Great. Thank you. And uh staff will be
in touch.
>> Thank you so much. Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
>> It's too easy, right?
>> Yeah. [laughter]
>> All right. Uh next on the agenda is a uh
I guess it's a three-part uh request
uh for 733 McKinley Avenue. Uh beginning
with a landmark designation, uh an
alteration certificate and a grant
request. And we will have a staff
presentation.
recording in progress.
The mayor is running a few minutes late.
He says ETA 12:05. Start
>> the meeting. Do it.
>> So, no. He said do not start and I shall
not
got the
» right
six months.
>> Are we on Zoom?
>> Okay. Um,
thank you [clears throat] all today for
being here. I'm sorry for my delay in
getting here. Um, but we will be done no
later than 5:00 period and maybe uh a
bit earlier than that. Um,
why don't we take a roll call first?
>> Council member Fehee
>> here.
>> Council member Kern
>> present. Council member
>> here.
>> Mayorington
>> here.
>> Council member
>> here.
Um, if you would join me in pledge
of allegiance.
» I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
Um,
is is Caleb online?
>> No. Yeah. I one of our members today got
pretty violently sick last night. I'm
not going to say that was either because
he had to come to council meeting or
that he had to pick up family at the
airport, but um I do um wish him well
and that's why he is not here today.
>> [clears throat]
>> sense his regrets. Um,
all right. Um, we're at the budget
retreat for the banial budget
for 2027
28. Um, and I'm delighted to be here as
I think council are and hopefully staff
and the public are as well.
>> [clears throat]
>> Um, I wanted to um provide a few
preliminary comments and I'm going to
also have the chair of our finance
committee um do so um council member
Hfner um because that's um we've had a
huge integral part in the development of
the budget so far. Um, this meeting is
being recorded. So, I hope that those
who can't be here and even those who are
here um can look back at it and um and
be here to uh understand what we're
doing because transparency is incredibly
important especially on this
[clears throat] issue. And I want to at
the outset thank uh
um the the kind of following
groups of people. Um first the staff who
have worked absolutely tirelessly to get
us where we are right now. Um and that
includes all the directors I think who
are here today. Um their staff. Um, I
want to thank council who are going to
do hopefully a lot of heavy lifting
um today and and throughout the process.
Um, want to thank the members of the
boards and commissions who've had uh big
input into this as well. They've been
asked for their input and they've
provided it.
um want to ask or mention members of the
public who um we'll get to that in just
a minute, but are going to play an
important role in this and indeed all
already are in [snorts]
comments that they've made to us.
[clears throat] And I do want to single
out our city manager
um Diana Langley for leading the staff
charge on this and uh she and her staff
will be conducting
um a chunk of this meeting. Um want to
make sort of four points. Um,
one is that one of the most important
things a city council and this city
council does under the charter
is passing a balanced budget.
Um, and we will do that later this year.
What does that involve? It involves
making policy choices
and setting the spending priorities of
the city for um the next two years. We
do a bianial budget. We will revisit it
next year and indeed we'll revisit it
throughout the year on for certain
purposes,
but [clears throat]
we're going to make those policy choices
and set spending priorities that we
believe reflect and balance the values
that the community that we serve,
the voting public and those
[clears throat] who can't vote.
yet or can't vote at all um
uh embody and that we understand I think to the
best of our knowledge
um and ability um
we also
are collaborating in this process and I
have enumerated some of the folks who
collaborate and are collaborating ating
with in evaluating
um and making those choices and those
decisions. That's why you call it a
budget process.
Um
the second um thing I think to know in
all of this is that every municipality
in Colorado, probably across the country
and most other governments, including
our state government particularly, are
undergoing incredible
maybe metamorphic
financial pressures.
and it makes this job all the more
important and difficult.
I I think I don't want to I don't want
to overstate it. Um but I I do think
that's a really important lens through
which we all have to um understand this.
We've got tough choices to make, but we
have um what I consider to be um the
ability to stand on the shoulders of a
lot of people, staff,
presidents,
um public officials
who have made really terrific choices,
um often conservative choices
to uh protect protect the city
and bring us to what we're going to do
today. Um so while um these are tough
decision decisions today, there are many
communities that are really in uh much
more difficult situations than we are
and I think that's important.
Uh third, um during this budget process,
there will be quite a number of
important points in which or at which
the public has input
formally in meetings and so forth. And
of course, the public is always willing
or able to send us emails, contact us um
when we're not in meeting, but today is
not one of those. Um, we have a lot of
information to get through today and we
will uh
um we'll take public comment in other
circumstances later in this long
process. And fourth is that we will get
through as many items as we can in the
budget today. [snorts]
Um during this retreat, there may be in
particular some elements of the capital
improvement budget that we may um decide
to put over to a subsequent meeting.
We've allowed time for that. Um that is
a challenge in and of itself, but we'll do that and um can and will do
that. Um so those are the points I want
to make to kind of frame the bigger
discussion. But um we have the benefit
of a terrific finance committee
supported by staff uh writer Bailey,
finance director and many others. Um
members of that um include
um the chair uh Dietrich Hefner
um and Josh Coopermanman
[clears throat and cough]
and Deair Prom. Um they just happen to
be sitting
uh to the left of me to the right on
from your point of view probably. And um
I we want uh to give them an opportunity
to council member Hefner to make a few
comments um about um their work and um
the way they're seeing that and um he's
seeing it as a finance year. So council
member,
>> thank you mayor. Uh [clears throat] I'll
try and be brief. The finance committee
has um worked hard to date on um the
items we're going to be looking at today
in the retreat. I know many of you were
with us at the budget retreat preview on
July 2nd um and and got at least a taste
of some of the issues that are going to
be before us today.
I think the thing I want to underline
that the the mayor talked about is we
are in a much better position in many
ways than a lot of neighboring
jurisdictions, the state government, the
county, um take take your pick, who are
all facing um
decisions that are that are much harder
than the ones we're facing in terms of,
you know, not having the money to
continue the programs they've already
got. Um we we are fortunate in in the
sense of um
we haven't gotten ourselves into that
particular situation. I think everyone
deserves a lot of credit for the the
prudent decision-m that got us there.
Nevertheless, we face all of the same
cost pressures as everybody else, which
we've heard a lot about. Um that costs
of lots of things are going up faster uh
than city revenue. And if we are not if
we don't continue to be diligent and
prudent and responsible uh we could very
easily find ourselves in a situation
where there isn't for example enough
general fund money to cover all the
things the general fund needs to cover
or not enough capital fund money to
undertake the the sort of core capital
projects we need to do. Um, you know, I
think this this has been and will be
described as a transitional budget and a sort of bridge from the way we have
been doing things toward potentially a
new way of doing things. I hope we can
all think about that as we talk about
the long list of decisions in front of
us. Um, because I think we're at
something of an inflection point. Um,
but nowhere near as bad of an inflection
point as some of our neighbors. So there
there's both a challenge but an
opportunity as well.
» With that
me with that I'll turn it over to staff.
I think there may be a number of people
who are going to have some part of the
presentation. Um
the council will be weighing in at
different parts and I'll uh be kind of
shephering that discussion, but the
staff is going to be shephering us
through um some preliminary thoughts and
hard um analyzed facts and suggestions
and priorities and decisions for us. So
>> all right, thank you. Thank you council
for joining us today. I would like to uh
reiterate the gratitude for staff. Um to
get to this point is a culmination of
months worth of work of all of the
departments and really appreciate all of
the time and effort that you've put into
this. Also want to thank the finance
committee uh council for your support to
this point and then also the advisory
boards for submitting their requests as
well. Um, as council member Hefner
noted, we are entering transitional
budget years. As we were starting to
prepare for um, this workshop, you know,
we realized all the things that are in
transition. We while we will adopt a
balanced budget, we do have a structural
issue with our ongoing budget. And when
you look at the um, the models, they
will show that costs continue to exceed
revenues. So the transitional piece of
this is setting the foundation to
understand where we are at as a city
with the community to understand the
services that we provide the um
constraints that we have and then
opportunities to move forward. Also
there are opportunities to increase
revenues through evaluations of fees um
perhaps a technology fee um plant check
and inspection fee and then also
reviewing credit card fees. And then um
there's impacts to be determined as we
have the adoption of the pros guide book
which was a huge um input from the
public. You'll see requests for not only
maintaining existing amenities but new
amenities. How do we fit that into the
long-term plan adoption of the comp plan
which is very exciting that will result
in uh development that is not factored
into this budget. And then looking at
cost allocations and that's a
behind-the-scenes item that we do um not
only cost allocation of the um internal
divisions in terms of finance, IT and HR
across the entire organization but then
also how staff are allocated amongst the
funds and as um finance has pulled back
the curtain on some of these positions,
we have found that they are not
allocated appropriately. And so we need
to evaluate that and go through. And
then finally, you know, if you look at
the current budget, there are a lot of
KPIs and I understand why they're in the
budget. As we move forward in this next
two-year cycle, we would really like to
evaluate the KPIs and make sure that
they are meaningful and that they
actually tell a story and that they um
provide value. Um versus right now it's
more so there are a long list in the
budget that are occasionally referred
to. Next slide, please.
So, just looking at what this is a brief
snapshot of what's occurred within the
last year or what we're currently
working on. Um, again, this list is
small compared to what the entire city
staff have completed, but these are um
some may be considered very small in
terms of RV dump station, but it has a
big impact on the public. And then we
have very large the comp plan adoption.
And so, uh, you know, kudos to staff for
all of these items. What this really
reflects is that, um, staff does not
just sit there and stay with status quo.
There's constantly how can we improve,
how can we better our processes, and we
always receive feedback that we need to.
And so, we take that in and evaluate
what we can do. So, again, thank you.
And I'm going to transition this to
Ryder.
» Thank you.
Um, thank you all for attending. I'd
like to thank our city department heads
and their staff for their hard work and
input so far in this process. Takes a
village. I'd also like to acknowledge
the outstanding work of Mahar Mansurati,
financial analyst, who's been
instrumental in compiling and analyzing
the budget to date, and our deputy
finance director, Mr. James Frank, who's
embarking on his initial budget journey
with the city. I'd be amiss not to
recognize also my finance team, many of
which are sitting behind me, our tax
team, Travis, Hope, Melissa, and Jess,
as well as our accounting team, Jordan,
uh, Kylie, Ally, Julie, and Jen. They're
fabulous. I really appreciate all the
support they do for me and my team and
for the organization. I'd like to start
with the purpose of today's budget
meeting and what success looks like.
You're going to be presented with a lot
of information today, a lot of
information and details. It's meant to
be interactive. Along the way, we'll be
seeking your direction at council
decision points. To help us along with
that process, we have a multi-pager
handout for you to follow along as well.
So, let's set the stage. Um, we'll start
today's presentation off going over the
budget process in the calendar, budget
guidelines, financial policies,
council's priorities, city manager
priorities, some key considerations,
what we're seeing in other communities,
fiscal and policy issues with potential
significant impacts, and council
decision points. Then we're going to hop
right into it for long-term financial
forecasts and initial focus areas of
budget development. The general fund,
the parks fund, open space fund, and the
golf fund. Then we'll touch on some
major revenue and personnel and benefit
expenditure assumptions.
We'll go over the city manager's
recommended adjustments. This includes
both personnel and operational.
will revisit fiscal and policy issues
with significant impacts. As mentioned,
expense growth continues to outpace our
revenue growth. The recreation debt mill
levy, temporary credit expiring and
resetting to align with uh annual debt
payments. I will not spend that much
time on the historic preservation tax
after last night's council meeting, but
I dock of these materials before last
night. We'll spend some time on board
and commission requests. LSAB, a
sustainability, sustainability advisory
board, cultural advisory board, open
space advisory board, recreation
advisory board, and the historical
museum advisory board. And at the end,
we'll talk about our preliminary CIP.
So, the calendar, a lot of good work has
been done to date. March through May, we
compiled capital requests, material
operational requests and personnel
expansion requests. May through June,
the department 2027-28 operational
budget was developed and refined by
department heads. Preliminary revenue
estimates were also prepared. June and
July, finance and CMO staff consolidated
those inputs and developed the materials
you have today.
Earlier this month, we gave the finance
committee a budget retreat preview of
this meeting.
Here we are today in council chambers uh
for the 2728 budget retreat. Looking
forward um depending on the progress
made today, I feel it's very likely
we'll have a another meeting engaging
the entire council to do further CIP
revi refinement and development. At the
August 20th finance committee meeting,
we'll have a budget retreat recap and
additional CIP discussion. All targeting
Tuesday, September 1st council meeting
for the city manager's recommended
budget. September to October, we'll have
working sessions as necessary. Tuesday,
October 20th will be our public hearing,
um the city manager's final budget
presentation with adoption slated for
Monday, November 2nd.
Budget guidelines. The city is currently
developing its 202728 bianual budget and
six-year capital improvement plan. This
is a heavy lift. The budget process aims
to allocate resources in alignment with
our priorities. We've talked about a
balanced budget. I'd like to add on to
structurally balanced. What this means
is that one-time funding is only to be
used for one-time expenditures, not
ongoing funding. Put another way, your
revenues need to exceed your ongoing
expenditures.
Line item adjustments are based upon
detailed analysis and projections.
Staffing requests and will include
detailed and specific information
defining the need for those positions.
One thing I've talked a lot with our
department heads is cost neutrality that
increases are to be offset by
commeasurate reductions. What this has
allowed us to do is prioritize our
staffing and our obligations. Um,
and given existing and potential fiscal
challenges, our community's high level
of expectation, we do expect the budget
development process to generate some
challenging conversations and difficult
decisions.
The city's financial policies are posted
on our department's website and are
routinely reviewed by the finance
committee. They were last amended on
June 16th of this year. The budget is
developed within this framework. The
financial policies that have a direct
impact on budget are asterisks on this
chart, reserves, revenues, and our
operating budget policies.
This budget aims to align your council
priorities with our resources, economic
vitality, core services, safety,
housing, all within the lens of EDI and
environmental sustainability.
Our
city manager's priorities are to
prioritize our existing critical
infrastructure and core functions. What
this means is public safety in the but
in the recommended budget. Today you'll
see market adjustments for police and
Boulder ODM maintenance of our capital
investments including technology and
critical infrastructure and addressing
the long-term stability of the general
fund, parks fund, open space fund and
golf funds. investments in staff with an
emphasis on retention, training, and
development. To continuously evaluate
and implement cost-saving opportunities,
and operational efficiencies, and to
evaluate fees and cost allocations where
appropriate.
Some key considerations. We are not
alone. Other cities are going through
something similar. Lewisville has a high
quality of life and delivers a high
level of service. This city has taken on
truly impressive and aspirational work.
We just need to balance those with our
resources. There are pathways through
this. We are seeking your guidance on
proposed pathways forward and we will
have a balanced budget for adoption this
fall.
This slide uh neighboring communities
aims to set some context. Here are
somehat of some of what our neighboring
communities are experiencing as they
develop their budgets. Um many of which
are just entering the budget process.
Staff will continue to monitor what's
going on in our region. I would like to
highlight and applaud the fiscal
discipline of your council and prior
councils which have placed this city in
a better position than some
fiscal policy issues and significant
impacts. Again, addressing the general
park and golf funds structural
imbalances. The general trend of expense
growth outpacing our revenue growth with
projected slowing or flattening of sales
and use and also property tax revenues.
our personnel costs and retention,
suspension of the temporary credit of
the rec center debt mill levy to align
with our annual debt service payments,
service level alignments as necessary,
and prioritizing our capital investments
to balance our CIP. We will be
revisiting this throughout and at the
end of today's presentation.
Council decision points. This slide aims
to put you on notice of council
direction sought. And again, you can
reference the multi-pager that has a
matrix throughout. This will include our
parks fund extend increase the
conservation trust fund transfer for
park operations beyond 2028 in models.
Increasing general fund subsidy and or
service level reductions. The open space
fund revisiting the acquisition reserve
percentage set aside. The golf fund
continued to engage the recreation
advisory board. [clears throat] We'll go
over the city manager's operational and
personnel recommended adjustments,
service level reductions,
the rec center debt fund, temporary mill
le mill levy credit, the historic
preservation fund we will not spend much
time on, and boards and commission
requests.
Let's hop right into it.
Initial areas of budget focus. Over the
next few slides, we will review the
city's major funds. the general fund,
parks fund, open space, golf,
recreation, and consolidated utilities.
The capital fund will be later in the
presentation. But before we do, um, how
are they developed? The long-term
financial forecast for major funds are
developed using 2025 actuals to arrive
at our beginning fund balances. 2026
current year adjusted or revised budget
and in some instances projections, our
27 and 28 requested budgets. Turnback is
utilized for certain funds in model
years. I'll spend a little more time on
that. Um projections and assumptions may
be updated throughout the budget
development process. I would like to uh
remind folks unlike at the budget
retreat preview why I did not have
everything modeled at this time all 2027
city manager recommended adjustments are
reflected in the models.
So before we get into the the charts, a
few more slides. Um a few additional
inputs worth considering. While your
council adopts total appropriations, our
long-term forecasts incorporate
operational turnback. This is often
largely driven by salary savings or
vacancies. Um but could be mater uh but
also could include materials or
supplying supply line items coming in
under budget. These savings are taken
into consideration and greatly impact
the following forecasts.
Inter fund transfers for 2027. These are
increased over 2020 2026's transfers by
4.2%.
These transfers are codified in the city
financial policies. I'll run through
this real fast.
The general fund transfers out 1.1
million to the parks fund. It transfers
out 140,000 to the cemetery fund and
nearly 1.5 million to the recreation
fund. The cemetery perpetual fund or
endowment fund makes a transfer of its
interest earned to the cemetery
operations fund. The historic
preservation fund transfers 230,000 to
the general fund for museum operations.
This this takes into account the
existing percentage, not any future
percentages
depending on the outcome of a future tax
measure. The capital projects fund
transfers 174,000 to the recreation
fund. This supports capital
expenditures. And we'll talk about this
more later, but the conservation trust
lottery fund transfers $100,000 to the
parks fund for park operations.
All these transfers are in the model.
Looking at a two-year budget, we're
looking at 2028. Here are all those same
transfers again increased by 3%.
All right, beginning with the general
fund. Now, before I get into the
numbers, I'd like to touch on the
general fund a little bit. This is where
your primary governmental activity
occurs. It is the city's largest
operating fund. It's where public safety
lives, community development, and
building safety, cultural services,
including our library, museum, and arts,
sustainability, resiliency, our clerk,
our legal team,
CMO, and portions of HR, IT, and
finance.
And as I've just mentioned with the
transfer slides, significant support of
parks, wreck, and cemetery via those
transfers. This fund is the core of a
lot of what your government does. It's
primarily funded by tax revenue, sales,
and property tax, and to a lesser
degree, building and permit fees, the
superior library IGA, Excel, and Comcast
franchise fees, just to name a few.
So general fund forecasted revenues for
2027 are 28.7 million for 2028 29.6
million. The general fund forecasted
expenses in 27 29.2 million 30.2 million
in 2028. These forecasted expenses do
include 250,000 in one time in 2027 and
40,000 in onetime expenses in 2028. I
touched on turnback a little bit
earlier. These models, those forecasted
expenses do take into consideration
operational turnback of approximately
1.5 million.
Put another way, our operational gap
gaps at this time are approximately
200,000 for 2027 and 600,000 in 2028.
These models include approximately 1.5
uh additional FTEES, a piece of a civil
engineer 12, a piece of an operations
technician, a portion of a construction
and storm water inspector, and a portion
of the PROS deputy director. These are
staff's preliminary efforts and are not
the city manager's recommended budget.
You will be seeing a few charts like
this one today. So let me explain by
what these bars mean.
The blue bars are your revenues pro
comprised of a lot of different revenue
sources but primarily sales and prop uh
property taxes. Your red bar are your
expenses.
The green bar is the ending fund balance
for that year.
The orange line across the bottom is the
15% operate minimum operating reserve
set by financial policies. The dotted
line is a 25% minimum target operational
reserve.
So focusing in on 2027 and 2028, you'll
see visually demonstrated what I
mentioned on the prior slide. Ongoing
revenues in 2027 are 28.7 million, about
$200,000 short of ongoing expenses in
2027.
This is our current structural gap.
Note that from the budget retreat
preview to today, staff has modeled all
city manager recommendations, which has
widened this gap. Um, we'll speak on
this later. In 2028, our operating
revenues are 29.6 million, our ongoing
expenses of 30.2 million, a structural
gap again of 600,000.
And you'll note if you don't address
this structural gap in balance
immediately, it compounds over time.
You also note that throughout the
forecast, we are anticipated to remain
above our minimum and target reserves
goals throughout this model.
So important to note that staff will
continue to refine forecasts throughout
this process that the imper information
presented today includes assumptions of
revenues and expenditure growth. This
could mean evaluating things such as the
wind tail deductible buy down or other
cost-saving opportunities, potentially
reallocating resources to higher
priorities, which would likely include
programmatic or service level
reductions. We may assess vacant
positions and city policies. We will
continuously evaluate cost setting
opportunities and efficiencies. We will
evaluate fee recovery and cost
allocations. And this all may be
impacted by future development and
policies.
I will continue on to the parks fund,
our second fund of initial area focus.
Our parks department is widely
recognized as top tier, safe, clean, and
extremely well-maintained. Credit to our
current superintendent, Chris Davis,
Director Blackmore, and their
extraordinary staff. The department is
nearly kappa accredited which is an
incredible accomplishment nationwide
with less than 2% of parks departments
receiving such an honor. Our parks
forecasted revenues for 2027 are 29.9 20
uh 2.9 million.
Same in 2028. Our forecasted expenses in
2027 are 2.9 and 3.0 3.0 million in
2028.
Again, this does our forecast expenses
takes into consideration operational
turnback of nearly $200,000.
Our preliminary operational gaps within
this fund are 40,000 in 2027 and about
85,000 in 2028. Future needs and some
current are not funded, including front
center maintenance, red tail
development, and as city manager Langley
mentioned, our PROS long-term plan. A
reminder that future capital parks
expenditures are not modeled in this
fund. There are some personnel
recommended changes. A partial
allocation of the PROS deputy director.
This has been offset by a reduction in
variable hours. This reflects staff's
preliminary efforts and is not the
recommended budget at this time.
So, here is the park's long-term
financial forecast.
Within the blue bar and at your request,
we have split out tax revenue from the
general fund ongoing transfer between
the deep blue and the slightly lighter
blue. Um, also you can see a top the
lightest of blues is a conservation
trust fund transfer. While nearly
structurally balanced in 2027 28, the
differences that were previously noted
on the former slide, staff has extended
the CTF transfer throughout this model.
This is a council decision point. So,
let me pivot briefly to the conservation
trust fund.
Here is a summary of what the
conservation trust fund is paying for
from 2024 through 2032, which covers
playgrounds, wayfinding, and signs for
parks and open space. And as mentioned,
beginning in 2026, the conservation
trust fund transfer uh supports
approximately 3% of park operations.
This fund brings in approximately
$250,000 annually, and notably, the
playground replacements are tapering off
in out years.
