[2:56] I call the November 5th Assembly Finance
[2:59] Committee meeting to order. Miss Wendle,
[3:01] will you call roll or no roll?
[3:05] >> Thank you, Chair Wall. We have all
[3:07] assembly members present in chambers
[3:08] besides Assembly Member Atinson and
[3:11] Smith who are available on Zoom.
[3:15] » Thank you. That brings us to approval of
[3:17] minutes. You have the September 3rd,
[3:19] 2025 minutes in your packet. Any changes
[3:23] to those minutes?
[3:26] Seeing none, those are so moved. Brings
[3:29] us to agenda topics.
[3:31] We are going to start with the FY25
[3:34] financial wrap-up.
[3:36] Um,
[3:38] Miss Flick.
[3:41] Thank you, Chair Wall. I will um share
[3:43] the PowerPoint here in just a second.
[3:45] Uh, but I did want to just take a moment
[3:48] um the memo cover memo for this. Um, I
[3:52] don't usually do a a preamble to the
[3:55] meeting, but I felt like it was
[3:57] appropriate for this meeting. We have a
[3:59] lot of things on the agenda tonight and
[4:02] they are presented to you in pieces. Um,
[4:06] but they all kind of tie together. So,
[4:09] um, you know, we'll start with the, uh,
[4:12] FYI25 wrap-up, which we're still in
[4:14] process of the audit. Um, uh, but
[4:17] there's enough that solidified that we
[4:19] wanted to present to you. Um, tonight
[4:22] we've got, um, a whole memo and
[4:25] conversation about kind of the financial
[4:27] path forward given the election results
[4:29] that, um, have just been certified. Um
[4:33] something that we talked about earlier
[4:34] on uh in the calendar year was uh these
[4:38] items of foregone revenue. There's a
[4:40] whole uh memo on that that plays
[4:42] together with some of these things. And
[4:44] then finally a revisit of the dockage
[4:46] fee increase um and how to uh utilize
[4:51] those funds as a potential option. So um
[4:53] lots of things in the in the packet
[4:55] tonight. um recognition that you guys
[4:59] have had a heavy um couple weeks of
[5:02] meetings. Um last week having two
[5:04] meetings, this week having two meetings.
[5:06] Um so we've worked with Christine Wall.
[5:08] There are some places we can um um eject
[5:11] if we need to. And um if we can get to
[5:14] everything that's also fantastic. Uh so
[5:17] with that, let me see if I
[5:20] can successfully share my screen.
[5:26] And for the committee, do feel free to
[5:30] ask questions throughout um and wave at
[5:33] me if I don't see you.
[5:43] » Let's see.
[5:49] All right. Well, we'll do it in Perfect.
[5:55] I think it did it and I wasn't patient
[5:57] enough. So, let me hit that again and
[5:59] see if it comes across as the
[6:00] presentation.
[6:02] Yes. Excellent. So, we're going to talk
[6:05] about um FY25.
[6:07] Um I did want to just uh take a moment
[6:10] to pause and have a moment of gratitude.
[6:13] Um you all know that um finance has a
[6:16] lot have has had experienced a lot of
[6:19] turnover and actually I think we were
[6:21] three years of getting our financial
[6:23] statements out really really late and we
[6:26] were not even in a position to give you
[6:28] a fiscal year update in November like we
[6:30] pushed that to as close to the retreat
[6:32] as we possibly could as we possibly
[6:35] could. Um this year I am
[6:39] exceedingly excited to say we've kept uh
[6:42] most of our core of accountants for
[6:44] almost a full year. We we've have had in
[6:46] the last couple last month of turnover.
[6:49] Um but we are working on the final
[6:52] pieces of our year-end adjustments and
[6:56] our audit. We're pulling up transactions
[6:58] where last year we processed things in
[7:01] January and we're looking at them in
[7:03] October. Um, so just super excited to um
[7:06] see the growth of the team and um just
[7:10] the the year-over-year progress in
[7:13] improving our our year- end close
[7:15] processes. So um I fully anticipate that
[7:18] we'll be able to issue our financial
[7:19] statements on time, which is into the
[7:22] calendar year. Um the questions that the
[7:25] auditors have had for us are all
[7:28] completely reasonable and things we we
[7:31] would expect them to ask. And so, um,
[7:34] we're just, uh, in a really good place.
[7:36] So, um, fantastic team that I get to
[7:39] work with every day and I'm I am
[7:40] grateful for them. And so, I just wanted
[7:42] to take a moment and share that with
[7:43] you.
[7:45] But, we're here to talk about our
[7:46] financials. So, we will u move on to
[7:48] that. Um, this is um, granted a little
[7:52] bit of a busy screen, but when we talk
[7:54] about um, the general government,
[7:57] we um, see if I can hide some things on
[8:00] my screen so I can see it.
[8:05] This is our revenue picture and so this
[8:07] is the general government. So it is um
[8:10] your general fund elements and your
[8:13] sales tax um elements um combined
[8:16] together. This is how we generally talk
[8:17] about it when we put the budget
[8:18] together. Um you can see the um types of
[8:21] revenue that are discussed here are 25
[8:24] budget or 25 actuals. the difference
[8:27] between those. A positive number means
[8:29] that we brought in more revenue than
[8:31] anticipated. A negative number means
[8:33] less um than the budget.
[8:36] When we built our FY26 budget, we had
[8:40] done an FY25 forecast. And so there are
[8:43] areas that we had communicated to you as
[8:45] the assembly that we thought we were
[8:47] going to be over or under budget. So
[8:50] that's what that next column surplus
[8:52] deficit forecasted means. So, for
[8:55] charges for services, we thought we were
[8:57] going to be $350,000
[9:00] um over budget, have additional revenue
[9:02] than budgeted. It turns out we had
[9:05] $823,000
[9:07] more revenue. So, the newly realized is
[9:11] the last column, um the $473,000.
[9:15] So you can see that in the case of our
[9:17] federal revenue, we actually brought in
[9:19] less revenue than we forecasted
[9:22] um or less revenue than was budgeted.
[9:26] And uh for state um
[9:30] overall, I'll just I won't read all of
[9:32] them. The the the big number on this
[9:34] page is the investment income um where
[9:37] we had um $4.4 million budgeted. We had
[9:40] $15 million um actual um interest
[9:44] earnings. That's 10 million $10.7
[9:46] million um additional. We had um guessed
[9:49] it would be about $4 million more. Um it
[9:52] was actually ended up being $6.7 million
[9:54] more than we had even forecasted.
[9:57] Um that has a lot to do with um really,
[10:02] you know, the Feds had come in and
[10:03] forecasted or the market had projected
[10:05] the Feds were going to cut rates
[10:06] throughout the year. that didn't happen
[10:08] until September. Um so a lot of um a lot
[10:13] of things that uh we had anticipated not
[10:15] being as good as planned and they were
[10:18] um great. Um additional to that um we
[10:22] were able to um have uh reimbursements
[10:26] come in from grants that helped the
[10:28] general pool earn more revenue um than
[10:31] we had also forecasted.
[10:33] Um, we had talked to you about sales tax
[10:37] um, being less than forecasted by about
[10:39] $1.2 million when we built the budget.
[10:42] Um, it actually came in about $700,000
[10:45] less than the budget. So almost a half a
[10:48] million better than we had forecasted to
[10:50] you. Um, so that's just kind of a
[10:53] rundown of all of the um, various types.
[10:57] You may be wondering why other is
[10:58] negative. A lot of that has to do with
[11:00] that's where we categorize bad debt
[11:01] where we think we're going to write off
[11:04] um revenue. So it um is budgeted as a
[11:06] negative. We actually um amongst a lot
[11:09] of different kinds of other revenue
[11:10] ended up um having a positive position
[11:12] at the end of the year.
[11:19] Uh we like to look at sales tax. Um
[11:21] we're going to talk about sales tax a
[11:23] lot. So we're calling this out. The
[11:25] green bar 71 million is our actual
[11:27] revenue. Our FY26 budget is $71.3
[11:31] million in revenue. The purple bar at
[11:33] the end is the um forecasted revenue
[11:36] given the um the exemptions that were
[11:39] passed with the ballot. Um a question
[11:41] that we often get asked was well how did
[11:43] the summer fare for us? Um last Friday
[11:47] was the due date for sales tax that was
[11:49] collected July, August, and September.
[11:52] So I won't know the results of that for
[11:54] another few weeks. But the next slide um
[11:57] breaks out all of the sales tax
[11:59] collections by quarter. So you can see
[12:01] that April, May, June
[12:04] um revenue in sales tax was um pretty
[12:08] much in line with what we'd seen the
[12:10] last couple years. So while we had kind
[12:12] of been hearing rumblings that um it was
[12:15] expecting a soft summer um it turned,
[12:18] you know, the reality was it it came in
[12:19] about where it has been the last few
[12:21] years.
[12:24] on the expense side of the house. Um
[12:27] these are our different categories of
[12:28] expense and our budgeted amount, our
[12:32] actual amount and um the over under. So
[12:37] in personnel services we budgeted 63.5
[12:40] million there was 58.3 million actually
[12:43] expended. So we were 5.2 million under
[12:46] budget. Again, when we prepared our
[12:48] forecast for you preparing for FY26, we
[12:51] had anticipated that we would end up
[12:53] being about $4.5 million under budget.
[12:56] So, we realized about another $725,000
[12:59] worth of savings from um salaries,
[13:02] wages, benefits, unspent in the
[13:04] commodity and services. Um I broke these
[13:06] out into um just kind of bigger groups
[13:09] so you can see where those landed. Um
[13:13] the I will say about the community and
[13:14] youth grants um some of the assembly
[13:17] grants that you have awarded um you
[13:20] awarded a larger sum that were distri
[13:23] distributed over multiple years. So the total sum is in the budget although
[13:27] just a portion was distributed and so
[13:29] that shows as being um an underbudget
[13:33] that um basically rolls forward into 26
[13:36] and we know that that's going to be
[13:37] again expended partially in 26 and
[13:39] partly in 27. Um those are three-year
[13:42] awards. Um and so that's that's the big
[13:44] driver in your under budget there in the
[13:47] youth and community grants. Overall
[13:50] um we were um about $1 million under in
[13:53] our spending. We had planned um and
[13:56] forecasted for about five 5.2 of that.
[13:58] And so um we realized an additional 5.8
[14:01] million in savings um from under spent.
[14:05] um we will look at it at these a little
[14:09] bit um in detail. So with respect to the
[14:13] um personnel laps or um salary savings,
[14:16] however you want to think about it. So
[14:18] we had an amount budgeted for personnel
[14:22] and we didn't expend all of it. Here are
[14:24] the departments that um had the larger
[14:26] portions of the under spending. Um so
[14:29] police and fire have typically um led
[14:31] the way. transit was a big um number
[14:34] community community development and
[14:35] finance um kind of rounded that out um
[14:39] also with streets
[14:41] comparatively um you can look at um the
[14:45] 25 laps of some of the big departments
[14:47] compared to the 24 laps and um some
[14:51] departments are experiencing more some
[14:52] departments are experiencing less.
[14:54] finance. For example, we had almost
[14:56] $600,000 worth of laps in 24 and only
[14:59] about 300,000 in um FI25.
[15:03] Um as I just said, like in our
[15:06] accounting team, we were able to retain
[15:08] most of our accountants. So um you know,
[15:10] departments are experiencing some of
[15:12] that. The percentage is the percent of
[15:14] their department personnel services. And
[15:17] so just think of that as a um you can
[15:20] look at just the number or the slice um
[15:22] of their personnel budget that was
[15:25] savings.
[15:30] » Mayor Welen,
[15:33] >> thank you for that. I just um I'd asked
[15:36] you this earlier about the police. You
[15:37] want to explain that a little bit
[15:39] because um we know that our police isn't
[15:41] fully staffed.
[15:44] >> Yeah. So um you can see police and fire
[15:47] um are are both kind of represented the
[15:49] same way in the numbers. You can see
[15:50] their their 24 laps was 1.5 for police,
[15:54] 1.7 for fire and in FI25 it was 1.2 and
[15:58] 1.4 million. So their dollar lapsing is
[16:02] less but their percentage changed um a
[16:05] bit and that has to do with how big
[16:07] their personnel services budget was. So
[16:10] in FY25
[16:12] 1.3 1.4 million was only 8% of the
[16:17] personnel budget in total for police
[16:20] whereas um in FI24 they had a larger
[16:24] dollar amount associated
[16:43] Okay, so
[16:46] let me rephrase what I was just saying.
[16:49] Um, it's been a while since I put these
[16:51] together in FY25. I'm sorry. I'm
[16:53] comparing apples and oranges for you,
[16:55] and that is bad on my part. So, I will
[16:58] um follow up with um apples and apples.
[17:01] The dollars are apples to apples. The
[17:04] percent in FY25 is the percent of the
[17:07] laps of the department ser of the
[17:09] department's personal services and the
[17:11] 24 laps was actually the percentage of
[17:13] the whole more like what we saw here. So
[17:16] sorry to put those apples and oranges
[17:18] together.
[17:19] Um focus on the dollar values there. So
[17:23] it's dollars to dollars for for sure.
[17:27] >> Miss Hugh Scandies.
[17:29] >> Thanks Madam Chair. So to talk about the
[17:34] apple for a second just so I'm clear I
[17:36] can focus on the dollar amount and
[17:38] that's giving me apples to apples 8%
[17:43] of their personnel budget only their
[17:46] personnel budget is what I'm looking at
[17:48] and 25 yes
[17:49] >> and 24 is the percent of their total
[17:52] budget that's
[17:53] >> is the percent of all of the personnel
[17:55] labs so
[17:56] >> oh of all the personnel got it
[17:58] >> similar to here where they were out a
[18:00] quarter of the entire personal savings.
[18:02] >> That was the same um roughly the same
[18:05] last year.
[18:06] >> Great.
[18:06] >> So, sorry to do apples to oranges on you
[18:08] there.
[18:09] >> No, that's helpful.
[18:12] >> I'll ask a
[18:15] different question on this topic.
[18:19] [clears throat]
[18:20] You know, I remember
[18:23] when I first started the assembly, it
[18:25] was in the middle of the pandemic. you
[18:26] know, we we budgeted for a $1 million
[18:29] lapse.
[18:31] We were like, it's, you know, things
[18:33] were it was the pandemic. There's a lot
[18:35] of wild things happening with our um,
[18:39] you know, across the country in terms of
[18:40] employment.
[18:42] Now, we've seen several years in a row
[18:45] post pandemic at, you know, a much
[18:47] larger number in terms of what our lapse
[18:50] is. Do we feel like this is
[18:53] just the new normal or
[18:57] in terms of
[19:01] regular turnover in the department or is
[19:03] this really being driven by
[19:06] um
[19:08] you know our three big departments.
[19:14] Um thank you for that question. Um
[19:19] with respect to how we budget personnel
[19:22] and the anticipated lapse within
[19:24] personnel budget, um we have over the
[19:26] last couple of years um looked more
[19:29] closely at the department's historical
[19:32] trends in how they've been able to fill
[19:35] positions and adjusted the amount of
[19:39] expected savings in personnel um
[19:43] accordingly.
[19:45] um
[19:47] to what they've experienced. So
[19:50] for instance in in finance we may have
[19:52] only budgeted 1% of our personnel as a
[19:56] lapse and looking at where we had been
[19:58] over several years we increased that to
[20:01] 5% last year. And so for um
[20:06] we're we're spending um more time
[20:10] looking at that historical trend but
[20:12] also in conversation with the
[20:13] departments to understand what's
[20:15] changing. Um you know the uh CCFR
[20:19] implemented a new program this year and
[20:21] just um you know brought five folks on
[20:23] as um having passed their EMT. Um, so
[20:27] they're doing things to kind of change
[20:28] the dynamic of their vacancies. And so
[20:31] it's it's looking historically, but also
[20:34] um with that conversation of what
[20:35] they're what they're trying to do
[20:37] differently to try to to put that in
[20:40] anticipated lapse in the right ballpark
[20:43] so that we're not seeing um
[20:45] unanticipated lapses year-over-year.
[20:52] Okay, we'll move on to non-personal
[20:54] lapses. Um this is broken out by um the
[21:00] departments and divisions. Um this is
[21:02] the amount of their everything not
[21:05] personnel that they didn't spend out of
[21:07] their budget um and the percent of that
[21:11] department or division's um budget that
[21:14] was lapsed. And we've also called out in
[21:16] a couple places where there's some
[21:17] onetime spending um because that's
[21:19] important to understand that, you know,
[21:20] like in the manager's office, they had
[21:23] $325,000
[21:24] of um unspent budget. $182,000 of that
[21:29] was a contingency line that we had
[21:31] budgeted and we ended up not needing to
[21:32] use all of it um as it related to the
[21:35] MUN way facility and and some
[21:37] adjustments that needed to have there.
[21:40] Um, as we looked through this data,
[21:43] there wasn't any like one huge driver
[21:46] of, oh, this happened or we we planned
[21:49] for this and across the board, these
[21:51] things didn't come true. Um, as we
[21:54] looked at um where there were savings,
[21:56] it was little bits and pieces of
[21:59] everything everywhere. Um, you know,
[22:01] just, you know, even looking at streets
[22:03] there. Um, look at the winter that we
[22:06] had last year compared to the snow snow
[22:08] apocalypse that we had the year before.
[22:10] So just, you know, less, you know, less
[22:13] chemicals, less gravel, those things.
[22:15] Um, so there wasn't anything that that
[22:17] stood out as um big red flags amongst um
[22:20] these savings. Just little little things
[22:22] here and there that added up.
[22:27] We always want we spend a lot of time
[22:29] talking about our um general government
[22:32] um departments and funds. Um it's also
[22:35] important to look at our non-general
[22:36] government um expenses. Um so these are
[22:39] the um departments andor um divisions
[22:43] functions that um are not general funds.
[22:46] So we have the FI25 budget, the actuals
[22:48] and again these are just focused on
[22:50] expenses. So if they're over budget or
[22:52] under budget, um I want to point out
[22:54] that fleet
[22:57] is not um is is a tiny piece of
[23:01] operational, but that is where we budget
[23:04] and purchase large equipment um
[23:08] vehicles. And so we we see every year
[23:10] that we plan for things to come in um
[23:14] and you know certain and we just have a
[23:16] lot of stuff that don't make it in the
[23:18] one-year time frame. Some of that is
[23:19] large pieces of equipment that take
[23:21] longer to even build. Um, but that's that large number um there that
[23:27] kind of stands out um as an anomaly.
[23:33] » Brooks.
[23:36] >> Thank Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh I just
[23:39] had a question about uh wastewater
[23:43] coming in 14% under it. There's
[23:46] obviously a lot of work that still needs
[23:48] to be done within wastewater. Is there
[23:51] uh a reason it wasn't reallocated to
[23:54] some other projects within the
[23:56] department?
[23:59] » Uh it's a good question. Um some of the
[24:01] member books um I don't have all of the
[24:03] details on Wistro. I know that part of
[24:05] their um part of their savings overall
[24:08] is personnel laps. Um I know that they
[24:10] are a department that struggles to keep
[24:11] their positions filled. Um, and then
[24:13] they would have associated supplies and services to go with that.
[24:18] >> Thank you,
[24:23] » Miss Hughes Candies. [clears throat]
[24:25] Thanks, Madam Chair, for your
[24:26] indulgence. Miss Flick, I didn't realize
[24:29] you'd advance the page. If I'm just
[24:31] looking at the previous one, and I'm
[24:34] just curious, you know, I have my own
[24:36] curiosities with each department and I'm
[24:38] not going to say, well, what about this
[24:40] one and what about that one? But is
[24:42] there generally if I look at
[24:47] is there a general theme across some of
[24:49] these departments where they're in the
[24:52] same sort of ballpark
[24:56] and it's less obvious than like streets.
[24:58] you know, they're buying salt and gravel
[25:00] or whatever they're buying that it's
[25:03] things like supplies or they have like
[25:05] similar categories of what they lapsed
[25:08] on or is it really unique to each
[25:11] department? And if you don't know that
[25:13] off the top of your head, I can just in
[25:15] private ask about a couple.
[25:18] >> Um, thank you, Miss Huskandies. Um, we
[25:20] should probably just talk offline about
[25:21] the ones that you're curious about. As
[25:23] we as we looked through these, we didn't
[25:26] see like an overall theme like um
[25:29] everybody had conferences travel or
[25:31] conferences canceled or you know this
[25:35] big thing happened across the board. So
[25:36] we just we didn't see that a trend or a
[25:39] theme that that kind of weave through
[25:41] any of them but be happy to look at
[25:44] specifics where you have where you're
[25:45] curious.
[25:46] >> Okay, that helps. Thanks
[25:48] >> Mr. Steininger.
[25:50] Um similar question on trends and seams.
[25:53] Um is this do you see kind of
[25:57] consistently departments or divisions
[26:00] year-over-year having kind of similar
[26:02] levels of lapse or is it does it vary up
[26:06] and down quite a bit? Like have you done
[26:08] kind of a backwards look over a couple
[26:11] of years?
[26:12] >> I don't u Mr. Singer I don't know that
[26:14] we've um really looked across a couple
[26:16] years and across specific things. I know
[26:18] every year as we're preparing the
[26:20] budget, we look um at what they're
[26:22] requesting. We look at what historically
[26:24] they've spent, where we've seen those
[26:27] trends, looking at those um very
[26:29] granular details and we have those
[26:31] conversations with the departments as
[26:33] we're developing the budget.
[26:38] » I just will add having built a couple of
[26:40] these budgets now and then before as
[26:42] engineering and public works director,
[26:44] we are often aspirational in what we can
[26:47] get accomplished. So, for example, if we
[26:49] have plans uh I'll just use the this
[26:52] year budget example. We are going to
[26:54] renovate our red do our website. Well,
[26:56] we put money in this year's operating
[26:57] budget to redo our website and we will
[26:59] start on that project, but we will not
[27:01] finish that project within this year.
[27:03] So, that would be an example of and you
[27:05] have that in lots of line items, right?
[27:07] projects that uh don't get finished um
[27:10] and and that then you know have to be
[27:12] carried over to the next year which
[27:13] means we have to ask you for authority
[27:15] again to put those in the budget. So I
[27:18] think there are a lot of those pieces
[27:19] and it really reflects our budget
[27:21] culture which I'm proud of where
[27:24] departments don't feel like they have to
[27:26] rush to hurry up to spend uh all the
[27:28] money so that they can justify getting
[27:30] that money in the next line item. And I
[27:32] know that's something we talked about
[27:33] before, but I just want to reiterate it
[27:35] because um you know I suspect that that
[27:38] that'll be an area to to tighten and
[27:40] that will have an impact on our budget
[27:42] culture.
[27:48] Okay. Uh we covered this slide. So um
[27:52] we'll move to kind of wrapping up. Um
[27:54] this is the budget summary that um you
[27:57] all have in the back of your budget book
[27:59] every year. Um, so just
[28:04] can't see my mouse move. So, um, this
[28:06] starts with FY24, but if you go down a
[28:08] couple lines, 25 is what I want to focus
[28:11] on.
[28:12] This outlines, um, the
[28:17] budget summary as we had prepared it
[28:20] moving into the FY26 budget. So, this is
[28:24] what we thought was going to happen. and
[28:27] of particular notice. You'll notice um
[28:29] the last um last three columns over on
[28:32] the right hand side, the unrestricted
[28:34] fund balance and the restricted fund
[28:35] balance. So when we finished when we
[28:38] were getting ready to work with you
[28:39] about the FY26 budget, we expected we
[28:43] would end FY25
[28:45] with 20 million in unrestricted fund
[28:49] balance and 16 a half in the restricted
[28:52] fund balance. So this is just a recap of
[28:55] what um you saw when we were preparing
[28:58] the budget for FY26.
