructors. Proposed
budget includes adding an additional 600
hours each year for additional training.
That will give us two additional hours
of training per month for the projected
number of staff, projected number of
staff that we have, which will get us to
three hours a month of total training,
which is getting us kind of around the
county area, around the average schools
in the area, but not not quite up to the
recommended recommended standard, but I
mean the recommended standards are
they're just a recommended standard, but
we are looking at substantially
increasing the training for the
Any questions?
Particular risk that we were worried
about that prompt to risk assessment.
We hadn't done one for a while and it's
and it's good to do some it's good to do
a risk assessment in a facility like the
aquatic center because there are a lot
of inherent risks that can happen
quickly in all all sorts of types of
situations.
So we do the swollen face plant heart
attacks other things and it's just and
you also want to make sure that
the staff and talked a bit better about
the sling the staff when they're on duty
they have a emergency kind of two things
one they're watching the swimmers
swimmers in the pool they're also
keeping their mind on what happens when
emergency occurs what do I do so want to
add anything to that an yes and You
know, it's just good practice to um take
a a look inside of your operations um
using an outside consultant to do an
assessment periodically.
Um
and yeah, we hire a lot of very young
staff. Our turnover is pretty quick um
because of that. Uh it's not unlike any
other aquatic center though. And uh
training is is a really important factor
for making sure that these young people
know how to respond
appropriately in the midst of it.
How often do we do these announcements
or is there
like every five years we're going to
evaluate 10 years?
Yes, this is about the one of the first
ones since I've been here as long as
I've been here. They're probably
something that a facility like this we
need to do more more rarely probably I
would
say cycle yeah I'm
sorry my thought you could probably do
something like this with master plan
every time you do a master
plan make it part of that process roll
it into the funding source it just
becomes part of and you do a master plan
generally speaking every five to seven
years five to 10
I think too for anything else
like I don't know I think just pull it
all in together
and on the aquatic center we do have
some major maintenance projects budgeted
over the next two years but we put those
in the major maintenance home so we'll
be talking about those next Sure.
Um risk assessment also makes me think
about insurance and I'm wondering if it
involves you know if it involves an
evaluation to bring back to our insurers
about whether or not there opportunities
to lower risk and maybe even we were
working with city county insurance with
their they have risk management staff
besides the consultant who is more more
vers we we were working with CIS on this
thing on this as well so they're aware
where it won't be done. And any
recommendations for lowering insurance
costs or is that part? Probably not so
much. It's just it's probably more only
doing the hour of training if we're
probably by increasing it up to three,
we're probably lowering the risk of more
insurance premium increases without
having without having what they might
consider sufficient training.
Do we have a separate policy for the
aquatic center that covers its unique
risks or just no part of the
general? I mean each department has each
department can have
specific specific premiums attached to
it. Say for example fire department
there's no there's no cost for
additional firefighters but for each
additional police officer you hire your
liability insurance goes up like $1,200
for each officer each officer additional
officer you have on staff. There are
additional liability treatments
associated specifically with additional
police officers. Certain so certain
they're they're all sort of somewhat
priced differently depending on what
you're looking
at. Yeah, there's no question that
parks and so recreation use fees are
fields and park shelter
rentals for those fields. Those are
being reviewed as part of the parks and
recreation user fee
study. The more fun areas ants having as
part of fe
study council objective 2.6 they asked
us to look at city administration
staffing also wanted us to look at parks
maintenance staffing. After reviewing
the staffing and the having budget,
several meetings in hand, decision was
made to recommend that we start a new
master plan this year and that would
include reviewing staff required for any
new parks facilities that would be
added. The decision to add more
facilities would be tied also be tied to
the maintenance required for that
facility. While the master plan's being
done, even though there's other parks in
the pipeline, we decided we would only
add East Side Park, which is just
nearing completion. It would have been
except for the tree falling over. So,
they had to go back through and redesign
because the tree that was in the center
of the park fell over and sort of messed
up their
design. The East Side Park would be the
only park that would be added as as an
felt the current staff could handle the
addition of that part with the
maintenance requirements but couldn't
take on
anymore. Currently the parks department
is still using several older trucks from
new apartments other departments. We
were able to some of the last of the
ARPA money that all spent up on December
31st. We were able to buy a Ford F1
F-150 Lightning truck for the parks
maintenance supervisor which I think he
really likes.
So, and we're also proposing this year
to purchase another new truck from the
department. So, we get rid of one of the
older
trucks. And we're not going to use
general fund money, but we're going to
we have another fund called trail system
fund. And we're going to use $55,000 of
that money
uh and transfer that to the equipment
fund for the purchase of the
truck. Last year, we bought a Bobcat.
part of what we do the whole Bob got
around the trail. So this truck will be
used to help
Bob.
It's it's a purchase of the trail
system. Source of the trail system fund
money
is about one of the only cities that has
is waste management rate of return is
over a certain percent. The city gets
everything above that certain percent.
And so the money is
accumulated
excess excess money waste management has
earned over their allowable rate of
return. Equipment fund charges are
increasing by about
$24,000. Part of that is because the new
equipment is being purchased. So you add
more maintenance to the system, you add
more insurance and you also add starting
to build replacement funds for those be
those trucks when they are due to be
replaced in 10 to 12 years.
trying to keep general pickup trucks for
at least 10 years. But we always look at
them and if they're holding up, we'll
keep them keep them for some additional
years. We don't just replace something
because it because it because it says
here's the here's the actual replacement
time about the only with the exception
being in police patrol vehicles. We find
your Ford Explorers we get about five
good years out of but after that
maintenance starts adding up. So we do
replace the police patrol vehicles as we
got and scheduled the equipment
replacement. So by increasing the
equipment fund charges we will have
enough money to ensure sufficient
replacement funds are
available equipment scheduled to be
replaced.