Here's that same information visually
demonstrated. I just like to again blue
are revenues, red are expenses. I'd like
to call out the bright pink at top is
the $100,000 transfer to the parks fund
for operations. Um you'll note there
still is projected to have a balance
approximately 200,000 at the end of the
model in 2032.
So, as you noted, staff extended the
conservation trust fund for park
operations beyond 2028 in modeling. It
was kept at 100,000 through 2032, where
previously it's been uh discussed 2026
through 2028. It's worth noting the
potential impacts to the capital fund
and other divisions that rely upon this
fund. So, this is our first council
policy direction uh point.
Would you like us to consider extending
or increasing the CTF transfer for park
operations beyond 2028?
We could potentially increase the annual
transfer beyond inflation, annual
general fund transfer beyond inflation
to the extent feasible possible. I will
say today that is not possible in our
current projections
and or service level adjustments. We
could consider aligning variable
personnel expenses with the historical
trends.
So at that at this point I will pause um
and open it up for some council
direction discussion on this decision
point.
» Um thank you. Um first of all just a
question and it's more for um the
um folks who are watching this who may
not be as familiar with budgeting. Can
you describe turn back just to make sure
people we may have you may have covered
it. You've certainly talked about it.
It's a concept that the average person
sometimes doesn't know,
>> of course. So, um, where I came from,
mayor, turnback was often discussed as
salary savings, just because you would
have staff, you would have vacancies,
and when you had vacancies, it took a
little time to rehire and fill that
position. So operational turnback kind
of builds upon salary savings and looks
to all of your operational accounts
including perhaps your um your paper
budget came in under and so that would
be returned to the general fund um
[clears throat] returned to that fund.
Your council um adopts annual budgets so
any unexpended appropriations funding
would fall to the fund balance. um your
council adopts appropriations and what
we do in our modeling to really refine
to finetune where we're headed. We do
take into consideration those
non-expenses, those things that may not
occur. So really, it's a way for us to
um adopt a budget, but then refine our
projections as sharply as we can,
knowing that there will be some expenses
that just don't occur.
» Thanks. um what we have been given which
is a nice kind of little bit of a cheat
sheet from staff on council decision
points um and on parks wreck and open
space which are different funds I maybe
what we ought to start with is the parks
fund it looks like from the list that
there are three decision points um one
um extending you know it's on the the
slide here, but extending or increasing
the CTF transfer parts operations,
increasing annual general fund transfer
and uh service level adjustments. Um, I
wanted to ask council if based on their
review of the budget materials, there
any other decisions that um they think
we ought to be making in addition to
those.
All right.
Seeing none.
>> Go ahead, council member.
>> No, no, just on parks fund.
>> Yeah, we're just doing this one one bite
at a time. Rather large bites, but yeah.
Um,
any any thoughts initially?
>> Yes, Council Member Hefner.
>> Yeah. So, um, Director Bailey, if you
could flip back to the general fund for
a minute because this is this is
relevant to the general fund transfer.
I just want to talk briefly about one
thing I saw in the CIPs, which is moving
about $500,000 a year of software
expense that currently lives in the
general fund into the capital fund.
um which obviously we need to pay for
that expense from somewhere. But I
assume this graph shows that 500k moved
out already and that if it's still lived
in the general fund, we'd see the gap
increase by
>> half a million dollars.
I believe your question is did we reduce
our software expense in the general fund
to account for the request in the
capital fund. We have not done that to
this point.
>> Okay.
>> It's still in this chart. We are
currently refining exactly what software
will will extend into the future. So
I've not accounted for that and I don't
want to say it's double counted because
we're still working through all the
softwares that will be required.
>> So it's it's still showing up here and
it's not showing up yet in the chart for
the capital fund. It
>> is showing up in both charts, but I I
think my point is we may need more than
$500,000 for for software.
>> Okay. So this Okay, I think I'm with
you.
back to parks.
Um, sorry, I have I have a couple more
things. Um,
so I think one thing we talked about for
the conservation trust fund on finance
is that that fund does other parks
related work, mainly playground
replacements. And so I think the thing
that had been the recommendation on
finance was what is the amount we can
transfer out of conservation trust
that leaves enough money behind to
continue to pay for the playground
program
and I don't know if there's an answer on
that or not. Um I will maybe turn over
to Adam or director Blackbird to speak
to the specificity but we have modeled
the requests within the CIP program and
we have allocated those costs between
those both funds. So I would say the
demonstrated need is reflected in these
models to be funded by the capital fund
and the conservation trust fund as
presented today.
>> So my question is a little bit different
though. So on that slide we're talking
about a 100k transfer and I think the
question posed by finance is what is the
dollar amount of transfer that can come
out of conservation trust without
prejudicing the playground stuff that
gets financed out of there.
» I think that's dependent upon what you
want the playground replacement pro
process to look like.
>> Yeah. Um, you know, we have some models
that you're not seeing today that if
there is a desire to use CT increase the
CTF transfer into park ops, what that
does to the playground replacement
depreciation schedule. Um, so you know,
outside of 2027,
which the majority of that playground
money is going to potentially be needed
to do community park the way we would
want to do community park. Once you get
28 and beyond,
it's kind of all fair game. Um, it's
just a matter of whether we want to fund
park operations or expedite the
replacement of the playgrounds. Um once
we get through a community all of the
playgrounds will have been replaced with
they'll be in their existing lifespan.
So if we want to defer you know a park
playground that we had depreciation and
replacement at 10 years to 12 years for
example like a net brand we could
certainly do that and then you could use
the entirety of the playground money for
a separate purpose in say 2028
if that makes sense. and and so what are the sort of 28 and onward
expenses in in the playground here?
>> So what you're seeing here is beginning
back again with a net brand in 2028.
This is a percentage assistance to the
playground replacement money that's also
out of the capital fund for I have the
list. It's a net brand cowboy pirates
and then potentially allocated money for
a new park 203132
based on how things evolve with red tail
or some other placeholder property.
>> But you're saying we may not need to we
may not need to do those projects.
>> Correct. There's there's a way that we
could not do if desired by council all
five of those parks. We could
consolidate that down to only doing two
playgrounds over the next six years.
Okay.
>> And transfer that.
>> But even if we do this program, there's
still enough to move 100K every year.
It's it's not an issue.
>> Yep. No, it's already been modeled and we're fine with the playground
replacements as currently stated with
the 100,000 coming out.
>> Okay.
» I I guess my question back then would be
should it be more than 100,000 which
doesn't quite cover the gap. I mean
that's a nice round number.
you pull will you pull up the chart? Um
chair or um council member Hefner, you
could you could extend and increase. I
think there's a cap though. Um if you
look, we have if you go to the uh the
conservation trust fund, you could see
through 2032 having $200,000 in the
bank, you could potentially increase it
by $25,000 and still have a solvent
fund. So there is a little room there.
Um, but there is a ceiling because only
200 to 250,000 calls in every year. So,
if you're looking to potentially
increase it, you could probably go to
125 and then that green bar on the far
right would be closer to zero than is to
200,000.
» Does that answer your question?
>> No, that that's helpful.
>> So, there's a there's a little more
headroom, but not a lot.
>> Correct.
But if we kick out some of the parks
projects that director Blackmore just
described, there could be maybe we get
to 150.
>> Correct.
» When you say kick out,
do you mean
>> defer?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Rather than reduce
um any given
>> Yeah. I mean, I assume there's there
comes a point where you have to
undertake those projects. Yep.
>> Um, but it would be delaying them
further into the future.
>> Uh, director, did you have something to
add?
>> I would just add maybe a staff opinion
that from a replacement
and expectations of the community as
terms of quality and fresh appeal of the
investment of this money. um you know
staff would prefer
a deferment or a delay to ensure an
appropriate amount of funding per
project versus a reduction in scope if
that makes sense.
>> I appreciate that. One one of the things
I guess I would say and this is true
I think across the budget is there's
always trade-offs. Um, one tradeoff, um,
certainly is doing things to a lower,
uh, service level or a cheaper for lack
of a better termament, but um, a cheaper
product or a less um, exemplary product
that perhaps the the city
residents would like. And I think, you
know, my general view is that we ought
to do fewer things very well
uh rather than a bunch of things in a
mediocre way. It's not always that kind
of trade-off, but I appreciate I think
that's consistent with that kind of at
least in that area kind of thing. So,
yes, Council Member Heather.
>> Yeah, I I agree. And I guess the the
suggestion I would make on this topic is
um you know give the direction to defer
playground projects to the extent sort
of that's reasonable and use that
savings to maximize
the amount of the transfer from
conservation trust.
» Are you suggesting a particular amount
of transfer?
No, I mean I it would be nice to have it
be more than this. Um, but I think
whatever we can squeeze by pushing off,
you know, look, I don't think any of us
want unsafe playgrounds or falling apart
playgrounds. But if it's mainly an
aesthetic concern
um and we can ek out three or four or
five more years from a aging playground,
I would rather take that money and spend
it today on operations and maintenance
that really is unavoidable that if we
stop doing it will be quite noticeable
and then try and stage out the
playground replacements um space them
out a little farther than we have been.
I'm going to do as we go through this
quite a few kind of straw holes. Um what
we often do is a thumbs up um for
direction. U if there's additional
conversation that needs to happen fine
but um I don't know there are others
have comments but uh are people
generally in agreement with um that
discussion or that that suggestion?
Council member Coopermanman. Yeah.
Uh first I just wanted to ask um so the
service level adjustments there's one
bullet point um
is the implication that [clears throat]
our our variable personnel expenses were
lower in the past than they are now.
Um, council member, when finance is
reviewing detailed line item analysis,
we did notice that there was just a
delta between actual expenses in that
account versus what was budgeted,
appearing that there may be some room,
but there's a myriad of reasons why
there could be some delta between your
staffing and what you have budgeted.
>> Okay. Um,
I generally speaking, I'm supportive of
Council Member Hefner's um suggestion.
Um, but I would also be interested in
what other service level adjustments
might be proposed.
» Okay. Any other questions?
>> Yes.
>> Um, question and then a few comments.
Will you please refresh my memory of um
how the conservation trust money can be
spent? Does it have to be on parks or
are there other um ways in which that
money can be spent?
I believe it has to be spent on parks.
I'd have to go back to the code. I could
say this city has not spent it on
anything other than parks. Although now
that you mentioned open space also is an
eligible expense. So at this city we
have used them for parks and open
spaces.
>> Okay. So it's a it's a public lands
thing. Public lands.
>> Public land and outdoor recreation.
>> Okay. That's really helpful. The reason
why I ask is because um
you know I am open to the proposal from
council member Hefner about increasing
the dollar amount and extending it uh
beyond what we originally were thinking
in FICOM.
But this is now feeling like a long-term
solution to the problem and I'm not
confident that it is going to be a
viable long-term solution in itself. So
I would be interested in some additional
service level adjustment conversations.
I feel like there's multiple levers that
need to be pulled here to try to make
this fund um you know more balanced in
the outy years and be able to sustain
itself without having to dip into all
these other funds to make it viable. So
I I'd like to see more service level
conversations as well um as it relates
to this particular fund. And correct me
if if I'm wrong, if the intention is not
to have this be the long-term solution,
then I think that discussion needs to be
had. But what's being proposed right now
feels like it is where originally we
were thinking just a couple years, pull
more money out of the trust so that we
can kind of shore things up and then
maybe get our long-term plan going. But
this feels like we're transitioning to
long-term here
» I'll just state my agreement. I I would
appreciate proposals on, you know, what
else we can do to stretch our dollars.
» It's fine.
I I actually think um this
has I think this particular fund has
greater stability with the income.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Like we we we
we're pretty certain of how much we're
going to get from the lottery trust
every single year. Correct.
>> Yeah. We've seen minimal variability in
that.
>> Right. And so given that some of our
other sources of income through the
general fund are actually more variable.
They're less fixed. I actually feel more
comfortable versus less comfortable
using this as a reliable source to help
maintain our parks. Um, I think m the
parks are um a real treasure in
Lewisville. Um, I think lowering uh the
service level would be disappointing and
if using a reliable steady source of
income helps the park staff to maintain
certain levels of service. So, you know,
rather than doing upgrades or making
bigger changes, I think this is actually
a good source of income for that because
it is reliable and can be counted on.
So, I'm I'm fully in favor of increasing
the amount um so that the everyday
maintenance is um has can be um counted
upon. And I think it might be easier for
um Director Blackmore and his team to
know that that's a reliable source of
income versus you know us worrying about
how much money is in the general fund
and we have to allocate that away from
parks. I mean we put a significant
amount of general fund money toward the
parks and that that is a source that
needs to be spread widely across the
whole community and a lot of other
things. We're going to get to staffing
concerns. So, um, my preference actually
would be to make this a long-term plan
versus a short-term plan.
>> I don't know that we need to kind of
decide between the short-term and
long-term. I think it is a really good
point to be making uh as between you and
May Prom about how we do that um as we
move forward. Um, one question I had was
if you go back to the Can you go back to
the uh CTF,
but um I don't know the answer to this
offhand. What is there a is there 15%
reserve that we include or is it not?
It's not that kind of a fund because it
comes in from elsewhere. Okay,
>> that's correct. This this fund does not
have reserve. Um it's those are
generally driven with operational funds.
didn't see that familiar blue or yellow
line. So, I just wanted to clarify that.
All right, I think we're ready with our
uh with that. Let's go to the next one,
which is the question of increasing the
general fund subsidy. Um the current
transfers are $1.125 million.
uh in 2020, excuse me, that the
transfers that are noted are uh about
$1.125 million in 27 and $1.16 million
in 2028 to the parks fund. And the
question is whether we would like to
increase that amount if it's feasible.
Um any initial thoughts about this from
council? Did I get that issue correct?
Mayor, if you don't mind, I feel like I
have the feedback necessary to kind of
remodel for September 2nd. Um I I think
the only thing I would need on this
because at this time I I I don't have
the funding available to increase this
just to just to know if this is still a
tool in your toolbox that you want me to
monitor and if presents itself, I could
bring it back in that modeling as well.
Um, so I don't know if we need to spend
a lot of time this right now because
again, uh, where are we where we are in
the general fund, but if it's something
that you still would like to keep on the
slide, keep on the board, um, should it
present itself, I could bring it as a
future decision point in the modeling,
>> unless we say absolutely, we don't want
to do this. Seems like monitor is a good
uh, position, but yeah, council member
Hefner. Yeah, just maybe a little more
color um along the lines of what the
mayor prom said, which is,
you know, we're looking for a long-term
solution and maybe we'll get there as
between service level and changing
playground replacement schedule and
borrowing or transferring from the
conservation trust. But if we don't,
right, if if those factors aren't enough
to get us to a a stabilizing solution,
then um sort of short of some other new
revenue source, this is the remaining
thing, the remaining tool we have. Um
and so I do think we'll need to look at
it if the other tools don't get us
there.
Okay.
>> Um thumbs up for monitoring this in
light of the comments that have been
made.
>> Okay. Um
if you've got adequate direction then
let's go to the next one which is uh
considering service level reductions.
We've had discussions about this a bit
um but um not as much about the variable
personal expenses particular what um any
comments or thoughts about this one?
>> Yes.
I think does staff need more details on
it or can you take kind of the general
theme and bring back some ideas? Okay,
thank you.
» So, thanks. So, we're talking about the
service level adjustments. One of my
thoughts has been we're we and we
recently got a lovely award for two uh
neighborhood parks um that were redone
post Marshall fire uh burned to the
ground unfortunately. But one of my
thoughts has been in these neighborhood
parks to get the neighborhoods more
invested in them the way that it was
like a decade or more ago. And I was
thinking that I mean we're talking about
potentially trying to activate some more
volunteers. This might be one of the
ways to do that is engaging neighborhood
members to help maintain their
neighborhood park. Most of I think the
neighborhood parks are um predominantly
used by the people who live in that
neighborhood. Although they are
accessible to everybody in the entire
they are public parks accessible to all.
Um but I think that one it's a way for
people in each neighborhood to own their
park and I think that might also help
especially if they understand we have
some budget constraints doing
maintenance. Uh perhaps that's a way to
help reduce some of the staffing costs.
>> Is there any initial thoughts from staff
very high level about that?
>> No.
>> Okay.
>> I think it could certainly be considered
a tool in the toolbox as director Bailey
said. So we'll keep that in mind.
>> Okay.
>> Yes. Council member.
Um, I very much like that idea and would
like to see it as part of a larger
discussion about how volunteers could
assist the city in other ways.
>> I would like to note on that because
this topic has come up about volunteer
utilization. Um, if we're going to go
that route, we need to add a position
for volunteer coordinator. It's not a
realistic expectation to put on the
supervisors to manage all of the
volunteers. I think there is an
opportunity there, but we would want to
add a volunteer coordinator position um
to assist with coordinating all of these
activities and that might span multiple
departments. It wouldn't just have to be
proa could be cultural services as well.
Um but there is opportunity, but we'd
want to be able to have that staff
person to manage it as well.
>> Yeah. And I don't know the answer to
this, but um
volunteers sounds um sort of resonates
in a certain way, but I don't know
whether there are uh potential insurance
uh implications of using
uh volunteers to a greater degree than
we've done before. But that's something
we don't need to discuss that too much
today, but I it would be good to know
that if we decide to expand that. Um,
and that's one of those things where I
think as we move forward, we're going to
need an offset
um or at least a estimate of kind of how
we could accomplish savings. But um with
those um with that input, do you have
enough council comfortable with the the
input? Okay, let's uh move to open
space. Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you
for that discussion. On to the open
space fund. The city owns or has
interest in nearly 2,000 acres of open
lands that serve a wide variety of
values. These lands provide recreational
opportunities for residents and
visitors, supports diverse wildlife and
plant communities, and buffers between
Lewisville and our neighboring
municipalities. It's funded by a
dedicated sales tax through December
2033. It's led by Ember Brignull and her
amazing staff. Open space is another is
a reason another great reason to enjoy
Lewisville. What makes it a great place
to live, work, and recreate? In 2027,
revenues are 2.8 million growing to 2.9
million in 28. Or forecasted uses. I'll
go on to why I use uses here. Uh for
2027, 2.7 million and 3.1 million in
2028. Those uses include not only your
operating expenses, but also capital
expenses of 200,000 in 2027 and half a
million in 2028. This also accounts for
the acquisition set aside of $300,000
annually. If you recall, last budget
cycle, your council set a target uh
acquisition reserve of 5 million.
The open space fund is structurally
balanced in 27 and 28. It includes 1.2
two full-time personnel recommended
additions, a natural resource technician
and a partial allocation of the pros
deputy director. However, our long-term
modeling identifies an imbalance in the
outy years.
The acquisition reserve at current set
aside levels which is 30% of the
incremental 1/8 or another way 12% of
the total tax is projected to accumulate
3.1 million through 2032.
Recall that the open space acquisition
reserve amount was set at 5 million
during last year's budget development.
So this brings us to another col call
col uh council policy direction point
whether to revisit the acquisition
reserve percentage to balance
operational capital and acquisition
expenditures against available funding.
But I'll continue before we have
discussion
to the chart. Um so the open space again
open base open space fund again is
structurally balanced. What this means
is your ongoing expenses
um are less than your ongoing revenues. However, future refinement of
your capital projects would be necessary
uh through 2032. So, let me touch on
this forecast because this one's got a
lot of action on it. Your blue bar are
your revenues.
Your red are your operating expenses.
The bright pink are your capital
expenses.
The orange along the top is the
acquisition reserve set aside. And in
addition to the fund ending fund balance
for each of these years, the green bars,
your purple bar is your accumulation of
the acquisition reserve. This is subject
to change if and when land is purchased.
In 2031,
the minimum reserve exceeds your
operating fund balance.
Um, you're not meeting your target in
2031. This continues into 2032.
Um, one of the drivers of that is
significant capital expend expenditures
in those out years. A reminder that the
additional FTE to maintain open space,
the natural resource technician is in
this model. Um,
let's touch on the capital projects in
these orange slivers on the next slide.
It's actually not so bad to read, but
you all have a handout to look at these
capital projects here, so you can see
what's making up uh the bright orange
piece of those of the open space chart,
uh the bright selections of the the
long-term forecast chart. So now I'll
probably kick it back to slide 41 and
revisit
um the council policy direction. So you
have a few levers here. You can adjust
the acquisition reserve which is
$300,000 set aside. Um we have an
expansion position that director
Blackboard could speak to a little
better than I. Um and he also have
capital expenditures um as another
lever. Um again this fund is
structurally balanced for 2728 but we do
run our model through 232 for good
reason. So you can see where we're
headed. Um so with that I'd like to go
back to council and open up discussion
on the open space fund.
>> Okay. Thank you very much. Um
question you have um was there is um
revisiting potentially revisiting the
acquisition review percentage.
Um, are there other questions that
council
might want to add to that? Yeah, council
member.
>> Great. Thanks. So, um, I was actually
just curious. It looks like in 28
there's $255,000.
That's for open space planning
documents. Is that part of the pro long
range plan? That's the component just
for open space.
Now that would be the the next step of
open space planning. Um so open space is
a little unique that it's uh managed by
what used to be called a master plan.
It's comprehensive plan. Uh it's
intended to be basically property level
management recommendations and
evaluations for all the things on all of
our properties. Uh the last time it was
done was 2004. Was intended to be a
10-year document. um it's been a high
priority of the community members who
advocate for these things and for OSAP
and so um the discussion between doing
that process or the long range plan
first or second um we're using the long
range plan to inform that plan. Um, it
also includes set aides potentially for
other evaluations that um, you know,
we've heard from the community that they
would like us to have a more formal
approach with as it relates to ecology,
wildlife uh, management plans, that kind
of thing that we don't have formalized
and adopted currently at the moment. We
have operational best practices and we
have reliance on the 2004
recommendations, but it's kind of a a
catchall for the prioritization of
planning efforts that comes out of the
long range plan.
>> And is pardon me, does that also include
or is the trails separate because I know
there was a trails plan as well?
>> Yeah, the the trails plan is a separate
document. It informs property level
impacts moving forward. Um the 2028
effort will also include the 147ish
acres that were being dedicated as
preserved not preserved as dedicated
open space to be determined what kind of
open space it is u at Red Tail Ridge as
well. So
>> and then I was looking at the Warberg.
So we're like when we're looking at
future out and how it's depleting um the
reserve and some of these projects these
are some pretty high ticket estimates as
well for Wberg. There's the 160,000 this
is for the planning and then another
nearly 600,000. It's estimated at 575
now, but it's so far out. My guess is
it'll go well over six. Is is that again
part of it is just to create a plan for
that and that's not included in the the 2028 plans and then is it also the
cost of like redoing that whole pond
that's there?
>> Yeah. So the so the 160 in 2031 would be
the site planning evaluation, community
engagement, what they want to see.
Basically, the intention
um of OSAB and staff is in alignment
with the recommendation is to really um
turn Warrenburgg being centrally located
in town as kind of a a hub of open space
operations, if you will, for things like
educational programming that potentially
could result in a restroom facility. It
could result in an educational
amphitheater setup of some kind.
basically uh more of a activated
recreational open space opportunity at
that property is what those particular
projects are.