[29:01] The next page is what actually happened.
[29:04] So these have been updated for the FY25
[29:07] actuals. And so everything that we've
[29:10] just talked about is incorporated here
[29:12] in slightly um different words um just
[29:16] summarized a little bit differently. Um
[29:19] but you can see that our ending
[29:21] unrestricted fund balance is actually
[29:23] 31.4
[29:25] and your restricted um fund balance
[29:27] restricted funds reserve is also um sold
[29:30] as 16 12. So I'm just going to pull from
[29:33] the page before that last line so you
[29:36] can just see them side by side. And I
[29:38] know it looks kind of funny on your
[29:39] printed page. Um but the difference
[29:41] there is an $1 million increase in your
[29:44] unrestricted fund balance.
[29:47] So, that's our FY25 ending, but you've
[29:50] already moved into FY26 and you've
[29:52] already made decisions about the FY26
[29:55] um budget and there have been ordinances
[29:57] that have come through and so um the
[30:00] last page in this presentation shows the
[30:02] FY26
[30:04] adopted budget, the items that have come
[30:07] through a supplemental appropriations
[30:09] and then um things that we're already
[30:11] aware of um that we're we're including
[30:14] in our forecast And one of the things
[30:17] you can see in the yellow is um we've
[30:20] worked into the budget our anticipated
[30:22] revenue loss based on our estimates for
[30:25] the exemptions on um the sales tax that
[30:28] were recently passed. And so you'll see
[30:30] with that revenue reduction included um
[30:34] we anticipate without any other changes
[30:37] the ending fund your your unrestricted
[30:40] fund balance to be at 15 million. um
[30:42] your restricted fund balance has changed
[30:44] to 17.3 and that's um partly because um
[30:48] you did make a um a contribution to the
[30:53] restricted reserve but then we also
[30:55] pulled out the reserve for the Eagle
[30:58] Crest um deficit and then um with the
[31:01] deappropriation
[31:03] of the Eagle Crest um
[31:07] operating budget that recently went
[31:09] through after their staffing change. um
[31:12] those all combined um changed your bud
[31:14] your restricted reserve from 16 and a
[31:17] half to 17.4 and I can show that
[31:20] differently um in a different way if we
[31:22] need to but that's kind of the summary
[31:23] of how how that number changed
[31:27] >> Miss Hugh Gandes thanks Madame Chair
[31:30] just a question to help me think through
[31:32] that I think I'm tracking with you but
[31:35] our expectation
[31:38] at the time
[31:41] that we finished that budget.
[31:45] We had said I'm on page 21 of the packet
[31:50] was 16
[31:56] and they're restricted. That's correct.
[32:02] Well, I'm looking at this now. I'm
[32:03] looking at 25 and I see 20
[32:08] in the restricted and 16.8 8 in the
[32:10] unrestricted there you if you can see
[32:13] that line
[32:15] so does that I'm trying to make that
[32:18] square with the
[32:22] three per 3 million contribution that we
[32:25] made to the restricted because I would
[32:27] you know we did that before we passed
[32:30] the budget so I would expect to see that
[32:33] in like what we expect before we got
[32:36] Eagle Crest involved in it so I'm just
[32:39] trying to follow the math from that.
[32:41] >> So, um the math on that and um this is
[32:45] in the the published budget book which
[32:47] will take me a minute to pull up, but if
[32:49] we need to, we can have Miss Windle
[32:50] share her screen. Um you made a
[32:52] contribution of 3.3 million for the
[32:55] budget process. um as part of the budget
[32:58] process when the decision was made to
[33:01] allow Eagler Crest to run a deficit
[33:03] that's allowable if we restrict and
[33:06] additionally reserve funding and the
[33:09] body had decided that they were going to
[33:11] restrict the restricted budget reserve.
[33:14] It's a lot of restrict in there. And so
[33:16] what we've done is we've pulled that out
[33:18] of the available balance. So you
[33:20] increased by 3.3 but you reserved
[33:24] 3,45,800
[33:29] um which you net those together and and
[33:32] you roughly have 200,000 $250,000
[33:35] of an increase to what's in your
[33:38] restricted budget reserve that you could
[33:40] use in the future if you needed to. So
[33:44] that change in addition since you've
[33:47] approved the budget um Eaglerest has
[33:50] done their position conversion and with
[33:52] that realized that the full budget
[33:55] wasn't required and so a budget
[33:59] reduction came through which meant that
[34:01] you didn't have to reserve as much of
[34:03] your restricted budget reserve and so
[34:05] that freed up an additional 540,000.
[34:08] So that math gets you to the 17.3.
[34:11] Perfect. Thanks.
[34:15] » I'm gonna have you walk me this similar
[34:20] journey through the unrestricted fund
[34:22] balance. Um,
[34:25] so many memories flooding back here. the
[34:29] what I took you saying here um is
[34:37] the 15 something that I can't read under
[34:42] my notes um
[34:46] 15 15 million under at the very bottom
[34:48] of the page is what now we would expect
[34:52] the unrestricted
[34:57] fund balance balance to be at the end of
[35:00] fiscal year 26, which takes what we
[35:04] thought it was going to be
[35:07] when we set the budget,
[35:12] plus the additional
[35:16] um the surplus that we ended up with in
[35:18] FY25 that we didn't know about
[35:23] minus our anticipated
[35:26] changes to sales tax revenue and other
[35:29] actions that we've taken.
[35:32] >> That is exactly correct. And the the 23 million that's in the unrestricted
[35:40] budget fund balance for the assembly
[35:42] adopted budget is that's what we
[35:46] anticipated having at the end of FY26
[35:49] when we passed our budget. That seems
[35:53] much higher than I remember. So that's
[35:56] that confused me.
[36:02] » That's correct. So that that 23
[36:08] had our assumption
[36:11] of where we would in 25
[36:14] plus the changes that were made when we
[36:16] built the 26 budget.
[36:19] And I think Miss Wendell is going to
[36:22] share her screen andor talk with the
[36:24] numbers specifically in front of her.
[36:29] » Thank you. Let I'll try to provide a
[36:32] little clarity here. So, the way that
[36:34] the budget summary document is formatted
[36:36] is that um the and and and perhaps we
[36:41] need to make an adjustment here, but the
[36:42] assembly adopted budget amount of 23.7
[36:46] million for the unrestricted fund
[36:47] balance does actually take into effect
[36:51] um take into consideration
[36:54] the larger projected ending fund balance
[36:57] of FY25.
[36:59] So, that includes the additional 11
[37:02] million That [clears throat] that makes
[37:03] >> why your memory is
[37:04] >> more sense to me. Okay, that's super
[37:06] helpful. Thank you.
[37:13] » Keep rolling. Oh, Mayor Welen,
[37:17] >> you looked at me, so I'll have to answer
[37:18] a question. Ask a question. I'm assuming
[37:21] that the secure rules uh school spending
[37:24] will probably no longer exist. So, is
[37:27] that a true statement?
[37:30] >> Uh, thank you, Mayor Weldon. uh we are
[37:32] anticipating that we will um not receive
[37:35] the secure rural schools which is why in
[37:37] our FY26 projection here we've reduced
[37:40] our revenue by 523,000
[37:47] and a followup so those are what about
[37:51] the
[37:52] I mean community assistance I assume
[37:54] it's the same thing tobacco tax revenue
[37:57] you're estimating
[38:00] this is you projecting
[38:03] for the end of the year is a
[38:06] reduction or is that a policy call that
[38:10] you know is coming
[38:13] on the tobacco tax revenue? That's
[38:15] actually um a reduction to the general
[38:18] fund because the tobacco tax fund was
[38:22] significantly under um under budget and
[38:26] was actually running a negative fund
[38:28] balance. So, we um reduce the amount of
[38:32] transfer from the tobacco tax fund to
[38:35] the general fund to keep it from going
[38:37] negative.
[38:45] And if I could just provide um clarity
[38:47] on the community assistance, um we did
[38:49] actually receive some. It's just less
[38:51] than what we budgeted. And so that's the
[38:53] difference.
[38:58] Okay. Um, any other questions on the
[39:03] FY25
[39:05] update?
[39:07] And those folks online, I assume if they
[39:11] raise their hand, I'll be able to see
[39:12] them. I see your hand, Mr. Smith. Go
[39:15] ahead.
[39:17] [clears throat]
[39:17] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um
[39:20] I just there was a the point about
[39:23] investment earnings being greater than
[39:26] projected this year and maybe it's maybe
[39:29] it's a question for maybe it's will be
[39:32] pertinent for later but I'll ask it now.
[39:34] Um Miss Flick there are years where we
[39:38] project and then we have lower
[39:41] investment returns as well. Would you
[39:43] confirm that and and if you remember you
[39:45] know within the near future maybe what
[39:47] size any of those you know below return
[39:53] below projections were.
[39:57] >> Uh thank you Mr. I I believe it was FY22
[40:01] or FY23.
[40:03] We were significantly or um the market
[40:07] did terribly and we were we had budgeted
[40:11] positive
[40:12] um interest earnings and we actually
[40:16] lost
[40:17] um on the on the market side. So, um I
[40:21] don't know the the scale of that um but
[40:25] it was um in very recent history that did occur.
[40:29] >> Thank you,
[40:32] >> Mr. Brooks.
[40:34] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. uh during those
[40:37] years where there were losses in the
[40:39] investment, was it the the same methods
[40:43] of investments being uh conducted? You
[40:46] know, the the the same firms and
[40:48] portfolios
[40:51] we're using currently. Sorry.
[40:53] >> Thank you, Assembly Member Brooks. Um
[40:55] yes, it is um we have not changed um
[40:59] firms or investment pools um since that
[41:03] time occurred.
[41:11] All right, we will move on. I'll just be
[41:15] just remind folks this, you know,
[41:17] there's a whole lot of data to unpack
[41:20] here. So, um, you know, take your time
[41:24] and I know staff are available to
[41:26] continue to help um, folks understand
[41:30] all that was just presented. All right,
[41:33] that brings us to um financial paths
[41:36] forward with election 2025 results. Is
[41:39] this Miss Flick or Manager Kuster?
[41:43] Probably both.
[41:45] >> Thank you, Chairwall. I believe we are
[41:46] going to tag team this. Uh so this is on
[41:50] starting on page 24 of your packet. Um
[41:54] this is
[41:55] >> Oops. I'll just inter um interrupt you
[41:58] real quick. I meant to say this. Our in
[42:00] this is a long memo and our intent is to
[42:03] take it kind of chunk by chunk here.
[42:05] [clears throat] So we've got some
[42:06] discussion questions and um things built
[42:10] in along the way. So um okay, go ahead,
[42:13] Miss Flick. [laughter]
[42:15] Thank you, Chairwell. Um there is a lot
[42:18] of information in this memo um and tried
[42:21] to lay it out in a way that um it would
[42:24] be easy to follow and kind of tie
[42:26] together concepts um that move through.
[42:29] Um there are a lot of questions also in
[42:32] this memo, but we do not need to answer
[42:34] every question tonight. Um there are um
[42:38] there are many decisions that need to be
[42:41] made over the course um of our next few
[42:45] meetings together. Um and we wanted to
[42:48] make sure that you had a full picture of
[42:51] information in front of you and that we
[42:54] um tried to ask you questions that would
[42:58] help you start thinking about things and
[43:00] maybe start preparing you to make some
[43:02] decisions that you don't have to make
[43:03] tonight. There are a few things that um
[43:05] we do need you to decide on tonight and
[43:08] so we'll we'll make sure that we either
[43:10] tackle those in process or they're also
[43:12] at the end of the memo so we make sure
[43:14] we don't lose sight of them. So we'll
[43:16] make sure that those get cared for. Um
[43:18] the uh
[43:21] I I don't need to uh belabor the point.
[43:24] There were um several election
[43:25] propositions. Um two of them passed. Um
[43:28] ballot proposition one um had to do with
[43:31] capping the mill rate at um nine mills.
[43:35] Um and this excludes debt service. Um
[43:38] and so previously it was 12, it will now
[43:41] be at 9. Um our FY26
[43:44] mill rate excluding debt service is
[43:47] 9.16.
[43:49] Um the FY26 impact of this ballot
[43:53] proposition passing passing is nothing.
[43:57] um your FY26 budget was built with the
[44:02] um mill rate which you passed as part of
[44:04] the FY26 budget preparation. I believe
[44:06] you passed it on June 9th. Um those mill
[44:09] rates were applied to the assessed
[44:11] values as of January 1st of 2025.
[44:14] Property tax bills went out roughly July
[44:17] 1st. Property taxes were due September
[44:20] 30th. The election happened after that.
[44:23] So at this point there's no action in
[44:24] FY26.
[44:26] um and no impact from that particular
[44:29] ballot measure on FY26. However, moving
[44:32] into FY27
[44:34] um we will need to reduce our mill rate
[44:36] by that 0.16 mills. Um assuming a
[44:39] relatively flat um market in the real
[44:43] estate world, we would expect that to be
[44:45] about a million dollars worth of revenue
[44:47] loss um to the um various uh general
[44:51] fund components that make that up. So
[44:54] that is something that we will have to
[44:55] address with our FY27 budget.
[44:58] Um [clears throat] proposition two um
[45:01] had two components. Um one was an
[45:04] exemption of sales tax on um basically
[45:07] SNAP eligible food or food is def as as
[45:10] defined by the food and nutrition act of
[45:12] 2008.
[45:14] um this uh there's that component and
[45:18] then there's also a component having to
[45:19] do with um utilities um at um the
[45:24] primary residents. Um those uh take
[45:27] effect um here this month. Um the
[45:30] estimated f annualized impact of both of
[45:34] those is roughly $1 million. We're
[45:37] partway through FY26. So roughly seven
[45:40] of the 12 months um will be impacted and
[45:45] so we calculate that to be about 6.4
[45:47] million of a revenue decrease for FY26.
[45:51] Um and again annualized for FY27
[45:55] um it's total of 11 million. Um
[45:58] depending on how we address FY26
[46:00] um that could just be um an incremental
[46:02] [clears throat] adjustment to the full
[46:03] year or the full 11 million. So what's
[46:07] really important to take away from the
[46:08] sales tax discussion is that our sales
[46:11] tax is made up of um three main
[46:14] components. One 1% is permanent and that
[46:18] goes to our operations. 1% is temporary
[46:22] and that goes to specific projects. And
[46:24] so on page 30 of your packet um
[46:27] attachment A is a breakout of um the
[46:30] sales tax. So, um the list A there on
[46:33] your right are the 1% temporary projects
[46:36] that um will um now that 1% has a less
[46:42] value um going forward for the remainder
[46:44] of that um particular um time period for
[46:49] which the 1% is in effect through
[46:50] September of 2028. And then the last
[46:53] component is a 3% temporary tax that we
[46:57] break up into three pieces. And what you
[47:00] see there on attachment A is the three
[47:02] pieces broken out as they appeared on
[47:04] the ballot. So um what I've called list
[47:07] B is 1% of the 3% temporary tax that
[47:11] goes to projects related to roads,
[47:14] drainage, retaining walls, sidewalks.
[47:15] We've also been doing utilities um with
[47:18] part there. Um list C are the
[47:21] operational components that are funded
[47:23] through the sales tax as called out on
[47:26] the ballot. and um list D is the last 1%
[47:29] of that 3% where goes to some capital
[47:32] projects um uh called out to go to the
[47:35] budget reserve um or other operations um
[47:39] a lot of that 1% ends up being operating
[47:41] in nature. So when we look at the five
[47:46] 1% pieces of our 5% sales tax um
[47:51] annualized again um 11 million um 4.4 4
[47:55] million would be a one-time um reduction
[47:58] to projects and 6.6 million would be
[48:01] recurring that we would need to reduce
[48:03] out of our operating budget. Again,
[48:05] that's kind of the annualized picture.
[48:09] So, um that's that's the breakdown of
[48:11] the impact of sales tax.
[48:19] All right.
[48:21] I I'll just um pause and note that while
[48:26] the uh
[48:28] 1% is one time um obviously there's a
[48:31] reduction in overall sales tax revenue
[48:33] which means all things being equal
[48:35] voters reauthorizing our 3% and 1% we
[48:38] will be collecting less revenue for
[48:40] capital projects. So moving forward, we
[48:42] will be looking at building UCIPs uh
[48:45] with less capital projects unless
[48:47] directed otherwise by the assembly.
[48:50] >> Um Mr. Smith and Mr. Steininger, then
[48:54] Mr. Kelly.
[48:57] >> Thank you, Madam Chair.
[49:00] I I wanted to, you know, as we're just
[49:03] anyway, I want to um just as we're
[49:06] looking at reductions, you know, one
[49:08] thing, of course, I don't want to see us
[49:10] do is, you know, cut CIPs too hard and
[49:13] that we are essentially creating a large
[49:16] deferred maintenance hole. Um,
[49:19] and this is something that can maybe
[49:21] come back later or or whatever, but um
[49:24] do we track and compare to, you know,
[49:30] uh commonly accepted metrics or
[49:32] something like
[49:34] how how we're doing in terms of spending
[49:39] on our infrastructure,
[49:42] you know, like I don't know. I'm sure
[49:44] there's a percentage out there that like
[49:45] you should be spending. Do we do we know
[49:49] do we track that or or do we know how
[49:51] we're doing compared to you know
[49:54] commonly accepted metrics on
[49:56] infrastructure investment?
[50:01] » So I have done that analysis in the past
[50:03] for our facilities um and there are kind
[50:07] of industry standards on how much you
[50:09] should be spending per year as a percent
[50:11] of the building value. And uh certainly
[50:14] worth running those numbers again and
[50:16] looking at that in the context of all of
[50:18] the capital uh you know maintenance
[50:20] projects that we do deferred maintenance
[50:22] projects such as streets and utilities.
[50:24] But at the time when I ran uh that that
[50:27] set of numbers uh we were at the very
[50:30] low end of what would be the industry
[50:32] standard for facilities and that
[50:34] includes like some major facility um
[50:36] projects. And then I would say that we
[50:38] are probably behind in our utility and
[50:41] street um investment just given the
[50:44] number of water leaks we have had over
[50:46] the last uh last few years. It has seen
[50:48] a lot that is when I say behind you have
[50:52] to remember we are we are for Alaska a
[50:54] pretty wellestablished town so we are
[50:56] experiencing you know failure of
[50:58] infrastructure that was put in when we
[51:00] had a big uh housing boom in the 80s. So
[51:02] part of this is the nature of um how
[51:06] long we've been around, but um I I would
[51:08] say there's definitely uh the need for
[51:11] increased investment in just the kind of
[51:14] regular
[51:16] replacing water lines and sewer mains
[51:18] and boilers and the kind of not not as
[51:22] fun uh capital projects.
[51:29] » Mr. Steininger,
[51:31] >> I'm good. that got covered. Thank you
[51:32] though,
[51:33] >> Mr. Kelly.
[51:35] >> Thank you. Um so those uh $2.2 million
[51:40] um that are taken from each 1%. Um just
[51:44] to get an idea of like how severe they
[51:46] are to each list. Um that's 2.2 million
[51:50] out of um out of how much
[51:54] or would you have that number off hand
[51:56] or maybe I can I can circle back.
[52:10] So, Mr. Kelly, I'm not entirely sure
[52:14] what your question is, but typically
[52:15] like our 1% temporary sales tax would um
[52:19] bring in about 14ish million.
[52:24] So, a 2.2 I could do the math right
[52:26] here.
[52:29] I think I could do the math. So, it's 2.2 out of 14 basically.
[52:32] >> 2.2 out of roughly 14. So, 15 16%.
[52:37] >> All right. Thank you.
[52:40] >> Um I've got a question on this one. Um I think
[52:46] um I heard you uh Miss Kester about kind
[52:51] of the you know we often maybe this is
[52:54] terminology we often talk about expenses
[52:56] being one time or ongoing ongoing
[52:59] operations versus a project that we're
[53:01] going to you know do this year and don't
[53:03] have to continually fund. Here we're
[53:05] talking about revenue as one time or
[53:09] ongoing sales tax
[53:14] is an ongoing revenue. You're just
[53:16] making a distinction between
[53:19] Well, I I think you're making a
[53:21] distinction between projects that we
[53:23] said we would do that qualify as
[53:26] projects
[53:28] like CIPs. We have to do CIPs in the
[53:31] future,
[53:33] but we were specifically funding a
[53:37] particular
[53:39] project in this year. Am I capturing
[53:42] that correctly?
[53:44] >> Thank you, Chairw. Um yes, I think a
[53:47] great example is um you know, we will we
[53:50] will always need to do capital projects.
[53:53] There will always be a need to do
[53:54] infrastructure projects.
[53:56] um you only need to pave a certain part
[53:59] of the road once every however year. So
[54:02] from a project perspective, paving road
[54:05] XYZ is is a one-time event, but you will
[54:08] always need to be addressing different
[54:10] pieces of road. So um one 1% of our 3%
[54:16] temporary tax goes to road street type
[54:20] projects. So it is a a continual need.
[54:24] Um, but the projects themselves are one
[54:27] time in nature. And that's as opposed to
[54:31] if we needed to make an a an operating
[54:34] cut where it's like we open the doors
[54:38] every day here and now we need to not
[54:39] open the doors or we need to have fewer
[54:42] hours. Um, that would be a recurring or
[54:44] an operating reduction.
[54:52] » Mr. Smith.
[54:56] » Thank you, Madam Chair.
[54:59] Um I I don't Anyway, I think your
[55:02] question was similar to mine, I guess.
[55:04] Um but just to make sure I understand.
[55:07] I'm sorry if I missed it when you if you
[55:08] said it earlier, Miss Flick.
[55:11] Um
[55:13] obviously the voters approve
[55:15] some of these taxes, you know, four 4% I believe there there isn't a
[55:26] legal or any other type of requirement
[55:29] that we
[55:30] would make
[55:34] reductions
[55:35] you know based on
[55:39] like based on these kind of buckets of
[55:41] different per 1% of taxes right just
[55:45] because we asked the voters to say oh
[55:48] you know we want a 3% % and it covers
[55:52] lists B, C, and D
[55:55] and those go to those different things.
[55:57] We don't have to we don't have to uh
[55:59] aortion it in that way. Like we could we
[56:03] could make more cuts to recurring things
[56:06] versus CIPs or something or in the other
[56:10] direction.
[56:15] » Uh thank you, Assembly Member Smith. Um
[56:18] I'm not the lawyer in the room. Uh so uh
[56:22] perhaps this is uh truly a legal
[56:25] question. Um but I I do believe that we
[56:27] have an obligation to follow the intent
[56:30] of the um of the ballot measure as it
[56:34] was presented to the voters. So the
[56:36] voters passed a 1% temporary tax to do
[56:39] these projects.
[56:41] We need to um do the the best we can to
[56:44] adhere to that. the the exemptions that
[56:47] were passed means that we are going to
[56:49] bring in less revenue to do those
[56:52] projects. And so um the extent to which
[56:56] we can accomplish those projects um may
[56:58] change
[57:00] in our plan for the future compared to
[57:03] what we may have planned a year ago.
[57:11] Do you have a followup, Mr. Smith?
[57:15] I I think maybe I'll just um chat with
[57:18] the attorney just to you know anyway
[57:20] just just trying to figure out like you
[57:23] know how how closely or not we need to
[57:26] you know
[57:28] adhere I'll say to these to this kind of
[57:30] to these different buckets or something
[57:32] but no that that's helpful. Thank you
[57:35] >> Miss Hugh Candies.