All I have any questions on
parks? What is the council schedule for
reviewing this?
So can I answer you want to answer? Go
ahead. So we um the parks and rec
commission ask the council take a look
at the just the
rentals the rentals portion of it. So we
had a few meetings the parks lison
councor Marshall myself just director
Lane we're looking at having a listening
session. We're going to do a a meeting
pool June 2nd or third one of those
options. We'll listen and then we're
gonna have a work
session later.
June 23rd. June 23rd.
No, excuse me. June 9th. Juneth. June.
Oh, we did get it on.
debate. We're just trying to Yeah. But I
mean, it feels like that's that's going
to be a similar dilemma as like a levy
where you know there's this scenario
planning.
Does your current budget assume no
increase in fees or what are you
assuming that currently
the current budget includes the current
fee structure as as as set by the
council and right now that includes a
morator. So for all of the aquatic fees
and the light fees and other fees those
would be increasing the normal
percentage rate that we would propose.
The one that that as Paul mentioned and
hand you could add to this there's a
moratorium on is the field rental just
the field rental fees we still do charge
a lighting charge so for the expense
associated with lighting if it's at
night we still administer that fee the
use of the field itself however it's not
so a followup question is once this is
resolved and then let's say there is a
change in the rental fee then we will
just I mean what will we do budget wise
Yeah. Well, as as I say with all as I
say with all general fund fees, part of
it and you can set the fee, but part of
it is based on volume and how many how
many actual field rentals you have.
Depending on what field you may set,
that may change whether somebody rent
fields from you or not. So that's that's
where we kind of look at hand as the
consultant is kind of say, you know,
depending on what the fee may be
proposed or are we potentially pricing
people
elsewhere and that that's always part of
the consideration
is some services like this where there
may be other could be other limited
options, they still do have potential
alternatives.
I think maybe another way to answer that
is right now there's no revenue
associated with
So if the fee is implemented by the
council investor, it's likely that the
revenues that would come in would be
more than what revenue is right now. But
it still hasn't been I mean we still
haven't over the years don't really get
enough fee rental to shift the need a
lot of what we doing what we may be
doing for the parks department because
you look at the discretionary revenue
for parks there's very little
discretionary revenue parks is almost
self the parks division itself almost
100% general by discretionary revenue
Interesting
answer. I'm interested as we go through
this that
conversation relative to the value
proposition. What's the tradeoff? some
of the some of the grass fields that the
team may use require more. Yeah, those
are that that's serve as a baseline.
What is
the value
proposition
for
answer this is going to be a tough
process
I guess you know I guess I want to
understand do you want director Lane to
tell us the overall cost of the upkeep
of those rental facilities and is that
what would help you like as we're as
we're planning this work session on June
9th like explain how we got where we are
structure and what we're the compromise
you know we're going to try to find I
guess you know don't answer that now but
if there's things that you need from
staff to help you
come to like to resolve this you know
dilemma then that would be great to know
so we can help build that in the
presentation but I mean we can talk
about that at
that
question recreation
So the budgeted revenue for this
division
includes
$315,000 of the recreation program
revenue which would include estimated
scholarship payments from the fund for
fund and then $103,000 of property taxes
which we allocated bases as part of the
decision what we did the local auction
level of it local option levy that we
would would give recreation about
$50,000 starting out then increase it by
about $1,000 a year for supplies and
other programs. So right now we 51 and
52 for a total of
100. There's two types of expenses for
this division. There is the direct
expenses of running the recreation
program and the administrative expenses
of planning and managing recreation
programs division
itself. the coming by annual budget. The
recreation division is instructed that
the cost of the programs are not to
exceed the revenue direct revenue for
those
programs. That way there's no general
fund subsidies programs at the current
time. This may change after the peace
study is completed. The council decides
what if any subsidies might be available
be made available for aggregation
programs. Right now they're they're
supposed to run into this. There's no
general fund subsidy being provided or
the direct expenses program. So when you
say the cost of the program about cost
of running the program that's been
planned already hiring the staff the
basic supplies supplies to run this
program itself if they have to rent the
facility do the
program facility those kind of direct
expenses have to be fully covered by the
direct but the expense of staff
involved. like time and for the
administrative specialist time and her
time allocated for Cody's time which is
covered the recreation coordinator's
times covered by the levy those will be
considered administrative cost for
planning manage Okay.
[Music]
police.
[Music]
Okay, as we said earlier, the police
notes will not police association
contracts being
negotiated. Two officers are being
partially funded by the three years cops
grant. Most of the next second and third
years of the grant will essentially
cover the next two fiscal years. They
don't line up perfectly because you have
to go by when the office
start employment proposed. Budget also
includes school resource officer
reimbursement and that's
calculated for one half of the two years
of the officer's wages and benefits
who's assigned as the school resource
officer for nine months of the fiscal
year. You can follow that. So basically
one half of the salary times 9 months
times 9 times 9 of the 12 months is what
the school district is 12*.5
yes.5 salary benefits times 91 that's
what the school resource reimbursement
is
924 the local auction levy has rejected
adding two police officers in fiscal
year
25 26 27 excuse me why I have to draw
Fix
that 627. Upon reviewing the projection
that projection steps instead proposing
adding one officer starting July 1, 2025
and the second officer starting July
1st,
2027. Cost of this approach is about the
same as the local option levy approach.
You got little bit more money because of
the step
increase two, but not much. and but it
gets another officer out on patrol
earlier. And I think the place that was
their preference was was if they could
it was to get that one officer out on
patrol earlier. Only other item note is
the police department budget's
increasing equipment fund charges
increasing to cover the reflecting costs
increasing cost of the oper of operating
and maintaining police vehicles and
anything about police
officer. Any questions? How many
officers do we have on?