>> So I'm curious if this has come up with
the open space advisory board for where
the priorities are. um they've always
really um asked and I think we've heard
from the community too a high priority
on putting funds aside for additional
property but if it's a higher priority
that these and it sounds like a really
awesome plan to do for that warmberg
space because it is so centrally located
for everyone. Um if that's the bigger
priority then I mean I now I could see
where shifting some of the funds to
programs like this away from
acquisition. Uh but I would say that we
have to balance the priority here and I
wasn't sure how where their input came
into this.
>> This operationally is the top of their
list. Um they they were really excited
about this perspective opportunity and
the change of just the addition of some
recreational amenities within our open
space program. Um, we would have to ask
them, you know, if one of the directives
today is to evaluate that acquisition
percentage if it was an eitheror
recommendation back to council, we could
certainly do that. Thank you for
>> uh yes, start with member Tim and then
council member Hefner and council member
Cooperman.
So I I think um thank you council member
Kerna for your point regarding
maintaining what we have um and
balancing that with trying to expand
through acquisition more properties. I
think it's a really important discussion
and um there's certainly quite a bit of
money that's sitting in acquisition that
if we need to uh revisit that could be
used for other per more immediate
purposes. Um,
talking about Warrenburgg Pond,
do any of these costs encompass
the neighboring part of the neighboring
property that will now need to be
maintained or brought into that fold?
the 2031 site planning would um
operationally we would we wouldn't need
to do any type of capital investment for
that particular parcel but um assuming
it's under our control and management by
2031 then yeah it would be included as a
potential site to include an investment
with the 2032 money.
>> Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. That
was my only question right now.
I I was just going to echo some of
council member Karn's
I think I heard skepticism about some of
the the numbers in here. Um and maybe
starting with a small one. $30,000 for
the weed management plan. That's a a
15page document and a few pages aren't
substantive. I mean that's $2,000 a page
for a weed plan.
Is there any I mean is that outside
consulting just abusing us? Why is that
so expensive?
» It's a it's not just a open space weed
management plan. It's also it's for the
entire department. This is the
percentage. So it would be an evaluation
of parks, herbicide use, golf course,
all of the things. Then
>> I think it is a bit to be determined the
exact amount. We could we could
certainly consider altering a projected
amount to align with the projected
scope. Um, you know, that just dictates
what we're able to put into a proposal
that would come before council before a
contract was approved. Um, and would
also go before PLAB and OSAB as a high
priority for us to do in this next
two-year budget um to ensure that
they're getting they're proposing um
what they would like to see as an
outcome from that plan.
And then I I mean I guess I I sort of
have the same question about the the
budgets for the planning documents for
the professional services budget and the
Warren Borg fishing pond plan.
And maybe to put a finer point on it, I
I'm worried we're paying consultants to
go out and do essentially
repetitive community engagement style
work where they ask people about what
the city's core priorities should be and
have lots of focus groups and do I mean
it's thousands and thousands and
thousands of hours essentially of
consulting help here for areas where I
think we have internally quite a bit of
knowledge about what the priorities are.
And you know, I don't know what the
consultant proposals are. Um, but right,
$255,000,
even at $250 an hour, that's a,000 hours
of consulting work for those planning
documents,
which is one person working full-time
for 6 months. Um, that like that's a lot
of time. And if there's any
way to sort of pull these back and and
try and tailor them, um, I think it
could help with where we land on the bar
graph. I I have I'll just say out loud
what's driving this is I've not been
terribly impressed by the consulting
help we got on the long range plan, and
I don't think that's the fault of anyone
in this room. Um, but I I do think
there's a lot of consultants out there
who are happy to charge us too much and
I would love to see sort of a more
skeptical approach to to what they're
proposing.
>> City manager has a comment on this.
>> Yes. So, a couple of things. Um, one of
the things that we've talked about with
the CIP is to um budget appropriately.
uh you know we've seen budget amendments
come to council for projects because we
underestimated and so part of what staff
has done is they've tried to put
estimates in that uh you know we think
are more realistic in what can be
accomplished. The other thing I would
say with particularly this budget um you
know OSAB PLAB they have a lot of
expectations for what uh the
department's going to do and then also
with the um guide book you know we also
see that this is a this community is
very passionate about open space and
parks and how they're maintained and um
you know I the level of documentation
does seem um to be to some excessive,
but I would say to those that use it,
uh, this becomes the document that they
refer to to defend what they're doing to
the community because they get so much
skepticism in terms of and so much
there's so much expertise in this
community and everybody knows how to do
it better than they do. And so when we
have these documents, they're able to
point to that to say, you know, this was
prepared um by somebody that's an expert
in the field. um it was vetted, it went
through the process and you know we are
following best practice. So could could
this be scaled down? It probably could.
With that said though, we also know that
we would get a lot of blowback from the
community in terms of well we know
better than you do and let me tell you
how to do it.
Council
member Cooperman.
Um the
open space signs uh row is that mostly
for wayfinding.
It is the 2027 especially is mostly for
interpretive signage and replacement of
kiosk and trail head signage. Um there
is an element where it could fall into
assisting with wayfinding but um most of
the wayfinding projects are being funded
out of the CTF allocated funds. Um so
this is more sight specific property
specific signage.
>> Okay.
>> And then are there specific projects in
mind for the trail connections for those
three years at $75,000?
>> Not yet. Those are long range our trail
system plan placeholders. Um there has
we have heard that there's a a strong
preference and priority for community
trail connection expansion neighborhood
connections that kind of thing. Um and
so this is the placeholder for where
>> open spaces part of that would be
impacted.
>> Okay. Um and then I'll just make a
comment. Um
well I know of a few or especially one
resident who is quite interested in
mustering a lot of volunteer effort for
the Warrenburgg pond project. So I feel
like that's a place where maybe uh we
could get the community more involved
and reduce our costs.
» Yep. Council member Fee,
>> I just have a long range question and
that is has the open space board decided
or staff
how new properties are going to be
maintained within the budget when you
purchase another piece of open space.
Where's the money going to come from to
pay for it and then maintain that?
Probably the short answer is no. Um,
we've spent the last 18 months or so
refining what the actual acquisition
process is going to look like and that's
been a high priority of city manager
Langley with OSAP since she came on
board. Um, how we then fund the
maintenance after that I think would
have to be discussed as a component of
the acquisition process.
Um, I I want to uh
trail back to a comment that was made by
[clears throat] council member Hefner.
Actually, a number of different people
have raised issues including the city
manager um to kind of speed this along a
bit because we have a lot to cover um uh
still and we're having good discussions,
but we have a lot to to move through.
Um, I'm kind of keeping a list of like
major sort of thematic issues that I
think would be good to cover, not just
in this part of the budget, but frankly
in many parts of the budget where they
come up. Consulting generally is
something I think most council members,
if not all council members have um
discussed in the past, particularly
parts that council member Hefner talked
about, which is sort of the redoing over
and over and over again at times of uh
community sentiment because um we get a
lot of that through public comments, but
um also we have a large body of
information. So, um, that's one thing
that I think could apply to many
consultant situations across the board.
I think another one that we've talked
about is sort of board and commission
uh, input and um, um, support. Uh this
is something that's kind of a discussion
that is going to happen over and over uh
at times because our boards and
commissions are very motivated, very um
involved, very excited about what
they're doing with a lot of energy and a
lot of information. Um, there have been
times when I think some boards and
commissions have verurged on suggesting
that maybe they have a budget and they
don't. We're the budget making folks.
Um, you know, I I think sometimes it's
easy to not think about staff uh
pressure u to do other things when
boards and commissions meet. Um, and
suggest they want certain things. Um, I
think part of that is board management
and um, I know that staff is doing that
in the course and and hope that will
continue and um, I think it's attention
constantly because we want to make sure
our boards and commissions are doing
what they need to do and um, doing it
with support, but um, like all things
that's got to be balanced against other
stuff. their advisory and so I encourage
that to you know I think that's the kind
of thing that we can do. I think we're
hearing about volunteers multiple times
here. I think to the extent that any um
part of the city government can make use
of volunteers. I think you can assume
that that might be something that's
worth discussing. We could flag those
each time, but I I think um you know,
and maybe these are the the greatest
places or the most likely places to deal
with volunteers, but I think those
issues are going to be coming up over
and over, too. So, we've got very
involved citizenry. They can do a lot of
things. There's trade-offs there. So, if
that's okay, I am thinking that's one
way we can not cut down the comments,
but move through this um as
expositiously as we can. All right. Um,
does staff have let's see, we still have I I think the question of
adjusting the acquisition reserve
um percentage. I mean, I didn't hear
anything definitive on that. So, yeah,
Council Member Cooper,
>> um
I guess given the the current modeling,
um
I feel like there's maybe sufficient
wiggle room in the uh capital side of
expenditures to for me to sort of hold
off on making any adjustments to the
acquisition uh reserve.
» Yeah, counc. Yeah, I' [clears throat]
I'd suggest a slight modification to
that, which is rather than tinker with
the percentage, we just bring down the
target um so that it's not continuing to
drive the balance negative in the outy
years and that way we're still saving
for the future. If we're able to sort of
get a handle on the capital expenses, we
can always increase the target again. Um
so I would say, you know, let's bring
that down to a million and a half or 2
million. I forget where it was. If you
have that chart,
>> we like the chart,
>> but
sort of do it so that we can stay above
the yellow line.
» Talking about smoothing.
>> What's that?
>> You're talking about smoothing or
something different?
>> Uh, no, more of a cliff.
>> Okay, then. Um, others. Council member
Coopermanman, you raised this just a
minute ago. Are you comfortable with
that?
>> Are others
Maybe if I could add highle math as I
look at this PowerPoint, that would put
a 30% uh reserve or 12% of the total tax
through about 2029 or 2030, at which
case the purple bar would be frozen and
those kind of net proceeds or it would
stack a little bit further on the green
bar keeping above the orange line. This
is something I could model for uh the
next presentation.
>> I guess I would just add I would need
direction on the amount of which that
the purple bar is capped out.
>> Do you think it's 1.5 or two? Just
looking at this, I think it's somewhere
in that range.
>> Somewhere in that range, but yeah, I
would have to put in a spreadsheet for
that.
And [clears throat]
just just to put a finer point on the
reason I like that is because it's
essentially status quo
and if next year or the year after we
want to things are going well and we
want to increase the target again we
can.
» Any other thoughts about that proposal?
Yes,
10.
>> I actually um I really like that idea of
adjusting the target for the acquisition
because I I'm not certain I see any
opportunity here with just maintaining
what we have um to, you know, cut a lot
on this current um itemization.
So, I I think doing this proposal is a nice path forward that allows us to
maintain what we have, but also still
plan for the future. and then pivot for
that future if needed. Um so that
everything is staying balanced there.
» Council member Cooper just so if we went
with that direction but let's say we
bought something
I don't know in 2029 or or whenever um
that would it would go down right and
then we would keep putting money into it
right until we got back to the cap. So,
I'm just wondering like would an
acquisition throw off the the that idea
the the the aim of that idea to keep us
above the the minimum?
>> I think that that would be a challenge
for future future us future council.
Um,
which is another way of saying it grows
more speculative as we go in out years.
We're not only focused on 27 28 but and
so forth but I think we can probably
hopefully move on with
um the proposal that's been made by council
member Hfner with the considerations
that have been otherwise brought by
council member Coopermanman and mayor
Patan.
>> Pardon me. You can make the chart look
better. [laughter]
>> Council member Curtain says you you may
be able to make the chart look better.
So, I'll leave that to you. All right.
Do you have enough?
Okay. And I think we're good. Um All
right. Moving on to the golf fund.
» Thank you for that direction. Nestled at
the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Cole
Creek Golf Course is a landmark in
public golf. [laughter]
>> That's great.
>> This is stri straight from the website.
[laughter]
Want to hear about the layout? Okay.
It's managed by Mark Jensen, Bo Lewis,
both PGA certified. And I'd be a miss
not to mention the Turn restaurant at
the golf course if you haven't been
there.
Forecasted revenues for 2027, 2.9
million. Forecasted revenues for 2028 3
million. Forecasted expenses in 2027 3.5
million. Forecasted expenses in 2028 3.6
million. This does those forecasted
expenses do include significant capital
expenditures of $400,000 in each year
and minimal amount of operational
turnback of 60,000 in each year. This
leaves us with preliminary operational
gaps in 2027 of about 200,000 and
230,000 in 2028.
This is the preliminary CIP includes
significant capital investments of
approximately 1.7 million over the term
3.65 FTE recommended additions. This is
a piece of the partial allocation of the deputy director and also an increase
in FTEES variables for maintenance
workers and guest service attendance to
align with actual hours worked in recent
history.
Recreation Advisory Board has been
engaged with multiple meetings
established throughout the summer and
staff is currently modeling multiple
revenue scenarios next to be presented
to the RAB meeting on July 27th.
This reflects the staff's sorry one
second preliminary what I just mentioned
on the previous slide. Um
2026, that purple bar, you see
significant capital expenses, 1.3
million at varying degrees of uh
completion. 2027,
again, the structural deficit is
visually demonstrated between the blue
bar at 2.9 million and 3.1 on the red
bar, the $200,000 deficit, $400,000 in
the capital expenditures. 2028, 3
million in revenues, 3.2 million
operator operation expenditures with
400,000 in capital. Um, I'm going to
give you one other forecast to look at.
We removed capital capital from 2027
and beyond.
Um, this chart does may indicate some
urgency in capital investment in 2026.
Next one.
All of the 1.7 million in capital
expenses are listed here. You can
actually see this. Okay. in the chart
and I did not mention this earlier maybe
mostly for the folks at home in the
attachments to this uh this item we have
the summaries as attachments and they're
hyperl so if you have any questions of
any of the uh individual projects now we
have great staff here to answer your
questions uh you can hover over it click
it'll take you directly to that page um
again mostly for those folks walking at
watching at home so significant capital
expenditure here
and some projects that did not make the
recommended list. Here's a list of
unfunded projects as well.
So, staff has engaged the recreation
advisory board on the following. It's
modeling a number of fee increases
and other items.
The finance committee's direction at the
May 18th meeting was to re-examine
unlimited golf fees and residential
preferences.
The fund is expected to be
self-sufficient covering operational and
capital expenses.
So council policy direction assuming the
fund is expected to be self-sufficient
covering both operational and capital
expenses.
Shall we remove or defer certain capital
projects? Continue to explore 2027 fee
rate adjustments. It should be noted I
didn't know what you're going to say.
Initial modeling suggests we cannot fee
our way out of this um and that some
other creativity is needed and while RAB
has been engaged the stability of the
fund will likely require a combination
of actions.
» Yeah, just to expand on that. So um
finance has done the modeling that RAB
requested and then also what finance
committee requested. And what it
basically shows is when you include
capital projects, which I want to say
this is a modest list of capital
projects, um, you have you would have to
increase the fees. I think it was 55%
in order to cover capital plus
operational, which then you wouldn't
have people coming to golf at Colreek
Golf Course. And so realistically um if
you if you look at the chart where it's
removes capital I think kind of at best
we can try to target to be able to cover
our operational expenses through the
fees through some fee increases but then
we're going to need to rely more on the
capital fund to fund capital projects at
the golf course. So, and this is an
enterprise fund and so recognition of
that, but we don't see a path forward
where the golf fund is 100% funding
operations and capital projects.
Note, we haven't told RAB this yet. That
meeting is this Monday. So, there's a
subcommittee that has seen the um the
model for this, but the entire RAB group
will see the model on Monday.
In other words, what you were saying is
that the information has been not been
presented in a meeting, but the
information is [snorts]
obviously available now. Um, but just
[clears throat] to be clear about the
public disclosure of that. Um
I I guess I I wanted to to underscore I
mean unless there's more of the
presentation I think you've given us
what we what we need. um just to
underscore the enterprise
um nature of the of golf in in
Lewisville and that's why we have a
separate golf fund and um we in the old
days after the particularly after the
flood we had a lot of transfers
um in subsidizing
um things have gotten are uh better in
terms of financials for the the golf
fund, but we this is a pretty stark
picture if you look back at at your
earlier uh graph. So, we've got to
wrestle with that a little bit and um
maybe the first people have comments on
either referring or deferring capital
projects or exploring fee rate
adjustments um or other matters.
because May Pro 10 then
council member Heather
>> I'm not necessarily suggesting we should
do this if it's an option I'm just
trying to understand what the options
are um trust fund is that is this
technically
something that those funds could be used
for or no
» uh they could from an operational
standpoint I don't know what the
restrictions are with it being an
enterprise fund I think would be the
hangup.
>> I don't know the answer to that
question. I could look into it, but I
could say as an enterprise fund external
sources cannot whatever they are can
exceed 10%. So on a $3 million fund,
you're looking at a cap of external
resources at 300,000 otherwise sub u
jeopardizing its kind of enterprise
nature.
>> Okay. So
again, I'm not necessarily suggesting
this should be done, but if that is
something that can truly help be a
short-term bridge the gap until we can
amp up fees to cover more of our onm and
capital projects.
I don't know if there's any appetite for
that discussion. Um, so I just wanted to
throw that out there as an option with
the other two that you mentioned.
>> Council member Afra.
>> Yeah, I just had a a specific question.
I see we have a a CIP for design to
expand or replace the clubhouse
um in 28
and and I thought we as a as as a group
had more or less taken that off the
table. So I'm trying to understand why
we have a CIP for the design work.
» Director Blackmore, you could probably
speak to this better than I, but total
later in the presentation, we will get
to board and commission requests of
which this was one of the ones from Rob.
Yeah, I would just add that it is
intended to be a site plan as much as an
architectural design review for the
feasibility of even being able to
accomplish what the 2021
um feasibility study suggested that if
you recall the three options for either
renovating the current building,
expanding on the current footprint using
the current building or a complete
rebuild were those three options. And so
this again to director Bailey's comment
is partially driven by a desire from the
rec board to continue to see some type
of movement on what is an end of life
building that's um for all intents and
purposes uh you know not in great shape
and is going to need some level of
investment similar to some other
buildings in this community. Um, but
again, it can either, I think I
mentioned in an email yesterday, it can
either be put in unfunded, it can it's
at the discretion, it can be moved to an
outer year or it can be removed for this
particular budget. Um, we're good
either.
>> I wonder whether we might take that
request out of order and just deal with
it while we've got it, while we're
thinking about it. if Council Member
Hefner raises a good point um because
it's it at least the suggestion is to
take the um replacement of the clubhouse
off the table. Um I don't know how
involved it is to explain what the board
and commission suggestion is, but we may
be able to give direction right now on
that.
That's fine with me and and I I think I
would remove it just given the squeeze
we have. I mean, it is it is a worthy
project. It's not a bad project. We're
just we're in a squeeze and
why bother designing something that we
don't have the funds to ever build?
>> Yeah. I'm just as a sort of respect for
the for RAB I just you know maybe you
can at least describe what it is and
then we may decide exactly what
>> Sure.
>> Council member After talking about.
>> Yeah. And I think to council member
Hefner's point as well, this work could
certainly be incorporated into a future
council's decision to consider a full
clubhouse redesign, replacement,
renovation project. that is obviously
not included before you today. Um, and
so that that message could be relayed as
well. But again, the scope from a RAB
perspective was a site analysis for a
future footprint and have a uh rendering
of some sort that could be utilized if
we ever were to get to that point. But
um,
>> okay. [clears throat]
>> At a at a sta at a staff level,
>> it's fine.
>> Thank you. Um, let me Council Member
Kern and Council Member Cooper and the
Mayor Proton.
>> Great. Thanks. So, um, just to clarify
for the day-to-day operations, um, we're
going to run around $200,000 short with
the current fee schedule that or the
fees that we're proposing for 27 to 28,
right? [clears throat]
>> Yes.
>> Okay. And did I understand correctly
that there is a way through adjusting
that or some other means that we could
actually not have the day-to-day
maintfall
or is that not an option?
>> It is an option. We're currently
modeling different free um opportunities
running through RAB right now. So, it's
kind of being baked.
>> Okay. Um, so one of the suggestions that
I'm going to make and throw it out to
everyone is, and [clears throat] I'm
sorry because this suggestion actually
adds more complexity, [laughter] Adam,
to um to I think the the golf course,
but it's instead of just having a subset
of the wreck advisory board, we had a
tremendous
like outpour from the community of
golfers who I think really didn't
understand where the costs are, where
the shortfalls are, and that the fees
are changing. And I think when we're
also talking about, you know, not
creating a much of a difference between
residents because it's an enterprise
fund, but now we're talking about how
much money is going to actually come
from the residents in the form of
capital projects. I think we need to be
really mindful of this that the
community is going to be making
significant investments into this golf
course in one way or another. And
there might be a benefit in engaging
some of those golfers who maybe we do it
on the people who have the annual passes
uh in this conversation. So to that
everyone can better understand what the
needs are, where the fees lay like how
many residents versus non-residents
golf. Can we do a discount for them? Can
we increase the non uh resident fees to be at a balance so that it does
justify the community's um continued
investment in the golf course. That's
what I'm putting out there as a as an
option. So, it's not just the wreck
advisory board because I think that
still created uh confusion in the
community.
>> Thanks, Council Member Kern.
Um um I kind of like that idea too. I'm
also wondering to what extent we'll get
some of that information from the pros
long range plan.
» The long range plan will
gauge community I guess support and
engagement with the golf course itself
and where it's seen as a value to the
community. uh it doesn't have a specific
pricing structure, right? Um it'll have
some funding recommendations for future
investments through granting and
secondary funding opportunities, but I
won't get into that level of detail.
>> Okay. Um
and then so I had a small question on
the the chart showing the fund balance
for this year itself. That's a
projection that we're going by the end
of the year we'll be below the reserve.
>> That is the projection. Okay.
>> Yes. Um, and then
also I'm wondering, um, aside from the
clubhouse redesign, which I think we
should probably drop from 20 um, from
the CIP, if we look at the CIPs from the
next two years mostly, um,
are those things you that
are there things in there that could
possibly be delayed um, if we're looking
for a longer term solution?
um
or some of those things sort of
pressing.
» Uh I think with the majority of these
there's the potential to delay with an
understanding that that has operational
impacts. Um you know things like the
bunker renovations are partially funded
this year. That's a second half of
funding for next year. Um you know you
explore alternative construction
methods. you explore expanding life cy
lifespans um that kind of thing. Um but
similar to the building, you know, that
particular part of the course is about
10 years past life cycle uh that it was
expected to have after the rebuild. And
so uh with any of these, it's just a
balance of operational impact and
investment in the course itself.
Council
member Hefner, did you have comment?
>> No, I don't. I can make one, but I
didn't have my hand up.
>> No, I'm not going to make you if you
don't want to.
>> I I do think we might want to get back
to the question here in front of us um
as to whether to continue to engage RAB
on the fee adjustments.
» Council member
I was just going to say I'm fine with
removing the the redesign. I think we
were pretty clear when we met with RAB
last time of trying to reset what their
expectations are around that. So,
» I also agree with removing the the
redesign from the process. I have a
question though for Ryder. Um,
if a group of golfers were to form a
nonprofit 501c3
and raise money,
how much of that could they only raise
300,000 a year to donate to the golf
course?