[57:37] >> Thank you Madam Chair. I should probably
[57:39] follow Mr. mislead. But just talking
[57:42] through that in a followup, when we make
[57:46] specific projects and take it to the
[57:48] voters, it is always an estimate. Is
[57:51] that correct? Because we could have
[57:54] there could be a huge inflation hike and
[57:57] we don't anticipate that, but that would
[58:00] depending on the tax bring in more tax
[58:03] and then we would have that percent
[58:07] would be a higher number. Correct? just
[58:09] the same way that now with an exemption
[58:12] it's going to be a lower number. Is does
[58:14] that seem right?
[58:18] Um I pulled up the ballot uh language
[58:22] from um the one the last 1% for example
[58:26] and in that um the ballot language did
[58:29] not have dollar amounts associated with
[58:31] projects. It just listed the projects
[58:32] and it clearly listed that it was the
[58:34] intent of it is the intent. Um, so it's
[58:38] it it depends again goes back to that
[58:40] intent language and in having
[58:41] conversations with the city attorney on
[58:43] this. You know, she said probably uh you
[58:46] know changing the dollar amounts within
[58:48] that bucket uh or postponing some of the
[58:51] projects would be um very defensible.
[58:54] Just cutting some of those projects
[58:56] would be more difficult. So, I am like
[58:58] poking at Emily quite a bit on this
[59:00] topic because I I definitely see some
[59:02] things on this list that might not be as
[59:04] high a priorities given our current
[59:06] fiscal situation.
[59:08] >> Thank you,
[59:12] » Mr. Steininger. And I guess kind of sort
[59:16] of followup to this line of question
[59:18] when I look at this list and
[59:20] particularly under the 1% in list A.
[59:23] Some of these projects are significantly
[59:26] if fully completed would be
[59:27] significantly more expensive than the
[59:30] total amount we had anticipated
[59:32] collecting from that 1% over its
[59:35] lifetime. I mean some of them are pretty
[59:38] spendy projects. So like the idea of
[59:41] being bound to complete every one of
[59:43] those projects seems it seems like we
[59:45] are not we because we never could have
[59:49] done it because there wouldn't have been
[59:50] enough revenue collection anyway. So
[59:53] we're just bound to doing some work on
[59:55] each of those projects I guess you know
[59:57] like we haven't
[59:59] appropriated enough to complete the
[1:00:01] relocation of the city museum for
[1:00:03] example or the you know construction of
[1:00:06] the Lemon Creek multimodonal pass. to
[1:00:08] like
[1:00:10] I guess I'm trying to understand you
[1:00:12] know what the actual commitment to the
[1:00:13] voters is if we couldn't have even
[1:00:15] completed the projects in the first
[1:00:16] place. Does that make sense or am I just
[1:00:18] kind of rambling?
[1:00:20] >> I I understand your question and I do
[1:00:22] think that uh Emily would be best suited
[1:00:24] to answer that question. I will explain
[1:00:28] kind of how we use these funds um when
[1:00:32] there are not enough money of course to
[1:00:33] do the project and Lemon Creek
[1:00:34] Multimotal Path is a great example. uh
[1:00:37] we've used that funding to initiate
[1:00:40] design and to match other grant
[1:00:42] opportunities. So get design uh you know
[1:00:44] to a level where we then can apply apply
[1:00:46] for grants and we've received um I think
[1:00:48] two different grants for Lemon Creek
[1:00:50] multimmoal path. So a lot of um these uh
[1:00:54] funding you know streams are set up to
[1:00:58] be able to do the work to advance a
[1:01:00] project to then to understand I mean
[1:01:02] there's there's projects on this list
[1:01:03] that we have very like relocation of
[1:01:05] city museum we have very little
[1:01:06] information about I believe there's a
[1:01:08] half a million dollar appropriation um
[1:01:11] obviously that's a much larger project
[1:01:13] and so like practically speaking how we
[1:01:15] would use that would be to develop a
[1:01:18] plan and a budget and and whatever level
[1:01:19] of design to be able to you take that to
[1:01:22] the assembly. You can uh you can advance
[1:01:25] funds um advance projects through
[1:01:28] design, but you remember you cannot
[1:01:30] construct the project unless you have
[1:01:32] full funding for the project. So that
[1:01:34] that's kind of where you get that
[1:01:35] commitment. Doesn't answer your
[1:01:36] question, but I just thought it might
[1:01:38] help you understand how we spend the
[1:01:40] less than enough money to do the project
[1:01:43] uh funds.
[1:01:47] » Mr. Brooks.
[1:01:50] >> Thank you, Madam Chair.
[1:01:52] On so for the ones that do have specific
[1:01:57] amounts attached to them, the ones that
[1:01:59] come to mind for me are the uh the
[1:02:01] wastewater and police communications.
[1:02:03] When that was brought to a vote, it I
[1:02:05] remember them having specific amounts.
[1:02:07] So, what how how is kind of the process
[1:02:11] as far as changing the amounts?
[1:02:16] and and she's well suited to answer this
[1:02:18] question, but we cannot we could not
[1:02:20] spend the full amount, but we that would
[1:02:22] be an example where like we can't spend
[1:02:24] bond money for public safety,
[1:02:26] communications, infrastructure on
[1:02:27] anything but public safety,
[1:02:29] communications infrastructure. So, a a
[1:02:31] general obligation bond is different and
[1:02:34] I I would say far more binding than the
[1:02:36] intent language in the 1%.
[1:02:41] » Absolutely. Um two very different ballot
[1:02:44] questions. So, um, the question going to
[1:02:47] the voters to say, "We'd like to have a
[1:02:49] 1% temporary sales tax to do these
[1:02:52] projects is very different from the
[1:02:55] general bond question that went to the
[1:02:57] voters about the public safety
[1:02:59] infrastructure, which was, we're looking
[1:03:02] for permission to go get $12.5 million,
[1:03:06] if I remember correctly, um, in general
[1:03:08] obligation bonds to construct
[1:03:12] this project." And sometimes um you know
[1:03:16] there was also the $10 million
[1:03:18] wastewater infrastructure bond that had
[1:03:22] a couple of projects listed, but we
[1:03:24] can't take any of those bond proceeds
[1:03:27] from that $10 million and use it to go
[1:03:31] build a street or to um go build a
[1:03:34] building. Um so the bond language is is
[1:03:37] very much more binding in particular. um
[1:03:41] the sales tax language. Um we do you
[1:03:44] know we say our intent is to do these
[1:03:47] types of things with this sales sales
[1:03:48] tax fund. Um the sales tax amount that
[1:03:52] we collect is going to be variable. As
[1:03:54] Miss Hugh Scandies um pointed out, we
[1:03:57] you know we collected much less during
[1:04:00] CO collected a lot more on the rebound
[1:04:03] when um you know tourism picked back up
[1:04:06] and so um just very different ballot
[1:04:09] questions.
[1:04:11] >> Thank you
[1:04:13] >> Miss Hall.
[1:04:15] >> And this is going back to the you know
[1:04:17] the projects on this day. So if you
[1:04:19] bring something up through the design
[1:04:21] phase that the federal grant has gone
[1:04:25] away for it and and so basically kind of
[1:04:28] killing the possibility of that project
[1:04:31] or you know is that design okay for you
[1:04:34] know 10 years down the road when we may
[1:04:37] pick it back up and be able to complete
[1:04:39] the project or or how does that work
[1:04:41] with the federal funding that's not
[1:04:45] likely to come through?
[1:04:50] So I I if you're specifically referring
[1:04:52] to Leven Creek multimodal path, we have
[1:04:55] successfully procured uh grants for
[1:04:58] that. Now we do not we still don't have
[1:04:59] enough funding to construct that
[1:05:01] project. Um we also uh are hopeful to in
[1:05:07] the future use some of the funds that we
[1:05:09] have to leverage match for uh future
[1:05:12] federal grants. So does that answer your
[1:05:14] question?
[1:05:14] >> Yeah. Yeah. So the project doesn't go
[1:05:16] away.
[1:05:23] » And mayor,
[1:05:24] >> I don't know if this will help or not to
[1:05:26] remind everybody about the sales tax. So
[1:05:29] if you remember when a sales tax passes,
[1:05:32] we come up with a five-year schedule and
[1:05:35] as an assembly, we change that schedule
[1:05:37] all the time. So there is flexibility in
[1:05:39] it. And um as director Ker says, we also
[1:05:43] have years that the sales tax comes in
[1:05:45] under. So then we don't allocate as
[1:05:47] much. So there is some flexibility, but
[1:05:49] we do try to do the intent of the voter
[1:05:51] as much as possible.
[1:05:56] » Mr. Brooks,
[1:05:58] >> thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to
[1:06:00] piggyback on Assembly Member Hall's uh
[1:06:04] question uh for the plans like the
[1:06:09] multimodal path uh being complete and
[1:06:12] then using those plans to secure the
[1:06:14] grants. How long is that plan good for
[1:06:19] to keep applying for grants? Does the
[1:06:21] plan have to be with within the last 5
[1:06:23] years or uh what are the requirements
[1:06:26] for applying for more grants with
[1:06:28] projects like that?
[1:06:32] » It's 100% dependent on the specific
[1:06:34] grant program that you would be applying
[1:06:36] to. Generally speaking, work that we put
[1:06:38] into developing a project doesn't go
[1:06:42] stale or or or die or change unless
[1:06:46] there are extenduating circumstances
[1:06:48] that that you know change the nature of
[1:06:50] it. I mean I if isostatic rebound
[1:06:52] totally changes uh the uh um geotech in
[1:06:57] that area um then maybe our design for a
[1:07:01] path that is over um that is a raised
[1:07:04] path doesn't have have to be a raised
[1:07:06] path anymore but of course you know
[1:07:09] those are things that are are hard to um
[1:07:12] hard to predict. So I I guess you know
[1:07:15] the work that we do on projects um is is
[1:07:18] always good work uh and is also
[1:07:21] sometimes uh becomes outdated like like
[1:07:25] any work but there's no set um
[1:07:28] there's no set time that that all
[1:07:30] federal agencies or all granting
[1:07:32] agencies have have put on that unlike
[1:07:35] when you apply for NEPA or some of those
[1:07:37] processes that you're more familiar with
[1:07:38] where you're like you have to do it
[1:07:39] within a specific time frame.
[1:07:42] Okay,
[1:07:48] » I think we can keep going.
[1:07:51] All right, page two of the memo.
[1:07:56] [laughter]
[1:07:57] So, um, we already spent time talking
[1:07:59] about the FY25 update and again, just,
[1:08:01] you know, all of our topics today weaved
[1:08:03] together. Um, I do want to take a moment
[1:08:05] and just talk about our revenue
[1:08:07] estimates. Um because as as we began
[1:08:11] work in the spring talking about um
[1:08:14] sales tax and exemptions and different
[1:08:16] um ways that that might be constructed.
[1:08:20] Um you know we as staff put together a
[1:08:24] model. It was based on information that
[1:08:26] we had. Um certainly um we do not have
[1:08:32] we have not collected complete data in
[1:08:35] the past to answer exactly how much
[1:08:38] revenue is going to change because of
[1:08:40] the two exemptions being um food and
[1:08:43] utilities um what exactly that number is
[1:08:47] going to be going forward. So, we put
[1:08:49] together an estimate uh based on
[1:08:51] information that we had, assumptions
[1:08:52] that we made. Um I know other members in
[1:08:55] the community put together models. Um
[1:08:57] some of those we shared and discussed
[1:08:59] were relatively close. They weren't
[1:09:01] exactly the same. They were built on
[1:09:02] slightly different data, slightly
[1:09:04] different assumptions. Um I think the
[1:09:06] one thing that we all agreed on is the
[1:09:08] impact to the revenue is not zero, but
[1:09:10] what it actually is is somewhat unknown.
[1:09:14] The first full quarter of um sales tax
[1:09:17] collection with these new exemptions is
[1:09:20] going to be January, February, March.
[1:09:22] Those sales tax returns and remittance
[1:09:24] remittances are due April 30th. So it
[1:09:27] will be miday before we know what that
[1:09:30] first quarter even looks like. By that
[1:09:33] time,
[1:09:36] if you all follow the same trajectory as
[1:09:38] you usually do, which is good, um you
[1:09:40] will be done with the budget discussions
[1:09:42] and all of those budget legisl
[1:09:44] legislation pieces will be waiting for
[1:09:46] the full assembly to act on in the
[1:09:48] beginning of June before we even know
[1:09:50] what the first full quarter looks like.
[1:09:52] So, we just need to again acknowledge
[1:09:55] that all of these estimates are
[1:09:57] estimates. Um it is going to take a
[1:09:59] while for us to see the full impact of
[1:10:02] these exemptions and how how they play
[1:10:04] out um before we know what the true
[1:10:07] numbers are. Um there are a lot of ways
[1:10:11] that um that we can go about reducing
[1:10:14] the budget. We know that there is a
[1:10:15] revenue impact. We know that we're going
[1:10:17] to have to reduce our FY27 budget. Um we
[1:10:22] um can definitely take many approaches.
[1:10:26] Um, one approach that's often used is
[1:10:27] just across the board cuts. Everybody
[1:10:29] cuts 5%, everybody cuts 10%. Um, I would
[1:10:33] argue that that's um,
[1:10:36] in some ways people will say that's
[1:10:38] completely fair. Everybody deals with
[1:10:40] the same percentage of pain. Um, but
[1:10:43] certainly how departments are
[1:10:45] constructed and the services they give
[1:10:47] don't necessarily always lend themselves
[1:10:48] to just a straight across the board cut.
[1:10:51] So, if you're um I think I used HR as an
[1:10:53] example in the memo who really has
[1:10:56] people and a couple of paper clips, a 5%
[1:10:58] cut to them is going to be very
[1:11:00] different from like a streets department
[1:11:02] that has people and equipment and lots
[1:11:04] of supplies and other things. And so, um
[1:11:07] being able to manage that kind of um a
[1:11:09] cut would be different. Um oftent times
[1:11:12] um organizations will say we're just
[1:11:13] going to do hiring freezes, which is
[1:11:16] okay as a shortterm kind of get through
[1:11:18] a period where you're making decisions.
[1:11:21] Um but a hiring freeze is not a
[1:11:25] permanent reduction to expenditures. The
[1:11:28] only way that that turns into a
[1:11:30] reduction of expenditure expenditures is
[1:11:32] by reduction of positions. Um which in
[1:11:35] our case usually means a reduction of
[1:11:37] services. So hiring freeze could be an
[1:11:38] option. A lot of people or different
[1:11:41] organizations might say, "Oh, we're just
[1:11:43] going to stop doing whatever. No more
[1:11:46] training. Uh we're not paying for
[1:11:48] certifications. We're not going to
[1:11:49] offer, you know, we're not going to pay
[1:11:51] for this line of of business." Um that's
[1:11:54] one way to do it. Um service reductions
[1:11:57] are another way to look at um either um
[1:12:01] bringing down a level of service,
[1:12:03] eliminating services. Um there's a lot
[1:12:05] of ways to get to um what those might
[1:12:07] be. Um, another way to fill a um a
[1:12:10] budget gap is to increase revenue. So,
[1:12:14] um, there's only so many ways that
[1:12:16] revenue can be increased um, with our
[1:12:19] particular um, situation, but looking at
[1:12:21] revenues might be a way um, to also um,
[1:12:26] reduce the gap. And then um finally,
[1:12:29] there's a lot of just tools in the
[1:12:31] toolkit for um the manager and for um
[1:12:35] finance and budget staff as we work
[1:12:38] through budget preparation and that um
[1:12:40] we already talked about like uh
[1:12:42] personnel lapses and right right sizing
[1:12:44] how much we think we're going to fill
[1:12:46] positions or how much turnover we think
[1:12:48] we're going to experience. Um and
[1:12:50] there's a lot of tools that we do that
[1:12:52] are just kind of invisible behind the
[1:12:54] scenes that we can use to um help
[1:12:56] mitigate um budget. So um there's a lot
[1:13:00] of options um available to us. This is
[1:13:03] certainly not a comprehensive list, but
[1:13:05] those are kind of the the big highlights
[1:13:06] of how um particularly governmental
[1:13:08] organizations um look to reduce um
[1:13:11] budgets.
[1:13:13] >> Go ahead.
[1:13:14] >> If I could add my color. Uh Angie said
[1:13:16] that it's it's her job to present my uh
[1:13:18] job to add colorful commentary.
[1:13:20] [laughter]
[1:13:21] So I just want to remind people that on
[1:13:23] budget assumptions that is certainly one
[1:13:25] way to make you know changing those is
[1:13:28] certainly one way to make our budget and
[1:13:30] our actuals match uh more accurately but
[1:13:33] it is not um reducing what we spend or
[1:13:36] increasing what we earn. So um it's it's
[1:13:40] the tool that like uh just makes us more
[1:13:43] accurate. it doesn't actually change our
[1:13:46] financial decision.
[1:13:50] » Thank you. [clears throat]
[1:13:51] Um so as as staff we've talked about
[1:13:53] like how we might recommend that we move
[1:13:55] forward and um our recommendation um for
[1:13:59] your consideration is a combination of
[1:14:01] looking at service reductions.
[1:14:04] um there are some places where we may be
[1:14:05] able to adjust revenue and then um just
[1:14:08] you know internally we'll use those
[1:14:10] tools um associated with budget
[1:14:12] assumptions um to tighten things up. So
[1:14:15] um that would be our our recommendation
[1:14:17] going forward. Um
[1:14:20] that decision doesn't necessarily have
[1:14:22] to be made tonight. Um but Chair Wald
[1:14:25] might be a great place to pause and see
[1:14:27] if there are any questions.
[1:14:37] I've got one.
[1:14:39] I I it is to me it's really helpful to
[1:14:43] have this terminology here around
[1:14:45] options so that
[1:14:48] you know I think these will be ongoing
[1:14:49] conversations and we can use shared
[1:14:51] vocabulary.
[1:14:53] You know some things that have been
[1:14:54] suggested
[1:14:57] um
[1:14:59] you know that people have been talking
[1:15:00] about I'm curious what category you'd
[1:15:03] put them in. Um
[1:15:07] shifting to more debt has been something
[1:15:11] that's been discussed um as we were
[1:15:14] preparing for these ballot initiatives
[1:15:16] that you know we we may things that
[1:15:18] typically would have been covered by
[1:15:21] revenue you know can be put
[1:15:24] to voters for debt financing. Um, and
[1:15:29] you know, the other things are kind of
[1:15:31] redirecting revenues that used to go to
[1:15:33] some things and maybe now should go
[1:15:36] somewhere else. So, we're going to talk
[1:15:38] about one of those tonight with dockage
[1:15:40] fees, which used to go somewhere and
[1:15:42] we're like, maybe we should go somewhere
[1:15:44] else. Hotel bed tax also comes to mind.
[1:15:46] Should I be thinking about those as kind
[1:15:50] of in the revenue increase
[1:15:52] bucket? You know,
[1:15:55] in terms of what you're recommending, do
[1:15:57] those things kind of fit
[1:16:00] neatly in any category?
[1:16:04] >> Thank you, Chair. Well, um I'd like to
[1:16:07] um tackle those um very distinctly. So,
[1:16:11] um let's deal with this the the second
[1:16:13] thought process that you brought up f um
[1:16:15] first, which is um reallocating revenue
[1:16:19] or redirecting revenue. Um I think that does fall in in the revenue um
[1:16:25] conversation, not necessarily increasing
[1:16:27] revenue, but I but I do think it's it is
[1:16:30] it could be um a combination of um a
[1:16:34] service reduction and a revenue
[1:16:37] increase, right? So, if we used to spend
[1:16:39] revenue here and we don't want to do
[1:16:40] that anymore, that might be a service
[1:16:42] reduction and then taking that revenue
[1:16:44] and allocating it somewhere else. Um,
[1:16:48] as far as like putting in category, um,
[1:16:50] I think you could certainly, um, put
[1:16:52] that in kind of a revenue increase
[1:16:54] category. Um, a revenue reallocation,
[1:16:57] um, would fit in there. Um the first
[1:16:59] item that you mentioned about using um
[1:17:02] debt perhaps
[1:17:04] um as an option. Um I think these budget
[1:17:08] reduction options that are in the memo
[1:17:12] are really geared towards operations. So
[1:17:15] operational reductions to the budget.
[1:17:18] When we talk about utilizing debt, we
[1:17:21] should not be talking about debt to run
[1:17:23] our operations, right? So debt is really
[1:17:25] geared around projects. And so um it it
[1:17:30] might be that um we want to use debt as
[1:17:34] a mechanism to fund various
[1:17:37] infrastructure projects or capital
[1:17:39] projects more so um in the future than
[1:17:43] whereas we may have just taken fund
[1:17:44] balance and allocated. Um but that is
[1:17:47] definitely [clears throat]
[1:17:48] um more of a a one-time
[1:17:51] um usage of funds. And so we would want
[1:17:54] to talk about um the utilization of debt
[1:17:57] more in a in a capital project kind of
[1:18:00] discussion. Although um you know when it comes time to um revisit some of
[1:18:07] these uh temporary sales tax, maybe the
[1:18:10] structure that's presented um looks
[1:18:13] different going to the voters the next
[1:18:15] time around than what we have today. And
[1:18:18] so that might be um you know part of the
[1:18:20] conversation. But certainly when we talk
[1:18:22] about debt we should really focus that
[1:18:24] on um funding of projects certainly not
[1:18:28] funding of operation and that was the
[1:18:29] intent of these reductions was more
[1:18:31] operationally speaking
[1:18:34] >> makes sense. Thanks Mr. Smith.
[1:18:40] » Thank you Madam Chair. Um
[1:18:43] I guess I it's not a question. It's more
[1:18:46] of a comment.
[1:18:48] So if we're if we're not if we're not
[1:18:50] ready to get there quite yet, then then
[1:18:52] that's fine. I um I did just have a
[1:18:55] comment about the budget assumptions,
[1:18:57] especially in light of the you know the
[1:18:59] response to my question earlier on um
[1:19:02] investment returns and how those can
[1:19:03] swing in both directions. So but I can
[1:19:07] I'll hold it for now.
[1:19:08] >> Yeah, let's hold for now. I think we're
[1:19:11] going to get pretty I bet lots of folks
[1:19:13] are an anxious here to get to a little
[1:19:16] bit more discussion. Um,
[1:19:20] you want to talk us through more about
[1:19:24] um I guess FY well we'll start with FY26
[1:19:28] and I think some of the stuff will come
[1:19:29] up.
[1:19:30] >> Okay. Um certainly so um
[1:19:35] you know given given the fact that we
[1:19:37] did have um particularly [clears throat]
[1:19:40] um interest earnings that we hadn't
[1:19:42] counted on um we have we have the
[1:19:46] opportunity to um take some time to make
[1:19:51] thoughtful decisions about
[1:19:55] reductions that we need to make. So, um,
[1:19:59] we, you know, certainly we could make
[1:20:02] some decisions today to make service
[1:20:06] reductions today. Um but you know
[1:20:10] certainly any reductions that any
[1:20:12] service reductions that we make um have
[1:20:15] an impact and um I would suspect that
[1:20:17] the body wants to um take some time to
[1:20:21] um thoughtfully consider those. um
[1:20:25] engage the public in those. And um I
[1:20:29] think that we have an opportunity to um
[1:20:33] utilize some of that extra revenue that
[1:20:35] we got in 25 to give us the time to make
[1:20:39] thoughtful decisions on where we want to
[1:20:41] make reductions. And so when we think
[1:20:44] about FY26,
[1:20:46] um our recommendation would be to have
[1:20:49] the assembly take the time to make those
[1:20:52] thoughtful decisions rather than jumping
[1:20:54] to um cut things um right away and and
[1:20:58] allow yourselves the time to um engage
[1:21:01] in a public process that's meaningful to
[1:21:03] you to get the um information that you
[1:21:05] need to make those decisions.