So on paper we're technically fully
staff but we have two officers in
background one officer going to the
police academy next week and two in
training. So right now we have 19
officers on
patrol and one
military I'm going to claim
to
even move into that building
the bond passes I'd say 28 sometimes
sometimes. So given what I've
learned very quickly in the short three
months
um I would expected to see some
paragraph on some building to
address occupational
health and this is where I'm the sources
and uses what where that what sources
can be for that purpose.
So I think when we get to the major
maintenance
fund, we can we can look at that under
the major maintenance fund. What's
another fund that will be applicable to
making improvements in the existing
facility? The general fund general fund
CFX.
So I think when we get to the major
maintenance fund, can we maybe raise
that again and kind of contextualize the
conversation that
The other one is as Paul mentioned is
the general fund itself. I think one of
the questions that kind of comes up is
what
improvements what what would those
improvements kind of look like? What
would that cost be? Um do you want to
make
those in a short kind of what's the time
frame environment in which to make those
kind of improvements? Um what's the
long-term perspectives toward possibly
going back out on another ballot? And if
so
when you know I think another question
is gonna do we want to do some polling
about you know if it doesn't pass do
some polling about why not what needs to
be addressed what were the major points
you know those kinds of things so
um I think councelor show a lot of these
issues are going to depending on the
outcome of what happens a lot of these
questions are going to pop up including
what some of the what some of the
investments the facility may be
um in the short term We did, I'll
refresh my memory. We did, and Henry,
maybe you remember, we did look at, we
did look at some of the HVAC. We did put
a new condenser on the building. We put
a new condenser on it. We did some
improvements to the roof. There was some
remodeling inside that occurred. There's
still some conditions that are clearly
not optimal, especially in the
summertime. Correct me if I'm
wrong. So, I think we'd have to look at,
you know, some issues there.
fixing some of it's going to require
some major expenses, too. I mean, it's
not going to be like a 10 20,000
solution on the HVAC on the Hback to
some will get hot in there. Put the
condenser in and put the condenser and
that's helped some. And so, it's there
it's getting to be another one of these
older buildings that's going to start
taking a lot of money a lot of money to
keep up. So, it's like Jesse said, the
question is what would you do if the
levy passes? What would you do would be
worth doing over the next two years?
next two years to make to make changes
in there
or if it doesn't pass and how long you
think you still might be in there and
what then again would that change the
calculus on what type of improvements
you may or may not want to make. I mean
you're going to use the major
maintenance fund you're coming down to
decision between what you may want to do
in the police building versus what you
may want to do with the aquatic center.
Well, I
will I
specifically
occupational health or whatever phrase
would would
describe or real
existing that hampers
either
help or there's already people being
displaced to less productive space. So
does that hamper the service level and
where I'm wanting to be aggressive
is I would guess that this this has been
the same rationale for maybe 15 years
now if I heard it go back that far. So,
I'm I'm just
declaring enough is enough for officers
to to
suffer. I mean, it's I I give credit
to
personality for the detention of folks.
But, you know, I just as an employer, I
I can't stand
to
expose to a harmful work environment.
So I'm clinging to the optimism that
passes, but even if it does, that's we
have to address that those immediate
health hazards regardless. I don't care
what it costs.
But I think reframing kind of the
question potentially
um I think there's been so much focus on
the police facility and on the bond.
I'll just be candid. I'm not sure that
we have really kind of vetted internally
the question
about even if the bond passes, are there
improvements that need to be made to the
building between now and when it's
constructed? And I think that's a
conversation we need to have. We haven't
had that conversation. We've had parts
of that conversation and we've made
improvements to the facility recently,
especially with regard to the roof and
with regard to some portions of the
HVAC, but we do need to get some more
information and bring that back. We
haven't we haven't had that kind of
thorough conversation because we've been
just kind of really focused on this. So,
let's have the conversation and and
yeah, we need to bring something back on
this and I I think it's a legitimate
point. I I'd like to know a little bit
more about what are the working
conditions of the summer, how that is
impacting staff, if it is impacting
staff, under what conditions, and then
some proposed improvements associated
with it. So, we'll have that
conversation. Now, the same risk
assessment you're referring to on school
carry over a different
And it's ultimately well what about you
know our personal responsibility for the
health of our staff but also are
likely appreciate what
is after
um
I don't know about that. Um there's been
some conversations about what to do with
with the facility um if it if it does
pass. There hasn't been any final
decisions made because eventually it's
eventually it will be made. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, I think there's been some
conversations. We did have a market
assessment done for the building both
for leasing potential and and just kind
of a market assessment for sale
potentially. Just looking at kind of all
of the options. We've had internal
discussions about potentially
repurposing if so for what purpose? if
there was any city departments that
needed it. If so, what departments and
what? Um, so there's been a lot of kind
of conversation. There's been some
conversation about what's what's an
opportunity to do with that site. Is
there an opportunity kind of outside the
box of that building and another
community need that might be identified
that you could use that for? It's a
pretty good
location. Google agency would like to
buy it. Well, there's there was talks
about potentially the URRA. Um I I I I
think there's kind of been a lot of, you
know, lookie and talk about those
options. Um but it's kind of also a
little bit difficult to plan for that in
the absence of, you know, it's currently
occupied, right? So just don't know the
answer. Yeah. So we we don't there's no
final final preferred alternative. I
think that would be a conversation with
council for sure and with the community.