» I don't know the answer to that
question, but it's certainly something I
can look into. I mean, would that impact
the the uh enterprise fund?
>> I I think my initial reaction would be
maybe if it runs through our city if it
runs through our city coffers, it would
look to me like an additional subsidy on
top of the enterprise fund. Maybe if it
was outside of the city coffers,
potentially that'd be a way to do this
project. But
>> how could they how could they do that
outside of the city coffers?
>> I don't know that pathway right now, so
I'd have to look into it.
>> Okay. Thank you,
» Council Member Curtain.
>> Yeah, I I think that's a great idea that
we've we've actually heard a lot of
comments from community members um and
it's not like in the last 6 months, it's
been for years that this might be one of
the best ways to fund some of the bigger
projects that maintain the course's um
integrity and expand or improve the
clubhouse is through donations. And we
currently don't have a path. So it' be
nice to find out the legal path that could be formed and then advise the
appropriate organizations on how that
might happen. I I I strongly support
that. Uh but here's just an overarching
question and I do get this from uh
people who are not part of the golfing
world but are residents which is this is
an enterprise it cannot maintain itself.
There are golf courses all across the
country that can. So, what is it that is
different with our golf course and how
it's being managed or funded that that
is done differently with private golf
courses or different with other public
golf courses that we're that we're not
following that same model or and perhaps
that's part of already what uh the new
golf manager has come up with and and
the reason for some of the changes that
we're seeing. But I'd be curious. It
doesn't have to be an answer right now,
but I'd be I would like actually for
that to to come and maybe it comes to
the finance committee because this is
just such a big piece of it is figuring
out, you know, what what do they do
differently to stay solvent in other
communities that we're not for somehow
able to do.
Um [clears throat] I think we have a um
consensus to defer the uh redesign of
the clubhouse and uh I think we've had
discussion about exploring fee rate
adjustments. There's a number of things
which I don't think are necessarily
budget items but are sort of operational
issues for the um director to consider
about involving um uh community members.
I have very for I'll just say this very
big concerns about advising about having
our
council advise about um uh lawfulness of
or sort of supporting a a 503 but that's
something that I think we can sort of
deal with separately um and um if
there's a chance to help a group of
people um move toward a you know um that
kind of arrangement. I mean that's it's
all good. I think um just want to flag
that. Um but I don't know. Do you need
any further?
>> Um what I'm hearing is we will continue
to explore the adjustments with RAB. Um
what the city manager said and and I do
agree to. I I think it's uh maybe a goal
would be get to covering our
operational. I think above and beyond
that will be extremely challenging. Um
so if I don't have a decision or
direction today on uh the potential of
subsidizing capital projects or
deferring or eliminating them for the
fund, uh I would expect that discussion
at the at a CIP deeper discussion.
>> Okay. Yep. Council member,
>> just on on the RAB point,
I I think it's really important to
continue to engage RAB. I think they
need to take a a hard look at all of the
fee structure, not just the daily green
fees, but the annual passes, resident
preference, so on. I assume that's part
of what they're doing. And then I think
it needs to come to us because
in in a lot of ways, what we're seeing
here is the golf course is in crisis and
I don't think it's entirely fair to put
it on RAB to solve the crisis. I really
want their recommendation and then it
needs to come back to us to make a hard
decision about how to write the ship. It
is it is an enterprise fund. It's meant
to be operated as an enterprise and we
should think very carefully before we
start pouring capital fund money in uh
above and beyond the 10% a year that's
allowed for an enterprise. And I think
as part of that, and I I just want to
say this out loud, I think everything
needs to be on the table, including
entirely eliminating unlimited golf,
resident preferences only on booking,
not on pricing,
deferring any capital projects that can
possibly be deferred.
Um, removing any expenses related to
clubhouse replacement or expansion. I
know the design is a big one. If there
are others, I think they need to come
out. and then coming back after
engagement with RAB to us w with a
detailed comprehensive financial picture
if we pull every lever we have how close
are we
>> director did you have a comment
>> just a comment because to council member
Karn's point we do hear a lot of
feedback about comparison course to
course operation to operation
And I would just caution council
on how that message is being given,
researched, portrayed. Uh the golf
industry is unlike any other business in
the city as to where it really is apples
to oranges across the board. So there
may be things at certain local courses
that council or the golfers would find
palatable. there may be other things
that would seem just extreme. And so I
think to try to wrap that into
kind of a happy package of well this
golf course is profitable why aren't
you? I think that's a very slippery
slope. Um
we can certainly do the research if
that's something that's requested and
bring that back. But I do think that we
still have to be able to operate
within some of the confines of our
particular structure. Whether that comes
to really high dollar things like
utility cost, footing the bill of all
capital,
um providing incentive and benefit to
our regular users or residents, not
becoming a membership country club style
minimum food and beverage merchandise
type of course that offsets their extra
expenses by getting that from their
members. Um, so I just I don't know
exactly what the answer is, but as we
move through this, I think that as we
express problems or crisis that need to
be resolved, there is this inclination
to go straight to, well, I don't think
this other course is having this type of
a problem without really a full
understanding of the history. There
could have been decades in the making on
how they got to that point or what the
future looks like. The future didn't
look like this in 2014.
because all of these bills hadn't come
to fruition yet for the next generation
of maintenance as it relates to the
course. So, I just want to say that
>> um just [clears throat] to clarify and
council member Kon can certainly correct
me on her understanding, but I I took
her point is more focusing on ways in
which um the golf course could be uh run
more efficiently and and so forth than necessarily. I think she gave one
example of how to do that, but I or how
to compare it, but I I I think we all
appreciate your expertise and the
challenge of saying certain things that
are really going to be more problematic
uh than addressing the any
inefficiencies and so forth. Um, I I
want to make sure that we are uh the
next couple of items, the uh city
manager operational and personnel
recommendation adjustments, the service
level reductions, those are going to be
covered later in the presentation. So,
we can skip over that. I think the the
only other uh parks wreck open space
item is just the recreation debt fund.
Correct. And is that Go ahead.
>> Uh, mayor, I am going to get to the
recreation debt fund mill later in this
presentation. I've got two more funds
before our planned break. They um their
big funds, the recreation fund and the
consolidated utilities, but I am not
seeking council decision points for the
next two funds. So, we can go through
them and hit a planned break in a few
minutes or we could take a break now,
whatever.
>> No, we'll go ahead and uh soldier on.
>> Wonderful. Thank you. Um, the recreation
fund. The recreation fund supports the
recreation and senior center built in
1990 uh renovated in 20 uh 2019. That's
world class. You've all been there. It
also includes robust senior services
which includes the Brooks Cafe for daily
lunches. Uh has trips, promotes health
and community for seniors and also
events like last week's ice cream
social. Um also within this fund is the
Memory Square pool uh at Memory Square
Park. This is all managed under the
expert and tenured leadership of Miss
Kathy Martin and her amazing staff. Um
again, recreation fund structurally
balanced in 2027 2028. However, we do
fall below the renewal and replacement
target in 29 and beyond. Um this fund
like the golf fund which I did not
mention has has been receiving the
allocation of central funds uh central
departments in 2025 I'm sorry in the
current year 2026 that included um HR
and finance in 2027 it now includes IT
as well. So we're finally getting
through uh allocating all our central
costs to enterprise funds. We did shift
the ICE rank to the out of this fund
into the general fund um 5.05 05 FT
recommended additions, two full-time
positions, a youth and sports
coordinator and a recreation assistant
nights uh at a point8 or 32-hour week, a
sliver of the pro uh parks recreation
open space director and some variables
uh mostly lifeguards.
Um again, you've seen this chart. It's
above the minimum throughout the model
uh but falling short in some of the
outer years on saving enough for the
renewal and replacement.
Here are all the capital projects
include with included within the model
and in the preliminary CIP. I believe
it's continued on to the next slide.
Again, within your attachments, the
project names are hyper hyperl to their
individual pages with one project not
being recommended for funding. That's
the skate park impart improvements.
That is the recreation fund. I will
pause if there's any questions or
comments, but I am not seeking council
decisions. So, if you'd like me to move
on, I can continue on to consolidated
utilities.
>> Any questions?
>> Uh, we can go ahead, council member
Cooperman.
>> Um, just to be clear, um, not only in
the recreation fund, but when you cite
the additional positions, those have
been incorporated into the modeling.
>> That is correct.
>> Okay. Thank you.
» Any other questions? Go ahead. Good job,
[laughter]
>> Council Member Afar.
>> Um, just big picture, are we expecting
to try and get this fund to a position
where it is meeting either the minimum
reserve or target reserve by the end of
the forecast period or is that not a
goal?
>> Uh, council member, that is of course a
goal. One of the challenges with the the
renewal and replacement target is oftent
times these replacements extend beyond
the modeling. So in my tenure here, I've
often seen a delta between the amount in
the bank and achieving that dotted line.
Um it's a little bit of a timing thing
depending on how many how much equipment
is purchased in each year. Um it's
something that we monitor annually with
the finance committee. Um, I think
within that dotted line, it's also
important to to understand that it's
factoring in larger components of the
building. Um, so part of that dotted
line is a percentage of the building's
costs. So, it's really doing its best
to, you know, achieve saving enough to
replace all the components within its
building. Um, a lot of words to say that
it's something that we are doing our
best to achieve and monitor, but um, it
is challenging to um, manage the
day-to-day and save enough to replace
all those facilities.
So is that sorry is that no
>> don't have that plan today something
that
>> so so we're expecting to essentially
adopt a budget that leaves probably
leaves this fund projected to fall below
the minimum
>> um not the minimum reserve but the the
enough to replace parts of the building.
The dotted line is place uh equipment
and pieces components of the building.
So, operationally, yes, but not all the
equipment.
>> Council member Kern,
>> thank you. And can you remind us of what
the revenue sources are for the rec
fund?
>> Council member, yes. This is what I like
to call a three-legged stool. Um, about
half of the revenues come from user
fees. Um, and then the other two pieces
are the general fund subsidy and the uh
dedicated and perpetual sales and use
tax that voters approved in 2017. So
about 50% user fees and about 25% those
other two buckets, sales tax, dedicated
and general fund transfer.
>> And the property tax component is just
to repay for the building that we built
about 10 years ago.
>> Correct.
>> Okay. And so then we so we moved we
moved the ice rink out of wreck so that
this would balance
because otherwise then we would not be
balanced. But it's still a general fund
expense that we're going to have to
figure out how to pay for. So we just
moved it so that this
>> we did move it. Yes, it is in the
current general fund modeling um as it
stands today
>> versus just transferring more of the
general fund into the wreck. Okay. Thank
you.
Any other questions on this one? Okay,
thank you. Go ahead. Um, continuing on
with our consolidated utility funds,
notable impacts for 2027 2028 are the
impacts of future development, potential
drought impacts, fee adjustment
methodology. We're seeking smoothing,
consistency, and predictability in
revenues uh while remaining competitive.
a change in accounting methodology pra p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p
practice in how we plan and budget for
tap fee revenues, switching to ar a
rears versus projections.
Uh bonding um as you'll see in the chart
is likely needed to smooth out some of
our large and major uh capital projects
including raw water integration, solid
residuals, and the Sid Copeland admin
building. Preliminary total capital
investment 27 through 32 is robust at
67.2 million. It also includes within
the modeling additional personnel. I
talked about this previously on the
general fund side. Here are the other
pieces of those employees. The
construction storm water inspector,
operations tech, and civil engineer.
Here is the long-term financial forecast
for the utility funds. Um, as you can
see, um, robust capital expenditures
projected throughout the model, um, in
excess of what we're able to cash flow.
So, while we're looking at revenues,
rates, and fees, we're also going to be
exploring, um, financing some of these
major projects.
The next handful of slides are all of
the capital projects included in the
model. You don't need to spend enough a
lot of time on this. You guys can click
through at your leisure. and a few
unfunded projects towards the end.
That's what I have for consolidated
utilities. Uh, no decision points right
now, but welcome feedback and
discussion.
>> Are there any council questions? Council
member Coopermanman.
>> Um, so back to the chart showing the
fund balances. Um, so in 2028, we're
dipping below the minimum reserve.
Um, do we need to resolve that before we
adopt the budget for that next few
years?
>> Yes.
>> Okay. And you think that we can resolve
it through these financing kinds of
options or
>> Yes. The way I see it, you two levers.
We can uh spend some time going through
the capital projects that are contained
um sharpen the pencil potentially defer
um and or look at a financing model
where you can kind of spread them out
over future years. Right.
>> Okay. Other
questions?
Um, is there any appetite right now for
identifying any items in the CIP that
are worth
um
considering cuts on?
» Sorry, for utilities or in general?
>> Uh, no, no, no. I'm talking about
utilities. I'm I'm talking about the
one, two, three and a half pages of
projects.
>> Yes, Council Member Curry. I think
unless um Director Cow has um any
recommendations on ways that we could
smooth it out a little bit, uh this is
clearly been identified as from our
community, from our residents as like
among the highest of priorities um and
core service that they would like to
maintain the high standards on. And I
don't really think that this is the
place where we do the cutting. I think
that we do the cutting in in things that
are less mandatory to daily life and uh
the drought conditions we were in and
that we continue to anticipate. I think
a lot of these expenses are related to
like water rights and other things if
I'm not mistaken. Um and we hear over
and over and over again, what about
more? What about doing it for ponds? So
I I'm my concern would be to find a way
to reduce some of this. I think we we
have to we almost have to figure out a
way to fund it. um unless again the
director is able to come up with some
good recommendations on how we don't
have to cut necessarily but can maybe
postpone to make it the numbers work
better.
>> I think director Bailey summed it up
well. I think we're going to smooth some
things out with financing. We've moved
from a pay as you go model to a
financing model. Just costs are
increasing faster than our appetite for
increasing rates. Uh we did discuss with
the finance committee some concepts last
week just there's a lot of factors
converging on us whether it's climate
change costs uh various thing growth
that will will come or is planned and so
we're I think we're going through a
pivot point or a paradigm shift with
utility of
what does the future look like. So,
we're going to run a pretty standard
rate model that shows financing options
for this year and then over the course
of the next two to three years, we're
analyzing our tap fees and our tier
structure to see how to accomplish our
goals in a reasonable way.
>> So, along with that, that would be then
taking into consideration some of the um
possible new development that were for
and I don't mean red tail because that's
a separate negotiated thing. I mean any
of the new residential or other
businesses.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. It's all encompassing.
>> Okay, good.
>> Other thoughts?
>> Yes, council member.
>> I I just had one specific question on
the Sid Copeland administration building
that the CIP form says final design is
anticipated through the remainder of 26,
but then we have $400,000 of design cost
in 28.
>> Yeah. I just think that was an artifact
that we missed.
>> Okay.
>> So, we had 116 project sheets and we
missed it on this one.
>> So, so we don't need the 420.
>> I don't think we do.
>> Great.
>> Yeah. We're not going to double up on
consulting. Yeah.
>> And you guys are always a final check
when we bring a contract to you of like
this is a good use of our money or a bad
use. So, uh there's always a filter
there if we're not using consultants.
Well,
>> other questions.
>> Easy peasy.
comments. Yes, Council Member Cooperman.
>> Yeah, one specific question. Um, for 27
and 28, their line items for water
rights acquisitions. Are we are those
pretty definite? We think we really want
to acquire some rights in those years or
>> we know from all our hopes and dreams
that we have to go acquire water rights
and we try to guess the best year to
kind of do that. We also try to have
that money balance out cash flow. So, if
we have a large project year, we might
move the water to a different year. That
said, uh, and some of you that have been
on council for a while, we're always
shopping for water. And if there's a
good opportunity, we're going to come to
you. We're going to say we need to go
spend$1 or2 million to get this good
opportunity. So, I both things are
always in play. But for now, that's a
best guess. Balancing cash flow.
I would like to note that RAB requested
that we put money in the budget to
acquire water rights for Col Creek Golf
Course. Um we are not recommending that
for funding at this point in time. The
amount that's in there, you know, water
rights right now are so costly. Um and
we have other priorities that we need to
fund. So that is a project that we're
not recommending for approval.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Other comments? Um I appreciate the
council member Karn's um comment about
expectations. I think um
this is a a high priority area. Um uh as are a number of others. I I think we
just have to bear in mind that just
because we've got high priority areas
that they're not off limits to further
consideration. At least from my
standpoint, I want to make sure we um
aren't directing council and I if
council member Kern feels differently.
Obviously, that's a thing, but um that
we're not saying don't bring us back any
changes to this because we don't need to
consider them. I didn't think
>> No, that's what I said. I was asking the
director like I mean and I was um as an
alternate for the finance committee, I
attend every single meeting and and
listen in on the conversations and
usually add my two cents. Uh so I was
very much paying attention to um the
last finance committee meeting and on
this topic and I think there is
definitely room for a lot more
conversation. I think we have to get
creative about how we pay for my point
is this is not a choice in whether we
pay for these things. It is we have to
find the best method forward versus
eliminating I think the community needs
this investment is what I'm trying to
say.
>> Okay. You're not talking about any given
>> one of these. All right. Um good. Um I
do you have the direction that you need?
Not that you asked for it because I
think you said expressly you weren't
asking for for direction but our council
is comfortable giving you direction even
though you don't ask for it and that's
our job of course. So let's uh take a
break for 10 minutes be back at 228 and
uh we'll tackle the rest of this. I
would say that we're about halfway
through so this is a we're going at a
pretty good clip.
Um,
>> we're missing one council member.
>> Disappeared, I think, for just a moment.
Um, but I want why don't we go ahead
just in terms of
>> Thanks. Um just we wanted to um address
one issue that didn't get addressed this
morning. Council member Kern,
>> thank you. Um oh actually I do need to
wait for for Director Blackmore to get
back. It's he's 100% relevant in in my
comments. So once he returns then if you
wouldn't mind circling back that' be
awesome.
>> Thank you.
>> Um
>> yes, director
>> mayor. Let's continue. So I'm going to
hand this off to Mahar and he's going to
go through some revenues then our uh
then James will handle some
expenditures. So be uh we'll we'll be
sharing it for next few slides.
>> Take us away.
Thank you all for joining back after the
break. We're going to go over major
revenue assumptions. These consist of
property tax and sales tax.
We will start with mill levy changes. In
2027, the city will be suspending the
temporary mill levy credit on the rec
center debt mill levy. Uh as just some
background, voters approved a mill levy
up to 3.35 mills with uh with a
restriction that the tax revenues of
this rec center uh debt not to exceed
1.2 $1.82 million annually. uh the rec
center deck can uh no longer absorb any
uh excess uh revenues. So
we've uh we've updated that. Uh so the
sorry the changes for the uh mill levy
are resetting the uh rec center debt
from excuse me to 1.7
from 1.375 mills. Overall the
Louiswisville mill levy will change to
6.88. 884
from 6.559.
In this chart, we're going to show
property tax uh revenue changes. Blue
bars are general property tax, orange
rec center debt, and the yellow line is
the city's total mill levy.
Just as a uh reminder that the uh mill
levy reduction that we had uh the
temporary mill levy reduction we had
done was to offset the increased
assessed values.
In total our city mills are at 6.559. Uh
this chart breaks out the two went over
blue being general, orange being rec
center and the yellow bar at top just
showing your total mill levies in the
city.
This next chart highlights uh
year-over-year changes while calling out
2026 and 2027
property tax revenues. Same as last time
where blue is your general and orange
rec center debt. The yellow bar showing
changes year-over-year.
This uh next slide is uh showing for
every property tax dollar collected
within the city of Lewisville. Where
does it go? 7 cents of that dollar comes
to the city of Lewisville. Majority of
it goes to Boulder Valley School
District, followed by Boulder County,
Lewisville Fire District, Seven Sense to
the City, North uh Colorado Water, and
UDFC.
This slide is basically showing for
every dollar that's collected for City
of Lewisville sales tax, where does that
dollar get divvied up? Most of it 53
cents goes to general fund. The next big
one is capital fund. About 26 cents of
that will go there. Followed by open
space 8 cents, parks at 5 cents,
recreation center 4 cents, and finally
historic preservation at 3 cents.
This chart is showing sales tax uh
revenue year-over-year changes and total
revenue assumptions.
Uh just some notes. Um in this uh in
this projection we do have a few things
taken into account which are king supers
opening up. uh certain things have not
uh have not been incorporated into this
such as Sundance Film Festival and uh
Red Tail Ridge development impacts.
Any questions on this slide?
This next slide uh is basically going
over the uh when we looked at the dollar
slide where it shows for every dollar
collected of sales tax revenue inside
the city where is it going to this is
basically showing that year-over-year.
So you can see the major blue bar being
your general followed by capital and so
on.
All right, that's all I have for revenue
assumptions.
>> Um, just to add a little bit of color
just real fast. Um, going back to
property taxes, we've kind of two
revenue sources. One for our general
fund. It's a little over 5 million.
We're at the cap of our mill levy. We
cannot go any higher without going back
to the voters. At 5 million, this is
about 16th of your general general fund.
some material but not as large of a
lever as your sales tax. That orange bar
is how we repay our rec center debt uh
fund uh rec center debt. Our our mill
levy right now is just under 1.4. We're
proposing to realign it at 1.7. That
will align us with our annual debt
servicing payment amounts of 1.74 1.75
million through 2042.
So this is something that we were able
to hold down for a few years. We've
eaten up the fund balance in the debt
fund. We can no longer absorb that short
shortfall. We really do need to align
the collections with the the debt. Uh
the impact to the median home of that that adjustment in the mills is
about $20 per year. So that's what we
have to do. And if you were to go to the
property tech property tax chart looking
forward, you see it kind of petering
down a little bit. What we're doing is
we're we're modeling assessed value
increases and then adjusting or refining
that rec center mill levy to arrive at
the amount of the debt payment. So we
will talk about this a little bit more
later but really looking for your uh
your direction to align the mill levy
with those debt payments. Um again then
the other thing I would say with the
sales tax is it is the significant the
primary funer of our general fund. You
can see uh over half of the dollar goes
into the general fund. Um from my
memory, it's probably close to 13 or 14
million when compared to our property
tax, which is five. Um but it's also
extremely material to the other funds
outlaid here. Um the general fund is
blue, but red is our capital fund. We'll
have some time later today and likely at
a future meeting talk about our capital
fund. Generates close to 89$10 million
annually. But also the other funds here,
open space fund, our recreation fund,
our parks fund, historic preservation
fund, funds we've sort of talked about,
um are largely uh driven by our sales
tax collections. This is the biggest
revenue source. It's our biggest lever
on how we fund city operations.
So, thank you, Mahair. Excellent. Just
want to add a little more color to that.
>> Thank you.
» Okay. Okay, next we're going to get into
some person.
>> Hold on for just a minute. Sorry for
interrupting. Just want to make sure if
council members have any questions about
the revenue piece here. That's
>> Yes, council member.
>> I just have one very general question.
What would you estimate is our total
revenue income annually for the city
totaling all sources?
I have a spreadsheet for that, so I
would hate to guess. Um, 80 million,
close to 100 million. Wow.
>> Um, again, a lot of it's in the general
fund. The next largest are utilities.