[1:21:07] Um [snorts]
[1:21:08] we did um there are um um a couple
[1:21:11] things that we'd like to bring out about
[1:21:13] FY26.
[1:21:14] So, um, when we distributed
[1:21:20] general fundbased
[1:21:22] assembly grants that were approved in
[1:21:24] the FY26 budget, um, we distributed a
[1:21:27] portion of those grants. Um, and we let
[1:21:31] those grantees know that we would get
[1:21:33] back to them mid November to um after
[1:21:36] the election came through and and the
[1:21:38] assembly had a chance to discuss um kind
[1:21:41] of what we needed to do going forward in
[1:21:43] response to the election. Um we would
[1:21:46] let them know if the full FY26 amount
[1:21:49] would be um remitted out to them or if
[1:21:53] there would need to be um a reduction in
[1:21:56] the FY26 grants. And so we do um need to
[1:22:01] provide some guidance to or we need your
[1:22:04] guidance so we can provide communication
[1:22:06] to those assembly grantees about the
[1:22:08] FY26 distribution of grants.
[1:22:12] Um handed out to you um was a sheet of
[1:22:16] paper that has the list of the grantees,
[1:22:18] the amount that was budgeted, what has
[1:22:20] actually been dispersed to them, and
[1:22:22] what's remaining to be dispersed. um not
[1:22:26] all of those fall fall in this category.
[1:22:28] Some of those um grantees are
[1:22:31] reimbursement grantees. Some of those
[1:22:33] grantees have marine passenger fee
[1:22:34] funds. So those are kind of outside the
[1:22:36] scope of the conversation, but that's um
[1:22:39] what what to do next on assembly grants
[1:22:41] is something that we will be looking for
[1:22:44] um your guidance on um tonight. Um there
[1:22:47] may be other things that you wish to
[1:22:49] give um staff guidance on. Um if there
[1:22:53] are areas where you want to pause on
[1:22:55] programs
[1:22:57] um you know for instance we know the
[1:22:58] affordable housing program grants and
[1:23:01] loans um is in process but no official
[1:23:04] awards have been made yet. That could be
[1:23:07] a potential area where you may want to
[1:23:08] just pause on that um and decide if you
[1:23:12] want to really want to give those grants
[1:23:13] or loans out this year or not. Um, we've
[1:23:18] already spent a lot of time talking
[1:23:19] about um, projects and certainly um, not
[1:23:24] doing projects doesn't solve a recurring
[1:23:27] revenue gap. Um, but there may be other
[1:23:30] projects that you want to
[1:23:32] um, have staff pause on. U, whether that
[1:23:35] be onetime expenditures or actual
[1:23:38] projects. Um, we mentioned a couple in
[1:23:41] the um, memo. Um the gondola project is
[1:23:44] one that um we know is going to require
[1:23:47] more funding um you know under the
[1:23:50] assembly direction. We're moving forward
[1:23:52] on that. Um so that that might be one
[1:23:56] where you want to to have staff take
[1:23:58] pause. Um [clears throat] we know that
[1:24:03] um there's additional funds that we're
[1:24:05] going to need to allocate to the um
[1:24:08] renovation of the Burns building to move
[1:24:09] staff in there. Um we know that that's
[1:24:12] coming up. Um there are other projects.
[1:24:15] Um some of them we've mentioned tonight
[1:24:17] already in discussion about projects. Um
[1:24:19] the waterfront city museum um the North
[1:24:22] State Office parking building parking
[1:24:24] garage. Um there are just some out there
[1:24:26] that we know um might be um of interest
[1:24:30] for the assembly to pause. And so
[1:24:32] whether we want to take action on those
[1:24:34] tonight, some questions that we have for
[1:24:36] you is whether or not you want um staff
[1:24:40] um or I guess staff recommends that we
[1:24:42] don't um make any broad service
[1:24:45] reductions or formal operating budget
[1:24:48] reductions right now for 26. Um and um
[1:24:52] you know the assembly guidance on that
[1:24:55] um or if you have guidance on where you
[1:24:57] want reductions to happen um we would
[1:25:00] need to hear that from you. Um, we do
[1:25:02] have um a question about um having you
[1:25:05] all direct to us to either distribute or
[1:25:08] not distribute the rest of the remaining
[1:25:10] assembly grant funds and then um just
[1:25:13] you know if there's any direction that
[1:25:15] you want to give staff on FY26
[1:25:18] one-time expenses or projects that might
[1:25:20] be out there and if there's commentary
[1:25:23] that you want to provide to that.
[1:25:28] » Oh, thank you Director Flick. I think
[1:25:29] you did a great job summarizing uh the guidance that we're looking for. You
[1:25:34] know, we appreciate that there's a lot
[1:25:36] of uh public process and assembly um
[1:25:40] debate that needs to happen around uh
[1:25:43] service reductions and around cuts, but
[1:25:46] we also want to make sure that um you
[1:25:48] know that those decisions rest in your
[1:25:50] hands. So, if if you see things that
[1:25:52] need to be addressed sooner because of
[1:25:54] the direct impacts in FY26, we are we're
[1:25:56] ready to have those conversations. So
[1:25:59] this is an opportunity to give us that
[1:26:00] direction.
[1:26:03] » Any last questions on staff
[1:26:07] recommendations on FY26 or the general
[1:26:09] state before we have a conversation?
[1:26:12] Mayor Weldon.
[1:26:14] >> Thank you. So just the FY26
[1:26:16] recommendation. So if we used um
[1:26:20] the 6.4 million that leaves us 8.5
[1:26:23] million roughly in our unrestricted fund
[1:26:25] balance. Is that correct?
[1:26:29] Uh, Mayor Weldon, the um FY 26 expected
[1:26:35] fund balance given the actions that the
[1:26:37] assembly have taken so far.
[1:26:41] Give me a moment while I find the page
[1:26:42] in the packet. Uh, page 23 of the
[1:26:45] packet, the last of the FI25 update. You
[1:26:48] currently have 15 million um sitting in
[1:26:52] your unrestricted fund balance. That
[1:26:54] includes an anticipated revenue
[1:26:56] reduction
[1:26:58] of um
[1:27:01] is it 6.7 million 6.4 million um that we
[1:27:05] anticipate of loss revenue from sales
[1:27:08] tax. So you would still have 15 million
[1:27:11] left in your unrestricted fund balance
[1:27:15] >> projected at the end of the fiscal year
[1:27:18] 26.
[1:27:18] >> That is correct.
[1:27:23] » Caster I I will just highlight that that
[1:27:25] um does not include IFFF and PSA uh
[1:27:29] negotiated wage increases. Um so just
[1:27:32] always keep that in the back of your
[1:27:34] head as another liability.
[1:27:41] But it does ask Oh, I saw some estimates
[1:27:44] on that somewhere in here. Never mind.
[1:27:47] Um, Miss Hugh Scandies, the Mr.
[1:27:50] Steininger.
[1:27:51] Uh, thanks Madame Chair. I just want to
[1:27:57] address a number in the paragraph. I'm
[1:28:00] looking at page 26 on the gondola
[1:28:02] project.
[1:28:04] um was in another meeting about that
[1:28:09] project today and got to talk to well
[1:28:11] our friends were in the room uh on that
[1:28:14] project. He
[1:28:15] >> still is.
[1:28:15] >> Oh, I didn't see him. There he is. You
[1:28:17] moved, Mr. Simmons. Um the uh best guess
[1:28:22] that we have there. Now, those numbers I
[1:28:25] think are different than the updated
[1:28:27] numbers I heard today. So, Mr. Bar was
[1:28:30] in that meeting and I just want to
[1:28:32] verify that. So the entire assembly has
[1:28:35] that same information when we're looking
[1:28:37] and thinking about all of this. In the
[1:28:41] memo I'm looking at here. It says if we
[1:28:44] our best guess is that if we pulled out
[1:28:46] now, we would have a sun cost of 10.8
[1:28:49] million and have to write a check to
[1:28:51] Gold Belt for 11.7 million. But my
[1:28:56] understanding is that based on the
[1:28:59] unspent funds, if we were to pull out
[1:29:01] today, the check that we would be
[1:29:04] writing to gold belt would be more like
[1:29:06] 7 million. Is that correct?
[1:29:10] >> Thank you, Miss Handies. Um, we believe
[1:29:14] the new money that the assembly would
[1:29:16] have to come up, we would still have to
[1:29:17] write a check for 11.7 million, but the
[1:29:20] new money that we would need to come up
[1:29:21] with based on the amount that is
[1:29:23] currently in the fund unspent would be
[1:29:26] about 6 million.
[1:29:28] >> 6 million. Okay. So, 6 million in
[1:29:32] additional funds with what we have
[1:29:34] today. Thank you,
[1:29:40] » Mayor Weldon. Oh, I missed Mr.
[1:29:43] Steininger. Sorry. Okay.
[1:29:46] >> And I don't know if I'm going out of
[1:29:47] order of the kind of way you wanted to
[1:29:50] organize questions. My question is
[1:29:52] related to the assembly grants that have
[1:29:54] been distributed. Are you okay with
[1:29:56] >> any any questions related to what we're
[1:29:59] going to that'll help inform your
[1:30:00] decision about FY26 or open
[1:30:05] season right now?
[1:30:06] >> All right. Thank you. Um, so with all
[1:30:10] them the funds we withheld on those
[1:30:12] grants, what kind of feedback have we
[1:30:15] received from the grantees? Is
[1:30:16] withholding those funds causing problems
[1:30:20] with payroll, causing problems with
[1:30:21] getting projects moved, causing other
[1:30:25] financing problems for any of these
[1:30:27] grantees? Are there like specific pain
[1:30:30] points that we should know about?
[1:30:33] like is that decision something urgently
[1:30:36] that needs to be decided today or
[1:30:38] something that we might have more time
[1:30:40] to discuss as we think about how much
[1:30:42] money we want to make sure we move into
[1:30:45] FY27.
[1:30:49] » Thank you, Mr. Steininger.
[1:30:51] We haven't had a lot of communication
[1:30:53] from assembly grantees on this topic.
[1:30:55] There has certainly been some I would
[1:30:58] say that of all of the assembly grantees
[1:31:00] there have been four or five that have
[1:31:02] been in direct contact with me who have
[1:31:04] been experiencing challenges with their
[1:31:06] budgets. Um you know of of the assembly
[1:31:10] grantees they vary widely in what
[1:31:14] percentage of their total budget comes
[1:31:16] from an assembly grant versus other
[1:31:19] sources. And as you would expect, those
[1:31:21] grantees who receive a larger portion of
[1:31:23] their budget from the assembly are
[1:31:25] struggling more or would struggle more
[1:31:27] without full funding. Um, and and those
[1:31:30] with smaller percentages struggled less.
[1:31:33] Um,
[1:31:36] if that doesn't fully answer your
[1:31:38] question, I'm happy to take another stab
[1:31:39] at it.
[1:31:43] If I could interject there about do we
[1:31:46] have to make the decision tonight or
[1:31:48] later. We did communicate to the
[1:31:50] grantees that we would get back to them
[1:31:51] in mid- November and so we need to
[1:31:55] provide them
[1:31:57] some feedback.
[1:32:04] If we wanted to delay that decision or
[1:32:07] deliberate on that decision longer,
[1:32:11] would it be a workable solution to
[1:32:12] release maybe another trans trunch of
[1:32:15] money? Like a smaller trunch might not
[1:32:17] the entire amount but small cost buys us
[1:32:21] some time in the bigger decision or you
[1:32:25] know could we get a better understanding
[1:32:27] of those grantees where there are
[1:32:30] problems and I don't necessarily need
[1:32:31] you to like list them out here. It could
[1:32:33] be something that we get in a memo and
[1:32:35] followup or something along those lines.
[1:32:40] >> Mr. Zeninger, I think you could give us
[1:32:42] direction to release another um less
[1:32:46] than full trunch if you will of of
[1:32:49] funding to the assembly grantees either
[1:32:52] as a whole. So like another 20% 30%
[1:32:56] whatever you know another you know
[1:33:00] get further along through the fiscal
[1:33:01] year keep them funded through through a
[1:33:03] portion of the fiscal year to buy
[1:33:05] yourselves more time to make decisions.
[1:33:07] Um or if you would prefer, I think we
[1:33:09] would also be able to follow direction
[1:33:11] that to um it would be more work, but to
[1:33:16] engage with uh some of the assembly
[1:33:19] grantees who we've already engaged out
[1:33:22] and summarize their experience in a
[1:33:25] memo. Um
[1:33:28] that would be more challenging, but I
[1:33:29] think we could do that, too.
[1:33:33] Mayor Weldon.
[1:33:35] >> Um following up on Mr. Steiningers and
[1:33:38] I'll put it into a question because I
[1:33:40] was just gonna um the one uh non or um
[1:33:46] grant recipient that I know that is
[1:33:48] needs to know an answer pretty quickly
[1:33:49] is the Alaska Committee because they do
[1:33:51] gavl Alaska and they're trying to and
[1:33:54] obviously they have to do it way before
[1:33:55] the legislature gets here. But my
[1:33:58] question um is actually in the FY26 have
[1:34:03] we accounted for these grants already?
[1:34:07] Thank you, Mayor Walden. Um yes, as we
[1:34:11] um provided the budget summary toward um
[1:34:14] for you, it anticipates that all of
[1:34:16] these grants are fully released to the
[1:34:18] grantees.
[1:34:24] » Any other questions?
[1:34:31] Go ahead, Miss Hall.
[1:34:33] >> I'm wondering with with the assembly
[1:34:35] grants if we have kind of a triage
[1:34:38] system, you know, what is life and
[1:34:40] safety? Um, you know, I I see child care
[1:34:43] is always rising to the top as uh a
[1:34:46] great need in in um across the state,
[1:34:50] you know. So, do we have something that
[1:34:52] if we take this money away, they're, you
[1:34:56] know, we're kind of going backwards. Um,
[1:34:59] but you know, but some of these other
[1:35:01] things, it's like, yeah, they'll survive
[1:35:02] without their funding. They may find
[1:35:04] another source or it it's not going to
[1:35:07] really negatively impact
[1:35:10] health safety type issues or or
[1:35:14] workforce or affordability.
[1:35:19] » If I could just a stab at answering that
[1:35:22] question. I think uh that uh criteria
[1:35:26] and metrics would be uh an excellent um
[1:35:31] use of the assembly's time and to to
[1:35:33] develop to establish your priorities as
[1:35:35] part of the of the FY27 budget process.
[1:35:38] So, I mean, I think as you look at our
[1:35:40] FY27 budget, you are going to have to
[1:35:43] ask yourselves those questions. um you
[1:35:46] know we would we would want to involve
[1:35:48] the assembly in any type of u any type
[1:35:52] of metric or matrix um and we're happy
[1:35:55] to do that but I think I think just
[1:35:57] given the highly personal nature for
[1:36:00] many of these organizations we could
[1:36:02] easily spend the next month um arguing
[1:36:05] over metrics for 40% of an assembly
[1:36:08] grant instead of really looking at what
[1:36:10] our FY27 landscape is going to
[1:36:15] follow up.
[1:36:16] >> Yeah. And I I guess I was thinking more
[1:36:18] FY27, you know, get through this, but
[1:36:21] going forward be a lot more
[1:36:24] targeted. Thank you.
[1:36:31] » Mayor Welen, maybe you could start us
[1:36:33] with a motion just on the first one just
[1:36:35] to put something on the floor um and we
[1:36:39] can walk through these.
[1:36:42] >> Okay. So, I think your first one
[1:36:45] >> would be to
[1:36:49] um
[1:36:51] I move that we
[1:36:57] absorb the $6.4 million gap this year
[1:37:00] for FY26.
[1:37:03] » Is that the one you're talking about?
[1:37:05] Uh, I think um maybe it would be easier
[1:37:10] if you stick to the or I know there's
[1:37:13] two places, but
[1:37:17] the action number one here. I I think
[1:37:20] you're saying the same thing, but it may
[1:37:21] be easier to
[1:37:23] >> I'll turn to that page because the other
[1:37:25] page didn't have it. [clears throat]
[1:37:26] >> Okay. Yeah.
[1:37:28] >> All right.
[1:37:28] >> Page 26, action number one. Um,
[1:37:32] >> doesn't have it either. I'm going to the
[1:37:33] last page. So,
[1:37:35] >> okay, this does not need to be the way I
[1:37:38] was the staff have a recommendation.
[1:37:40] Maybe we could put that on the floor.
[1:37:44] >> I'll try again. I uh um moved to direct
[1:37:48] staff to not do any broad service
[1:37:51] reductions or formal operating budget
[1:37:53] reductions for FY26,
[1:37:56] but fund FY26 from the unrestricted fund
[1:38:01] balance. Does that work?
[1:38:06] staff. That's clear. Motion. Okay. All
[1:38:09] right. Um
[1:38:12] I'll say any objections, but because
[1:38:14] we're just starting this conversation,
[1:38:16] even if you don't object, but you'd like
[1:38:18] to make a comment, you are welcome to.
[1:38:23] Mr. Smith.
[1:38:25] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um,
[1:38:27] I I would I would be interested in
[1:38:31] seeing what the proposed service
[1:38:34] reductions were
[1:38:39] for 26
[1:38:41] [clears throat]
[1:38:42] >> like the assemblies or the the managers
[1:38:48] or
[1:38:48] >> um sorry and and maybe I should that
[1:38:50] should have been a question. When I read
[1:38:52] that, I was believing it to be like that
[1:38:56] staff and, you know, city leadership had
[1:38:59] come back with had come back with um
[1:39:02] service reduction ideas.
[1:39:05] Am I incorrect in in what that second
[1:39:08] sentence means?
[1:39:10] >> I understand now. Um I'll ask staff that
[1:39:13] whether
[1:39:15] s several service reductions ideas were
[1:39:17] brought forward meant in the community
[1:39:20] from the assembly or from you all.
[1:39:25] >> Thank you uh chair wall. So, um I did
[1:39:27] put out a uh call to department heads um
[1:39:32] and we had a we they're very concerned
[1:39:34] about this topic and so we've had
[1:39:36] meetings and multiple communications on
[1:39:38] it uh to suggest uh service reductions
[1:39:41] that you know might be uh natural or an
[1:39:43] easier fit uh for their department. A
[1:39:46] great example is a service that maybe
[1:39:48] was added in this year's budget that we
[1:39:50] haven't been able to hire for. Is that
[1:39:52] something that makes sense uh to pause?
[1:39:54] So, I don't have a full list of those
[1:39:57] for you tonight, but I'd be happy to
[1:39:58] bring that back to you.
[1:40:01] >> All right. I'm hearing an objection. I
[1:40:05] had other people before you unless
[1:40:08] >> Sure.
[1:40:08] >> Sorry to interrupt. That wasn't part of
[1:40:10] my motion. Just so you know, that
[1:40:11] particular line, second line, I skipped.
[1:40:15] >> I said no broad service reductions or
[1:40:17] formal operating. I did not touch the
[1:40:19] second sentence.
[1:40:25] Now maybe I'm confused. Um
[1:40:31] staff
[1:40:32] are you
[1:40:33] >> can we take a read just for a few
[1:40:35] minutes?
[1:43:04] Let's take a 10-minute break and we will
[1:43:07] come back.
[1:53:31] All
[1:53:47] right, I am going to bring us back.
[1:53:51] I see Mr. Smith is still with us. Okay.
[1:53:54] So, I think where we are at is the mayor
[1:53:57] has ma made a motion
[1:54:00] um to decide tonight that we are not
[1:54:03] going to be looking at service
[1:54:05] reductions in FY26.
[1:54:08] And Mr. Smith has objected because he
[1:54:10] would like to see the staff
[1:54:12] recommendations on service reductions
[1:54:15] before making that decision. That is my
[1:54:17] interpretation
[1:54:19] of what where we're at. Mr. Smith. Is
[1:54:23] that a good articulation?
[1:54:28] » I I I do I do think that's fair. Yes.
[1:54:32] Thanks.
[1:54:36] » Any questions on the motion?
[1:54:39] Okay. Um I know we had I believe we had comments from Mr.
[1:54:46] Steininger and Missu Scandies. Go ahead,
[1:54:49] Mr. Steininger.
[1:54:51] And so I guess I I like the the spirit
[1:54:53] of the motion in that I don't think we
[1:54:56] should be looking at stopping doing
[1:54:59] things we're currently doing now within
[1:55:02] the course of the fiscal year. Like I
[1:55:03] don't think we should be looking at pink
[1:55:05] slipping employees, shut down
[1:55:07] facilities. Um but maybe in the spirit
[1:55:10] of what Mr. Smith was suggesting, you
[1:55:12] know, if there and what manager Kester
[1:55:14] mentioned, if there are things that it's
[1:55:18] not that we're stopping doing something
[1:55:20] we're doing now, but we're not going to
[1:55:23] do something you have planned to do in
[1:55:24] the next six months to save a bit of
[1:55:26] money or
[1:55:29] finding ways to increase the lapse or
[1:55:31] those kind of smaller tools that you
[1:55:32] have as a manager to push down cost. I'd
[1:55:36] like to see those. If there's something
[1:55:37] you feel like has to come to an assembly
[1:55:39] decision of, yeah, hey, we weren't able
[1:55:42] to hire this position. So, we're
[1:55:43] thinking about just stopping trying. I
[1:55:47] see that a little bit different than
[1:55:49] service level reductions, I guess. And
[1:55:51] maybe that's just me trying to think
[1:55:52] through how I should be interpreting the
[1:55:54] motion that the mayor made. Um because I
[1:55:57] do think we need expectation of city
[1:56:00] staff that to make it smoother and
[1:56:04] easier when we come into our FY27
[1:56:06] deliberations, there's not new things
[1:56:08] that you're starting three months from
[1:56:10] now that we may have to cut in the FY27
[1:56:14] budget. Um, and so I guess I just wanted
[1:56:17] to make that comment on the record to
[1:56:20] kind of set that expectation
[1:56:22] and also kind of get feedback from the
[1:56:24] mayor to see if that's how I should be
[1:56:27] understanding the motion.
[1:56:30] >> Go ahead, Madame Mayor.
[1:56:32] >> I was going to look at staff because I
[1:56:33] would be in agreement with Mr.
[1:56:35] Steininger that I wouldn't like to see
[1:56:37] anything new. Um, if we haven't started
[1:56:39] design, let's not start a design. if we
[1:56:42] haven't done an service but we were
[1:56:43] looking at it let's not go ahead with
[1:56:45] that service um even to the extent um but this is
[1:56:51] going to be for another discussion but
[1:56:53] like the diversion center is this the
[1:56:55] time we say let's just deal with the
[1:56:59] compost right now and that's going to be
[1:57:01] pushed off for years but I just don't
[1:57:03] want to start anything new but I agree
[1:57:05] with Mr. Mr. Steininger, if there's
[1:57:07] obvious little cuts here and there,
[1:57:08] that's fine. But I don't think we do
[1:57:10] major ones. But if I need to amend my
[1:57:13] motion to say that, I'd be happy to. But
[1:57:15] or do you have enough direction on the
[1:57:17] motion?