I think the couple are are two
questions.
the the investment you would put into
let's say for the next few
years that anyway
service the roof you don't have to do
any remodeling or let let the remodel
but you got to address
I think that I think those improvements
could be I don't potentially potentially
um want to kind of sold with real
estate. I'm just suggesting that if
there's some if we make it serviceable,
it's not worth throwing away. Yeah, it
could potentially raise the value for
sure. Example, I mean, example, we put
we put
$105,000 police roof recently, which we
hope can get us by another four or five
years and it's going to take probably
another 800,000 to a million to replace
that roof. So there are some significant
costs significant costs coming up but we
we did I mean there were some leaks
during time of upgrading and so we we
got those all sealed up now something
there and the library and the police
share a little bit of infrastructure
between the two buildings. So if you
were going to sell it you'd have to
address that issue and so there there's
all kinds of all kinds of somewhat
unknown costs would be associated with
that.
It's I don't know you've been in it I'm
sure it's not
the most pleasantly laid out building in
the architects and it would take quite a
bit to quite a bit of expense to remodel
it. So it's for for alternative use. So
it's it's just something to look at for
the future.
question on fire.
I can answer the
questions. All right. So,
the resources uh city's been paying 88%
for district district 12% of the
operating costs. Cost operating costs
are based on the fouryear Jim is
actually on his hand.
Jim feeling better.
[Music]
Well, I'm not sure I'm feeling much
better, but I I uh I'm live and here on
uh online.
All right.
If need be.
All right. Any questions? We'll address
them. Um
the the costs are based on a 5-year
rolling average. The operating cost for
the district will increase from 12 to
12.4% on July 1st,
2025.4% may not sound like a lot, but
$30,000 of additional expenses the
required district will be paying for
those operating
costs. Dischar expenses projected to be
a little over $1.8 $8 million over the
next two years. We've not budgeted any
revenue from the city of Cornelius for
the coming bienium as Cornelius has
hired hired its own fire chief. There
may be some revenue from other services,
but those potential services are still
being discussed. So, like I said, no no
revenue
budget. Firefighters will be receiving
4% cost of living increases over the
next two each of the next two years.
And as we projected in the local option
levy, we are proposing adding three
firefighters as of July 1st, 2025, which
will give the department seven
firefighters on each
shift. This will increase the frequency
of the department respond to two
simultaneous calls from 45% to about 90%
of the time when it's achieved.
and the ability to frequently staff two
apparatus was one primary outcome of
increase in local auction levy that we
hold the residents and also as the
busiest station measured by calls for
firefighter. This will also have the
benefit of reducing the number of calls
for firefighter. So firefighters may not
have to respond to a single call if
they're depending on what the call is
just stay back at the station.
What time they develop calls in each 24
hour
[Music]
period button working?
There it goes. Expenses tools 50/50 line
item. It's all this because the expenses
are considered capital outlay for
building purposes. fire
district vary from year to year
depending on the amounts to be
purchased. Ongoing annual item we buy
include turnouts and saf other safety
equipment replacement pagers rescue
rescue replacement payments for the
heart monitor releases. We've released
the current heart monitors for 10 years
new items proposed for well not new so
what but proposing carrying over $25,000
for location study for fire station
budgeting $20,000 for replacement of the
remaining light fixtures with LED
fixtures. There are some other
maintenance that were maintenance items
partly budgeting and two other funds
that we'll discuss next next
week. Vehicle maintenance and operating
supplies are being increased by
$10,000 this week 2526 and an additional
$11,000 26 27 to better reflect the
actual cost maintenance of the
apparatus.
So that's the fire operations side and
we got Jim online might skip ahead and
do the first real quick but there any
questions on the fire department
itself at one point there was verbage
about delaying the hire that was last
year what we a cut and pace thing what
we no what we considered last year was
so so last year what we considered was
trying to move them up actually six
months in the
And we were going to look at an
assessment for January 1st of this year.
About the three firefighters about the
Oh, I'm sorry. We'll talk we'll talk
about that at the second question. I can
talk about it now. The There's the fire
chief and then the organizational troop.
Currently, there's three what we call
division chief positions. There's
training and operations and then the
fire marshal. Those aren't chief. Those
aren't the fire chief. They're division.
And one of the one of the division
chiefs there's too many chiefs now. One
of the chief's positions is vacant.
Division chief's position is vacant. So
we're going to keep that position vacant
while we while we go through the the
things with Cornelius. So So the big
picture, not to belabor this is in 2010
we signed an agreement with Cornelius to
offer fire chief services and fire
management services. In 2015, we signed
a contract with Gaston to offer fire
management services. Over the course of
that time frame, between 2010 and today,
2025, essentially a position was was not
necessarily added, but taken out of one
of the shifts and over time it was
reclassified into a division chief
position. And that division chief
position became essentially responsible
for volunteers
um training and essentially the
organization was organized so that one
division chief would manage um Gaston,
one would do Cornelius and one would do
Forest Grove. Each would have one of the
various stations. There were other
duties along with that. And now what
we're looking at is we're looking at a
change structure. Fire Cornelius is
hiring their own fire chief. They
tripled their levy. Um, Gaston no longer
has an IGA with us. We still have an IGA
kind of on paper with Cornelius, but we
can expect that to be going away as the
Cornelius fire chief becomes kind of
fully up to speed. And so, it's just
kind of we have to look at the
organization internally and ask
ourselves how does this position still
fit? Um, if it does, what does that look
like? What's the volume of work, the the
complexity of the work, the nature of
the work, kind of kind of what's what's
left after after this kind of change
over the last
three to four years since
that makes sense. I didn't appreciate
that there was a difference between
division chief and chief that I thought
we were talking about chief we have
chief I thought
okay that's the fire department any
questions
in online real
Let's
just jump into the first jump. Okay. F.
Okay. The revenue is
there. Uh revenue includes payment from
the rural fire district for one half of
the capital of the proposed equipment.