You know, we do tens of millions of
dollars when we fund our utilities. So,
those those are pretty much the primary
funding source for what we do. And
actually, a main component of my job is
collecting and my team's job is
collecting uh sales tax and use tax, but
also monthly utility billing. So a lot
of what we do is bring money in the door
>> so folks can deliver excellent services
to your citizens.
>> Thank you
>> residents.
» Thank you.
>> So one of the next things we're going to
get into is some personnel and benefit
uh assumptions u through those out years
in the model. Um aligning with one of uh
the city manager's priorities in uh
retaining uh staff and investing in
staff and staff development. um we've
kind of outlaid what our expectations
are as far as uh salary increases which
are a large driver of those expenses um
that as we've dictated are our fast
outpacing revenues. Um there are a
couple of different adjustments that we
make and that we model. uh the first
being a market adjustment um that would
go into effect January 1st for all
employees and then also a merit-based
adjustment um to kind of capture that
remaining uh portion of maybe the
difference between the market and what
people are experiencing inflationary in
their daily lives. Um, in that same
vein, uh, the human resources department
has done some, um, third-party
consulting and they've also identified
some, uh, specific targeted adjustments
to kind of align some of, uh, current
staff, namely in this instance, uh, our
police officers to the market
surrounding areas so that they can
continue to retain officers and maintain
that public safety that is a priority of
council.
Um among those uh assumptions we have
modeled a 2% market adjustment again
that's the first day of the year going
into effect and then a uh 4% merit
adjustment um max for uh staff. Um and
then as far as the targeted police
adjustment that we discussed, um that
third-party consultant has suggested
that to get us competitive and and
remain competitive in addition to the
adjustments made in uh the end of 2025,
we need to uh bump the
police officers up about 7%. Those would
be your uh non-admin staff in the police
department. uh and then their steps for
their pay program are at 5%.
Um in addition to that, we've kind of
modeled some increases for variable
personnel. Uh we've targeted 3% for that
for 2027 and 28. And then uh some
additional um costs for benefits as
well. Um given that the benefit
costs are kind of unknown to us now
we've uh been very conservative and
budgeted or
uh targeted at 10% um for the health
insurance and then 2% for dental and
vision. Um we're hoping those numbers
come in lower but we want to
incorporate. It's always easy to take a
step back then to say oh you guys have
kind of closed the gap but bad news. uh
these have come in worse than expected.
Uh so um we've also have some history of
kind of those uh assumptions
over changes over the years. Uh
so this next table is just kind of like
a history of the personnel adjustments
since 2019. Um that kind of captures
kind of what we historically have been
doing for staff to maintain that
retainage. Um,
if you want to go to the next one.
And finally, this is uh kind of the
history of our benefit insurance uh cost
increases. As you can see, the last two
years, we've come in flat uh thanks to a
lot of work with uh human resource
department, collaborating with um some
of our benefit providers. And so, we are
hopeful that we'll get good news again
this year. But again, we have kind of
taken a conservative approach and
budgeted for a 10% increase. Uh, and
these all average up to about an eight 8
and a half% increase in the model.
Any questions on any of that?
>> Yes.
>> Thanks. Appreciate you doing this. So
you had mentioned that you had already
um hired a consultant to come up with
some of the merit increases and yet we
saw for some of the capital improvement
requests
was um another exterior consultant to do
some additional work. Is this like and
it doesn't look like it's projected for
all the years is is it that you needed
it for this time you'll need it one more
time but you don't need it in ongoing
years. Um, Council Member Kern, maybe
Beth for Director Bonzingo to answer
that question, but my understanding is
that these are two different asks, two
different studies. They annually review
um markets um against what our
competitors are paying folks. I think
last I was over 30 jurisdictions they
benchmark against us. So, this is part
of their annual work. Uh that is not the
that is separate and different from the
budget ask. With that, I will ask
director Monzingo to delineate the
difference between those two.
Yeah, I just want to have you clarify
your question just to make sure I answer
it appropriately.
>> So, it was mentioned that you guys had
already done used a consultant to help
you come up with the market adjustments
and yet we see in a budget request for
additional consulting to assist with
understanding salaries and market. So, I
just was curious to know if this is a
repetitive thing, if it's it's an annual
request that you need because it looks
like it's only a one time or what what
that
>> Yeah. We use uh an exterior an outside
consultant to assist us in determining
the market rate adjustments. These are
looked at each and every year. So that's
an ongoing one. We also use a separate
consultant for our benefits as well to
go out to market. Uh so so it's two
separate um consultants there. But
really what they're looking at is is
both telling us uh what the market is
doing for each of the positions and so
that we can compare our positions and
then that's what we use to determine the
adjustments that we recommend. So in
this case for instance uh there was an
adjustment of over 9%
uh in just the police jobs alone. So
that's largely what accounted for the 7%
additional increase with them. So I I
don't know if that is
>> director, do you I'm sorry. Do you mind
I I believe the question is around the
compensation policy analysis. We do have
that later in our presentation, but
since it's up now, would you be willing
to speak to what the compensation policy
analysis is? The request
>> for
compensation policy analysis.
>> Oh, here. Will you run to slide?
» Is that for the
>> $50,000 request? Okay. I didn't think we
had gotten to that one. Yeah. Sorry.
Okay, now I'm following you. Yeah. Okay,
I'm with you now. You're right. This is
a yet a separate project. So, what we've
what I found uh at least in my first
year working here is that we spend an
inordinate amount of staff time uh
working through compensation issues uh
because we lack a lot of uh solid
policies and procedures on how we work
through these. Secondarily, um probably
in the last five or six years, uh
there's been a lot of structure,
especially through the Equal Pay for
Equal Work Act, on ensuring compliance,
uh with our compensation practices. So
this analysis here is to ensure we're
compliant, but then also find ways to
save staff time and ambiguity on how we
work through and have a cleaner process
to work through when we adjust pay, how we do reclasses and
those types of things. So I completely
apologize. You were one step ahead of me
and I wasn't quite following your
question.
>> They went together in my mind when I was
saw the market and I was and I thought
they were similar. It's a completely
different topic and I I appreciate the reason for needing this and and it
being a one-time evaluation process and
figuring how we move forward. So then
the then we'll go back a slide to what
we did discuss the variable um pay is
that for like our part-time employees
that kind of thing.
>> It is
>> uh and it's interesting that we think
that we need to uh a higher market
increase than we do for our full-time
employees.
>> Yeah. So the that's a great question as
well. So, uh, while you'll see the
market adjustment for full-time at 2%,
the reason we did a 3% is that we
currently don't have a way to adjust
variable pay. So, when you get hired
into a job as a variable pay employee
and you work or as a seasonal and you
come back the next year, your pay goes
up the two or 3% that we recommend here.
That's the same pay that the person
coming in as a brand new employee is
also paid as well. So we're trying to
build out a structure where we can give
variable increases as well to recognize
retain uh some of those valuable staff
members like in our seasonal ranks that
come back year after year uh so that we
have kind of a a market or a merit
increase per se for for those positions.
>> When it comes to the uh merit increase
or the market adjustments for the police
department, you were saying it's not
applying to the admin staff. Will that
the administrative staff will that they still be applicable to the 2% that
everyone else Okay, great. And then what
about for the leadership in within the
police department? Is the 7% also being
applied or is it for non-leership
officers?
>> It's just for the police officer ranks
to my knowledge. I don't believe that it
accounts for those. But we do have to
check to see if we have a compaction
issue because as we continue to increase
the sworn officer pay in the um
management structure side of it. We have
to look at the commander side to see if
we're getting into a compaction issue.
So that there may need to be some
adjustments there just to address
compaction.
>> But that's not being considered in this
yet. Okay. So but maybe I I would agree.
I would expect there to be some
variation. That's why I was curious
about that. Last thing 10% for a health
increase. Are we expecting to change
providers in service because uh that's a
really substantial increase?
>> Well, we don't have those numbers. Uh
sadly, we don't generally get those, I'm
being told, until sometime in early
August. And as you might expect, uh
those vendors hold those numbers pretty
close to the best until they're until
they're um a little more sure about
them. So, as you could see from the
slide up there, over the last several
years, I think they did a placeholder in
the budget for 10%. But that the
increase came out at zero. So, I guess
one thing that I could speak to is that
at least at the end of May, our benefits
consultants said that we were operating
at an 80% loss ratio. So, uh that's
actually quite good where you want to
be. It's when you get to 100% and above
that is when you're actually at a loss.
So while our claims against our health
insurance have gone up this year, all
indications are is that we're still
operating at a level that we need to be.
So I don't think that our own usage of
the plan is going to drive up the costs.
So now we're really going to be seeing
what the market does and what that
dictates. And just on the research I've
done, um it's probably the same research
you all could do, it could be an
increase anywhere between 0% up to 12%.
So, we really want to get those numbers
through our consultant and then have
them work with the the the vendors
themselves to to negotiate those down to
the best price we can get.
>> Thank you and appreciate the indulgence.
Um, I spent many years in finance but um
also targeting human resources and
benefits and I did benefits for casinos
with thousands of employees. So, that's
why this was uh my pertinent questions.
I happen to have background and
experience in it. So, thanks
Other
questions from council? Yes, Council
Cooper.
Um
I can you can you give an a ballpark
estimate for like if our health
insurance uh has like a a 1% increase
roughly how much that translates to in
expenses for the city?
A
>> lot of on the spot math here this
afternoon. I'm glad I'm sharp. It's uh
we've got three million in our annual
benefit costs. So when we project 10%
that's 300,000. Um so every percent
split across all the funds. Um I I spent
a lot of time on the general funds. So
that'd be half of it. Half your
personnel's in those funds. So you know
um one thing I did mention earlier is we
use a lot of projections and estimates
at this time of the year. Uh we try to
be conservative so we don't have a
widening gap throughout the process. We
have one that's closing. So, one thing
I'm optimistic about is HR and uh and
their and their great team and our
broker can keep these costs as low as
we've seen historically and we can come
back to you in September with um some
good news.
» Other comments?
» If there are no more questions on
personnel and benefit costs, I will hand
this over to the city manager. Are you
okay driving these slides or I can keep
going and take notes?
>> Do we want to circle back to Council
Member Kern now that Adam's back in the
room?
» Pardon me.
>> Do we want
>> Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Um the question that
she raised from before. Yes. Do you
would you Sorry.
>> Now that the director is
>> I appreciate that. So, I forgot to when
we were talking about um the wreck
department and the budget, uh one of the
things that I wanted to ask about and
bring up is do we ever separate out the cost of the memory square pool and
the swimming pool component at the rec
center so that we can see how that that
cost is different than just all the
other services of the wreck and senior
center.
Aquatics has its own budget lines. Yeah.
So, Memory Square has a line and
aquatics has a line in the overall
budget.
>> So, do and and pardon me if I don't
know. I tried to find it and I couldn't
on the website. Um, are there like
separate and additional fees to use
memory square pool if you already have a
rec center pass?
>> U membership transitions to Memory
Square. That's not a separate fee and
the daily admission is the same as the
rec center. So that's what I was
thinking and I was looking at several of
the the capital requests and it seems
like a lot of the large ticket items are
because swimming pools are very
expensive. Everything related to them is
just expensive. Anybody who's ever had
their own knows that. Um I I was curious
if there was value in us looking at the
fee structure that we have um to because
we are worried about the general fund. A
portion of the general fund goes to the
wreck which goes to aquatics. if we
shouldn't be charging people because we
have lifeguards that are expensive and
sometimes hard to acquire. Um more for
the utilization of specifically of the
aquatics versus the person who's you
know coming in and just working out on a
treadmill or using you know the the
baseball or the basketball courts or
something
to try to recoup some of that extra that
very specific user cost. Yeah, I think
we could consider that possibly for
memory square um as a starting point
being a seasonal pool. Um it's pretty
low impact probably for what you're
getting at maybe as a relief to the
general fund. Um
we can explore whatever you'd like to
explore. the I think you know the
majority of that 30-ish million dollar
renovation was intended you know and
went towards a lot of renovations for
the pool area. So I would imagine the
community is expecting that debt
repayment to allow them the same access
at the same rate as the rest of the
building. Um
but you know we we can look into
whatever you'd like to look into but
pools are pools are expensive. Um, so
are senior services, you know, that's
less than 5% cost recovery and the
majority of the people coming in to use
those services are paying less than $3.
>> Mhm.
>> So, I mean, it really is just what
whatever area of the facility you would
like to kind of zone in on.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Okay.
Go ahead.
» All right. So, at this point in time,
we're going to go into the CMO
recommended operational adjustments. Um,
if council has questions about the
items, the directors are ready to
respond to those questions. Uh, but
first is the market adjustments for
police. I would like to take this as an
opportunity for Chief Gutier to talk
about kind of current state of staffing
at the police department and the impacts
of the cost or the salary increase that
council approved late last year.
>> Thank you. Um yeah, definitely want to
uh send words of appreciation for the
market adjustment that was done last
year. Um that that made a significant
difference in morale and and some
retention areas. Um I'm not hearing the
same commentary that people are looking
for employment elsewhere because of uh
paying compensation. Um certainly life
circumstances come up and we do have
some officers that are looking at other
opportunities simply because of family
reasons or a need to relocate. But it's really changed the narrative at the
PD. Um the police market, the police
officer market is is steadily increasing
and has been for the last several years.
And I think what we recognize in the
slide that was put up earlier is um as a
city organization, you know, a 2% or a
0% uh for the police market
put us in a position where we're now
trying to play catch-up. And I think
that's kind of what's reflected in that
7% recommendation now. Um but it has
made a significant difference. uh
employees there um they they understand
they recognize that the city is is
definitely uh trying to take care of
them um and supporting of them and and
it has gone a long way. So uh from a
staffing perspective right now as of
September um knock on wood we will be at fully staffed in the officer ranks.
Um we do have a code enforcement process
that's ongoing now. We're doing
interviews for that. Um and and that
that's the extent of our vacancies right
now. So it's a really good condition to
be in. Um, and I think again it says a
lot to what has already been decided
upon and some of the recommendations
that are being made.
» All right. Thank you. Uh, the next two
items are HR requests and um the
citywide training increase I think is
pretty self-explanatory, but Jeff, could
you briefly discuss those two items for
HR?
>> Yeah, thank you. So, uh, the citywide
training increase, uh, is really
covering two things. So, uh, in talking
to the city manager when I started
employment, uh, one of the things that
she really wanted to focus on was, uh,
employee development and succession
planning and making sure that we have
the bench strength going forward,
recognizing our leaders and ensuring
that our employees just have development
opportunities. So, when I started, uh,
we weren't doing much in the way of all
city training both at the staff level
and for leaders. And while we were able
to use the funding that we do have right
now, it was pretty limited at only
$14,000 a year for the or entire
organization. And that's the money we
use for all staff training and
leadership training. So part of this um
citywide training increase is to
increase that budget by about $20,000
just to allow us uh to increase our
training offerings. Uh what I clearly
heard from staff when I started is that
training was important to them that they
wanted more and then the feedback we're
getting on the training that we're given
is that they wish that there were more
offerings and that we could offer longer
classes with the budget we have we're
offering lunch and learns as leadership
trainings and two-hour trainings once a
quarter. So, this is just going to allow
us the ability to increase that. And
then the excess money on top of the
ongoing uh 20,000 we'd be adding to the
to this training budget would be to run
an emerging leaders academy in 2027
followed by a leadership academy in
2028. So this would just be formal
training uh for those emerging leaders
in the organization to both recognize
and train those and then just to ensure
that uh we can have ongoing professional
leadership uh training and academy both
for our current and seasoned leaders as
well. So that kind of encompasses the
citywide training increase.
» Yeah. So NEOGV perform and policy. This
is another thing as I've gone around the
organization uh learning about areas
where I think we could um both improve
process and save a lot of staff time and
this is two areas. So NEOGV perform
would be an electronic way of building
onto our current NEOGV platform which is
an HIS platform we're currently using
but it would allow us to do performance
reviews electronically. Our current
process is done by paper which makes it
extremely difficult to get data
analytics as to performance around the
organization. It makes it a very manual
process for dealing with performance
issues that come from these performance
reviews. And with this program, it would
allow uh full web access and would allow
us to tie these to our uh performance
improvement processes. Um and it would
allow it allow us to tie it to our
learning module. uh that's also within
NEOGV as well. So a lot of capability
there. The second half of this would be
a 2028 program. That's the policy
management module. This is a more
organizational benefiting uh program in
the sense that right now uh one of the
things I'm focusing on is ensuring that
our policies uh are compliant and that
we continuously update our policies. And
while we make do with our current
processes, it is a very daunting process
to write the policy, get feedback on the
policy and then approve the policies.
And this this uh module would allow us
to do that very seamlessly with tracking
of both the approval process and the uh acknowledgement process for
employees. The doubly cool thing about
it is that it's not just for HR. We
could build this to where every
department in the entire city could have
a module much like we do with our laser
fish system. So we could house internal
departmental policies as well as
citywide policies all in one place in
the same format and using the same uh
approval process. So it would really
increase our efficiencies, save a lot of
staff time, but also make these a heck
of a lot more accessible and easier to
update.
Yes,
>> I I this is more of just like I guess a
comment or a compliment. So, what I'm
hearing is lots of cost savings in sta
very expensive staff time for a for a
$25,000 annual investment. I'm assuming
we're expected to receive significantly
more than 25,000 a year in staff
savings.
>> Yeah, that I don't know what the total
cost for both would be. It might be a
little bit above that, but this is
before we've negotiated the price. We
might be able to get both programs for
that 25,000. But to answer your
question, yes, indeed. Lots of s staff
savings to where we could realize that
and recoup that cost in the first year
alone.
>> Great. Thanks for thinking outside the
box. That's nice.
>> Yeah. Thanks.
>> Other questions, comments?
>> Would you like me to go over the last
one on this slide, Mayor?
>> Pardon me.
>> Would you like me to go over the last
one on this slide?
>> Sure.
>> Great. So, the hard to recycle voucher
is a pilot program we started in 2026.
We have had almost all of these vouchers
taken up and over 250 used at this point
in time. You might recall this replaced
our hard to recycle event which was
consistently weathered out. So, it was a
very challenging event for us to hold.
Um, we are hearing a lot of positive
comments about this program. In fact, a
lot of other cities have asked us for a
model because they're very interested in
this program. We'd like to extend it and
we'd like to use general fund funding to
extend it. I will say staff who is here
to answer questions should council have
them. Um would is considering a no match
grant through the Colorado Circular
Communities C3 waste reduction programs.
So if council wants to, they could
approve this contingent upon receipt of
the grant.
» Any uh council questions? Council member
Curtain. of the um 37,000 there, how
much of is actually coming from the bag
tax and how much would we need the grant
money for? I'm just curious
>> uh for our proposal for 2027 is that no
money would come from bag tax. We take
it out of general fund. Staff would like
to seek grant for the full amount.
>> Correct.
>> Yes.
>> Correct.
>> Okay. And are would then the bag tax be
going? Would we still be doing um like
the hard recycle program in some of the
lower income neighborhoods that we've
done in the past that was very
successful and really wellliked?
>> We would still be looking at doing the
other programming in the bag tax. And I
think there's a larger sustainability
conversation coming up for this council
where we talk a little bit more about
bag tax that sort of declining revenue
and what that looks like when we talk
about those larger sustainability goals.
Is that one of the reasons the move to
the general fund for this instead of the
bag is because of the declining bag tax
numbers?
>> Uh, okay, great. I This is an amazing
program. I'm in favor of it. I I do
really recommend that we push as hard as
we can to get the grant money though um
just given how tight things are.
>> So, at this point in time, we are
looking for council input on each of
these items. So, if we could go down the
list and get input in terms of
preliminary council support or if you're
not supportive of this, that would be
helpful.
>> I will start
um I
on market adjustments for police. I
really appreciate the the uh analysis
that's been done. is hard stuff and it's
uh I absolutely support um that um item
training increase. I I was
to be honest almost shocked to see how
low it was.
um having you know this is my day job is
employment law and deal with a lot of
clients with the last well the next two
but um this is really important and
something that uh employees I think
across the board want and expect if
we're going to keep them and it's a
really good um investment in our human
capital and and our human resources Um
the next one um I mean again these are
the the next three are small numbers
compared to others and I don't want to
underest understate that. Um we got a
lot of big numbers coming but those two
uh or the
modules are going to pay for themselves
easily. um trying to centralize that
data is going to provide so much easy
analysis or the ability to do some
really easy analysis, complex analysis.
And then the hard to recycle voucher,
you know, personally, I think that's
like the best um the best kind of not
the best of the four, but it's a great
program and I think we can support it.
Others Yes.
I'm wondering for the rest of us um
for for time's sake, should we go each
go through all of them or can we say if
there's one that we want to pull out and
discuss otherwise assume we all are
agreeable for all all the reasons you
listed.
>> Yeah, I was sort of setting um a
potential set of reasons why perhaps
other council members might be
supportive of this. That's the reason I
went into it. Thanks. But I'm open to
whatever council members would like to
do. No, thank you for doing that. I
agree to all those reasons and approving
all of those that are listed.
I just want to say I do agree with
everything the mayor has just said and
councelor Kerna. Um, but I want to add
that I think it's important to maintain
staff rather than bringing in new staff
that then have to be trained and don't
know the history. And so I think these
programs are amazing.
» That sounds like a sport. Everybody a
verbal thumbs up. All right.
>> All right. We'll move to the next slide
and go through the same exercise. Um so
Sam will address the three CMO requests
and then you already heard from uh Jeff
in terms of the compensation policy
analysis.
>> Great. Thank you Diana. So the Sundance
request is a little bit of a late ad
here. I had the opportunity to attend
one of our coordination meetings and I
realized how many unknowns there are
about Sundance coming up from the amount
of trash pickup to additional signage
and notifications. This set aside is
really intended to be an if needed if
there are additional costs to allow us
to get that information and then in
future years we can start anticipating
that and budgeting for that. The cost
allocation analysis uh you might have
remembered from the finance committee a
strategic planning document. So looking
at what we're doing there as we've been
evolving that using that for cost
allocation is something that we think
would be really beneficial for this
organization to get a really good feel
for where everyone is placed. That
dollar amount is something that we're
working on refining as we refine the
scope of what this cost allocation is.
But this will help us truly understand
our programs and the cost of our
programs to put council in a place to
make those strategic decisions.
And then I'll skip over to the community
survey. So this is a community survey
that we have been doing every four years
for many years now. We are next up in
2028. This is used in a lot of our
strategic planning and our budget
considerations and departmental
considerations when they're prioritizing
items. It's really a baseline that we'd
like to continue.
» Okay. Any questions from council members
about these four?
>> I do have a question.
>> Yes. uh member pro Tim and then council
member Hefner.
>> Um I do have a question regarding the
community survey. I from my
understanding there's some pretty
consistent questions so we can track
metrics over time. Um, you know, we
don't necessarily have to get into the
details today, but I I am curious given
some of the concerns and feedbacks
around um multiple consultants asking
similar questions if this isn't an
opportunity to maybe blend some of that
into this existing survey um to maybe
save some dollars in some area other
areas as well.