[1:57:17] >> Kit,
[1:57:19] maybe I'd just take a crack of my
[1:57:22] understanding. There is a third question
[1:57:25] here about any direction on one-time or
[1:57:29] project funding for FY26. So, we could
[1:57:32] make a decision. don't cut services, but
[1:57:34] we can also later in this conversation
[1:57:37] talk about are there things projects on
[1:57:40] the horizon that we want to pause or cut
[1:57:42] or something. It I'll turn it over to
[1:57:46] the manager to see if I'm characterizing
[1:57:49] the direction that you want accurately.
[1:57:53] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um I'm just
[1:57:55] going to summarize uh Assembly Member
[1:57:58] Steininger's comments. Um, I think
[1:58:01] giving the manager's office direction
[1:58:03] to, you know, be judicious, not start
[1:58:07] new things, um, is something that we can
[1:58:10] do. Uh, and you might get some
[1:58:12] complaints, right? Because we might have
[1:58:13] some, uh, parks and rec programming, for
[1:58:15] example, that doesn't happen when when
[1:58:18] people are expecting it to happen. Um, I
[1:58:20] think that I can do and I don't know
[1:58:22] that I would spend assembly time going
[1:58:24] through all of those things. Um I also
[1:58:27] really appreciate separating the um
[1:58:29] operating and the capital questions
[1:58:30] because when Mayor Welen said if you
[1:58:33] haven't started design on a project then
[1:58:35] don't that has far greater implications
[1:58:38] for our ability to
[1:58:41] do the things that we need to do to run
[1:58:43] the city. So um I think taking those two items separately would help provide
[1:58:47] me clarity.
[1:58:52] Mayor Weldon to
[1:58:54] >> stay with the intent of the original
[1:58:56] motion. [laughter] We'll address the
[1:58:58] other one.
[1:59:00] >> Mr. Sner, is that are you satisfied with
[1:59:03] those answers? Okay.
[1:59:06] >> Mr. Smith, do you have Oh, sorry. Miss
[1:59:10] Hugh Gandies was on the list and hasn't
[1:59:12] spoken yet. Miss Hugh Gandies.
[1:59:15] >> Thank you, Madam Chair.
[1:59:18] I think that helps me to think about
[1:59:21] this uh separately between projects and
[1:59:25] operating. And I think it will be
[1:59:28] helpful throughout this entire process
[1:59:30] to try to as much as I can think and
[1:59:33] speak in those different tools that you
[1:59:35] outlined in this memo of different ways
[1:59:38] of
[1:59:40] um conserving cost. Um,
[1:59:44] I would say that I am more of the
[1:59:51] mind that to absorb it, which is another
[1:59:56] way of saying uh, with these broad cuts
[2:00:00] feels wrong to me to where I would want
[2:00:03] to identify
[2:00:05] what those operating constraints would
[2:00:08] be, whether
[2:00:11] I agree I think that's a good way of
[2:00:13] characterizing it. Not like pink
[2:00:15] slipping people or to that end of uh if
[2:00:20] it's a spectrum, I guess. Um
[2:00:24] I think it's partially
[2:00:30] with what it what it would look like
[2:00:33] potentially or I'd be interested in what
[2:00:34] it would look like if we didn't
[2:00:36] institute uh if we didn't give the
[2:00:37] direction to say hiring freeze. don't
[2:00:40] hire anyone else.
[2:00:43] Understanding that there would be
[2:00:46] service reductions that wouldn't be
[2:00:48] necessarily cuts to services, but it
[2:00:51] would affect services. It might affect
[2:00:54] coverage. It might affect um things like
[2:00:57] uh parks programming is a good example
[2:01:00] that I was sort of imagining.
[2:01:03] I would be, I think, interested in
[2:01:05] looking at things like that for FY26
[2:01:08] before I said with this unexpected
[2:01:11] revenue, we're just going to absorb it.
[2:01:14] And I think the magnitude of the
[2:01:16] decisions we're going to make and the
[2:01:19] amount of time that we have to make
[2:01:21] them, uh, it just feels more,
[2:01:25] um, it feels better for me as trying to
[2:01:29] be a good steward, uh, of public funds
[2:01:32] throughout this process and at the same
[2:01:35] time make sure we're engaging the public
[2:01:37] in this process. Not that we are doing
[2:01:40] something panicked and willy-nilly. I
[2:01:43] and I'm apologize for the ramble, but
[2:01:46] I'm trying to give direction that
[2:01:50] demonstrates where I'm at personally. I
[2:01:53] appreciate the sentiment of wanting to
[2:01:55] make thoughtful decisions
[2:01:58] um and not make panicked cuts,
[2:02:01] but I think knowing the remaining months
[2:02:06] that are in FY26,
[2:02:09] I would want to start identifying some
[2:02:11] of those things.
[2:02:14] So, that's where I'm at.
[2:02:23] others.
[2:02:27] I'll speak
[2:02:30] um I'll speak in support of this motion.
[2:02:33] Um,
[2:02:37] I think that
[2:02:39] the
[2:02:41] I like to be holistic in my decision-
[2:02:44] making when I can that we are really for
[2:02:48] making service cuts, cuts to the
[2:02:51] fundamental things that the city does
[2:02:54] that we are engaging the public.
[2:02:58] We're being thoughtful.
[2:03:00] we're taking our time to do it because
[2:03:01] once you cut something
[2:03:04] it is not easy to come back. Um I
[2:03:09] appreciate
[2:03:10] the but I but I also share Miss Hughes
[2:03:13] Gandandy and I think Mr. Steininger's
[2:03:15] and and maybe even Mr. miss um I think
[2:03:19] where they're coming from which is you
[2:03:21] know we have to we have to start having
[2:03:24] these conversations soon and I'm not
[2:03:28] opposed to when we get to talking about
[2:03:31] one time or project funding you know
[2:03:33] pausing things or even hiring freezes if
[2:03:36] that's a option that we think makes
[2:03:38] sense to say hold on we we can't
[2:03:44] keep spending because we know what's
[2:03:46] coming. So I don't think it's time to do
[2:03:49] service reductions in FY26 knowing that
[2:03:52] we have significant service reductions
[2:03:55] planned for FY27. And I want to be
[2:03:57] thoughtful and because we have been so
[2:03:59] conser or this assembly past assemblies
[2:04:02] have been so conservative about how
[2:04:04] they've budgeted and because our
[2:04:07] investments did well we actually had the
[2:04:09] space to do that. We saw what the school
[2:04:11] board had to do when they had two months
[2:04:13] to make big decisions.
[2:04:16] That was extremely challenging for the
[2:04:19] public. So, um
[2:04:23] any little rabbit holes we go down about
[2:04:26] pool hours or um you know, other things
[2:04:30] I think are going to it's going to be a
[2:04:31] big waste of time for what we really
[2:04:33] need to do. So, thank you,
[2:04:36] >> Mr. Smith. I saw Mayor Weldon. Oh,
[2:04:42] >> I saw Miss the [clears throat] order. I
[2:04:44] saw people's hands. Miss Hall, Mayor
[2:04:46] Weldon, and Mr. Smith.
[2:04:49] >> And I would speak in favor of no broad
[2:04:52] service reduction. So, in favor of the
[2:04:54] motion and looking forward to FY27, I
[2:04:59] think we really need to pull the public
[2:05:01] in on this and have them help us make
[2:05:04] these decisions. and and that would be
[2:05:06] another reason I wouldn't want to
[2:05:09] willy-nilly start cutting things
[2:05:13] in in FY26. I think this should be a
[2:05:16] very public engagement process.
[2:05:20] >> I'm going to go to um Mr. Brooks first
[2:05:23] um because he hasn't spoken yet on this
[2:05:25] topic and then we'll have Mayor Wald Mr.
[2:05:28] Smith.
[2:05:30] >> Thank you, Madam Chair.
[2:05:32] I I think
[2:05:35] you know the the desire of the community
[2:05:39] through this past election cycle was
[2:05:43] pretty much you know asking for uh you
[2:05:47] know a a tighter constraint or a more
[2:05:50] efficiency within the operation. So I
[2:05:55] think you know looking at something even
[2:05:58] if it's small and supplemental for the
[2:06:00] remainder of the year should be worth
[2:06:02] considering and if that is a hiring
[2:06:05] freeze maybe it's a hiring freeze for
[2:06:07] non-emergency departments and even in
[2:06:10] accompaniment with that could even
[2:06:12] consider uh a cap on overtime for
[2:06:16] non-emergency departments for the
[2:06:18] remainder of the year as well.
[2:06:21] >> Mr. Mr. Brics, will you specify if you
[2:06:22] are objecting or um supporting the
[2:06:26] motion?
[2:06:29] » I'm object objecting to the motion.
[2:06:33] >> All right. I have Mayor Weldon and Mr.
[2:06:36] Smith.
[2:06:37] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Everything that
[2:06:39] Miss Hugh Scandi said is true, and I
[2:06:41] think we need to look at everything very
[2:06:43] carefully. Unfortunately, um I think
[2:06:46] that's true for FY27 and on FY26, we're
[2:06:49] almost halfway through it and I think we
[2:06:52] will be rushed to get to some of those
[2:06:54] things. With that, I think staff will
[2:06:56] look at um cuts in services and all
[2:07:00] those kind of things as they're doing
[2:07:02] already now since they've predicted that
[2:07:04] with the ballot measures would been
[2:07:05] passed. So, I'm going to have a little
[2:07:06] faith in staff and um I think we really
[2:07:10] need to drill down to FY27, but I don't
[2:07:13] think we're going to have time to deal
[2:07:14] with FY26 and that's why I support the
[2:07:16] motion.
[2:07:19] >> Mr. Smith,
[2:07:23] [clears throat]
[2:07:24] >> thank you, Madam Chair.
[2:07:28] I definitely hear what folks are saying.
[2:07:31] I mean and and I'm trying to like tease
[2:07:35] out all the and that's that's I guess
[2:07:38] I'm you know curious about what the
[2:07:40] service reduction ideas were but um
[2:07:43] because you know for instance
[2:07:47] like hiring freezes and I don't know if
[2:07:50] those are the a good idea because even
[2:07:53] if it's a non-emergency position like we
[2:07:54] need people in CDD to permit projects to
[2:07:57] keep housing projects moving forward for
[2:07:58] instance. So, it's like some of these
[2:08:00] broad things I'm not I wouldn't say I'm
[2:08:02] totally interested in. Um I mean there's
[2:08:05] just a lot of detail in what that looks
[2:08:07] like and there's a lot of different
[2:08:09] options in that and I you know I'm
[2:08:11] hearing you know pausing new things or
[2:08:14] pausing a project or a one time funding.
[2:08:17] Anyway, I guess that's where
[2:08:21] I just don't know if we I don't I don't
[2:08:23] know if I see in the in the I don't know
[2:08:25] if I see in the motion the granularity
[2:08:28] that I'm looking for and I can
[2:08:29] understand maybe why that's
[2:08:32] probably a very long motion and and hard
[2:08:34] to hard to put together right now. Um,
[2:08:37] I'm hearing some things from the from
[2:08:38] the manager that I agree with that I'm
[2:08:40] interested in seeing and again maybe
[2:08:42] some one-time projects. We look at
[2:08:44] posits
[2:08:48] possible service reductions, some of
[2:08:50] which I think we maybe should consider
[2:08:52] for FY26.
[2:08:54] Um,
[2:08:55] so that's why I was kind of thinking,
[2:08:57] you know, continuing this discussion a
[2:09:00] bit further because it I understand that
[2:09:02] we'll be doing a lot of work on that for
[2:09:04] 27. We are probably thinking about it
[2:09:06] now though. Um, so I I guess I think I'm
[2:09:12] kind of similarly situated with with you
[2:09:15] all. It's just I don't have the
[2:09:16] granularity to say yes, don't make any,
[2:09:19] you know, any of some of these like
[2:09:22] broad surf. Anyway, I don't know if I
[2:09:23] have the granularity in the motion to
[2:09:25] feel 100% confident with it. So, I'm I'm
[2:09:28] vacasillating if I like want to remove
[2:09:30] my objection because I think we're kind
[2:09:32] of maybe on the same page, but I also do
[2:09:35] am interested in what possible service
[2:09:37] reductions could be done in 26. So, I
[2:09:40] I'll maintain I'll maintain my objection
[2:09:42] as well. I'm I I think I think I think
[2:09:46] we'll get to where I'm hoping we're
[2:09:48] going. It's just I don't know if I see
[2:09:50] that see that in or hear that in the
[2:09:53] motion that was made. So, thanks.
[2:09:56] If this motion fails, we can certainly
[2:09:58] try something else. Um, we got a long
[2:10:02] list here still. I don't think Mr. Kelly
[2:10:05] has spoken, so I'm going to let him skip
[2:10:07] the line here, but I got the rest of you
[2:10:09] on my sheet. Mr. Kelly,
[2:10:12] >> thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I
[2:10:14] think I will speak in in opposition um
[2:10:17] to this motion. I think um much along
[2:10:20] the the lines of um Mr. Smith who just
[2:10:23] spoke. Um it's not that um a vote
[2:10:27] against this would be in favor of broad
[2:10:29] reductions. I think I I want to explore
[2:10:32] um what these uh what these could be uh
[2:10:36] before we make this decision. So I think
[2:10:38] not necessarily this is the wrong
[2:10:40] decision, but it's I think it's too
[2:10:41] early to make this decision. And so I
[2:10:43] will be voting against.
[2:10:49] » All right.
[2:10:52] Mr. Steininger, you're up. I just so I
[2:10:56] keep track of everyone. I have Mr.
[2:10:57] Steininger, then Miss Candies, and then
[2:11:00] Miss Hall.
[2:11:03] So, I'm going to be specifically
[2:11:05] speaking in support of the motion, but
[2:11:08] that kind of my comments earlier than
[2:11:11] still now. I want to make sure that
[2:11:15] the manager is executing the budget.
[2:11:18] Very important. even if we're not making
[2:11:20] broad service reductions that you're
[2:11:22] executing the FY26 budget in a way that
[2:11:25] ensures that we're
[2:11:28] we have flexibility going into our 27
[2:11:30] deliberations that you know things that
[2:11:34] have ongoing impacts. You know, you you
[2:11:37] use the example of parks and recck
[2:11:39] programming. Um, but if that's something
[2:11:42] that's a, you know, oh, there's some
[2:11:43] summer programming coming up or
[2:11:45] something that's seasonal, that doesn't
[2:11:47] really obligate us into 27 doesn't
[2:11:49] create a problem, that's still within
[2:11:51] kind of the the budget that you've been
[2:11:54] given in our operating side. um that you're you have the tools to manage
[2:12:01] the budget in the way that you see best
[2:12:04] fit to both get the most laps that we
[2:12:09] can while still delivering the services
[2:12:11] that we promised when we passed the
[2:12:13] budget. Um and not, you know, kind of
[2:12:17] starting things up that you think we're
[2:12:19] probably gonna going to reassess in 27.
[2:12:23] it. I know that's kind of a fine line
[2:12:25] for you to walk down, but like I I think
[2:12:27] the mayor may have made this point, but
[2:12:30] spending a lot of time trying to make
[2:12:32] reductions in 26, I think will just
[2:12:35] distract from the really hard
[2:12:36] conversations we have to make about 27.
[2:12:39] And we're going to be spending a lot of
[2:12:41] time on those. And so when we think
[2:12:44] about this, do these discussions about
[2:12:47] 26, are they going to help us in our
[2:12:49] discussions about 27 or are they going
[2:12:52] to distract us from those discussions?
[2:12:55] Um, and I'll just add before I close, I
[2:12:59] have been involved in I think I counted
[2:13:01] in my head at least five different um
[2:13:04] hiring freezes that I was directly
[2:13:07] involved in managing and executing. And
[2:13:11] I don't think a single one of them did
[2:13:13] anything but create more bureaucracy and
[2:13:16] more headache for delivery of services
[2:13:20] with long-term implications on what the
[2:13:23] organization was able to do. So, broadly
[2:13:26] apply, I'm not in support of broadly
[2:13:28] applied hiring freezes, but
[2:13:31] I still expect you as a manager to use
[2:13:35] your discretion to make sure we're not
[2:13:38] hiring more than we absolutely need to.
[2:13:40] That you know that you recognize we're
[2:13:42] in a time of constraint. We're going to
[2:13:44] come into a much reduced budget, but
[2:13:48] we're we're trying not that this policy
[2:13:52] decision is to try not to micromanage
[2:13:54] you on the decisions, the hard decisions
[2:13:56] you have to make over the next six
[2:13:58] months while we focus on the long-term
[2:14:01] policy decisions we have to make for
[2:14:03] fiscal year 27 and beyond.
[2:14:08] Manager Ker, do you w to We This
[2:14:11] discussion is intended to give you
[2:14:14] direction and I think you know my
[2:14:19] interpretation is the
[2:14:22] Well, I'll let I'll let you respond to
[2:14:24] that comment. I won't put words in your
[2:14:26] mouth.
[2:14:27] Um I think um I um very much appreciate
[2:14:32] that direction and what I know uh you
[2:14:36] know the value of you giving me that
[2:14:38] direction is that when um small things
[2:14:42] don't move forward like maybe the public
[2:14:44] intended uh they may be part of some of
[2:14:47] those decisions. I could give you a
[2:14:48] couple examples if that's useful. uh
[2:14:50] Marie Drake uh expanding Jim Yuse at
[2:14:53] Marie Drake. We have not been able to
[2:14:55] hire for that position. Seems like the
[2:14:57] type of position that we need to just
[2:14:59] take a pause and that's an expand. It's
[2:15:02] a small very small example. Another
[2:15:03] example, uh when we lost our uh
[2:15:07] environmental sustainability coordinator
[2:15:09] that does a lot of our waste management
[2:15:10] and staffs the JCOS committee, we uh
[2:15:14] paused on advertising to hire to refill
[2:15:17] that position because um there's
[2:15:19] uncertainty in how the assembly is going
[2:15:22] to decide uh to move forward with waste.
[2:15:24] Those are uh not examples that I would
[2:15:26] consider assembly level decisions, but
[2:15:28] those are examples of uh me trying to
[2:15:31] exercise my best judgement. where you
[2:15:33] may feel that by constituents saying,
[2:15:35] "Hey, I want the support for this
[2:15:38] committee or I want, you know, this uh
[2:15:40] this service." Um, but but are examples
[2:15:43] of the type of um prudent budget
[2:15:46] decisions that I would be make that I am
[2:15:49] making and will continue to make and
[2:15:51] consider to be the spirit of Assemblyman
[2:15:53] Steininger's direction. Does that help?
[2:16:02] Miss Huskandies and Miss Hall. Thanks,
[2:16:05] Madam Chair.
[2:16:08] Lots of good stuff. I think Mr. Siger's
[2:16:11] comments very helpful, very as we are
[2:16:14] trying to dial this in and better
[2:16:17] articulate direction that is helpful to
[2:16:19] you that is more nuanced than a budget
[2:16:23] that was passed that you already have as
[2:16:25] something to refer back to. I think like
[2:16:28] Mr. Smith, I'm going back and forth
[2:16:31] between saying really then what is a
[2:16:33] harm in supporting this? So I'm just
[2:16:35] trying to flag for this body as we make
[2:16:38] decisions
[2:16:40] the sorts of things that I am thinking
[2:16:42] about because
[2:16:45] I what I primarily don't want is a focus
[2:16:50] on 26 that eats into our seven months
[2:16:55] when we need to be making decisions
[2:16:57] about 27.
[2:17:00] I think for myself I am trying to find
[2:17:02] those things that are additive that
[2:17:05] might be something we locate and
[2:17:09] identify in 26 that is also going to
[2:17:12] carry over into 27 is kind of how I was
[2:17:15] thinking about it. um
[2:17:21] 6 million 6.7 million in unexpected
[2:17:24] revenue is something that I I can almost
[2:17:27] picture with like a meter and it just
[2:17:29] drops down as we get to that 7th month
[2:17:31] period. So um in a way it buys us time
[2:17:35] and in another way it feels like we're
[2:17:36] just burning through the money without
[2:17:38] making decisions. So, I guess that's
[2:17:41] just to let you know how I'm thinking
[2:17:43] about it and the discomfort then that
[2:17:46] identifies for me. Um,
[2:17:49] I think potentially as I'm picturing I
[2:17:53] think all this discussion hopefully is
[2:17:55] helpful to you. Um,
[2:17:59] I also it is not my intention to want to
[2:18:04] micromanage those things. That's good to
[2:18:06] hear. I assume you are already doing
[2:18:09] that and I assume all department heads
[2:18:10] are already thinking about that having
[2:18:12] seen the news. I'm sure they are
[2:18:13] thinking about it all the time. Um what
[2:18:16] they might be able to identify.
[2:18:19] I think
[2:18:21] when I am trying to imagine the
[2:18:23] structure that we will use for 27, it
[2:18:25] seems natural to me that 26 might get a
[2:18:28] little bit mixed up in the froth. And
[2:18:30] that is why I was trying to kind of
[2:18:32] preserve that because
[2:18:35] it may be that
[2:18:38] as
[2:18:40] if we say just go forward with 26 making
[2:18:44] prudent budget decisions
[2:18:46] that at the next finance meeting we want
[2:18:49] to say you know can you identify
[2:18:52] potential like a partial hiring freeze
[2:18:55] and I don't know that if this body would
[2:18:57] do that Um, I don't know some of the
[2:19:01] future things we might want. Bring back
[2:19:04] a list of all vacant positions currently
[2:19:06] across the department. What would
[2:19:09] something that would be useful in
[2:19:11] regards to hiring look like? Um, I do
[2:19:14] think it's very important and and that
[2:19:17] is why it's so important we involve the
[2:19:18] public that we are giving direction and
[2:19:21] not not just turning to staff and saying
[2:19:24] bring back cuts because we don't want to
[2:19:25] make any. And I mean, we're all in a
[2:19:28] very unpleasant situation together. Um,
[2:19:34] » is that
[2:19:36] >> everybody? We're all in it together. Uh,
[2:19:38] so I I guess that's the only thing is
[2:19:40] like I'm thinking what potentially might
[2:19:42] we find in the 27 process that we might
[2:19:44] want to say. Also,
[2:19:47] could could that be applied before 7
[2:19:49] months are over? Because if it could,
[2:19:52] then we might save some money. Like if
[2:19:53] I'm just thinking of my own budget, like
[2:19:55] what might I identify that I could cut
[2:19:57] in two months, like looking at my
[2:19:59] subscription. So that's how I'm thinking
[2:20:01] about it. I'm not trying to add work for
[2:20:03] staff, but it seems like we might find
[2:20:06] things and I I could I could be okay
[2:20:08] just letting this motion go tonight, but
[2:20:11] I think in that process, we might find
[2:20:13] things that we do want to apply to 26.
[2:20:16] So that's kind of what I'm trying to
[2:20:18] preserve.
[2:20:22] » Miss Hall.
[2:20:23] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so again, I read this as simply the staff
[2:20:29] recommends no broad service reductions
[2:20:31] or formal operating budget reductions
[2:20:34] implemented in FY26.
[2:20:36] However, they are saying we have the
[2:20:40] ability to make, you know, that you as staff have already identified some
[2:20:45] things that might possibly be cut. So, I
[2:20:48] see we're we're covering both of those
[2:20:50] in this. Am I reading that correctly?
[2:20:53] Yeah. So, I I think I you know, why
[2:20:56] wouldn't we support this? I think it's
[2:20:59] maybe got a little confusing thinking we
[2:21:01] needed to delve into all the several
[2:21:04] service reduction ideas that were
[2:21:06] brought forward, but no, we can ask our staff to to do that. Am I correct?