Uh the other major revenue source for
this is the transfer of funds from the
CIP excise tax which paid for the city
share of the apparatus. CIPXI tested
that $3 a month charge of CIP utility
bills expenditures in the coming bianium
in 2526 or
$110,000 for a new command
vehicle.
Um and then 2627 is $340,000 for a new
type six engine which is kind of a brush
rate otherwise brush rate. Also a couple
year several years ago now we paid for a
new type one engine paid for it. That
engine is expected to be delivered for
in a couple weeks and fire engines are
currently taking time to build. Um, also
the department is considering selling
the aerial platform or the ladder truck
as it's probably more commonly referred
to uh due to its lack of use
particularly in Forest Grove and the
difficulty providing proper training for
the staff on operating truck.
The proceeds from sale of the apparatus
be equally divided between the city and
rural fire district. The city's proceeds
be go back into this fund. It's going to
help to cover the cost of other fire
apparatus because the cost of other fire
apparatus continues to accelerate. So
the ladder truck doesn't wouldn't be
used for some of these higher apartment
buildings if we had
a story fire. Um, I'm gonna let Jim talk
about how the how the uh how the ladder
trucks would be used. Probably I'll let
Jim talk about it. Yeah, thank you. Um,
there are a couple issues with our our
ladder truck and the use of it. One,
we're not staffed uh on the on the
truck. In other words, our staffing is
cross staffed. If we have um employees
who are on the engine uh and the truck
is um dispatched, the employees will
grab their equipment and switch over to
the truck. They have to physically grab
their equipment, load it up onto the
truck, and then respond on the truck.
The only time that will happen is if
there's a fire outside of the city. So,
we would essentially be taking our truck
outside of the city responding to
Cornelius or Hillsboro or or other. Um,
if the if there was enough staffing
during the day, which means there would
have to be at least six staffed uh per
day, then we could staff both the the
truck and the engine. That rarely if
ever happens. So, what we find is that
we're not our own truck that we
maintain, pay for, etc. is not
responding within our our own city. It's
responding outside of our city. The
other issue is the truck is a um is is
uh sort of a specialty apparatus and
there are certain activities that
require
um specified training to be proficient
to conduct those duties that that are
required of a ladder truck. and we don't
we don't currently uh maintain the types
of hours that are required uh to service
a ladder truck. It's a concern of our
management team. It's a concern of the
employees and uh we've been considering
this for at least a couple years and I
think we have finally brought this to um
a priority and made a a decision uh last
last week. I think on Thursday or
Friday, we remove the truck from service
and our next uh course of action is to
put it up on the um on the block for
sale. We will either sell it with the
equipment or or without the equipment.
And currently, we've been uh asked by
TVF&R uh to take a look at the truck and
they're interested in purchasing it. We
we believe that we can uh uh sell the
truck for what we purchased it for at
least, which was about 900 or $950,000.
Ask Jim to confirm that that point that
today our staff staff engine.
Yeah. Thank Thank you. I if we had a
need if we when we have a need for a
truck to respond to a fire in our city
uh that truck will respond from
Hillsboro and if that if truck five from
Hillsboro is not available it will come
from TVF&NR. Uh, for example, we had uh
maybe six or eight weeks ago, we had a
fire at the apartment complex uh just
west of Prime Time. And uh you know, to
speak to the point that I made a moment
ago, our own truck didn't respond to
that call because it wasn't staffed. Our
staff took the engine because the engine
has water hose and a pump. That's the
priority um to respond to a structure
fire. So, we received the truck from
Hillsboro uh that night and and we would
depend on Hillsboro
um for any future requests or needs for
a truck. And by the way, we uh this this
decision was not made in a vacuum. We we
spoke um within the department with our
chief officers, our company officers. Uh
we met between labor and management. We
met with the city manager's office and
we also met with the
uh horse rural fire protection district
board members. Um and finally we met
with all of the chiefs from all of the
departments in Washington County to
discuss um potential impacts uh due to
taking the truck out of service.
So the truck is now out of service.
Correct. That's correct.
Thank you.
No questions.
Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Jeff.
Thanks for coming. Thank you. Have a
good night.
Just because I was getting Jim out of
there. Okay. I was kicking Jim off.
Okay. Planning economic development up.
You got here right at 6, right?
Say what? I said it's good when you got
here right at six. I was just thinking
that how lucky I was to be here on time.
You know, he likes participating.
Okay.
Um, you'll see two different staffing
total lines which you haven't seen on
anybody else's because we're also
proposing adding a new associate planner
as of July 1st,
2026. That's to help meet the additional
need for additional staff to the
increased planning goal objectives
established by the city
council. The additional planning
requirements from the state. The state
seems to almost be driving building
permit planning more than the localities
are anymore by editorial government.
Um one half of the proposed position one
half be funded by the building permit
fund as the position will be doing
current planning and permitting for new
housing and other developments. So it is
an allowable expense of building permit
funds since it's related to building
activity. Uh professional services in
the first year benium the $25,000 for a
westside planning area financial
feasibility study to determine the
estimated cost infrastructure
development potential revenue
funded. Um if the westside planning area
is not financially feasible the city may
have to look to other areas i.e.
land down on the flat which is going to
be
another additional to itself to get
changes made. Uh the fiscal 2627 budget
plus $50,000 development urban con urban
reserve concept plan which we will need
as part of that part of the effort for
the westside planning study to be
wrapped up and completed. We've also
included
$150,000 plus funding 2627 to begin a
comprehensive plan update which is
expected to take a couple years of all
the items including comprehensive plan
and the amount of community
engagement engagement that will be
needed. So those are the major changes
in planning that we've got. So so west
side planning area means basically up in
the hills right? Yeah. David Hill
reserve area westside planning area kind
of used a little bit interchangeably but
technically we're talking reserve area
that's way up in the
middle that is outside the growth
boundary right now can be brought in
with proper concept planning it was
added in the grand bargain uh the state
legislature initiative uh in
2014 pretty year um and there are a lot
of sort of questions about how to
develop that
steep slopes, wildland interface, you
know, insurance is a huge part of this
discussion now with insurability in
fireprone areas and things like that.