>> Yeah, thank you mayor. That's a great
question and that's something that we
have been looking to each time we've
done the survey. For example, when we
did the survey in 2024, we incorporated
some comprehensive plan questions. I'll
also throw out that one of the things
we're looking at is as with updating our
KPIs, we're going to take the
opportunity to look at the survey and
make sure that we're asking what we
should be asking. And I'd like to look
at making sure that we're aligning with
nationally benchmarkable questions so
that when we set a KPI, it's not that we
expect 100% satisfaction on a question
response, which is never going to
happen. Um, but that we are measuring
oursel maybe in something more
realistic, right? like we're going to be
above the national benchmark.
» Council member Hefner.
>> Yeah, Mayor Mayor Prom stole most of my
thunder. Um, I I agree with that point
and and
maybe this isn't a budget item, but if
there's a way on other consultant work
that we can refer them back to the
community survey and demand that they
not reinvent the wheel and and rely on the fact that we know full well
people value open space in downtown
Louisville and they don't need to go
around focus grouping those questions a
second time. Um,
and then I also would like to see the
cost allocation study refined somewhat.
$100,000 seems like a lot for an
organization of our size.
» Any other comments?
>> Just so that you do have like additional
comment on that. That was going to be my
statement was that the that cost
allocation analysis seems a little steep
for what I the value it'll add. Thanks.
All right. Um,
do we have uh with the
qualifications mentioned, do we have a
thumbs up?
>> Okay.
Great.
>> All right. Thank you. We're next going
to get into summary of city manager
recommended personnel adjustments.
All right. This is the opportunity um
you've heard in previous slides about
positions that have been proposed. This
is the opportunity to ask questions
about these positions. Um specifically,
I would ask uh Director Blackmore to
address the deputy director for parks,
recreation, and open space. This may
seem like a big ask, but there's there
are very good reasons for this. And then
also I would like um Kurt to address the
civil engineer one two positions
specifically but if you have any other
positions that you would like the
directors to address um we can do that
as well.
Can I ask one question
as we're going through this? Um if it's
possible
and I this is just for my information um
to indicate how many FTEEs
are currently in I mean there's three of
them for pros and recreation four and
then one for operations, two for
engineering. if you if there's any way
to you know indicate what the current
FTE number is um that's just helpful.
It's a little data point. It's a little
tiny data point which has to be
considered
in light of a whole bunch of other
things but I appreciate if you do that.
» I'll go. No pressure. Thank you for
saying I have really good reasons for
it. Before I say what
>> donations are welcome.
>> That's right. That's right. Uh first I
do want to just kudos to city manager
Langley and director Bailey for finding
a kind of creative way to get the deputy
um funds [clears throat]
required for salary and benefits
incorporated throughout the department
to uh allow for what seems to be a a
decent modeling um especially with the
direction from today. Uh so just a few
things on the deputy director. I would
start with the cost including the
benefits. It's uh projected at a
mid-range higher of the pay rate for
other deputies positions throughout
um the city. Uh other departments that
currently do have that deputy director
position in place. Um so just notating
that as a jumping off point that it may
or may not be a little less or a little
more than that. Um, a few reasons for
the request uh through the city manager
for this consideration and now to
council. Uh, as you've seen uh during
our retreat about a year ago um and
through these ongoing budget
discussions, this department is
incredibly broad, has u high level of
intensity and passion from our community
for high levels of service and varying
degrees of expertise and wants and
needs. Um and with that breath comes a
lot of individualized attention from the
director position which as I mentioned a
year ago was known coming into the role.
Um I do think that we have evolved to a
place with um administrative needs at at
uh to assist me with the day-to-day to
assist with the oversight of the seven
direct reports um that are currently
reporting to the director. Um, in
addition to other things like attending
advisory board meetings, um, unscheduled
public meetings, potentially task force,
uh, related to things like golf fees and
that kind of thing that having another
administrative level, executive level
employee to assist the department would
be would be a a great benefit. Um, I
also think there are a few positions
that we put forward for the department
that were not put forward in the model.
one of which is a project supervisor to
assist our project manager Weber with an
ongoing uh backlog um and a continued
growing list of capital projects uh that
the community and council desire for
completion at a high level. Um, and this
position would potentially be assigned
to assist with those efforts as well and
oversee those projects at an
administrative level that are currently,
if they're able to, they're being given
to operating staff and supervisors um to
oversee some of the day-to-day type of
capital projects that Brian can't
incorporate into his workload um which
obviously results in some inefficiencies
and some ineffective use of time um for
those fields. staff that could now be
freed up um to allow them to get back
out into the field and supervise the
operation instead of spending so much
administrative time on contracts and
working with contractors to get those
projects completed. Um,
I already talked a little bit about the
guest service component of the position,
but there does you know there there with
the high level of engagement of this
community, there are delays in
communicating with staff effectively um,
you know, addressing concerns, that kind
of thing, the high level of service
expectation, uh, which could also be
offset with this position as well. Um,
and lastly, and I I don't know if this
is the most important or the least
important, is the succession planning
factor. Back to Council Member Fehees
point about making sure that that
knowledge is retained. Um, you know,
having that deputy position that could
come in and learn the ropes, the
administration, the ins and outs of how
this department works. It's an
incredibly challenging, as I've learned
over the last four and a half years, um,
acclamation. It's a very unique
position, a unique uh community as it
relates to parks, wreck, and open space
as we've talked about a lot today. Um so
having that ability to have kind of a
number two and having that knowledge in
place, um I think would also be very
beneficial. So at a high level, those
were a lot of the rationale items that
you'd see on the position request in
your packet today. Um and just some
anecdotal information from me.
Do you have an idea of how many people
currently
>> I I can answer that question. I just ran
the data and we'll have I do. Go ahead.
>> Should we see if they're the same?
>> It's a tag team.
>> Um well, we have a we include a FTE
recon as part of our budget materials.
We'll have that in September. Um we have
approximately 300 FTEES of which 122
FTEES are parks, wreck, open space, and
golf. And when you factor in, you know,
a lot of variables in there, we probably
have closer to 500 employees and I would
say over half are in parks, wreck, open
space, and golf.
>> Appreciate that. It's for scale of these
changes. I think it's important for the
public to know
>> um that you're not a threeperson
department.
[laughter]
>> All right. Um could we're going to shift
to operations
>> and then maybe real quick before Kurt
you hop in. You've got 50 eighth FTEES
out of 300. So about one out of six
employees is yours.
» Thank you. Scale-wise, how much of the
budget do those 50 responsible for? If
we mess up budget, what's our risk?
>> Utilities is a material uh component of
our budget.
>> All the directors now,
less people more, [laughter]
>> right?
>> Uh good questions. Uh,
>> this is not a this was not meant to
create controversy, just provide a
little
>> scale. We're just having fun. That's
all. I'm just trying to give you the
lightness in the day. Um, all right.
Civil engineer. So, our engineering
department, they run uh almost all your
construction in the city and they're
handling tens of millions, sometimes
over hundred million dollars worth of
work. Uh, some of your most critical
high-profile projects. That department
has not been fully staffed since 2019.
Despite that, they regularly deliver
projects and deal with disasters and
deal with community expectations. Uh
we've done that uh we've accomplished
that I think through dedication of of
several long-term employees that have
retired in the last several years. We've
done that through working nights and
weekends. Uh, and we used to get away
with that because contractors would do
what they said or we had long-term
employees that made things that are
really complex look really easy to get
done. But as the world has changed
because of co uh you can't hire someone
and have them do the job well uh and and not have to babysit them. I don't
know how many people love the word
intrepid right now, but I'm sure you all
love intrepid. Uh but that's just one
example of a lot of projects we do
throughout the year that require a lot
of effort to make sure it goes well. Our
resident expectations I think
continually climb of how we interact
with them and the uh I would say uh high
customer service nature at which we have
to respond to emails or phone calls when
projects happen. So so everything's
taking longer. We've had people that
used to be able to make it look easy
leave. So now we're bringing in new
people. New people don't stay for 20 or
30 years. They stay for three years and
then they go and they get a better job.
Um so there's time caught up in the
churn of recruiting, training, getting
them up to speed and they leave. So we
need to make up for that time. And then
skill set. We just have a different
skill set coming in. uh we a we have
positions that ask people to do five to
10 different roles and uh run 10 to 20
different projects and do that all one
time and do it well. And the the
incoming uh workforce just isn't
equipped to do that. So we need to uh in
this case split a position we had into
two engineers so that we can keep up and
it's sustainable and a lot of times just
cover the the churn. So, um, see if I
have anything else in there that I'm
missing. Um, I do think it also comes
down to quality, making sure we keep our
quality up in delivery of our projects.
And also just I think cost
responsibility. When we're delivering
this much money, if we know we're not
watching it well and we know we're going
to miss, um, we need to make sure we
correct that so we have the right amount
of eyes to, uh, be responsible to the
taxpayer dollar.
I'll stop there. So, what do I have? You
said I have like 50. Hopefully, I'll
have 53 after this conversation.
» Yes, thank you for the reminder. Uh the
traditional budget process doesn't
always match our reality. Our reality is
we're we're underwater now. So, we would
suggest that this engineer position be
filled now with a budget amendment uh so
that we can uh we do have current
candidates that we could slot in uh and
if the council feels that's good value,
then we would hire that position now uh
and help dig out for the the workload
that we're currently in.
Thank you for the consideration.
Um,
as a follow-up question to that, either
to you or city manager or the finance
director, is there room in current
budget for the department to cover an
early or not an early but a an immediate
filling of that position should council
decide to do it. Um, mayor, I would say
I would look into this a little further,
do some analysis, but it's very likely
that you're able to do that. This is one
of those uh benefits of having uh good
fiscal conservatism and some fund
balance in case uh you're not able to
generate the current year savings, which
I could look into. I would just say at
this point it's likely you'll be able to
do so. I'm going to suggest that that
may not be quite ripe, but it could be
ripe with a little bit of analysis and
maybe coming back to council with a
proposal um of some sort. Not making any
decision today about that, I think,
based on the information we have, but I
appreciate
>> also connecting some dots that are on
different slides. The development review
fee will cover some of this position in
the future. uh timelines for development
review can eb and flow depending on our
staffing levels which impacts our
commercial customers and our partners
out there in the business world. Um also
we do rely heavily on consultants to
manage our peak workload and we've had
to rely more and more on consultants. So
we'll be reducing our consultant costs
as well. So we're not just asking for a
new position without trying to offset it
and make it a neutral ad in the long
run.
And I again I'm going to sort of take
the liberty of speaking for all of
council. We know that you are working
very hard to try to cut and and bring
costs for personnel and everything else
down or steady or with as
modest an increase as possible. Um so
just be I think to make that clear or um
expressed to you I think is worth worth
doing. Um
so that if there are there any other
questions on any of the other proposed
positions on this slide and then we need
to know if there's general council
support for these positions in terms of
the 27
budget.
>> Okay. Council members. Yes. Council
member Kurt.
>> Um, so Director Blackmore, you kind of
set us up for a teaser and then didn't
tell us. You said that uh the city
manager gotten had some creative ideas
on coming up with the funding for the
deputy director position.
>> I didn't mean to be a teaser. Um, but on
at the surface level, it seems like it's
a administrative general funded parks
and wreck administrative type of
position. and we worked to really
delegate out um to the various funds
within the department um where we
thought a lot of the work would end up
going with this position. And so it's
just spread out as you would have seen
through the previous slides at 20% here,
15% there, that kind of a thing instead
of just trying to have it all hit the
general fund.
>> Oh, okay. That Okay, that that makes me
understand things a little bit better.
And then the uh the recent at nights
it's not a full-time. It's I guess a
32-hour almost
>> full time. It's a It's a tier two
full-time up to 35 hours. Um, no
overtime without approval, that kind of
a thing, maxed out. Um, it's kind of a
one and a half,
>> but a benefited position.
>> Yeah, benefited position.
>> Um, and is this one of the things that's
going to allow us to um have some like
better night hours instead of I mean, or
are we just short staffed for the the
current early evening hours we have?
Now,
>> part of the hour setup is demand and
programming demand. after we expand and
we construct constrict and expand based
on usage of the facility. Um, but this
certainly if we were to do permanent
expansion till the 9:00 p.m. closure
would give us that level of consistency
and it would give us I mean an ongoing
professional full-time level employee
overseeing the facility in the evenings.
And this this is uh I I think I remember
you discussed this before with us, but I
just because we're in the budget retreat
now and there are people watching, I
want to bring it up again. So the youth
and sports coordinator position that is
new. You had mentioned to us that you
believed there was a revenue benefit to
this position in in order to like create
programming that essentially that job
will pay for itself. Is that correct? Is
that still the assumption?
>> I don't know if I go that far. Okay. But
it does I will say that there is a
significant
offset to this position because that
most of the role is currently being
filled by variable labor that will no
longer be needed.
>> Um and so they'll be overseeing a lot of
you know weekend sports that kind of
thing. The other thing that I had
mentioned in previous discussion was we
do have weight lists for a number of our
programs and this would allow us the
opportunity to explore getting some of
the people off of that by an expanded
program offering. Um, it also gives us
the ability to, you know, evolve into
things like what we're going to do with
expanded programming with pickle ball or
future sports development as it relates
to new parks and that kind of thing and
has somebody um at a higher level at a
full-time position that's able to be
retained and trained and that kind of
thing.
>> So, it wouldn't be 100% dedicated to
just youth sports. It's youth activities
and all other sport.
>> Correct. It's youth activities which I'
I'd highlight on that as well. Um
there's an assistance with summer camp
and our our current summer camp
supervisor is a tier 2 employee and so
you know this position would help offset
you know those hours shortfalls. It
would also be able to provide a
supervisory level experience for um you
know field trips and um assist
throughout the year with things like our
child watch program that's currently
supervised by our fitness supervisor. So
this may give the ability for the
fitness supervisor to open up more time
to continue to meet the demand for
fitness programming. So there's a lot of
kind of hats this position would
potentially wear. It was also I think I
had mentioned it but it was originally
approved in 2021
I want to say um coming out of COVID
there just wasn't the demand as there
was still some hesitancy to get back
into youth sports and so the money was
reallocated at that time into golf
course maintenance to assist with some
growing needs there. Um, so this is
being brought back forward for
additional consideration.
>> Thank you.
» Yes, Council Member Heftner.
>> Um, two things. The, um, the first is I
actually think we should just since it's
before us right now, say yes or no to
whether we want something to come back
on filling the engineering position in
the near term. I'm a yes on that. just
given the amount of money that's flying
around on those projects, if we can
avoid one big mistake, this probably
pays for itself. Um, do you think that's
true?
>> True.
>> Um,
but to be clear, you're not suggesting
that it is a mistake going into
decision.
>> No, no, no, no. just just given that
this the dollar amounts involved with
all of our various engineering projects.
I think if we're we're short an
engineer, let's let's get the engineer
hired because,
you know, if if you screw up a $30
million project, it's going to cost you
a lot more than 155k.
Um,
bigger picture though, I sort of have
the opposite point or just something
that I want us all to keep in mind that
in 2018 we had, you know, approximately
240 FTEES.
Now we have 300. The population of
Lewisville has not grown. It's
essentially the same. Um, plus or minus
a few hundred. And you know, I know
we've all talked about there's reasons
for that around the rec center expansion
and so on. Um,
but our property tax rate hasn't really
gone up. Um, our sales tax rate hasn't
really gone up a little bit for the rec
center. Uh, and if we continue to add
FTE headcount to the tune of five or six
or seven or eight per year, that that
will eventually consume all of our
resources. Um, and not saying any of
these are bad hires or not needed, but we can't I mean, we just can't keep
doing it eventually, adding FTEES um,
without adding revenue to pay for them.
And I don't have a I don't have an
answer to that question, but I just do
want to bring it up because we've had
enormous growth in the size of city
staff without any corresponding growth
in revenue sources.
Um, other comments, questions?
Yeah, Council Member.
>> So, I'm going to echo [sighs] uh in some
ways with what council member Hefner
just said. I I brought that up in the
past, the concern with the expansion of
government and not the expansion of
residents. Um, and a lot of it is
service related. You know, our our
residents every year would like more and
more service. with that comes the need
for more and more staff. Um, so but then
again, I think for some of those service
positions like around the rec center,
this perhaps should not be the burden of
all of the taxpayers, but the users
requesting the service. And so
therefore, I think it needs to come
through the fees of the people who are
asking for the additional service,
asking for the additional employees, let
them pay for it, not not increasing
property taxes. So every community
member who may not be asking for the
increase in services is paying for it. I
think it needs to be a fee based um
allocation and hence the reason I was
asking some of the questions around how
we're paying for these positions. Are we
saving in one place and another and
maybe um although we're adding staff, we
might not be adding cost because we
might be removing some of the cost
somewhere else. Thank you.
>> Comments.
I'm I'm going to respond to this because
I I think I want to be very clear.
um about what I see. I've been uh I
guess council member Fay and I both have
been on council
um since 2019
which was your benchmark year I think.
Um council after council after council
including the people at this dis have
voted to uh pass budgets that increased
uh personnel and I don't know that um
you know it's not a matter of going back
and and debating those budgets. Um I
think we all had good reasons or
wouldn't have voted for the budgets that
we created. Um, that's number one. I
think two, um, the point which I do
appreciate from from,
uh, Council Member Kern and I think
generally is that I think there is no
question in my mind that the level of
expectation in this community has gone
up across the board
um, and in some cases pretty
substantially.
And that's okay.
But you can only
um get so much
um juice out of the orange that you
squeeze. And that's going to be
something we're going to have to deal
with. I think we are dealing with this
as we talk about it. Uh I think we're
all trying to to do that. But it is
something that uh council members see,
but we don't see it on a day-to-day
basis, department
basis like the staff do. and I we've
gotten a lot of feedback all of us about
that. Um I think it's great to think
about fees. I my understanding is that
staff is thinking in terms of
fees for
sort of technology for example there's
some there are some ways of of
allocating costs that way. I think we
have to be careful for tax reasons.
um you know um not calling
uh a tax fee. Um I think we're all
sensitive to that under Taber and I know
that council members are too. So I mean
I I do want to defend the choices that
have been made. I understand the optics
of having bigger government and I think
that's something we all have to think
about, but it's not the only
consideration.
And um it is our job not just to be very
careful about who we add and so forth,
but to meet the demand that we're
getting. And uh and I know other council
members have talked about this that, you
know, considering other revenue sources
or potential revenue sources as a way
of, you know, addressing these things.
But there are tradeoffs to be sure and
we're working through them. And I have a
great deal of respect for the staff.
Again, I think others on council share
that for how we make do with what we've
got. And um so I I think it bears um
saying those things um you know, just to
make sure. I don't know that that any of
that conflicts with anything that's been
said, but I think it's important to say
just as perhaps the person who served
the longest on council, maybe because
I'm the mayor, too, but I think it's
important to say.
Um, yeah, Council Member Cooperman.
>> Yeah. Um, me just add sort of one
comment on that. Um
I mean a as we have added employees
right we have done so within our means.
Um right we you know there are little
places here and there where we have
added a tax like the bag tax or
increasing the open space and parks tax.
But by and large right you know our
sales tax has been pretty constant over
the last number of years. Our property
tax have been pretty constant over the
last last number of years. And so we
have been able to
increase the number of employees,
provide more services, um, and yet still
pass a balanced budget. Um, you know,
maybe looking ahead that's going to
change, but I mean, even right even
right now, we're saying we can add these
employees and still have essentially a
balanced budget for the next couple of
years. So, um
I I I mean clearly we have to pay
attention to this going forward, but um
I feel like, you know, you I don't know.
I I just feel like that's worth stating.
Um I mean, you could ask the question
like, should we have not hired more
employees in the past and saved I don't
know, save money or or put it to other
projects or something. Um which is a
perfectly valid question. Um but then
again like another thing which has
stayed constant is the the distribution
of funds to general onto capital and
that that has remained constant over
time for a while too. Um so it's not
really clear that maybe we could have
taken some of that money and put it to
projects but that's all.
Yes, council member for a
>> I just want to add that for like the
public works
um you have increased the water tap fees
the water prices for all residents
and you are presiding providing a core
service a fundamental needed resource
for all of the residents
residential or commercial in the city
and in order to do that you have to hire
some more people and you have to raise
the prices for what you do.
Rec center and golf course could do the
same.
I know that
the the the annual membership for a
Lewisville resident for the rec center
is $20 and some dollars a year.
I'm not sure what the out nonresident
uh price is, but I know that the
nonresident price for an annual
membership at the Boulder Rec Center is
over $600 a year.
So perhaps the price increase in
membership
would help balance out and cover the
cost of the the additional staff needed
there.
So that's all I will say.
>> Thanks. Any other comments? Yeah,
Council Member Heft.
>> Just want to briefly agree with that. Um
as well as I think council member Kern's
broader point um
that there there are and I think the
city manager has been looking this
others have been looking at this there.
must be more opportunity for us to
do cost recovery on certain things like
the rec center and shelter rentals and
whatever. Um and and we should be taking
a very careful look at every opportunity
for cost recovery because we have such
limited flexibility on taxes and
changing taxes. Um, and I think as the
mayor pointed out, a a basically
unlimited appetite for um, you know, top
tier level governmental services. And I
mean, the rec center is a great example,
right? A private gym me membership is
often $150 a month. Uh, and we're
charging 200 some per year. And I'm not
saying we should we should benchmark to
private by any stretch of the
imagination, but there's probably some
room in between those two things.
» Any other comments?
>> City manager, you have some thoughts?
>> No, I'm just looking for yes or no on
these positions.
or if you're not if you're not at a
point to make a decision on some of
them, let us know.
>> Yeah,
>> let me do that. I I hope that we haven't
um we certainly haven't
finished with the discussion if if if I
could why don't we take two different
questions. One is on these particular
uh CMO wrecks um that are on the board
here. Um is there agreement to approve
all of of those? Not approve but uh
direct staff to continue on uh including
those. Yes, Council Member Devier.
>> I'm happy to move forward with all of
them. On the first one, I am immensely
hopeful that we'll get the parks, open
space, and golf funds to a position
where they can support this. And I don't
think what we saw today
is is that yet, but I'm hopeful we will
get there and this can remain included.
But I would I would include it
provisionally until we see more
um refinement on those funds.
>> Okay. Do people generally agree with
what uh Council Member Hefner said? Go
ahead.
>> I do and I I don't actually understand
what the natural resources technician is
going to be doing with the open space,
but I was thinking things like that if
we're running short to be able to fund
the deputy director position. That seems
like a higher priority to me if we're
trying to figure out where we're coming
up with the the new funds within a what
looks like a very difficult budget past
the next two years. So I am curious
though uh Director Bremore what that job
does.
>> So that position oversees the land
management components for all of our
open space properties including
maintenance and restoration,
rehabilitation, fire mitigation
contracts, that kind of thing. Um
they're involved in things like our
invasive weed controls, community
education. They do noxious weed
education seminars, that kind of thing.
Um, it's also a proposed hire in
response to the community feedback we've
received to do more in this area.
Currently, we only have one of these
positions in the open space division.
Uh, it's also an advanced kind of hire
in preparation. As I mentioned, we do
have 147 acres of open space coming on
board. The warranty period is within the
next two years. Um so having that person
on board and acclimated to our land
management structure um would be very
beneficial for the open space division.