[2:21:13] And we can do both. Yeah. Go ahead,
[2:21:16] >> Miss Flick.
[2:21:18] >> Um, thank you [clears throat] and partly
[2:21:20] to Miss Hall and partly to Miss
[2:21:22] Huskandies. Um, I think as as you all
[2:21:25] wrestle with what FY27 looks like, there
[2:21:30] will
[2:21:32] you will be giving direction before
[2:21:34] we're out of FY26.
[2:21:36] So, if you say, "Hey, in FY27, we're not going to do this thing anymore
[2:21:41] or we're going to do less of this thing
[2:21:44] and in 26 there's already a natural flow
[2:21:48] to move there." The manager is going to
[2:21:51] make that happen. So if you know program
[2:21:54] XYZ is going to move to 50% of what it
[2:21:57] is today and we have a staff person
[2:22:00] leave in April, it wouldn't make sense
[2:22:03] to fill that position for May and June
[2:22:06] knowing that we would just have to cut
[2:22:07] it in July, right? So I think I think
[2:22:10] that as you make decisions about 27,
[2:22:14] we will naturally lean wherever we are
[2:22:17] in 26 to be moving to that 27 place. And
[2:22:21] so I think um miss you scandies your concern about what can we do early
[2:22:26] that's not the word you use but what can
[2:22:27] we do early in 26 that we've decided for
[2:22:30] 27 I think that will happen naturally
[2:22:33] based on the decisions that you make and
[2:22:34] the timing of those decisions.
[2:22:42] I'm
[2:22:44] um
[2:22:45] feeling
[2:22:47] like I gotta move this along or
[2:22:51] [laughter]
[2:22:53] do folks have new things to add before
[2:22:56] we vote.
[2:22:58] Go ahead, Mr. Smith.
[2:23:00] >> I I wish Thank you, Madam Chair. I wish
[2:23:03] I were there because I get I feel like
[2:23:05] we're all kind We're all kind of hoping
[2:23:06] to say the same thing. I just um and I I
[2:23:09] wish I were there because I would have
[2:23:11] tried [clears throat] to maybe work
[2:23:11] through an amendment. Um
[2:23:14] I'm going to try it if if tell me if the
[2:23:16] room just groans in pain and and I can
[2:23:20] get it because again I don't want to
[2:23:21] just belabor this.
[2:23:23] >> I was hoping someone would make an
[2:23:24] amendment. So
[2:23:25] >> I'm going to try one and I there might
[2:23:29] be language at the end of it that will
[2:23:31] make one person in particular grown. Um
[2:23:33] and I'd be open to ideas on it. Um,
[2:23:37] okay. So, going off the the mayor's
[2:23:40] motion, which was my understanding was
[2:23:41] the first line of the of the suggested
[2:23:44] action, um, would, you know, staff
[2:23:48] recommends that no broad service
[2:23:49] reductions or formal operating budgets
[2:23:50] are implemented in FY26.
[2:23:53] My amendment is to add
[2:23:56] though targeted reductions such as new
[2:23:59] programs or projects.
[2:24:05] This is where it gets bad. Um may be
[2:24:09] evaluated and considered
[2:24:14] I was going to say by the manager but um
[2:24:17] okay though targeted reductions such as
[2:24:18] new programs or projects
[2:24:22] may be implemented.
[2:24:31] I'm going just stop there because again,
[2:24:33] I don't know how to I don't know the
[2:24:34] process of that, but I think we can get
[2:24:38] >> I think we can figure that part out.
[2:24:40] >> That's a good intent language. I'll ask
[2:24:43] staff if that would give you um
[2:24:46] direction that you feel like you could
[2:24:48] work with if the body was to vote in the
[2:24:51] affirmative.
[2:24:54] >> Thank you, Chair Wall. Um I would uh
[2:24:57] appreciate understanding how that
[2:24:59] direction is different from a timing's
[2:25:02] um comments on is it is it is it to kind
[2:25:05] of codify his comments in a motion about
[2:25:08] how to manage the budget moving forward
[2:25:10] or is it different? getting a I'm
[2:25:12] getting a head nod from Mr. Smith that
[2:25:14] yes, he's trying to codify that
[2:25:17] direction.
[2:25:20] All right, we have a motion on the floor
[2:25:23] with an amendment. Any objections to the
[2:25:26] amendment?
[2:25:30] Seeing none, that is so moved. It brings
[2:25:33] us back to the original motion as
[2:25:36] amended. Any objections?
[2:25:41] All right, seeing none, that is so
[2:25:43] moved. Thank you all for working through
[2:25:46] that. Um,
[2:25:48] and
[2:25:50] thanks Mayor Mayor Walden for starting
[2:25:53] us off. All right, brings us to question
[2:25:58] action number two. And this is
[2:26:00] specifically about the assembly grant
[2:26:03] funding um to grantees. Mayor Welding,
[2:26:06] will you start us off with a motion? Can
[2:26:09] I have a twominut Eddie? Yes. to uh
[2:26:12] confer with Assembly Member Tiner.
[2:27:54] You're
[2:28:17] Mayor Walden
[2:28:19] Ken, this might be irritating to some,
[2:28:22] but uh we're going to do something a
[2:28:23] little different. Um [laughter]
[2:28:27] but uh Mr. Brooks, we do take it to
[2:28:30] heart what the voters tell us. And uh so
[2:28:33] my motion is to direct staff to reach
[2:28:35] out to each member on the assembly grant
[2:28:38] um budget list and ask them for an
[2:28:42] amended request.
[2:28:47] The last part of your motion was hard to
[2:28:50] hear.
[2:28:51] >> And to ask for an amended request.
[2:28:57] » Um, I see Miss Hughes Handies.
[2:29:01] >> Thanks, Madam Chair. I will object to
[2:29:03] that motion.
[2:29:06] I would object because this would not be
[2:29:09] the first part of the budget. This would
[2:29:12] be, I guess, what I would consider
[2:29:14] classic what I heard people voicing that
[2:29:17] they didn't want to do, which is to make
[2:29:19] willy-nilly cuts. So, we've identified
[2:29:22] one section of our FY26 budget and
[2:29:28] what's that operating budget? FY20,
[2:29:31] sorry, I'm distracted. our FY26
[2:29:33] operating budget and we've pulled this
[2:29:35] piece out and then we've said maybe we
[2:29:38] should cut this and let's go back to
[2:29:40] these people and see how they would do
[2:29:42] without that budget. To me, I don't know
[2:29:44] why I wouldn't say manager Kuster go to
[2:29:47] this department and see what they could
[2:29:50] do without. There's a difference
[2:29:52] obviously, but I think there are
[2:29:55] probably nine different opinions of what
[2:29:58] you would what we would all rank as
[2:30:01] potentially the first place we would
[2:30:03] should go for cuts. Um, and it probably
[2:30:06] comes as no surprise to this assembly
[2:30:08] that for me, this would definitely not
[2:30:10] be the first place that I would go for
[2:30:11] cuts. So, I would object for those
[2:30:14] reasons. And then in our wonderful
[2:30:19] packet, which I really did like, uh, on
[2:30:22] page 31, we have service listings broken
[2:30:25] out into different sections.
[2:30:28] And
[2:30:30] that's another way of thinking about
[2:30:32] different parts of the budget that you
[2:30:34] could just go into with a wrench and
[2:30:36] start messing about. But there's nothing
[2:30:39] about this piece that makes sense to me.
[2:30:42] went with the rest of the memo and the
[2:30:44] rest of the packet. Why this decision
[2:30:47] was pulled out even from staff. The fact
[2:30:50] that it's a section that staff is asking
[2:30:53] for direction on was strange to me. Not
[2:30:57] strange to me. I can figure out common
[2:30:59] sense-wise, but to me it is a
[2:31:02] inappropriate piece. It doesn't match
[2:31:05] with number one. So to say this is our
[2:31:08] recommendation here, but also what about
[2:31:11] just cutting this piece. So for all of
[2:31:13] those reasons, I will object.
[2:31:19] » Um, Madame Mayor, go ahead.
[2:31:22] >> I apologize. Apparently that sounded
[2:31:23] harsher than I meant it to. That's not
[2:31:25] what I was looking for at all, but thank
[2:31:26] you for that, Miss Husseanies, for
[2:31:28] stomping me into the ground. Um anyway,
[2:31:31] my the thought behind this and that's
[2:31:33] why I can say if they would how about I
[2:31:36] would me amend it to say would consider
[2:31:37] an amended request. My thought was maybe
[2:31:40] with some of these people knowing our
[2:31:42] circumstances might alter their um
[2:31:45] wishes. So I would add that they
[2:31:47] consider an amended request, but I hear
[2:31:50] what you're saying, Miss Usetti.
[2:31:53] >> I'm going to not treat that as an
[2:31:54] amendment and just treat that as your
[2:31:56] motion. I I think that was your intent.
[2:31:58] So we have a slightly different emotion
[2:32:00] on the floor now. Miss Huskinies, you
[2:32:03] maintain your objection. Yes, Miss
[2:32:05] Atkinson.
[2:32:06] >> Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I will also
[2:32:08] object to this motion. I remember this
[2:32:12] assembly grants year being pretty
[2:32:14] fraught. We cut a lot of um requests in
[2:32:17] half. We made a lot of recurring
[2:32:19] requests not recurring. And to that end,
[2:32:21] I think that um much of these requests
[2:32:24] are not in fact recurring. And I just
[2:32:27] don't think this is I agree with Mrs.
[2:32:29] Scandies. This is the place I would not
[2:32:30] cut. And for many of these folks, they
[2:32:34] really can't afford to take the time to
[2:32:37] make an amended request. And I can't
[2:32:40] imagine they have budgeted on what
[2:32:42] they've currently gotten, but they've
[2:32:43] had to assume uh with nonprofits with
[2:32:46] shoestring budgets, they've had to
[2:32:47] assume that they will get the grants
[2:32:49] that we did promise them. So, um, I
[2:32:52] would be, uh, I'm very much objecting to
[2:32:54] this motion, though I I I appreciate
[2:32:56] what the mayor's attempted to do.
[2:32:59] >> Mr. Kelly, then Mr. Brooks.
[2:33:02] >> In the interest of time, since I largely
[2:33:04] agree with Miss Atinson and Miss
[2:33:05] Yuscantes, I won't restate their points.
[2:33:10] » Mr. Brooks,
[2:33:13] >> I would speak in support of the motion.
[2:33:16] Uh looking at the list that was given
[2:33:19] here, yes. Uh to Assembly Member
[2:33:23] Atkinson's point, there are a lot of
[2:33:24] these organizations who don't have the
[2:33:27] ability to close the gap if anyone were
[2:33:31] to occur. But phrasing the question to
[2:33:34] some of these entities,
[2:33:37] like the mayor had mentioned, might
[2:33:39] result in u a level of understanding.
[2:33:44] uh a handful of these organizations have
[2:33:47] very significant asset withholdings and
[2:33:50] reserves and um I think that those would
[2:33:53] be some of the more considerate
[2:33:55] organizations to um
[2:33:59] you know maybe maybe lighten their ask a
[2:34:01] bit to help the city as a whole.
[2:34:06] » Mr. Steininger
[2:34:08] and I'll speak in support of this as
[2:34:10] well. You know, I think there's
[2:34:13] some of these organizations you part the
[2:34:17] purpose of my question of asking who's
[2:34:19] reached out to say that this is causing
[2:34:21] problems was to also get an
[2:34:23] understanding of are there organizations
[2:34:25] who haven't reached out at all. And
[2:34:29] that tells me there may be some of these
[2:34:30] organizations that are willing to come
[2:34:32] back and say, "Yep, we can help. We see
[2:34:34] what's going on at the city level as
[2:34:36] well. we can also sharpen our pencils
[2:34:39] and kind of be part of that process. And
[2:34:41] I don't see this necessarily in conflict
[2:34:43] with our action on on point one earlier
[2:34:47] because we all know that our management
[2:34:51] within the city are sharpening their
[2:34:53] pencils and trying to come out of fiscal
[2:34:55] year 26 with as little spend as possible
[2:34:58] while still achieving all the goals we
[2:35:00] have. And by going back to these
[2:35:03] grantees, I feel like we're asking them
[2:35:05] to do the same. And some of them may
[2:35:07] come back and say, "Nope, we have
[2:35:09] slotted every penny of this and and need
[2:35:12] it to deliver what we need to deliver to
[2:35:14] constituents within the community." And
[2:35:16] those, you know, a lot of these are
[2:35:18] social services grants that are going to
[2:35:20] the neediest of Junoites. I don't really
[2:35:22] expect those ones to come back saying,
[2:35:24] "Hey, we could cut it in half," you
[2:35:26] know, but some of these are,
[2:35:28] you know, kind of on a nice to have, you
[2:35:30] know, but they're good things that, you
[2:35:32] know, we funded for very good reason,
[2:35:35] but might be able to come back and say
[2:35:37] in spirit of what they know the city's
[2:35:39] going through, you know, they can come
[2:35:41] back and and show support for the
[2:35:45] efforts that we're doing. And I think
[2:35:47] that's, you know, the mayor's motion is asking asking to see where that
[2:35:51] supported and where that kind of
[2:35:53] community belt tightening can happen. So
[2:35:56] I'm supporting the amend or the motion.
[2:35:58] Thank you
[2:36:00] >> Mr. Smith.
[2:36:02] >> Thank you Madam Chair. I'm objecting for
[2:36:04] just for the purpose of a question and
[2:36:05] that's
[2:36:07] um I I a concern of mine I guess is just
[2:36:10] you know I don't want to keep drag I
[2:36:12] don't want to drag this out for months I
[2:36:14] guess. So a question for staff like
[2:36:18] how quickly can we ask and can we set a
[2:36:20] short timeline? So that you know we can
[2:36:22] maybe have a sense of responses by
[2:36:27] the you know the December meeting. Is
[2:36:30] that a reasonable time frame?
[2:36:35] » December finance meeting.
[2:36:38] >> Thank you Mr. Smith.
[2:36:43] Test. Test. There we go.
[2:36:46] I think it is possible to reach out to
[2:36:49] organizations and request that they get
[2:36:52] back to us in time for packet
[2:36:54] preparation for the December finance
[2:36:55] meeting. I think any faster than that
[2:36:57] would be challenging for the
[2:36:58] organizations that might be interested
[2:37:01] if any are interested in taking a hard
[2:37:04] look at their budgets. Um that that work
[2:37:06] can be ownorous and challenging. So
[2:37:08] giving them less time I think would make
[2:37:09] it that harder uh for for those that
[2:37:12] potentially might be uh able or willing
[2:37:15] to do that.
[2:37:18] >> Thank you for that. Um I'll I'll remove
[2:37:22] my objection and speak in favor of it. I don't know we're going to hear back. I
[2:37:26] think it's worth an ask
[2:37:30] and we may see we may not. But if we
[2:37:33] can, you know, again hopefully deal this
[2:37:35] with by the end of this fiscal year.
[2:37:38] I'm okay with that with asking this and
[2:37:41] so I'll support the motion. Thanks.
[2:37:46] » I'll speak um in opposition to this
[2:37:50] motion. Um I too feel like this
[2:37:54] direction is counter to
[2:37:58] the the direction we just gave. This is
[2:38:01] part of our operating budget. These are
[2:38:04] groups doing work on our behalf and this
[2:38:07] is their operating budgets most in most
[2:38:09] of these cases. Um
[2:38:13] you know I think it plays into this idea
[2:38:15] that our community grants are
[2:38:17] philanthropy that we're doing this to be
[2:38:20] nice. We're doing this because these are
[2:38:22] needed services in our communities that
[2:38:24] others can do more efficiently and
[2:38:25] better um than we can. I also think it's
[2:38:32] a waste of time to ask these groups, can
[2:38:35] you ask for less money? They can do that
[2:38:38] if they want to. They can they can come
[2:38:41] back and tell us that they're not going
[2:38:42] to be spending the money. Um, but
[2:38:47] the nonprofit sector is under attack
[2:38:49] right now. So I do I I think it will be
[2:38:52] a waste of our time to try to gather
[2:38:54] that information and then try to sort
[2:38:56] through this as a body about what we do
[2:38:59] or do not want to um do with that. So
[2:39:04] with that I will call the question. We
[2:39:06] have a motion and we have an objection.
[2:39:13] » On the motion to direct staff to reach
[2:39:15] out to each organization on the assembly
[2:39:18] grant list and ask them to consider an
[2:39:20] amended request. Mayor Welen,
[2:39:24] >> yes.
[2:39:26] >> Assembly member Hugh Scandies,
[2:39:28] >> no. Assembly member at
[2:39:31] >> no.
[2:39:33] Assembly member Smith.
[2:39:36] >> Yes.
[2:39:39] >> Assembly member Kelly.
[2:39:41] >> No.
[2:39:43] >> Assembly member Hall.
[2:39:45] >> No.
[2:39:48] >> Assembly member Brooks.
[2:39:51] >> Yes.
[2:39:52] >> As member Siner.
[2:39:54] >> Yes.
[2:39:55] >> Chairwall.
[2:39:58] >> No.
[2:39:59] >> Motion fails. Four A's. Five Nazs.
[2:40:04] Could we get a alternative motion?
[2:40:07] Mayor Welen.
[2:40:09] >> Thank you. Um I would move to direct
[2:40:12] staff to distribute the remaining
[2:40:14] assembly grant funding to grantees in
[2:40:16] FY26.
[2:40:18] >> Any objection?
[2:40:21] Seeing none. Oh, seeing none. That's Oh.
[2:40:24] go ahead, Miss Hall. offer the
[2:40:27] amendment to direct um staff to uh
[2:40:33] distribute the remaining funds
[2:40:36] that that ask them. If any of you don't
[2:40:39] need these funds, please let us know.
[2:40:43] [laughter]
[2:40:44] >> Any objections to that amendment?
[2:40:47] >> I think that's what the first question
[2:40:49] was
[2:40:55] the
[2:40:57] one of these.
[2:40:59] >> I I'll object just because I I
[2:41:02] appreciate what uh member Hall is trying
[2:41:06] to do. I just think I'm trying to think
[2:41:09] of staff here and I don't know how that
[2:41:14] it's good direction to direct them to
[2:41:16] distribute the funds.
[2:41:19] I don't know what that process looks
[2:41:21] like. If it's an email, with an AC,
[2:41:26] and then you say, "By the way," in bold,
[2:41:31] "Don't let me know if I can have this
[2:41:33] money back." It just it it maybe staff
[2:41:36] could elaborate, but this just seems
[2:41:39] like uh a waste of their time, but I do
[2:41:41] appreciate the sentiment, so I'm going
[2:41:43] to object.
[2:41:46] >> We have an amendment. We have objection.
[2:41:50] Um, Miss Wendle, will you call roll on
[2:41:52] the amendment?
[2:41:55] >> Thank you, Chair Wall. On the amendment
[2:41:56] to direct to direct staff to distribute
[2:41:59] the remaining funds, but ask
[2:42:00] organizations if they don't need these
[2:42:02] funds to please let us know.
[2:42:06] [gasps and laughter]
[2:42:06] >> Assembly member Hall,
[2:42:09] >> yes.
[2:42:11] >> Assembly member Hugh Gandies,
[2:42:12] >> no.
[2:42:13] >> Assembly member Smith,
[2:42:15] >> yes.
[2:42:17] Assembly member Kelly,
[2:42:20] >> yes.
[2:42:21] >> Assembly member Atkinson,
[2:42:23] >> no.
[2:42:26] >> Mayor Welen,
[2:42:28] >> yes.
[2:42:30] >> Assembly member Brooks,
[2:42:33] >> yes.
[2:42:35] >> Assembly member Steiner,
[2:42:37] >> yes.
[2:42:38] >> Chair Wall,
[2:42:40] >> no.
[2:42:41] >> Amendment passes. Six's three ns. That
[2:42:45] brings us back to the original motion as
[2:42:49] amended.
[2:42:50] Miss W. Any objections,
[2:42:54] Miss Wendle? Oop. Sorry. We We don't
[2:42:56] need We That move. That's moved. We're
[2:42:59] good. Moving on.
[2:43:02] Okay. Um
[2:43:06] the last question. Does the AFC wish to
[2:43:09] give any direction on one-time or
[2:43:10] project funding for FY26?
[2:43:14] I believe we already gave some direction
[2:43:16] to not
[2:43:19] start new things, but maybe I'll ask
[2:43:24] staff if
[2:43:26] what direction they would like here.
[2:43:30] Um,
[2:43:34] we brought up a couple of examples.
[2:43:36] There's certainly many capital projects
[2:43:38] uh on our um what we call it the
[2:43:41] oneliner which you get in the CIP every
[2:43:43] year which are capital projects with
[2:43:45] funds left in them. Um uh there are
[2:43:48] projects in varying degrees of
[2:43:50] readiness. Um so if there's any
[2:43:52] intention to uh you know pause those
[2:43:55] projects or not start any new projects I
[2:43:57] think that I would appreciate a
[2:43:59] deliberate direction in that regard.
[2:44:03] >> Thank you Mr. Smith. Oh,
[2:44:07] well, [clears throat]
[2:44:08] I'll go to Mr. Smith. Sorry, Mr. Smith.
[2:44:11] Go ahead.
[2:44:11] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. um you know
[2:44:14] looking at the CI CIP report for or you
[2:44:18] know the CIP for for this project I uh I
[2:44:22] don't know if it's a hybrid of a red
[2:44:25] herring with a boogeyman but um I will
[2:44:28] move that we pause
[2:44:32] any action related to the waterfront uh
[2:44:34] city museum
[2:44:36] and ask unanimous consent.
[2:44:40] Any objections?
[2:44:45] » Go ahead, Madam Mayor.
[2:44:48] >> I appreciate the sentiment and I
[2:44:49] actually probably agree with it, but at
[2:44:51] this time I don't think I'm ready to do
[2:44:53] one-time projects without getting more
[2:44:55] information on all of them. So, I'll
[2:44:57] maintain my objection.
[2:45:02] » All right. Um, any other objections or
[2:45:05] people who want to speak to the motion?
[2:45:08] Go ahead, Miss Yseandies.
[2:45:09] >> I'll speak to the motion just briefly.
[2:45:11] I'm gonna support it. I fully
[2:45:14] am probably the same mind where Mayor
[2:45:17] Weldon is coming from. The reason I'm
[2:45:19] going to support it is because I would
[2:45:22] be comfortable giving broad
[2:45:26] guidance to staff
[2:45:28] over not starting projects that I guess
[2:45:31] I don't know what
[2:45:34] to Mayor Weldon's point. I don't know if
[2:45:36] anything's going on with the waterfront
[2:45:38] museum. So maybe I'll interrupt myself
[2:45:41] and ask staff is anything going on with
[2:45:43] the waterfront museum?
[2:45:46] No, it would be career suicide for me to
[2:45:48] start that project without a discussion
[2:45:50] with the assembly first.
[2:45:51] >> Perfect. I do not want to assume. I did
[2:45:54] assume. Okay. So, I feel okay saying I
[2:45:58] there's nothing going on with the
[2:45:59] waterfront museum. It would be career
[2:46:01] suicide for our wonderful manager. So, I
[2:46:04] feel comfortable with that direction and
[2:46:06] I will move to give broader direction
[2:46:08] after this.
[2:46:11] >> So, you're not objecting?
[2:46:13] >> Okay. Yeah. Sorry.