Um, and so to it, yeah, getting water to
is another thing with brother elevation,
we have a hard time getting water
suppression. Um and so prior to really
doing a lot of concept planning up there
we really kind of need to look at is
development feasible. So that
feasibility analysis is sort of looking
at prior
to this
metro
swap and also a
I I know some reviews and
target. So I'm curious what we know or
what we're what we're
reading factor into this
next. We have received our targets
metro only just received them. So we
have
two and those those targets are sort of
stratified if you will based upon
affordability. Um and a lot of that kind
of feed into our housing capacity
analysis which is sort of uh looking at
how the city
can help provide housing if you will at
all targets and everything.
Um it it's probably premature right now
to really kind of know how it's going to
look. Um but part of our housing
capacity is a lot of that would be
carried to this urban reserve area. Um
and the catch with that certain reserve
are the fact that you're on steep slopes
you are having that wild interface and
things like that. Um it just becomes
much more expensive to develop.
infrastructure costs more. Uh cuts and
bills for roads cost more. And if you're
ever going to see housing up there, it's
probably not going to be supportive
place. So that's kind of
what a swap
I think potentially. I think before you
would entertain that or before Metro
would entertain it though, they would
want to have some type of potential
concept plan
about what what you could do in it to
kind of characterize and I think we want
to get an idea of what we might be able
to do in it as well before we approach
Metro about some potential swap. I I
will say
um it's been 11 years since the Grand
Bargain. The Grand Bargain didn't just
establish some urban reserves. It took
some areas that were in urban reserve
and made them rural reserves. And it
also took some areas that were
previously in urban reserve and put them
into the urban grow. So it's a pretty
comprehensive piece of legislation. It
was passed by the state. And so in
theory, depending on what it looks like,
if you want to look at an URRA or a UGB
change, you would likely be looking at
depending on the nexus to the grand
bargain, you may be looking at state
legislation associated with that. Not
just not just us going to Metro and
saying Metro, please please do this or
don't do it. Um, but I think we have to
characterize those areas. What Brian
said was spot on. It's it's expensive to
develop. So, if you're looking for kind
of more affordable, um, higher density,
steep slopes don't tend to.
Um, just two quick points on on those.
Um, might want to look at Hillsboro's
recent letter from BLC on the response
to their housing capacity analysis. They
included the expansion and was denied
right said nope you are not allowed to
consider land outside of the current UGB
for housing capacity as a production
strategy sorry as a in their HPS. So
they they proposed as one of their um
one of their strategies. Yeah. Go ahead.
I'm curious was that was that land that
was in an urban reserve area that could
be added or just kind of new UV? Good
question. But I also think it's even if
that's even if that's not the case, I
think it it still really, you know,
informs our discussion about, you know,
swap. And right now there are two cities
I think currently they have legislation
right now in Salem for exactly this
thing. So I don't have a bill number for
you, but that is also
something that's like a very specific
legislation that two cities are looking
outside of Washington. Yeah.
I know that our urban reserve area, a
lot of urban reserve areas have been
added over the past decade. Um,
Sherwood's added, King City's added,
Tiger, Beaverton, Pills Bro. There's
been a lot of Urra converted to UGB. And
so what that does, I mean, we
have some of the last URA left, so to
speak. Um, and it's going to put I don't
want to say a focus on it, but I think
you could say it might put an emphasis
on it.
I think that's true. And I mean, just to
kind of
charact that information in 2014 when we
kind of were were talking about this
area, my understanding wasn't here. Um,
but there was a lot of excitement about
sort of executive housing up in the
hills and and what that would do for
Corro and and that was 2014, right? I
mean that was a differently different
conversation about housing back then.
Um, and so, you know, this is way of
saying a lot's changed since then.
out there
stems quite a bit of the area. It's just
that makes more sense to
develop
correct questions. Move on to economic
development. Shouldn't take too long.
The budget is relatively unchanged. The
position currently puts the development
director with his proposal assistant
city manager after the
change. Coming by the position will use
a recently
adopted economic opportunity analysis to
work with the economic development
commission to help update the EDC
strategic plan to help finding economic
development objectives over the next few
years and will also participate in the
January property development discussion.
makes sense
to push off the last two things for next
week. Do the URA since we've already
noticed that
and engineering there's really nothing
to say. So we skip that's why I've
already talked about okay
uh non departmental the only of
significance on this slide. Real
quickly, the first two paragraphs and
expenses are the same kind of just
repeated last year. We're proposing
transferring when we've had a surplus of
revenue or expenditures fund. We going
to practice transfer portion of that
surplus to the major maintenance
fund. Those these transfer the interest
earnings on those transfers the major to
the major maintenance fund has been the
source of funding for that fund. The
staff's proposing to transfer
$250,000 of the what we had $2.7 million
surplus this year to the major
maintenance fund to help fund some
upcoming major maintenance funds in the
aquatic center or the police building
and also leave a small balance in the
major maintenance fund for emergencies.
We're not proposing transferring any
more than the 250,000 because we think
that would bring the general funds and
the proposed balance for the bianium
down too far. So we limiting that
transfer to
Sorry. Go
back. We can switch over. We got two
things we need to do tonight. ones the
state probably hearing that state share
revenue and we can start with the urban
renewal. I mean it says we got three
meetings and we've got quite a ways
tonight we can comfortably comfortably
we get those two things done because
what
is what all that's basically saying is
that if the ACM is split from the
finance director the economic
development coordinator would report
directly to the assistant city manager.