>> So this person will have um some
required background knowledge uh
specialty area in wildfire mitigation to
assist with this or are they just
assisting with the program that somebody
else puts under?
>> Yeah, they'll be responsible for
implementing the program that our
department is putting forward whether
it's Ember or me or council driven. um
their primary background for these
positions usually revolves around
natural resource management, ecology,
wildlife management, that kind of thing.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Okay. Um yeah, Council Member Cooperman.
>> Yeah. Um I'm generally supportive of
these positions. Uh I just had one
uh sort of question. So on the following
slides, there are lists of positions
that are not recommended. Um, and a few
of those are in Adam's uh departments.
I'm just curious, I assume you had
discussions about, you know, these being
the ones you most want to go forward and
those other ones are lower priority.
» Yeah, I think they're all a priority,
right? To your point, we have certain
things that could be accomplished with
all of the position requests that we
have. There's a significant number of
positions that were requested in things
like golf course maintenance that just
there's no way the fund is going to bear
it.
>> Um, you know, so we'll we'll make do in
there. I do I do think that every one of
these hopefully through some of my
ramblings here has shown a level of
importance to what we've heard from the
community from a service standpoint as
well as from uh an effectiveness for how
we serve the community through this
department.
>> Good.
Sounds like the consensus is to support
these positions
um with with some
you know some further discussion that
may happen. I think I I certainly don't
want to tie anybody's hands. We're not voting on a budget. we're
providing direction and uh appreciate
all of the careful discussion and really
good comments of all the council members
on this one and thanks for the staff's
responses. Uh the second question is
whether council uh is comfortable with
directing
uh staff to prepare a or expedited
um um creation
uh this year of a civil engineer one two
position. That's the last one on this
particular list.
» Okay. and we'll we'll see a budget
amendment on that and propose, you know,
propose. Okay, good.
>> All right. The next list is for variable
uh positions and so we have lifeguards
which um Adam can explain the need for
that. The golf course item, this is uh
to align with what they've been they've
been spending and so this isn't
necessarily a new request. It's to align
with what they have been spending. And
then the museum associate interns u
Brandy can address uh this request if
you have questions
and note that this one is not in the
model. It would be dependent upon the
historic tax outcome.
>> Thanks. Um do we have questions about
this? May prot,
>> can you um clarify for me more what you
meant by like what they have been
spending that that comment?
>> Um yes. So the golf fund historically
has uh funded extra variables based on
kind of salary savings and turnover. Uh
the last handful of years I've noticed
that they used about 30,000 variable
hours out there but budgeted for closer
to 23 or 24. Um so this is looking just
to rightsize the amount of hours they
are using at the golf course between
guest service attendants and maintenance
workers. Um
and kind of relying less upon turnback
or salary savings.
» Okay, that's helpful. I mean, given our
discussions we just had
um about the golf fund, it gives me
pause. Um I guess my question would be
they've been using those hours. Are they
necessarily needed going forward or help
me understand?
>> Couple couple things. Um
we have not adjusted
yet. We are working with this model to
adjust not having winter here anymore.
I mean like really like the hours in the
past have projected that we would be
down a couple months out of the year
with no variable salaries being spent at
all and that just has not been the case.
And so part of that overage has been um
the result of just more hours that we
are open and needing to have staff there
more often to be able to serve our
customers. Um that being said, uh there
with the new general manager being on
board now for almost a year, uh this is
certainly an area of emphasis that I've
stressed to him to work within our means
andor give a realistic projection for
the expense. At a maintenance side of
things, there has been a turnback
savings as it relates to the full-time
employees over there just because it is
for whatever reason it's been a high
turnover position. And so we have
increased our variable budgets on
purpose to um account for that
additional expenses. Uh but it's again
that hasn't caught up to the trends yet
showing the overall golf fund impact.
Um, and that variable expense is offset.
If we could retain full-time employees
for longer, then we have less need for a
variable hour. So, you see some of that
offset in the turn back for the
full-time and maintenance. And you see
some of it that's been um primarily
driven by increased playable days on the
off side.
>> Okay, that's really helpful. And I I
trust as the conversations around the
gulf fund, the capital projects, you
know, all of that is happening, you all
will have a, you know, risk benefit
analysis of whether this is most
important or some other projects or
>> staff. Yeah. sim similar to the
lifeguard line item here. It's really a
balance between what you want to use
your full-time labor for and what
variable labor should be used for and
the cost benefit for each of those
things. You know, there could be a
drastic reduction in golf course
variable labor at the expense of
probably ineffectively using your
full-time labor to run your front desk,
wash carts, ranger, that kind of thing
that we're paying variable salary for.
So, I think that there is a balance in
there and I think that to director
Bailey's point, this now aligns with
trend and it's modeled to kind of show
the true impact of that so that we can
adjust up and down on that balance. Um,
I'll speak to lifeguards while I've got
the mic real quick. Um, so again, this
reflects kind of a true hours need based
on full staffing at only using variable
employees at Memory Square and our
aquatics divisions. It also speaks to an
increase in the number of afterhour
rentals that we're receiving and
additional hours request that do have a
revenue offset for the rec center. Um,
we're still using our aquatic
supervisors and our aquatics manager to
lifeguard particularly in the off season
during the day more than I would like
for them to be um out on the deck um not
supervising but actually actively
lifeguarding. So this is still
contingent upon recruitment and
retention which goes back to director
Monzingo's points earlier about
investing in that effort. Um but that's
where that projected cost would come
from at a at a maximum level um to
attain that cost would be wonderful. Uh
but it's not entirely realistic
probably.
>> Okay. Thank you. That's helpful as well.
And I'll just, you know, rise to the
surface once again, the conversations of
fees to recover some of this and the
rentals associated
uh with the pool that requires those
lifeguards evaluating those as well. So,
thank you. That was all very helpful. I
appreciate it.
Okay. So
uh
thumbs up to these three
requests
>> in our direction to good
>> you can do it.
» Thumbs up.
>> One final comment about let's see I
think we're are we through all of the
>> personnel. Um, no. I mayor, I have a
handful of slides that I don't need to
spend a ton of time on, but I I I do
think it's worth recognizing that um,
significant thought was given into many
other full-time position requests that
did not were not able to rise up in the
model. Um, largely for budgetary
constraints, but potentially other
reasons as well. So, we could go through
those slides. If you have any questions,
thoughts or feelings on them, please let
us know. But again, these are not in the
model today.
>> Please do.
All right. So we have um a management
analyst, a termed position for three
years, a procurement and contracts
manager. This is a void within the
organization. Um grant administration
manager and then uh two police officers.
Going to the next slide, please.
We have uh two police officers in 2027,
two police officers in 2028, a records
lead technician, a project supervisor
for PROS, and then a parks technician
one. And then going to the next slide,
park maintenance technician 2, a golf
maintenance tech two, spring, and then a
ranger naturalist. So, as Ryder noted,
um some of these are based upon uh well,
all of these are based upon budget
constraints. And another position, you
know, identified today was volunteer
coordinator. Um, that could be
potential, but you know, we did
prioritize and those are the positions
that you see before you in terms of
recommendations. Not that these
positions aren't um warranted, but we
just can't recommend them at this time.
» Any questions about
any of these positions that were not
recommended? Yes, council member.
>> Thanks. I it's just the grant
administration man. We we've talked
about this and we've had a lot of grants
in the past. Um and we we also had like
you know we've seen some come through.
We've seen department heads particularly
around sustainability that handle this
really well for us. Um but you had
mentioned in the past we might be
missing some opportunities if we do not
have this position. I'm I'm curious. I
mean, obviously the the landscape has
changed state and federal wise, and
maybe that's not applicable right now,
but it might be two years from now. So,
would this be something you would be
continuing to evaluate for us?
>> It would be. And in in making that
statement, um, there [clears throat] are
a lot of grant opportunities that are
out there that we're we're not plugged
into. And so, in having a full-time
grants person, they would be monitoring
what those opportunities are. But I
would also say right now we're not at a
capacity to take on a lot more. And so
sometimes these grants with good
intentions can become curses because
when you have to administer them um and
also come up with the match funding it
can become difficult and when we get
into the CIP discussion just preview as
we're talking about decarb projects um
this is going to be a key conversation
that we need to have. So as as maybe in
the future, this is something that we
need to look ahead to. Um but right now,
you know, we don't have capacity really
to take on a lot more grants, but we are
missing opportunities for grants.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Other comments?
>> I think that's a a great comment. Um
Council Member K. I I wanted to build on
it just to the to the extent that some
of the positions are being proposed.
um do have elements that um include kind
of paying for themselves or partly
paying for themselves. We can't count on
the revenue. It's like grant
administration, right? You hire somebody
on grants and you can't say, "Well, we
know that that's going to pay for itself
because that's just not the way the
budget accounting works." But um I think
it's important for the public to know
that there's there's something to be
considered there and I think staff has
already explained a bit of that. I think
the other thing is that some of the
positions that have been proposed um are
um reduce the risk of uh expenditures
that either are very likely to occur
without that or could occur and have you
know if you did a um the calculation
about the percentage risk versus the
percentage loss that we might suffer um
I think there's an aspect of that um
which you know is is something I think
most most people understand a little bit
but it's not you know we don't always
know what we don't know but sometimes we
know that we may be on borrowed time on
certain kinds of things and and I think
of that civil engineer position as one
of them because there's just a lot that
we can do more efficiently and prevent
big problems from occurring and resolve
the ones that do occur. So, I wanted to
point that out. Um, you want to keep
going?
Thank you, mayor. That brings us to uh
service level reductions.
Um, department heads and staff have
refined and reviewed their budgets. A
few reductions have been recommended.
None are being recommended to be
restored at this time. Um, if you have
any questions, we're happy to answer
those on these.
questions from council. Council member
Coopermanman.
>> Um
[clears throat]
the So the first one, the commercial
sustainability rebates, is that um
elimination or is that just reduction in
the amount of funding?
>> Thank you, council member. It's
reduction in the amount of funding. And
those first two are to offset a grant
that we've historically received and
used for staffing, but we will no longer
be able to receive and use for anything
but an added item. And since we're not
in a place to add at this point in time,
and the grant wouldn't fully cover the
things we would add, we're working to
show those offsets.
>> Okay. Um and uh Okay. And uh as if I
remember correctly, we've actually not
really done either of those first two
things, right? The applications are
still open for the the rebates and we
haven't started the
>> So the applications are still open for
the rebates. Um and this proposal to
bring it down to 40,000 from 70,000 is
right sizing it with the applications it
looks like we're receiving right now. So
right now we have four applications.
They close in about a week. I think
August 3rd or 4th. Um, and they cover
things like decarbonization, efficiency,
and turf removal. We have seen not as
much uptake on that as we could. And
then the the sustainable neighborhood
network. We are still proposing to
launch this for this year. It's in the
works with a launch date in September.
We would still run this program, look
for opportunities to integrate it with
other things out there. I know we've got
community groups like Louisville Fires
Smart. see what that looks like and wrap
it as just a one-year pilot.
>> Okay. And then could you just comment on
the last line um why you're thinking
about eliminating that?
>> Yeah, that's a great question. So, the
last line is the community event
sponsorship program. This was a pilot in
2026. It did take fairly significant
staff resources to work through this. It
funded nine um events and I would say it
seems very likely that most of them with
a strong exception for one of them would
have gone on without this funding. So as
we're looking for service level
reductions, this is an opportunity for
council to choose that.
>> Okay. And if we did eliminate that, um
do you have a suggestion for
an alternative? Like I mean like if I
think about the turkey trot like we we
seem to have a lot of interest in
supporting them to some extent um and if
we so if we did but not through this
method um what would you recommend?
>> So I can speak to it and city manager
Langley can speak to it too. You know
one of the alternatives is pairing this
in the future with a program such as
your nonprofit grants. The organization
I came from these things were compared.
The scope of that program was expanded a
little bit. Um, did you have something
you wanted to add there?
>> I would just say if council's interested
in funding turkey trot, we could put
that as a line item in the budget for a
specific amount and do it specific for
Turkey Trot and then not include other
organizations.
>> Okay, thank you.
» Questions?
>> I just have one question. Is the back
tax amount used at all for or could it
be used for decarbonizing city
facilities?
So, that's a great question. Um, I' I'd
want to look at the language again of
the tax. I think the answer is
potentially under the uses of the tax.
So, I'd want to confirm that. However,
the amount of bag tax is not significant
enough to make an impact on those
projects. We're talking about millions
of dollars of projects for
decarbonization.
» Any other questions, comments
um as to the Thank you for the
clarification on the last um item. Um
and I don't want to spend too much time
on this. What I what I would suggest be
very interested in other council members
input on this is I would like to add the
turkey as a line item. Um but I think we
need more information. Uh specifically
I'd like more information about what the
sponsorships
of other communities are of that
uh event. um and have been um we could have a I I guess what I
would propose is we have a placeholder
um and we come back to that um
sometime when we have more information
um how do other council members think
about that?
Yes, council member or excuse me.
>> So when you say put turkey trot as a
line item, you mean on service level
reductions?
Um, no. Um, as as an item in the budget.
>> In the budget. Got it.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Um, my only other comment on this,
I I staff clearly has thought very
carefully about what they're going to
put on this slide. Um, and as you
continue to, you know, work through the
budget, I'm open if you have other
service level reductions that you think
are needed to balance the budget. Let's
have those conversations
um sooner rather than later.
» Okay. Yeah. Council member Cooperman. Um
I agree with Council Member Hamilton's
comment. Uh I had one other question. So
is this meant to be service level
reductions where you look across all
funds or is it meant to be like
this is mostly I mean these are all
three in the city manager's office so I
just wasn't clear like
where you were looking for these
reductions or
>> uh yeah council member we are looking
citywide but I think it's worth a caveat
that the direction to all department
heads was cost neutrality
So they were asked to refine and make
adjustments within their operations to
just to to to address just the headwinds
of just rising costs across the board.
Probably why this list isn't so robust
is we've we've brought to you today a
budget that's that's that's uh
>> closer to adoption. um when you take
those things into consideration so that
they looked within their operating
budgets and were expected to kind of
hold the line um and so um that
direction resulted in not too many other
opportunities for reductions.
>> Okay. I would also say that this
contributes to the theme of transitional
budget is that we need to set the
baseline within the foundation of the
community for what we provide in terms
of services so that we can have that
process with the community and council
in terms of what people are willing to
accept for service level reductions. if
we were to put those forward right now,
um that we would probably have a lot of
conversations about things and we
wouldn't have the foundation for people
to understand where we're coming from.
>> And so in 2027, we really need to focus
on creating that foundation of the why
so that we can then start to have the
conversation of what can we do.
>> Thanks.
Okay.
Um,
» all right. Um, you want to continue?
>> So, maybe before I continue, do I have
clear direction on whether or not to
continue moving along in the budget
process with these outside of the city
manager's recommendation in September?
» Thumbs up.
>> Yeah. Sorry, I had one more question.
So, um I think as you said before, the first two reductions are offsetting
essentially grant money that we're not
going to be getting. Um that grant money
has mostly been paying for
um a f
an um a staff position, right? So, is
the idea that these offsets are going to
help us retain that staff person?
>> That's correct.
>> Okay. Thank you. Can I clarify direction
on the last item?
I heard that you would like us to bring
back more information about the
sponsorships from other communities for
Turkey Trot and consider adding it as a
solo line to the budget. Okay, thank
you.
» Great. Um and otherwise are we
comfortable with
um each of these
non- reququests um or excuse me service
level reductions really?
>> Yes.
Okay. Good. Let's with a little
side we have a consensus on that one.
All right. Uh may we go to the next uh
part? I just to be clear, it's about
we've got about 50 minutes uh to go
through the remaining slides. We've got
um at least slidewise about 25 slides
out of the whole 102. So, um I'm hopeful
we could get through those, but I think
we're doing pretty well. Long enough to
cover the subject matter. Short enough?
>> Yes, Mayor. I think we're in a good
spot. We may not get your second break.
Um, continuing on other policy and
fiscal items with significant impacts to
the budget. Let's talk about uh expense
growth outpacing revenue growth briefly.
This has been a theme throughout the
presentation.
Oh, thank you. Um, so while significant
progress has been made in the budget
development today here at the budget
retreat, there still are a number of
uncertainties regarding revenues and
expenditures. Again, we're seeing slowly
projected sales and property tax growth.
We will continue to monitor sales tax
extremely closely. Um the preliminary
property tax information is expected to
be from the assessor in August. And
there's there's uncertainty around
impacts of Sundance, Red Tail, King
Supers, and other future potential
developments. We'll keep monitoring
that. Inflation headwinds continue to be
strong. Um so that's something that
we'll monitor and will likely impact
future iterations of the budget. person
uh prioritizing our personnel and those
costs and also prioritizing our required
and contractual obligations. You know,
our insurance and legal costs,
utilities, uh dispatch, technology, and
other maintenance items have been
prioritized in this budget. Okay, here's
another council policy uh decision
point. Uh uh we've talked about this the
model uh through the presentation today,
but over the past three years, the
recreation center debt mill levy was
temporarily lowered to help offset those
property tax increases. However,
beginning in 2027, uh we are
recommending to reset the current mill
levy of 1.375 to 1.7 to align with the
annual debt service payments through
2042. The estimated impact to the median
home is roughly $20 uh per year. In
future years, the rec center mill levy
will continue to be adjusted to align
with future debt payments. So, I'd like
to pause here and seek your uh support
to suspend the temporary mil levy credit
and to align it with our annual debt
servicing payments.
>> Is another way of putting the policy
decision that we're letting what was a
temporary measure lapse?
>> Essentially.
>> Okay. All right, other council member
questions.
Are we comfortable with that decision?
Everybody's got a thumbs up on that one.
» You all were here last night. I will
skip this one. I do not believe we know
any longer need direction to place this
on the ballot.
>> Thank you.
>> Not sure if in the last 48 minutes we
can afford a break. So, if the mayor is
okay, we will continue on to board and
commission requests. Uh, five boards and
commissions made.
Is that okay?
>> I'm Yeah, I'm just sort of doing a quick
uh head count. Are we
>> two minutes?
>> Pardon me.
>> Two minutes.
Why don't we take a break
till 4:15?
We'll be back in race.
it and uh director, thank you for taking
us through the last no more than 44
minutes.
» Thank you, mayor. I appreciate all your
time and attention. I know you guys were
here late last night and have some of
you have an event after this meeting as
well. So very much appreciate your time
uh and attention uh today. Um
so board and commission requests uh
staff uh department heads
received
» that.
» We're getting there. All right. Bringing
y'all back in. Included
>> included within today's packet as an
attachment are uh we've compiled board
and commission requests from the
following boards and commissions.
Recreation advisory board, Lewisville
Sustainability Advisory Board, Open
Space Advisory Board, Cultural Advisory
Board, Historical Museum Advisory Board.
I've summarized this in total and
individually by board over the next
handful of slides. We've also indicated
whether or not they are in our current
modeling or not. um department heads are
here to speak to uh those requests if
you have any questions. So in total we
received 33 requests across those five
boards totaling nearly $15 million with
some additional positions as well. Um
you could see per board those amounts
across and you could see where their
funding source would primarily land for
cultural advisory board. The general
fund same with sustainability open space
advisory board would land within the
open space fund. The recreation advisory
board is covering a few different forts
cap uh funds the capital golf and
recreation funds and the historical
museum advisory board again would fall
within the general fund. So moving
through these and I suppose beginning
with the cultural advisory board at this time we'll within the five
boards I'll probably turn to the
department heads that oversee them. So
if you have any questions or if Brand if
director Cummings would like to add some
color to these please do.
>> Thank you Director Bailey. Happy to do a
very brief walk through. Um the cultural
advisory board submitted a request this
year in support of uh staffing for the
arts and culture department. As we know
that department is currently one
full-time employee and one part-time
employee who are responsible with
putting on 29 community events
throughout the year including our banner
4th of July that happened this year with
over 12,000 attendees. um 1.5 people is
not quite sufficient to continue these
beloved community traditions and uphold
them not only operationally but for
safety. So the board is requesting a uh
increase in staff funding to either make
our current part-timer full-time or the
addition of a full-timer to make the
total department two 2.5 FTEEs. In
addition to that, um as we've talked
about throughout the year, events are
costing more to do the same. We've seen
this with our partners who have come
before us with the same sort of asks.
Um, specifically Fourth of July this
year, um, next year without an increase
to that budget, we will not be able to
have any entertainment in Fourth of
July. So, it'll be fireworks, food,
trucks, and nothing else because the
cost of inflation for events is far
surpassing our our operational budget as
part of the operational fund or the
general fund. Um, lastly, our our
current allocation for public art is
$25,000 a year, which is insufficient
for any real gain for the city of
Lewisville's temporary or permanent
collection of public art. And so, with
an increased desire from the community,
um, the cultural advisory board thought
it was best to bring forward a request
for increased support in that so we can
activate programs like we see in our
neighboring communities, Lafayette,
Longmont, and Superior. Happy to answer
any questions.
>> Council questions. Yes, member Tim.
>> I just have a general question and I I
don't know who can answer it, but when
boards and commissions submit these
requests,
do they have um
do they get information about where the
budget is when they submit these
requests?
>> I can speak to that for my boards if
that's helpful. So yes, we talk with
each of our boards about where the
budget is, how the funding shows up. Um
the difference between being part of the
general fund where we don't have costs
or fees that we can raise to cover the
cost of our services we provide the
community versus being in an enterprise
fund that might have those
opportunities. And then we talk about
what goals might align with what the
department has set out for the coming
years and the goals we hear from city
council and city leadership overall.
Then that results in well to do those
things we need X. and then we calculate
what that might cost.
>> Okay. And do they see some of the
projections and bar graphs that we see?
Typically
>> this information isn't available until
we get into budget season and these
requests are due before that information
is calculated. But they are able to look
back at last year's. Um we do share with
them or I did share with my boards um
that we are expecting a flat budget
which is why this is actually a rainedin
request um compared to what you might
see from some of our other boards. Yeah.
>> Got it. Thank you. Okay. Other
questions? Yes, Council Member
Crooppleman.
>> Um,
yeah, I guess the first two items um
sort of strike me as things that
cultural services might have requested
itself. Um, you know, so I guess I'm
curious for the first one.
um you know, if we left our staffing as
it is, you know, do we feel like we're
going to have to reduce the number of
events that we're putting on or can we
maintain what we did in this last year?
Um and then likewise for the second one,
right, if we don't put a little more
money behind uh those events, are we
going to have to cut back on them in in
this coming year?
>> Yeah. So these were also areas that
cultural services identified as service
level reductions in preparation for a
neutral budget. And so without
investment, we will have to see
reduction in programs offered to the
community. We just aren't able to
continue to do more with less at this
point. Um our hope is to find ways to
make that as mutually impactful to the
community as possible. Maybe we can team
up with other departments to help cost
share or people share. Um, we've been
continuing to look at ways to activate
volunteers, um, get those into our
communities. The city's working hard on
updating their volunteer processes and
policies to help us with that. But
overall, at this point, we are beyond
capacity and we remain beyond capacity.