[2:46:16] All right, we have a motion and we have
[2:46:19] objection. Any other comments?
[2:46:23] Um, I'll just just so the body knows
[2:46:26] where I'm at. I I I'll also support this
[2:46:29] just because it feels like a no-brainer,
[2:46:31] but in general, I'm won't be ready to
[2:46:34] make any other pausing decisions
[2:46:36] immediately, but we may have other ones
[2:46:40] um given some broad direction that we
[2:46:42] want to give tonight. Okay.
[2:46:45] Go ahead, Mr. Brooks.
[2:46:52] Uh,
[2:46:53] I wonder if it is the will of the body
[2:46:57] to consider
[2:47:01] any more of the unrestricted funds
[2:47:04] within the CIP for the capital civic
[2:47:07] center or when it comes to uh the estimated uh costs related to the
[2:47:19] renovations of the Burns building may be
[2:47:21] directing staff to seek
[2:47:26] uh secondhand or state surplus as a temp
[2:47:32] makeup while we navigate the hard
[2:47:34] financial times. And uh
[2:47:37] >> Mr. Brooks, not to interrupt you,
[2:47:40] >> we've got a motion on the floor about
[2:47:42] the um specifically the waterfront
[2:47:45] museum. So if you want to hold comments
[2:47:47] on other topics till that we've mo voted
[2:47:51] on that.
[2:47:53] >> I I was just asking if if if anyone want
[2:47:57] to discuss I could amend I can do an
[2:47:59] amendment but we'll we'll let the
[2:48:02] action uh just go through them.
[2:48:08] » Can still make those other motions
[2:48:09] afterwards. We'll just keep it simple to
[2:48:11] the one project. Okay. We have Madame
[2:48:14] Mayor. Go ahead.
[2:48:16] >> Since no one speaking up to object, I
[2:48:18] will uh with draw my objection except
[2:48:21] for I could tell Mr. Brooks was looking
[2:48:24] for um direction. I could tell you right
[2:48:27] now again I am not ready to cut anything
[2:48:29] more.
[2:48:32] >> All right. So
[2:48:35] we have a motion with no objection
[2:48:40] and so that is so moved.
[2:48:43] Miss Hugh Gandies, did you want to make
[2:48:47] motion? Was that what you were
[2:48:49] indicating?
[2:48:51] >> Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. I'm
[2:48:53] struggling to think. I would like to
[2:48:56] >> take an addies. I
[2:48:57] >> I'll Yeah, I'll take an ease.
[2:54:15] Miss you scandies. Thank you madam chair
[2:54:17] for your indulgence and the at ease. I
[2:54:20] am much in the same vein that I think it
[2:54:23] was beneficial for this body and
[2:54:26] hopefully beneficial for staff with the
[2:54:28] first item to um verbalize some feedback
[2:54:34] on uh like we did on operating. I am
[2:54:38] just wanted to I think at this time I am
[2:54:41] not going to make a motion because it's
[2:54:45] my belief that if we ask staff to bring
[2:54:47] back a specific list
[2:54:50] much like this
[2:54:53] only for projects again we might be
[2:54:56] going down FY26 rabbit holes when we
[2:55:00] need to be going it's our job to be
[2:55:03] going a little bit higher. Um, I think
[2:55:06] some people have already verbalized that
[2:55:08] they're not comfortable making decisions
[2:55:10] without knowing more about what that
[2:55:12] particular project is at, which makes
[2:55:14] sense to me. Um, there's a couple that
[2:55:17] are
[2:55:19] popped out in this memo tonight. Um,
[2:55:23] which I think are those ones that I I
[2:55:26] appreciate that staff has identified as,
[2:55:29] you know, these are project these are
[2:55:32] firmly in the project category. These
[2:55:33] are things that it might be good to get
[2:55:36] direction on.
[2:55:40] I think there is not one motion that
[2:55:46] um sufficiently
[2:55:49] leaves room for that process to happen,
[2:55:52] keeps us out of rabbit holes um and does
[2:55:57] what I intend to do after talking with
[2:56:00] staff.
[2:56:01] So much [clears throat] in the same vein
[2:56:03] as trust, we sort of codified some of
[2:56:06] Mr. Steininger's comments and Mr.
[2:56:08] Smith's motion earlier.
[2:56:10] am not going to attempt to do that, but
[2:56:13] I it is my hope and belief that the city
[2:56:17] manager and staff are
[2:56:20] looking at all of those projects and
[2:56:23] identifying which of those have not
[2:56:26] started and are likely to run into
[2:56:30] financial problems in this new fiscal
[2:56:32] environment in FY27
[2:56:35] and make due diligent
[2:56:38] uh decisions. s there while we in start
[2:56:43] this process and we engage the public.
[2:56:46] Um, and then I will just briefly say
[2:56:49] because Eagle Crest is an hour memo and
[2:56:52] because I did have the uh pleasure of
[2:56:55] being involved in a Eaglerest meeting
[2:56:57] today with some staff that [snorts] I
[2:57:00] want to identify that personally to this
[2:57:02] body that based on the most recent
[2:57:05] information that I have, I do think
[2:57:08] there
[2:57:10] when we get again it's one of those
[2:57:13] things we may not get all the way to the
[2:57:15] calendar start of fiscal year 27 and we
[2:57:19] may get new information that makes us
[2:57:22] stop a project and that might occur in
[2:57:26] FY26
[2:57:28] but that will depend on the natural flow
[2:57:30] of when we receive certain fiscal
[2:57:33] information. Um so I just want to
[2:57:35] highlight that is one for instance I
[2:57:38] have deep concerns about in this new
[2:57:40] fiscal environment. So
[2:57:44] trying to articulate it. Apologize.
[2:57:46] Thank you for letting me ramble. But I
[2:57:47] think that um much like the operating I
[2:57:50] will trust that it is the manager's jobs
[2:57:53] to know which of those
[2:57:57] projects we would not want to start or
[2:58:00] put fiscal resources into. And I'll
[2:58:02] stop.
[2:58:04] >> Mr. Kelly,
[2:58:08] » thank thank you. So, um, are we ready
[2:58:10] for another discussion item or another
[2:58:12] motion or
[2:58:17] » um, sorry, you want to make a motion or
[2:58:20] you are making a discussion point?
[2:58:22] >> Um, I I think I was going to start with
[2:58:25] a discussion and see where see if maybe
[2:58:27] it's more efficient to go as a motion.
[2:58:29] Um
[2:58:33] » um
[2:58:36] I would say either if you want to make a
[2:58:38] comment to the body, go ahead and do
[2:58:40] that or make a motion as opposed to
[2:58:42] begin a discussion right now. Does that
[2:58:44] is that helpful? And you can take a I
[2:58:47] can move on to someone if you're not
[2:58:48] quite ready for that.
[2:58:49] >> No, no, no. Um I think I'm ready. I I'll
[2:58:52] just
[2:58:54] I'll go ahead and and make my motion.
[2:58:56] Um, I would move that uh we take up um
[2:59:04] discussion on
[2:59:08] grants as it pertains to the affordable
[2:59:10] housing fund and if we still want to
[2:59:12] continue to issue grants uh that we take
[2:59:14] up that discussion at a future um
[2:59:17] finance committee meeting and I can
[2:59:19] speak to my motion if Okay. Um so in in
[2:59:25] lands committee uh earlier this week um
[2:59:28] we um forwarded on to the assembly
[2:59:32] um about $2.3 million uh worth of
[2:59:36] affordable uh housing projects. More
[2:59:40] than half of those are are grants to to
[2:59:44] nonprofits.
[2:59:45] Um and and I see um I I there definitely
[2:59:49] um a need that's being met uh by these
[2:59:52] nonprofits and there's a reason why it's
[2:59:54] better for them to uh to receive these
[2:59:56] as as grants. Um but that also means
[3:00:00] that's money that's not coming back into
[3:00:02] the fund to be used for future projects.
[3:00:04] And considering that a part of the
[3:00:06] affordable housing fund is is funded
[3:00:09] through uh through sales tax revenue, um
[3:00:13] I I I think it's uh important at least
[3:00:17] um to to consider um maybe a temporary
[3:00:21] moratorium on grants um being
[3:00:23] distributed from the affordable housing
[3:00:26] fund um for for future rounds, not for
[3:00:29] round five that were
[3:00:31] um forwarded to the assembly this year,
[3:00:33] but for for future rounds if we uh want
[3:00:36] to as a practice um just focus on
[3:00:41] issuing loans that would eventually come
[3:00:43] back um and fund future projects.
[3:00:46] >> Mr. Kelly, I think we are still on the
[3:00:49] discussion topic of FY26. And so if you
[3:00:52] are not making a motion to change the
[3:00:54] affordable housing fund
[3:00:59] amount that we're that you've already
[3:01:01] for that has been forwarded to the
[3:01:03] assembly, I would hold that for another
[3:01:06] um committee or um different spot in the
[3:01:11] budget process for next year.
[3:01:14] >> Thank you, Madam Chair. With that, I'll
[3:01:15] withdraw my motion.
[3:01:19] >> Mayor, well done. Uh, thank you, Madam
[3:01:21] Chair. And I would give the same
[3:01:23] direction to Mr. Kelly if he's talking
[3:01:24] about this year. It's already moved to
[3:01:26] the assembly, so we'll discuss it there.
[3:01:28] Um, but um I don't want to make a formal
[3:01:32] motion because I think we've had enough
[3:01:33] on this particular topic, but I would
[3:01:35] just let staff know that I would be
[3:01:38] looking for information on any project
[3:01:41] um FY26, FY27 that they think are new,
[3:01:46] don't think it's got traction, something to that effect. so we could be
[3:01:50] considering it. Um, that's all I have.
[3:01:58] » Mr. Brooks,
[3:02:01] >> thank you, Madam Chair. And just tagging
[3:02:04] on to what the mayor was saying there a
[3:02:07] bit, uh, looking at projects that, uh,
[3:02:12] haven't had, uh, progress in long
[3:02:15] periods of times like you're saying, not appearing to have momentum or have
[3:02:21] been stagnated a little bit.
[3:02:25] >> Staff, do you I feel like we're kind of
[3:02:27] in consensus on those general comments.
[3:02:31] You guys feel good with that direction
[3:02:33] without emotion? Great.
[3:02:36] Okay,
[3:02:38] so we have not made it through this
[3:02:40] memo, which is okay. We knew this would
[3:02:42] be a while. Um it is 8:30.
[3:02:47] Um
[3:02:51] and we have um an executive
[3:02:53] [clears throat] session that um we do
[3:02:57] need to get to. So, um, my proposal
[3:03:02] would be, but but I'll look to the body
[3:03:05] is that we either spend some time
[3:03:07] talking about FY27,
[3:03:10] um, for about a half hour before
[3:03:14] executive session or we take a tackle an
[3:03:18] easier
[3:03:20] um, topic and just do some question and
[3:03:23] answer about foregone revenue, which was
[3:03:25] the next agenda item. Um,
[3:03:30] and maybe staff will have an opinion on
[3:03:34] where they want our attention right now.
[3:03:36] But that would be my question to the
[3:03:38] body. Are you okay tackling one more?
[3:03:40] And do you want it to be talking about
[3:03:42] next year's budget process or do you
[3:03:44] want to talk about foreground revenue?
[3:03:49] » Miss Hugh Scandies.
[3:03:50] >> Thanks, Madam Chair. I would prefer to
[3:03:53] spend a little time talking about FY27
[3:03:55] just so we could start to outline that
[3:03:58] process what that will look like.
[3:04:02] >> Mr. Smith.
[3:04:05] >> Thank you, Madame Chair. I I I agree. I
[3:04:08] mean, there was a question I the staff
[3:04:10] may want questions or want a response on
[3:04:12] in terms of, you know, public
[3:04:14] engagement. Um I have an idea for the um
[3:04:20] foregone revenue that I could bring up
[3:04:21] but I mean just to foreshadow I I wonder
[3:04:25] you know in the past we've done a te a
[3:04:28] group of three assembly members um who
[3:04:31] tackle some tricky subjects like
[3:04:33] foregone revenue or complex subjects
[3:04:35] where if the whole body was working on
[3:04:38] it could be painful for everyone um and
[3:04:41] they can work you know more nimly
[3:04:44] come up with some recommendations. They work with staff, you know, not in
[3:04:49] viol obviously that in with that number
[3:04:51] of people not in violation of open
[3:04:52] meetings act and then come back to us um
[3:04:55] or come back to the body with some
[3:04:57] having kind of run it through. So that would be a possible suggestion but
[3:05:01] um sorry my my thought would be FY27 and
[3:05:05] maybe that for foregone. Thanks.
[3:05:08] >> Making sure folks have energy for a
[3:05:11] little bit more discussion on FY27.
[3:05:14] Go ahead, Mr. Senator.
[3:05:16] >> Wanted to make sure there wasn't because
[3:05:18] [clears throat] I I agree with everybody
[3:05:19] FY27 and talking about the process and
[3:05:22] especially the public process makes most
[3:05:24] sense right now. But I wanted to make
[3:05:26] sure that staff that we're not delaying
[3:05:29] any potential action on the foregone
[3:05:31] revenue and stalling that process
[3:05:33] because it's been something I've been
[3:05:34] looking forward to talking about for
[3:05:36] quite a while. So
[3:05:38] >> as as Mr. Stunning. As exciting as
[3:05:40] foregone revenue and docking fees are, I
[3:05:42] don't think there's any harm in moving
[3:05:44] those to a future AFC meeting.
[3:05:49] All right, let's do another half hour
[3:05:53] and then we'll um you know at max and
[3:05:57] then we'll get a break before our
[3:05:59] executive session.
[3:06:01] All right,
[3:06:03] Miss Flick, I will um assume you all
[3:06:08] have labored intently over this terribly
[3:06:11] long memo and just cover some highlights
[3:06:14] on FI27.
[3:06:15] Um you all have already discussed that
[3:06:19] we have got um a long and hard set of
[3:06:22] discussion and decisions to make
[3:06:24] upcoming. Um there's a lot of things
[3:06:26] that um we can do to help with that
[3:06:30] decision making. Um one of the big
[3:06:32] questions is you know how big is the
[3:06:33] hole we need to fill. So on the chart in
[3:06:36] the middle of page 27 I've highlighted
[3:06:39] the three revenue decreases um that
[3:06:41] we've already talked about. Again those
[3:06:43] are annualized numbers. So that is um
[3:06:47] assuming that no cuts are made to 27 or
[3:06:49] making or sorry no cuts are made to 26.
[3:06:52] All cuts are made in 27 would be the $11
[3:06:55] million in sales tax and roughly a
[3:06:57] million dollars in property tax. In
[3:07:00] addition to that revenue loss, we know
[3:07:01] that we are going to have expenditure
[3:07:03] increases. The negotiated um contract
[3:07:06] with MIBA has a built-in um increase for
[3:07:09] wages in 27. Um we know that um IFFF and
[3:07:15] PSA contracts once they are finally
[3:07:18] negotiated will have an increase. um
[3:07:21] we're putting that number at 2.5 million
[3:07:23] which is kind of a 25 26 combination
[3:07:25] number. We also know that there are
[3:07:27] other things that we need to budget on
[3:07:30] an ongoing recurring basis due to our
[3:07:34] new love of glacial flooding outburst
[3:07:38] things. So, um we know that we're we're
[3:07:42] doing an annual um emergency operation
[3:07:46] and we need to put funding um aside to
[3:07:49] handle those staff costs and those u
[3:07:51] minimally related cl costs that we would
[3:07:54] expect to experience every year. Um, we
[3:07:56] know that there's ongoing just flood
[3:07:58] mitigation staff work, whether that's
[3:08:01] working with the Army Corps or um,
[3:08:03] working with residents, other things
[3:08:05] that are going on. And we know now that
[3:08:07] we have these Hescoll barriers in place
[3:08:09] and we will likely have more, there's
[3:08:11] ongoing maintenance that we're
[3:08:12] responsible for and we need to include
[3:08:14] that in our budget. So rough numbers um
[3:08:19] not knowing um exactly how much we need
[3:08:22] to budget as it relates to Gloth um
[3:08:24] we're looking at about 16.2 million of
[3:08:27] gap 11.2 million of that is operational.
[3:08:31] So annually speaking that's a relatively
[3:08:34] um decent number. Um we've talked about
[3:08:36] um SAS recommendation of looking at um
[3:08:39] service reductions and um potential
[3:08:42] revenue as um kind of the primary things
[3:08:44] that would be done in a public forum.
[3:08:46] And um on page 31 of the packet is
[3:08:50] excuse me is a service listing um whose
[3:08:53] origins started with the 2019 priority
[3:08:56] based budgeting exercise that was done.
[3:09:00] that list has been updated to uh reflect
[3:09:02] more current groupings and more current
[3:09:05] services um that have been edited. Um
[3:09:09] and we've grouped these into four groups
[3:09:12] and the first one is core services that
[3:09:14] um the city is responsible for doing. We
[3:09:17] just need to do those. Um the second are
[3:09:20] services that are um things that we need
[3:09:24] to do but perhaps we can control the
[3:09:25] level of service. So, an example is um
[3:09:29] at CBJ after a snowstorm, we like to
[3:09:31] have our streets cleared in 24 hours.
[3:09:33] Doesn't have to be 24 hours, could be 36
[3:09:36] hours or 48 hours. So, we could pick
[3:09:39] that um that level of service that we
[3:09:43] provide while still needing to provide
[3:09:44] that service. um the group that's um
[3:09:47] called number two support. Um those are
[3:09:49] really all those ancillary things that
[3:09:51] have to happen in order for your core
[3:09:54] services or discretionary services to
[3:09:56] take place. Um and then the third list
[3:10:00] are all of those discretionary items. Um
[3:10:04] think of those as the things that make a
[3:10:06] city um the place that people want to
[3:10:08] be, but not necessarily those required
[3:10:11] um services. And so what we'd like to do
[3:10:14] is um walk away from this discussion um
[3:10:20] with kind of an agreement that we want
[3:10:22] to focus our service reductions on the
[3:10:26] discretionary list with some attention
[3:10:30] to that core set where we can adjust the
[3:10:32] level of service. So it's not a question
[3:10:34] of do we do it or not, but are we good
[3:10:37] taking two days to clear streets instead
[3:10:38] of just one. Um and then you know with
[3:10:42] our our new and fantastic communications
[3:10:45] and engagement division, they're already
[3:10:48] working on um some plans to engage the
[3:10:51] public and and some different mechanisms
[3:10:53] that we could use. And so we'd really
[3:10:55] like to hear from you um your preference
[3:10:59] or guidance on the structure of how that
[3:11:02] looks. You know, do we want to do public
[3:11:04] meetings? Do we want to use online
[3:11:05] surveys? we have some online tools that
[3:11:08] are available and how quickly do we want
[3:11:12] that public engagement to take place. Um
[3:11:16] and so with with your guidance
[3:11:21] um it would be um useful to hear kind of
[3:11:23] what you would like to see um within
[3:11:26] that um and that I think that you know
[3:11:29] as far as what we need from you tonight
[3:11:31] that's probably the most timesensitive.
[3:11:34] Um, as we said in the beginning, there's lots of other information and decisions to be made. Those don't
[3:11:40] have to be made tonight, but in order to
[3:11:42] get our um communications group really
[3:11:45] working on a useful set of strategies to
[3:11:47] bring back to you um for your feedback,
[3:11:50] it would be good to know um kind of the
[3:11:52] structure and timing um of that public
[3:11:54] engagement and also if we're if we have
[3:11:57] consensus on focusing on that
[3:12:00] discretionary list and that kind of 1.5
[3:12:02] core list.
[3:12:10] going for questions. I said Mr. Kelly,
[3:12:14] Miss Scandies, and Mayor Weldon.
[3:12:19] » Um, thank you. Um,
[3:12:22] I see some pluses and minuses with going
[3:12:25] with the public uh survey route, but the
[3:12:29] in particular minus might be if it's not
[3:12:33] a scientifically conducted survey, if
[3:12:35] it's just
[3:12:38] we ask people their opinions, be happy
[3:12:40] to get a few responses and it may or may
[3:12:42] not be representative of the population
[3:12:44] actually wants. So my question is like
[3:12:47] are we if we did decide to go the survey
[3:12:50] route to get this uh public input
[3:12:53] uh would we be um set up to to conduct a
[3:12:58] real a real representative survey?
[3:13:03] » Not without an appropriation from the
[3:13:05] assembly. Uh right now for example we do
[3:13:08] the uh survey annually of our um
[3:13:12] community for uh tourism purposes. So,
[3:13:14] we asked them, you know, level of
[3:13:16] tourism, all those questions, and that
[3:13:18] runs us about $40,000 to have a
[3:13:20] statistically significant uh survey. So,
[3:13:23] um something like that, you we'd have to
[3:13:25] contract out with we're talking like
[3:13:27] we're talking survey monkey territory
[3:13:29] here.
[3:13:31] >> Thank you,
[3:13:34] » Miss Hughes Candies.
[3:13:36] >> Thank you, Madame Chair. I just wanted
[3:13:38] to verify 1.5. You say these are
[3:13:42] mandated functions of the city. However,
[3:13:44] the level of service may have some
[3:13:46] discretion and I feel like that is true
[3:13:50] of one core services as well. Would you
[3:13:54] agree?
[3:13:59] » She's like, you certainly could say no,
[3:14:02] I disagree with the grouping. And I just
[3:14:04] want to emphasize that this did not come
[3:14:06] out of um Director Flick's head. uh we
[3:14:10] used it based we took these based on the tabs from priority based budgeting.
[3:14:14] I wasn't here for that exercise but they
[3:14:16] had labeled things that were you know
[3:14:17] discretionary essential etc. So for
[3:14:19] example um if you want to talk about
[3:14:22] minimum staffing at JPD if you want to
[3:14:24] talk about not um patrolling during the
[3:14:27] night if you want to talk about um
[3:14:29] changing our service levels for CCFR and
[3:14:31] who we respond to you know how quick our
[3:14:34] response times are to emergencies. All
[3:14:36] of those things are things that you can talk about. Um, we are trying to uh
[3:14:43] present you with our best proposal of
[3:14:46] something that will be a use a good use
[3:14:49] of your time because I have been through
[3:14:51] these budget exercises before and what
[3:14:54] happens is those those core services uh
[3:14:57] just are are not something that the
[3:14:59] public uh and eventually the governing
[3:15:02] body is willing to move on. if if you
[3:15:04] need to go and and that could be
[3:15:06] different for this community and you may
[3:15:09] need to go uh broaden this conversation.
[3:15:12] It is just our attempt at trying to like
[3:15:15] hone down on something that's a that's
[3:15:17] manageable a manageable size
[3:15:19] conversation to the public. So that
[3:15:21] that's absolutely the type of feedback
[3:15:22] that we're looking for. Nope, I want to
[3:15:24] start at zero. And I believe the
[3:15:25] priority based budgeting uh exercise
[3:15:27] also started with like all the e all the
[3:15:30] services and the feedback that I heard
[3:15:32] and I don't know if you were here uh
[3:15:33] deputy manager bar was that like a lot
[3:15:35] of [snorts] time was spent saying yeah
[3:15:37] these are essential services and we're
[3:15:38] going to do them and that's time that
[3:15:40] you know you're not talking about um
[3:15:43] other nuances and other things. So that
[3:15:45] is why we presented it to you in this
[3:15:47] way. It is does not need to be how you
[3:15:49] approach it but that's kind of our
[3:15:50] justification. I appreciate that
[3:15:53] justification and I did have the
[3:15:54] pleasure of being here with the card
[3:15:56] exercise when we did this before.