I think I'm trying to read
I think we're trying to reflect coming
up one of the emerging themes of the
vision 2040 process which is the economy
and this will kind of take that and
elevate
that. Okay. So let's go to
the
actually except for building purpose we
covered everything else
covered back we'll come back to building
next meeting. Okay. State share and
public revenue hearings. What I need to
do is open a public hearing on
state report. Meeting is now open for
public hearing on state shared revenue.
Okay. We're required to do two public
hearings each year to be eligible to
receive state shared revenue each fiscal
year. We hold the first hearing at this
budget committee meeting and the second
hearing is held at the city council
meeting where the
2527 budget will be
adopted. We receive this receiving the
following amounts of state shared
revenue based on per capita amount of
the city's population compared to the
state population.
This is bianial revenue not single year
general fund alcoholic beverage tax
about
889,000 cigarette tax over the two years
about 31 state share revenue which is
actually a further distribution of the
alcohol beverage tax about
$586,000 state marijuana tax about
$79,000 gasoline tax for the bianium 99%
of the gas tax by state constitution
that's got street funds That's about
$4.4 million roughly. And then 1% of the
gas tax has to go into the bike and
pedestrians pathways fund. That's about
$44,000. Purpose of public hearing is to
public comment or whether we actually
want to receive that revenue or not. So
I'll turn it back over to the chair.
Thank you. Do we have any public comment
that you're aware of? I received no
written comment and there is no one on
Zoom who wishes
to close the meeting for public comment.
I received none and we'll move on to
open meeting for public comment on our
fiscal year
2547 budget.
I'm guessing the same answer. You don't
have to say there I received no written
public comment and there is no comment
to share. Thank you. No comment. Comment
section is closed. We'll announce that
our next meeting is scheduled for May
20th from 5 to 6 p.m. in the same
location and on Zoom. And we will
adjourn this meeting until that time.
Don't go away. We have one more we got
real quick. Don't run. Don't run. But
yeah, there's more.
We now are opening a call to order the
urban renewal agency meeting. Guess we
need to do a roll call vote.
Switch gears. I guess you're supposed to
do that.
[Music]
I'd like to call to order.
Will the executive assistant city
manager please
callused? Tom
excused or director here.
Marissa Galvin
here. Director Gustoson here. Mallerie
Highfield here. Carla Quincy here.
Director Marshall here. Director
Martinez here. Director Shibble here.
[Music]
Dr. Chair
Wel here and Chair Anderson here.
Great. I'd like to move on to item B on
our agenda which is the election of the
chair. Are there
any volunteers
for
I'll thank you
director. Do you accept them? Yes. Okay.
All those in favor of David Anderson
being chair please say
I. All those
opposing none.
I'm going to pass it over to you. Thank
you. This is a period in the meeting
where we can take public comment on the
urban renewal agency budget.
I'm not aware of any public comment. I'm
guessing you are not either. That's
correct. No written comment and
no consent agenda to deal with. Are
there any additions or deletions to the
meeting minutes or to the meeting agenda
any wish to
add? Hearing none, we'll go on to the
budget message for the urban renewal
agency.
Okay. Thank you, chair. I talked to
Paul. I think I'm just going to combine
my URA message with this message up here
and throw it all into one. The broader
message for the URA is we really kind of
hit an inflection point this year. Uh
the URA board, for those that are new to
the budget committee, the URA board is
separate and distinct from the city and
that it has its own fund source. Um it
is composed of a board of directors. The
board of directors part of the city
council and so we heard Jamie earlier
say chair winsel. Uh the mayor is the
mayor of the city council but the chair
of the urban renewal agency board. Um
I'm not the city manager of the urban
renewal agency. I'm the executive
director of the urban renewal agency. So
just kind of think of a different hat.
It's a different organization, different
entity, different hat and a different
budget. Uh, one of the things that urban
renewal agency does, its primary purpose
is to try and raise the assessed value
in the urban renewal area and in doing
so when the urban renewal agency expires
and in our particular case the state
changed the law so it expires when your
debt expires. But in our initial passage
of the URA, it was slated to expire in
2034. So nine years from now, am I
right? 2034, 2035. I think it was 2034.
Um so about 10 years actually um from
now and in doing so when it
expires by investing in that area using
what's called tax increment financing
you can raise the assessed value and in
doing so return more back to the general
fund than you otherwise would have
without that investment. So you're just
investing in your community by using a
different kind of funding source. So
make a long story short this year the
board borrowed 4.25 million over a
10-year period. That money is intended
to purchase in this case two properties.