» Other comments or questions? Yes,
Council Member Ra. I I think at minimum
we should do the the middle item. Um
maintaining the same level of Fourth and
Fourth of July and summer concerts. I
know um we would hear I think a lot from
folks if those were
um scaled back significantly from what
they are now.
» Yes, Council Member Kurt.
>> So I'm curious. So, you're mentioning um
specific with the Fourth of July,
there's three primary cost components.
The food trucks, the music, and the
fireworks. I thought the fireworks were
donated to the city. Is there
marginally?
>> No, I I'm not sure where that
information might have come from.
Fireworks cost us $18,000.
>> Oh, that's not that bad. Um Okay. So,
then and like
where where's like the cost to the city
for the food trucks?
>> Yeah. So, actually to clarify what I was
saying that this coming year's Fourth of
July would only be fireworks and food
trucks.
>> Oh, because we wouldn't be able to apply
any of our music. We wouldn't be able to
have any bands. We wouldn't have any
bounce houses or family entertainment.
It would just be food trucks, fireworks,
golf cart course fees.
>> Yeah. And I have that breakdown of those
numbers if you'd like me to run through
them.
>> And what do you think the cut back is in
the summer concerts that you're
suggesting if we don't increase the
budget?
We rolled back to four when the budget
was reduced in 2025. Um, four is
manageable with reduction of maybe other
events as well. So things that might be
on the table are things like block
party, the world music series. There's
some wintertime events that we do. Um,
the silent movie that's rather popular
at the art center that happens in
October. So overall, it's, you know,
it's that domino effect of trying to
figure out what we can prioritize and
maintain. So, if we aren't able to
afford the increase for this, at least
maybe the whole amount, maybe just
enough just to do the Fourth of July. It
is possible though for you to cost shift
into maintaining the summer concerts
versus some of the other items that you
just mentioned.
>> Possibly.
>> Yeah, because I agree. I think the
summer concert series is we I mean, we
consistently hear how popular that is
and and you know, what a draw and an
interesting thing on a Thursday night.
So I I would I mean I I hear about it
more than mo than a lot of other events
that the city sponsors. So um my guess
is that it would be a disappointment if
we couldn't continue with it. I don't
know if that means the extra funding has
to come in be added to the budget but
instead taken from some other areas in
my opinion.
» Other comments.
>> Yes. Council member Coopermanman.
Uh, one little question. If we shift it
to something like a drone show, do you
know if that would be more expensive or
less expensive?
>> The smallest available drone show on the
front range is $15,000 outside of our
current fireworks budget.
>> So, be more expensive.
>> More expensive. Yes. Okay, that's
interesting. Um,
>> that's another discussion, but I was
just curious. Um, but I I I tend to
agree I with Council Member Hefner. Um I
would like to try to fund the middle
item to some extent.
» Other comments
of public art.
>> Go ahead.
>> I would agree with that also to fund the
center item, but I would also be
interested in at least going to
part-time to a full-time on that first
position. the events coordinator.
» I appreciate that. I do want to speak to
the fact that while funding the
additional um costs of inflation for
events does not give us the body
resources that we need. So to to council
member's point there, um staffing is is
a sort of a tandem situation because
there's 29 events throughout the
community every year and 1.5 people. uh
we tend to run up into our allowance for
how often we're able to work our part-
timerrs. So, that becomes quite a
challenge.
» It sounds like we have a consensus on
the middle one. Um
this is a hard one. Uh I think um
because I I think having staff there to
do events is really important. I think
public art, we've heard certainly from
the public over and over again about
that, but it's not the priority that
others other items
elsewhere in the budget um are. And I
know that
director, you've gone through and these
aren't in your current requests or the
part you're requesting. That's
But in um I guess qu one question for
you is um this is a board and commission
request. Um
you've cons you've reviewed these as
part of your own analysis right in terms
of priorities.
>> Correct. So, while these requests didn't
come through our budget process, these
have been internal requests as we've
been looking at um department
restructuring and what we can do to best
utilize what resources we have available
to align our resource level with our
output. So, um these these numbers are accurate to our pay and to our
policies. Yes.
I mean on the public art um there's
nothing certainly that stops community
members from collectively acting to
>> um potentially provide um
funding that might be used consistent
with our own policies.
>> We are working through those policies.
Currently that level of donation policy
for the city is not in place. So, we're
working through those processes.
>> City manager.
>> Um, just something I'd like to note,
too. You know, I really appreciate
everything that Director Cummings does
and her department does. This is a hard
conversation and this is a hard
conversation for her staff to listen to.
Um, part of that is because on the flip
side, we approve increases for chamber
contract. We approve increases for DBA
contracts. We're going to be bringing
forward to you a request from the DBA to
give them an additional $35,000 for the
ice rink for last year. Um because they
are short that amount for that. They're
going to be requesting additional
funding for the ice rink for this year.
They're going to be requesting
additional funding for street fair. And
so really this comes down to is
council's priority city events? Is
council's priority the broader city
events that are being put on by multiple
organizations? And sometimes I feel like
we give um director Cummings mixed
messages in terms of what we support and
we're looking for more definitive. If
you want cultural services to be in
charge of these events, then we need to
provide them the ability to do so or we
need to talk about events that we can
cut
or are we going to put more funds
towards these events that are run by
other agencies and then we're we're
great with what they can do with what
they have. And so this is again this is
that conversation of these are going
back to writer's early slide about some
difficult conversations. This is one of
those difficult items because nobody
feels good talking about this.
>> I I was going to make a suggestion about
this. I'd be very interested in how
council might think about this. Um
clearly we've we have I think consensus
about the second item. Um I wonder as
we're consider you know as we consider
those other um items that you were
talking about potential requests from
DBA and so forth whether we might maybe
revisit this in the with under the
perhaps broader umbrella of events. we
might be able to conceivably make a
policy
decision um related to that and have a
little bit more wholesome discussion.
It's one of the things that's hard about
this is just the way it works and the
time space continuum. I think it was
described uh in one
council meeting is that we're not we
don't have all of the like things to
compare with, right? and you've brought
it up and I do appreciate that. Um, so I
would just suggest maybe we come back,
you know, we give the guidance [snorts]
that we all I think have a consensus
about and then maybe talk about the
other two and whatever else
relates to events and the balance
between city sponsored events, city
staffed events and those sponsored
staffed outside agencies that get money
from us.
Yeah.
>> Does that sound like something first
that
>> that does that sounds like a good
approach? Another option would be if you
wanted to fund some of these with
one-time funds, recognizing it's just
for this budget cycle as we during this
next two-year period work through some
of these items and gives us time to work
through them. That would give you the
opportunity to continue provide director
Cummings the resources that she needs
for the next two years as we then
evaluate Sundance and evaluate these
other items that will occur during this
budget period.
» We might be able to do that along with
the other items. No, I mean I I don't
want to hold up the process to too much,
but I mean it's we're going to be
dealing with that in the budget
process. Maybe doing all of what we've
been talking about together. What you
just mentioned, what I mentioned, um
might work.
>> Yes, Council Member F.
>> Yeah, I I agree. I mean, I think we
should fund the first two items here for
both years of this budget with the
expectation that, you know, we'll
revisit them as we consider this
from a from a higher level perspective.
Um, but but these are highly visible,
very important events to the community.
It's, you know,
delivering water is very important and
very good. It doesn't generate a lot of
joy or excitement. These generate a lot
of joy and excitement. It's a relatively
modest amount of money in terms of
everything we're looking at. And I I
just
I think we've got to do it for this
budget cycle and we should have the the
more detailed conversation about where
all of all of these dollars are going
and DBA and street fair and so on. Um
but
I think it would be a mistake to to let
these dwindle. So, my only concern with
the first one um by only approving it
for the next two years is that that
actually creates an employment challenge
um unless we're saying let's approve
either another part-time person to help
with the events because that's a really
easy thing to hire somebody just for a
season or two seasons or what have you.
I think making somebody a full-time
employee that is not going to change and
the expectation should be then that
that's a permanent change. We could do a
limited term where it's for a two-year
period and that would give us the
opportunity to then re-evaluate at the
end of that two-year period.
>> My only concern is if it's like we have
a part-time person, it's as an existing
part-time coordinator. If that person
has the expectation that they're now
full-time, I I almost feel like it's an
uh like an unfair teaser to say, well,
for two years if you'll do it, it's
full-time. So, stop whatever else you're
doing to help you, you know, make a
living. And then we're in two years we
come up with a completely different
restructure. and then that person no
longer has their full-time job. I would
that seems I mean unless that individual
and the director knows that that
individual like no I would love the
opportunity to work only for two years
full-time. Uh but I just I I can imagine
if I was that person that would be very
confusing for me. So that's my that's my
only concern with approving the
employment.
>> Well and and I I agree with that. I mean
I guess I would just I would go back to
what I suggested initially which is do
the second one. Um, I think it's it's
hard to do force planning on the fly
just like it is. And I wonder whether,
you know, as a function of how we choose
to deal with outside organizations that
the director may have a sense that, oh,
you know, one FTE is not going to be
enough or maybe it's going to be 1.5 or
some or or god forbid less. I I would
hate to push you into that position and
then have to re
uh discuss it later. Um because we don't
have to make that decision today. I
think it's better to have all the
information
with us at once.
>> Yes, me.
>> Yeah, I really quite like the idea of
having like all events under an umbrella
to evaluate it. Um,
and the other thing I wanted to say is
my initial question about, you know, are
boards and commissions aware of our
budgetary constraints was by no mean
directed specifically at this board. You
guys just happen to be the first ones.
Uh, but I just wanted to ask the
question upfront and really apply that
to to all the boards and commissions
just so so we can understand what their
expectations were when they submitted
all of these requests. So
» um
consensus
how I mean are you comfortable with I
mean it sounds like it's some of us
interested in
>> mayor if I may please
>> I heard that we want to follow up on the
larger picture and we want to follow up
on potentially funding with one time
Yeah, go ahead. Ju
>> just pushing off the whole decision for
later.
>> That's what I heard. I thought I heard
fund with one time and then follow up on
big picture, but I there was a lot of
waffling on that.
>> Okay.
>> I was in favor. I like the idea of at a
minimum the event inflation for the next
two years. So that that said so the
plans can get so the plans can get made.
Um, my only concern was saying yes for
the next two years from from an employee
perspective was converting somebody from
a part-time position into a full-time.
That's a that's a bigger thing. So, I
mean, if I would be in favor of a second
part-time person because that's a much
easier thing to do just for a two-year
cycle. Um, and then over the next year
or so, mayor, have the big like this
year rather, have the big conversation
about all of these events. I thought
that's what we would do, but let's fund
these the second line item definitely
perhaps even a part-time person which is
the first one just for now so that
director Cummings can make plans and
move forward. Yeah,
>> I' I'd recommend funding both and then
as staff we're happy to work with HR and
Director Cummings on the best way to do
that position keeping in mind the HR
concerns.
>> Yeah, and I was what I was referring to
is not th kicking that can way down the
road. It was just that maybe when you're
coming back with some of these other
things within this
budget development that we deal with it.
But I'm I you know I'm I'm fine. I would
like to hear from the director if she's
comfortable with that way of proceeding
uh whether there's some cost to it. I'm
not trying to screw up. The last thing
is screwing up your own planning and
budgeting. That's not my interest. It's efficiency.
>> No, I think much like deputy city
manager said, we with a one-time
allocation for both the first and the
second um we could work within our city
processes and with HR to determine how
that additional whether it's turning
someone full-time or additional
part-time coordinator um position would
work best with our own policy and
practice.
>> Okay, fair enough. Thank you. Um so with
that
is there consensus for the two first
two. All right. Good.
>> All right. Direction received and
process. Go ahead.
Continuing on. We have four more boards.
Uh we have 20 minutes. So I just want to
put that in perspective. And if uh if
some of this leaks to a future meeting
uh you just you just let us know. I
don't want to rush you, but I just want
you to know how much time we have left.
>> Just use nouns and verbs. [laughter]
>> So, in the interest of time, I'll cover
elab here. This board was aware of our
financial situation, and I think they
were very thoughtful in their requests.
Their first request was to add grants to
the sustainable neighborhood networks.
This is a service level reduction that
council has given us direction to
pursue. Um, water conservation programs
in commercial and both residential were
items they were looking at. We do know
that public works and utilities is doing
some water conservation programming. So
there might be some work there. Um
sustainability specialists and volunteer
recruitment. They wanted this both for
support of the sustainability programs
and for that volunteer coordination need
which we heard as a follow-up item that
council has been interested in. And then
that is it. I was going to start into
Ozap.
>> Thoughts from council.
the the first three strike me as fairly
small ticket items. That doesn't mean we
should be approving them or not, but I
they are relatively small. The the the
fourth I'm mindful that
there is
there were a lot of discussion among
staff about positions. We had a
discussion on council about how many
more FTEEs or even part-time positions
we add and I I guess I'm based on an
ELSAB request and I think ELSAB is I
mean I appreciate they're suggesting
this. I just would kind of expect that would have been already in the
suggestions by staff if it were a
priority. Um, and so I I think that one
I would be uh certainly would want to
just take off our further consideration
>> today.
>> The others we could talk about if you
want.
>> I agree with your reasoning.
Other council comments about these three
or are they worth if I mean is there
consensus to take off the sustainability
uh specialist as a additional request
for funds?
Yeah, me rep member Tim.
>> I feel like uh
Sam's presentation to me the way I
interpreted it as we already made a
decision on the top row line item. Um
the next two are can be encompassed in
some capacity with some of the work that
Kurt and his team is doing. I think you
made great points about the part-time
position. So for me at this point in
time I don't see the need to to
designate funds for these particular
items
>> and I agree with that other
>> I agree.
>> All right we can move on.
>> Moving on to our third advisory board.
This is open space advisory board.
Within this one you'll note on the far
right many of these are included in the
existing model. With that, I will turn
it over to Adam or to council if you
have any questions for director
Blackmore.
>> I'll go first. Uh, so to Mayor Pro Tim's
question earlier, the reason why you do
see a lot of yeses on this, number one,
we appreciate the support and saying
yes, but we also align our CIP request
process internally with OSAB's review.
So a number of these are put forward in
a memo as a level of support for what
staff is already submitting for
consideration. So that's why you may see
an inordinate inordinate amount of
yeses. It's not just because open space
is the greatest. There is a process that
leads to an alignment with staff's
request and OABS. Um so you've seen all
of the yeses as we've gone through uh
the um capital plan as a component of
the open space fund review. Um the nose
on here, there are a couple staff
positions. Again, uh the project manager
position um isn't currently in the model
because it is in some of those duties
are incorporated into the deputy model.
Um and the ranger naturalist was a
potential push out to a 2028 or a 2029
request as we expand our trail mileage.
So, it's kind of tied to um the need for
additional rangers um with increased uh
trail inventory that we currently don't
have. Um you see the natural resource
technician as mentioned is a yes. Um the
other no was just a prioritization of
where to allocate uh potential future
trail money to and the community
connections went over as a priority um
in in our mind and in discussions with
OSAB over some of the regional trail
cost that comes along with this and as
dire city manager Langley discussed um
there's still a further evaluation
needed for the volunteer and education
coordinator positions. So, that's a
recap of where we got to with OSAD.
>> Are um well, first, are there any
council questions? And second, if there
aren't, are council members comfortable
with the um priorities that have already
been set and discussed previously or or
at least by implication and not adding
these. Go ahead, Council Member.
>> Great. Thanks. Um, actually appreciate
that you guys coordinated with the board
with a lot of this. It it it actually
really helps with the process. Um, I was
curious about it's new trails,
neighborhood connections is part of the
225,000 we're asking for, but new trails
and it says safety, access, and road
improvements. Um, what the safety and
access seems like a high priority with
new trails. I'm I'm just not
understanding how that's not already
built into that.
That's um that didn't move forward
because it's not a OSAP purview. It's
not an open space purview to discuss
crosswalks and that kind of thing. So,
as a recommended use of open space
funds, that wouldn't be something that
we would
>> That's what that means.
>> Oh, that's why I was I would just I had
no idea what it meant that that meant
crosswalk.
>> It's a component of the trail system,
but it wouldn't be under the purview of
OSAP to provide
>> it's where public works has already like
they a lot of intersections where
they've already improvement.
>> Okay. Thank you.
Wonderful. Uh, keeping Director
Blackmore in the hot seat, we have the
Recreation Advisory Board requests.
>> [snorts]
>> Okay, so this is the wreck advisory
board. Um, again, same kind of a process
uh with this particular board that we
just mentioned with the open space
advisory board. So, we take a look at
the uh previous six-year CIP and kind of
build out the next six-year CIP. um RAB
um has been more inclined to provide
recommended projects in their memo to
bring awareness to a desire of future um
future desires, if you will, versus
immediate approval. Um hence, you know,
the $7 million for soccer and multi-use
fields is meant to illustrate that um
that's a high priority for them as
future development and future
infrastructure needs. Um we did fund
until recently a couple of these. Um the
clubhouse pre-esign as you can see was
originally in the model. Um per the
direction today that'll be removed from
the model. Uh we have included um per
the discussion and then the um confirmed
support from RAB the potential for a
puck and stick court of some sort to uh
replace the inline rink that's being
converted to pickle ball. um that's
built into the model and put into the
2028 budget uh with a placeholder for
funding. Um still to be determined that
location that would be a component of
that project. Um and then city manager
Langley touched on the water rights uh
item for Cole Creek golf course. Um
we've elected at this point in time not
to include funding for site plan review
of the park parcel at Red Tail Ridge.
That'll be a future budget ask um with
some level of alignment to the long
range plans desires from the community.
And the Centennial Park tennis courts,
two new courts, again, that's just not a
cost that we're able to bear in the
funds at this moment and um will be
considered in future expansion again
based on community feedback from the
long-range plan.
I'm not sure I understood what you just
said.
>> Well, there's clubhouse pre-esign that's
coming off the list and I thought water
rights were off the list, too. Is that
not right?
>> Water rights are listed already in an
unfunded
>> Okay.
>> list. The only one that was funded
initially in the model that we've been
asked to take off today is the clubhouse
pre-esign.
>> Okay.
All right. At any rate,
what are thoughts about adding any of
these
um that are already not already
in
um
I guess yeses in the final?
Well,
is there any interest in adding any of
the ones that are not already baked into
the draft or but baked into the requests
that you've made,
» council member current?
>> So, I I don't I I have an interest, but
I want to clarify. I don't believe
there's the budget. We've heard for
years now the request for the tennis
courts and I think it was the number one
priority from the rec advisory board
when we met with them um was to be able
to move that forward.
Uh I would love if there was a way and
we found the funding through capital
improvements to do this because I
recognize the community's need and the
uh the board's request repeatedly for
this pro and it the fact that um they
have presented and I think this would be
correct director Blackmore that the
tennis courts could produce revenue for
the city if used for the tennis
association.
>> They would potentially. Yeah. I I also
would guess just for your reference that 1.5 million is a low estimate based
on um some of the earthwork and the
grading that we think we would need to
do out there to add these. So it's also
not in there because I think it needs a
deeper dive into the actual cost
projection.
>> Okay. Yeah. So that I just wanted to say
there's not lack of interest. I just
realize there's lack of funding. Thank
you.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I I would just also note
really quick that um if the desire is
for more tennis courts, that'll be
reflected in the longrange plan and
could be incorporated into future park
site development that may be a little
more efficient with the construction.
» Okay. Um it sounds like we have a
consensus not to add
um further based on their requests.
Okay. Next,
>> our final board request is the
Historical Museum Advisory Board. It's
on the screen now. There's some uh
potential impacts with the uh outcome of
the tax, but for additional color, I'll
turn it over to Director Cummings.
>> Director Blackmore and I closing you
guys out today. Um so HMAB also had
submitted a request this year looking
for staffing support um this last year
and actually every year for the last
five years the museum's associates have
seen 100% turnover year after year which
brings some continuity issues um both in
supporting the community and doing in
our work to support historic
preservation. So, the ask was to
increase one of our part-time positions
to full-time to again retain some of our
local talent or to add one additional
full-time position um to to the team.
Should the historic preservation tax
pass, this could be covered by that.
Should it not, HMAB would still love to
see if council has appetite for
supporting that staffing increase. Um
we've talked at length about storage
offsite. Again, um with the historic
preservation tax, there's opportunity to
offset some of that increasing inflation
costs to museum operations. And then
much like our friends at RAB, um the
staff workspaces and offices and program
event space are more of an aspirational
awareness recognizing that in the 2017
museum expansion plan, um there was a
great desire from the community to see
more spaces available for programming
for our historical preservation museum
and those programs together.
>> Any questions?
It would appear that the first two are
um maybe
um sort of premature to include in the
budget. Um we could include it in the
budget right now, but we maybe need not.
Is there a particular cost to uh the
operations
if we don't include those before the tax
passes? Um, no, not if there's no
additional like service level reduction
that happens should the tax pass. Should
the tax not pass, we come back to
service level reduction conversation. So
right now that directly impacts our
public education and programming that
would be greatly reduced.
So, I guess my proposal on this would be
to without um passing judgment on the
first two, maybe even expressing an
interest in those, we wait until the
historic uh preservation tax uh result
and then address the these two and then
otherwise
um leave the other two off.
Yes.
» Yeah. Okay. Looks like we've got um
we've got a consensus on that one. So um
did we really finish that with four
minutes to
>> I could I could bring us home now. Again
our eyes were bigger than our plate for
the capital improvement plan discussion
development and priorization. Do you
have all these materials in the packet?
Um if so moving forward, why don't we
hop to next steps, we will jump over the
capital slides. We will carve out some
time at the I just connected with the
clerk the August 11th council meeting so
we can engage the full city council to
go through um CIP refinement and
development. So now between now and then
you are welcome to go through the
materials to this packet where every
capital project is listed hyperl and
with the the pages and we can really uh
spend the appropriate amount of time to
discuss uh the capital plan. Uh beyond
that meeting on onx August 11th which on
the slide is date TBD. Um August 20th
we'll have a finance committee. We'll
have a recap of all of that work.
September 1st, we are targeting the city
manager's recommended budget
presentation, budget public hearing on
the third Tuesday of October with
adoption plan for Monday, November 2nd.
Um, again, this was a lot of time. I'm
truly appreciative of all of your
engagement and energy through this
process. We'll have some more work to
do. Um,
that's everything we had to cover today.
>> Um, anything else that council members
have questions
otherwise? All right. I'll just add that
I really appreciate all of staff again,
the public um for um thoughts that
they've provided to us. Um, council
members, boards, and commissions
um look forward to the next thing and um really appreciate our everybody's
working together to hit the budget of
time that we uh set for this. Um and
hopefully give uh our W 2
representatives
uh time to catch their breath before the
W 2 meeting tonight. And it's being held
where?
>> Relish.
>> We're going to be at Relish. Not
>> anybody who's there who's online and
here or otherwise
>> grab a bite, grab a drink, and grab a
meeting.
>> Yeah. [laughter]
>> Amen. All right. Do we have a motion to
adjourn?
>> So moved.
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> I. Any opposed? Thank you, everybody.