[3:16:01] >> Mayor Welen.
[3:16:03] >> Um, so hearing that lovely price tag for
[3:16:07] the survey, I would say we do a
[3:16:09] combination of I don't know if we still
[3:16:12] can doing something online with the
[3:16:14] budget tool that we did in the past with
[3:16:16] Mr. Rogers and I think we should have
[3:16:19] some
[3:16:21] um open forum things. I don't know if we
[3:16:24] want to get out the cards but um it was
[3:16:27] interesting because um I when I had the
[3:16:30] cards I gave them to you know 10 of my
[3:16:33] friends just to see what they said and
[3:16:34] it was very interesting to see that
[3:16:36] nobody was the same. So, but it would be
[3:16:39] interesting to see the um what the
[3:16:41] public um we need to involve the public
[3:16:43] because I don't um
[3:16:46] >> Mayor Walden, do you have a question?
[3:16:48] >> Yes.
[3:16:50] >> I thought we were giving direction to
[3:16:52] them. Sorry.
[3:16:53] >> I think we were asking questions still.
[3:16:55] I didn't
[3:16:58] >> So, I will bring you to a question. Let
[3:17:00] me think about this for a second.
[3:17:04] What other tools can we use to get it
[3:17:06] out to the public before open forum and
[3:17:09] budget [laughter] tools?
[3:17:23] » Um, Madame Mayor, there's, you know,
[3:17:26] obviously we can do in-person town
[3:17:28] halls. We can, um, do a survey monkey.
[3:17:31] you can do the statistically um
[3:17:33] significant survey um within the the
[3:17:36] budget tool um that we currently have.
[3:17:40] There's an online platform where
[3:17:42] residents can um log in and actually
[3:17:46] provide feedback. Um so I think
[3:17:51] I don't want to say the sky's is the
[3:17:52] limit um because certainly that's not
[3:17:54] true. Um, but I think there's a a lot of
[3:17:58] creativity
[3:17:59] um that can that can go in in our um you
[3:18:04] know in our tools that we would
[3:18:06] regularly have and certainly our
[3:18:08] communications team is incredibly
[3:18:10] creative and can you know help help
[3:18:13] guide that and bring back some some good
[3:18:16] ideas for you.
[3:18:20] » Miss Hall, did you have a question or
[3:18:22] are you going to hold for comment time?
[3:18:23] Okay, Mr. Steiner, did you have a
[3:18:25] question?
[3:18:26] >> Um, I had a comment, but I figured out a
[3:18:28] way to turn it into a question.
[3:18:31] [laughter]
[3:18:32] Um, Miss Hugh Scandies was asking about
[3:18:35] number one core versus 1.5. And I've
[3:18:39] been kind of struggling with how we how
[3:18:41] we go about having this conversation
[3:18:43] with the public and not wanting to, you
[3:18:45] know, waste time asking them questions
[3:18:47] about things that we know we're not
[3:18:49] going to cut or can't cut. like you know
[3:18:51] you can't eliminate the assessor's
[3:18:53] office you know that as much as maybe
[3:18:56] some constituents might want us to you
[3:18:58] know it's some of these are not
[3:19:00] reasonable but I think eliminating some
[3:19:04] because we've decided oh this is
[3:19:06] uncutable
[3:19:08] may not be as we may get a lot of
[3:19:10] negative push back on that you know
[3:19:12] looking at some of these where you know
[3:19:15] things that I've definitely gotten
[3:19:16] emails complaining about spending too
[3:19:18] much money on fall into number one core
[3:19:22] in some ways. And so I guess my question
[3:19:24] is if we include number one core in that
[3:19:28] communication and that information
[3:19:30] gathering from the public whether it's
[3:19:32] through an online survey or or what have
[3:19:34] you. How do we plan to kind of inform
[3:19:38] the public on the implications of the
[3:19:43] input they give us? Like if somebody
[3:19:46] gives us the input of yeah cut
[3:19:48] permitting staff in half, are we going
[3:19:50] to like is it going to be a widget that
[3:19:53] says, you know, this would roughly
[3:19:55] impact permit issuance time by triple or what have you? Like are we going to
[3:20:02] give enough information to the public to
[3:20:04] truly understand the recommendations are
[3:20:06] giving us, I guess, and how are we going
[3:20:09] to do that?
[3:20:12] » Yeah, thank you for that question. I I
[3:20:14] um I don't have an answer to that
[3:20:17] question because it gets so unwieldy so
[3:20:19] quickly because we do so much which is
[3:20:22] why I was trying to get you to narrow my
[3:20:24] list down of of uh of items that we
[3:20:27] needed to um ask the public about. So,
[3:20:30] you know, I think if the direction is to
[3:20:32] start, you know, with everything, then
[3:20:35] we would need to bring you back um a
[3:20:37] proc design a process that does that and um and that's going to just take
[3:20:42] some some thoughtfulness.
[3:20:49] Any other questions?
[3:20:53] Okay. Um
[3:20:56] we have kind of we have two questions
[3:20:58] here. Um it's you know feedback on
[3:21:04] public engagement and
[3:21:07] um do we start with
[3:21:10] kind of core or do we you know um do we
[3:21:15] focus our discussion beyond core I
[3:21:18] guess. So, um, and I know they're
[3:21:21] linked, but,
[3:21:24] um, I feel like one drives the other
[3:21:27] probably. So, maybe starting with the
[3:21:29] question of
[3:21:32] do we'll
[3:21:34] read um, staff recommends that we focus
[3:21:38] public engagement and input on services
[3:21:40] that are discretionary [clears throat]
[3:21:41] or core where the level of service can
[3:21:43] be adjusted. Does the AFC concur with
[3:21:45] that focus?
[3:21:47] Mayor Welder,
[3:21:49] >> just a discussion or do you want a
[3:21:51] motion?
[3:21:52] >> Take a motion.
[3:21:53] >> Okay, I'll make
[3:21:54] >> that worked so well last [laughter]
[3:21:55] time.
[3:21:57] >> I'm going to try again. Go ahead, Mayor
[3:21:59] Weldon.
[3:22:00] >> I will say that we direct staff to focus
[3:22:04] public engagement and input on services
[3:22:06] that are discretionary or core where the
[3:22:10] level of service can be adjusted. And
[3:22:11] may I speak to my motion?
[3:22:13] >> Go ahead.
[3:22:14] >> Um, I think what Miss Director, sorry,
[3:22:19] manager Kester said is appropriate. Um,
[3:22:23] we where where we really need feedback
[3:22:26] is on our discretionary items and on our
[3:22:28] core services that can be adjusted. That
[3:22:31] does not mean that an assembly member is
[3:22:33] hearing quite a bit about something else
[3:22:35] that they can't bring it up to another
[3:22:37] time. But I think the public engagement
[3:22:39] should really be focused on those two
[3:22:40] items. discretionary and core where the
[3:22:42] service can be adjusted.
[3:22:45] >> We've got a motion on the table.
[3:22:47] Objections.
[3:22:49] Miss Hugh Candies.
[3:22:51] >> Thanks, Madam Chair. I will speak
[3:22:53] briefly to my motion.
[3:22:56] I agree that there is a difference
[3:23:00] between what the public gives feedback
[3:23:02] on and what this body might do. who this
[3:23:04] body might have a more educated opinion
[3:23:07] of what we think we can do to the core
[3:23:10] services versus it gets it does get very
[3:23:14] complicated very quickly if you open the
[3:23:16] entire thing up to the public.
[3:23:20] I would prefer, however, to get the
[3:23:24] public's opinion on the whole shebang
[3:23:27] because the magnitude of
[3:23:31] budget cuts that we are anticipating
[3:23:37] if we limit it to 1.5 and three. To me,
[3:23:42] I do think that a lot of Juno's public
[3:23:45] might have opinions about how do you
[3:23:47] reduce things in one? how do you um
[3:23:50] potentially reduce things in two um so
[3:23:54] that they can keep some of three or 1.5
[3:23:57] and I if that's the case and I want to
[3:23:59] hear that um I will blend that in to say
[3:24:05] that um it would be well maybe I should
[3:24:08] keep it just to one and not talk about
[3:24:10] outreach strategy.
[3:24:13] I I'll just keep it to that. I I I I
[3:24:16] certainly will be looking at the whole
[3:24:17] thing, but I think there are good
[3:24:18] reasons to Juno who has historically
[3:24:21] taxed itself and um paid for a lot of
[3:24:25] discretionary things that the rest of
[3:24:27] the state, you know, it's a limited
[3:24:29] number of the municipalities that
[3:24:31] provide this level of service. And um I
[3:24:36] think that when people understand the
[3:24:39] magnitude of the decisions made in the
[3:24:41] last election, there is going to be a
[3:24:44] little bit of whiplash and then they're
[3:24:45] going to have opinions about how they
[3:24:47] keep some of those things. I could be
[3:24:49] wrong, but I don't think I am. Uh and
[3:24:52] because of that, then I would want their
[3:24:54] feedback on the whole thing. So that's
[3:24:55] why I will object.
[3:24:59] » Mr. Steiner,
[3:25:01] >> and I'll object too. And I think Miss
[3:25:03] Hugh Scann put it very well. The one
[3:25:06] thing I'll add is I I feel like
[3:25:08] pre-editing
[3:25:10] the list of options that we give to the
[3:25:12] public kind of
[3:25:17] sends a message that maybe we're not
[3:25:19] willing to listen to all ideas. And I
[3:25:22] think having all the items on the list
[3:25:25] helps communicate that we are listening
[3:25:27] to every idea no matter whether it's
[3:25:31] challenging something that we believe
[3:25:33] can't be cut or reduced. Even if I am
[3:25:37] very skeptical that we can squeeze much
[3:25:39] out of the items in number one core. I I
[3:25:43] think it's I I think it would be sending
[3:25:45] the wrong message to not include those
[3:25:47] in our public outreach as we're asking
[3:25:49] people what pieces of government that
[3:25:51] they they prioritize the lowest.
[3:25:56] >> Mr. Kelly,
[3:25:59] >> thank you. Um I um much along the same
[3:26:02] lines as Miss Gandies and Mr. Steiner. I
[3:26:06] um hold firmly as a principle that
[3:26:09] leadership isn't to one party or the
[3:26:11] other giving direction. It's it's a
[3:26:13] discussion and so I think we should put
[3:26:15] it on the table and we should be able to
[3:26:17] communicate what the effects would be um
[3:26:20] and what the consequences would be. I
[3:26:22] think that gives us an opportunity for
[3:26:23] communication and so um I think Miss
[3:26:27] Husseand hasn't quite moved an amendment
[3:26:29] but maybe I um I would since Mr. Mr.
[3:26:32] Sener and Miss Scandies have spoken to
[3:26:34] it. Um I would move to um amend the
[3:26:38] motion to also include uh discussion of
[3:26:42] uh core essential items.
[3:26:47] » You've heard the amendment. Any
[3:26:50] objections to the amendment?
[3:26:52] >> I'll object. I don't need to speak to
[3:26:54] the
[3:26:58] » um I saw Mr. Brooks first. Do you want
[3:27:00] to speak to your objective? Objection.
[3:27:03] >> Objection. For the purpose of a
[3:27:05] question, uh, Assembly Member Kelly, did
[3:27:08] you
[3:27:10] include
[3:27:12] all four options for review in your
[3:27:15] amendment or was it just three of them?
[3:27:18] >> It was my intent to include um
[3:27:21] everything that hasn't been included
[3:27:22] yet.
[3:27:24] >> Thank you.
[3:27:28] » Um, do you remove your objection?
[3:27:29] >> I remove my objection. I just remembered
[3:27:31] >> Miss Hall.
[3:27:35] » Um I will speak in favor of this um
[3:27:40] amendment. I think it's a toss up and I
[3:27:42] understand where staff are coming from
[3:27:44] and I think we will need to get granular
[3:27:47] on you know probably these
[3:27:50] discretionary items at some point with
[3:27:53] the public. This will be an iterative
[3:27:56] process, but I do think from the having
[3:27:59] the community have to grapple with those
[3:28:01] big picture things first
[3:28:04] um will ultimately serve us in the end.
[3:28:06] Even though
[3:28:09] um when we get into the weeds, we'll
[3:28:11] have to get feedback on the the things
[3:28:15] and that right column because those are
[3:28:18] most likely the things that we are going
[3:28:20] to have to touch.
[3:28:24] All right, we have a Oh, go ahead,
[3:28:27] Mayor. Well done.
[3:28:28] >> And count uh votes. I'll just remove my
[3:28:30] objection.
[3:28:33] >> All right, we have a motion and we have
[3:28:34] an amendment. Any objections to the
[3:28:37] amendment?
[3:28:39] Seeing none, that's so moved. Um that
[3:28:42] brings us back to the original motion as
[3:28:44] amended. Any objections?
[3:28:49] Seeing none, that's so moved. And I know
[3:28:51] we're trying to create binary paths when
[3:28:54] there's obviously gray area between the
[3:28:56] two. I know that we will figure this out
[3:29:00] um
[3:29:01] to to do a little bit of a of all these
[3:29:04] things. Um
[3:29:09] the next question is really just getting
[3:29:13] feedback from the body on the public
[3:29:16] process. Is that correct? staff. Is that
[3:29:19] the additional feedback you'd like or is
[3:29:21] there some specific things you'd want
[3:29:24] from us?
[3:29:25] >> Um, yeah, I think just high level
[3:29:27] feedback on the public process would be
[3:29:29] useful. Um, timing I think is what I
[3:29:32] struggle with because you know you in
[3:29:35] what 6 weeks are going to be giving me
[3:29:38] budget direction for building the FY27
[3:29:40] budget. It would be great to have had
[3:29:42] all like surveys and public meetings and
[3:29:46] listening sessions uh in advance of
[3:29:48] that. I don't I don't know how to how to
[3:29:51] do that. Um so I so kind of weighing in
[3:29:55] on what that looks like. Um and what
[3:29:58] like what's so what's most important to
[3:30:00] you, right? Like if it's super
[3:30:01] important, I'll be like okay, we'll de prioritize other other things.
[3:30:05] So just I I just think some like high
[3:30:08] level feedback on uh process but also on
[3:30:11] timing would be useful.
[3:30:14] >> I saw Miss Scandies, Mr. Steining or Mr.
[3:30:17] Brooks.
[3:30:18] >> Thanks Madam Chair. I think um my
[3:30:22] feedback would be I see that before the
[3:30:25] retreat after the retreat
[3:30:28] um the timing before that I would say
[3:30:31] that I have no expectation that there's
[3:30:33] going to be a super robust public
[3:30:35] process before the retreat and I think
[3:30:37] we will give you that direction as a
[3:30:40] body and then
[3:30:42] I think the earlier we start the public
[3:30:45] process the better because it is going
[3:30:47] to be an iterative process and we are
[3:30:49] going going to have to go from, you
[3:30:51] know, 100,000 ft, 50,000 ft. I don't
[3:30:54] remember the numbers, but we're going to
[3:30:56] have to zoom in at some point,
[3:31:00] but that I anticipate if we take into
[3:31:03] account the holidays and travel and
[3:31:05] things that really that the real heart
[3:31:07] of that process is going to take place
[3:31:09] next year. I remember when the state
[3:31:13] went broke and they had the balance a
[3:31:15] budget tool on the website. I don't know
[3:31:18] that we could have anything as
[3:31:19] sophisticated as that, but I would
[3:31:21] really love it if people we had
[3:31:23] something that people could play with
[3:31:25] themselves at home. Um, even if it's,
[3:31:29] you know, putting a link to an Excel
[3:31:31] sheet or something. Um, and pointing
[3:31:34] them to it at social media so they could
[3:31:35] see the challenges of balancing the
[3:31:37] budget and the cuts that will need to be
[3:31:39] made. Um and then I think we should do
[3:31:41] non-statistical stuff in addition to you
[3:31:45] know if this body wanted to do anything
[3:31:46] non-statistical but public meetings I
[3:31:49] would think would be part of that. So I mean I will trust to the engagement
[3:31:52] team to bring bring us back strategies
[3:31:55] through you but um but I I would just
[3:31:58] say I would love giving something that
[3:32:01] allows the public to play with the
[3:32:03] budget because I think sometimes that's
[3:32:05] how you make someone realize how deep
[3:32:07] the cuts are.
[3:32:11] Mr. Steininger,
[3:32:14] >> Miss Hugh Scandies was thorough and
[3:32:16] covered everything.
[3:32:18] >> Mr. Brooks.
[3:32:22] » Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just
[3:32:25] wondering if, you know, maybe we could
[3:32:30] take a page out of the
[3:32:33] uh um election process and maybe utilize
[3:32:37] dropboxes in some sort of fashion, you
[3:32:40] know, for community outreach. People are
[3:32:42] more likely to do it uh if it has more
[3:32:47] options of partaking and more convenient
[3:32:49] options. So, you know, the strategic
[3:32:52] areas like supermarkets and things like
[3:32:55] that. It doesn't have to be the
[3:32:57] beautiful dropboxes that we have for for
[3:33:00] the ballots and stuff, but something,
[3:33:02] you know, sufficient enough with blank
[3:33:04] pages and then maybe having just a
[3:33:07] little bulletin above it or some sort of
[3:33:09] display that explains, you know, the the
[3:33:12] objective of the of the community and
[3:33:15] finances and then have people just write
[3:33:17] on a piece of paper. And uh I know it's
[3:33:20] all all staff and time permitting, but
[3:33:22] I'd read to them all.
[3:33:27] » Miss Hall,
[3:33:30] » I think we have a professional
[3:33:32] communication engagement division and I think we should divert a lot of
[3:33:37] these decisions about the howto's to to
[3:33:41] the professionals. Um, I I think the
[3:33:44] sooner the better, although running up
[3:33:47] to the holidays that's super
[3:33:48] challenging. Um, I think some community
[3:33:52] engagement in in meetings maybe downtown
[3:33:54] in the valley, but ultimately have
[3:33:56] people fill it out online so we're not
[3:33:58] getting
[3:34:00] multiple, you know, people going to a
[3:34:02] meeting and providing their input and
[3:34:04] then going home and doing it again, you
[3:34:06] know, like you can provide input once
[3:34:10] and but again, leave all those little
[3:34:13] details up to the professionals.
[3:34:17] Any
[3:34:19] other comments? I see a lot of head
[3:34:21] nods.
[3:34:24] I'll just add on the I think there will
[3:34:28] be, you know, a question of kind of
[3:34:30] appropriation and spending money and um
[3:34:35] we'll be I'll be you know curious what
[3:34:37] you all come to us with. But I will say
[3:34:41] that, you know, because we are we're
[3:34:45] embarking on this to cut the budget
[3:34:47] that, you know, I I don't statistical
[3:34:51] surveys are probably not where my brain
[3:34:54] is, but I will always advocate for um
[3:34:59] hiring a neutral facilitator.
[3:35:02] Um if if that makes sense. I know the
[3:35:05] brand new engagement team might have
[3:35:06] sorry the community marketing team might
[3:35:10] have good ideas that don't include that
[3:35:12] but I that is an expense that I'd be
[3:35:14] open to um so that we make sure that
[3:35:18] there's time and attention on putting
[3:35:22] together that process and and bringing
[3:35:24] us back um you know an output.
[3:35:32] Great. I think that is it. staff, do you
[3:35:34] have the fe feedback that you need?
[3:35:37] Great. Well, that bring we are going to
[3:35:41] skip the next few items here and we will
[3:35:43] come back to them.
[3:35:45] Revenue definitely something want to
[3:35:47] talk. Mr. Smith,
[3:35:49] >> sorry. Um [clears throat] I I just I I'm
[3:35:53] also I know we're I know a number of us
[3:35:55] are interested in foreground revenue. I did just want to maybe get a
[3:36:00] temperature check from the assembly and
[3:36:02] I I could do it in the form of a motion
[3:36:04] if that would be okay. Um just on the
[3:36:07] idea of again a a a group of three to
[3:36:11] kind of maybe dig in a little bit on the
[3:36:13] foreground revenue just so we don't lose
[3:36:16] steam on it.
[3:36:18] >> Would that be would you be open to that,
[3:36:20] Madam Chair? I think um I don't know
[3:36:23] that we need a motion because there's
[3:36:25] nothing keeping three people from doing
[3:36:27] that regardless. So I see some head nods
[3:36:30] and um that sounds like a good idea. I'd
[3:36:33] also say for folks who may not end up in
[3:36:36] that group, um it would probably be
[3:36:38] helpful if you look through that list
[3:36:40] and there are particular things that you
[3:36:42] think are either, you know, that are big
[3:36:46] movers or easy wins that you um pick those out and and can communicate
[3:36:53] those with with staff or or be thinking
[3:36:55] about those so we all can have a little
[3:36:57] homework.
[3:37:00] Does that satisfy you, Mr. Smith?
[3:37:04] Um, yeah, I I was gonna add that I
[3:37:07] didn't want to be on that group. That
[3:37:09] was the only part of my motion I was
[3:37:10] going to add in, but um
[3:37:13] [laughter]
[3:37:14] hold on. I thought I saw the mayor and
[3:37:16] she probably has better guidance than I
[3:37:17] do.
[3:37:18] >> Okay, M. [clears throat] Sorry.
[3:37:20] >> Well, uh, Mr. Sorry, Mr. Steininger
[3:37:23] already said that he's been interested
[3:37:24] in this. I've been interested in this
[3:37:26] and I've talked to you before. So, that
[3:37:28] will be our core three. And if anybody
[3:37:30] else wants another group, they're
[3:37:31] certainly welcome to because I
[3:37:33] >> Who's in the group? I missed Mr.
[3:37:35] Steininger.
[3:37:36] >> I volunteered. You me.
[3:37:38] >> Mr. Steiner.
[3:37:40] >> So, we'll see.
[3:37:41] >> We have lots of questions for the
[3:37:43] attorney.
[3:37:43] >> I didn't know I was in it. All right.
[3:37:45] Cool.
[3:37:51] » Chair. Go ahead. Miss
[3:37:53] >> Hallifying question. So those three, if
[3:37:55] any of the rest of us have info, we
[3:37:58] should give it to the staff who then
[3:38:00] give it to the
[3:38:02] >> Yes. Okay. Thanks.
[3:38:07] » All right. Um that brings us to next meeting date
[3:38:20] which is December 3rd, 2025.
[3:38:23] and executive session.
[3:38:28] Um, Madame Mayor,
[3:38:31] give a motion.
[3:38:33] >> Uh, I move that we recess into executive
[3:38:35] session to discuss and update collective
[3:38:37] bargaining negotiations, the immediate
[3:38:39] knowledge of which would adversely
[3:38:41] affect the finances of the municipality.
[3:38:47] » That's for unanimous consent. I should
[3:38:48] read the whole thing.
[3:38:51] Are there any members of the public that
[3:38:54] object?
[3:38:57] Oh, I have to I have to declare a
[3:39:00] conflict. Um I am have a conflict
[3:39:05] associated with negotiations with IAFF
[3:39:08] and so I will um leave for that part of
[3:39:12] the discussion. Any objections from the
[3:39:14] assembly about recessing into executive
[3:39:17] session?
[3:39:19] Oh, go ahead, Miss Flick.
[3:39:21] >> Thank you, Chair. Well, before you um
[3:39:24] actually resource into executive
[3:39:25] session, um do we need to come back to
[3:39:29] the public or [clears throat]
[3:39:32] um for public action?
[3:39:34] >> We will not need to take motion after
[3:39:37] the executive session. So, when we are
[3:39:39] done, we will adjourn.
[3:39:41] >> Perfect.