Uh there are properties that were listed
in the urban renewal plan. The board
went through a strategic discussion
about all of those properties. We had a
real estate agent that was present
during that and they decided to purchase
two properties. One was the Graalot at
Woodful. Uh that's that property right
over there on 19th. And then the other
one was the theater building on Pacific
on the north side of Pacific. the north
and the west side of Main Street, the
one with the iconic kind of sign that
sticks out, not the one that's presently
being used, but the one where Pact is,
for example, um that building. Um so
that's what that that's what those
monies were for. Um uh some of those
monies were also looked at to make
improvements to those properties and or
to help incentivize financial investment
in those properties or to try and
incentivize a potential particular use
of those properties. In this case the
theater building, what was discussed was
potentially a boutique hotel. Um, and
what was discussed down at Woodfold is
that's basically a gravel lot could kind
of really go through a planning process,
a concept planning process for the board
about what you want to see there. So, so
we took out that. Um, the other thing
that kind of was was new this year was
what's called a building improvement
grant program. This was also called out
in the urban renewal plan that was
funded at $350,000 a year. The building
improvement grant the board went through
its first awards this year. um five
awards or six awards, five or six awards
were made on projects downtown where uh
we essentially matched private equity
coming into the projects at 50/50 one of
one and in doing so again increase
investment in downtown um and the urban
rural area. So big picture the proposed
budget essentially does takes funds the
programs for the storefront facade, the
building improvement grant and the
design grant program. It fully funds
those programs at the pre-existing
levels um and then purchases the
properties and then if you if you look
at over the bianium approximately
there'll be about $1.5 million in the
bank or in reserves that the board could
look at doing something strategic with
one of those three properties or all
three of those properties because now
the own site B the theater building and
Woodfold if the two later sales really
go through actually close on the theater
should So, your building has been
closed. Um, yep. So, the woodfold, we're
still going through what's called a deep
gap analysis. Um, but it's it's in
process and it's it's moving moving
forward. So, so kind of looking ahead,
we're just proposing kind of a the same
budget pretty much we had last year,
which was to fund all of the grant
programs, the three grant programs that
I mentioned. Um, and then we want to
start some kind of concept discussions
about what to do with, you know, these
three properties. And we've included
some money for for some consultancy in
there that could look at um either some
concept planning, some financial
feasibility analysis, maybe look at kind
of a boutique hotel financial report,
market assessment, you know, those types
of things. We wanted some flexibility.
So that on the next slide, how much
that's probably Can you go to the next
slide, Paul?
I'm trying to remember the amount.
Jamie, can you go to the next slide?
Okay. So, 20 uh the storefronts at
$20,000. The building improvement grant
program was at 350, which is the same as
last year. We have 100,000 in for
repairs for the theater, building roof,
and connected sub pump. And then I'm
trying to remember Paul, what was the
amount of consult
the expense of what we're paying for
like consultancy?
Yeah, there's money in there's money
there's some money in professional
services. special service. It's not I
didn't detail it. I mean, it's not a lot
of money, but you also got to remember
you've got $11.4 million in undesated
funds where you need money for other
consultants as you're going through the
analysis of the property. You have those
funds available to also use also use for
that purpose. So, I mean, I budgeted
like 15 20. I just I just think it's
important with you know those if those
purchases go through and the council you
know or sorry the directors and they
have the board thank you you know have a
discussion about community engagement
marketing you know developer like hiring
consultants like it just would be nice
to there's $30,000 over the ban for
professional services but if you need
more you could access the uninated funds
for more of this for more money. I first
that seems low for having a
viable especially for
building more
straight we looked at the theater
building we had we paid an architect to
come up with some concept with some
concept designs
or basically how could a boutique hotel
fit in the theater building and we paid
about $15,000 for couple concept designs
on that so that we have something for
somebody to start working with on that.
I think it it's kind of really a
question of trying to characterize these
properties sufficiently that the board
has enough information in which to make
a decision about what you want to pursue
and then in pursuing that if we want to
have potential developers look at kind
of
um you know putting those plans together
or how much do we want to plan and put
out there and and and those are
conversations we could have. I think as
Paul mentioned, we've got we've got some
un designated that we can reappropriate
if the board would
like to
100 assessment.
I would agree with you because three
properties
I mean and
but yeah and I I understand what you're
saying that we have these funds but I
also like transparency. I think we could
we propose to move some of the money out
of professional services. I mean, I know
we haven't like I understand staff's
position where we haven't had a meeting
to say this and this this,
but this also like maybe also a 10-year
plan for the right like there's some
different things we need to do. And so I
just think that being as transparent as
we can with the community that hey we
did this land banking we're going to
engage the community about so on and
then we're going to market it to
hopefully you know be like
great movie
anyway I also need to modify the RA
budget for rent income expenses that I
didn't I guess I guess included on this
proposed budget yeah not to believe too
But we've kind of got this 10-year
window now. We've taken debt out over
the 10 years. We've got grant programs
that we've implemented. And when you add
the debt repayments on the 4.25 million,
you total the grant payments that we the
grant programs, that's pretty much our
annual operating revenue. So our grant
programs and our debt service is pretty
much equaling what our revenues are
going to be. Which means that you have
this kind of strategic discussion now
about what to do with the reserves,
right? What to do with the undesated and
how can those monies be leveraged to do
something that the board and the
community wants to do on those three
properties. That's the fundamental
question, right? And I I think the chair
mentioned it earlier. We're looking at
something over 10 years. Um by way of
example, Hillsboro has block 57. If you
look at block 57, it's a it's a major
it's an entire block. It's where the old
hike surfway used to be. They've done
three RFPs on that site over the course
of nine years now. None of which has
been successful. And interestingly
enough, when they didn't do an RFP, they
had somebody come to them with a
proposal.
I think that's a really good point and I
just want to make like we haven't had a
conversation about how much money to
spend on that planning because you can
do a whole lot of planning and then you
lock in property and you've actually
pushed away 99.9% of the customers who
may be interested. So that's a that's a
property.
Each property is different. What folds
fairly flat and it's a decent size to
it. The theater's got its own theater
has its own
issues. They're going to have to move
around. Site site B essentially
has got enough of a grade where it can
potentially affect what's developed.
Part of the reason the store the store
grocery store didn't factor me out of it
is they had they had about $1.1 million
a year in additional grading cost
because it wasn't a flat lot and they
just couldn't get over the couldn't get
over the hump of those additional cost
of site development to make the store
pens. So each site has its own it own
elements to it.
would you like this to come back up next
time for
we'll bring it up with some snap post
changes based on what was said tonight.
All right. Any other questions about the
urban emergency public comment now
opens to comment but will check
it
closed until May 28th.
Oh no. This was 28.
We're just going to be approval. So, but
we have one next week.
We do have a budget. Next week,
let's make it as confusing as possible.
We are meeting next week. You're able to
meet your