[0:01] There we go. I call this meeting to order this city council special meeting and budget work session. And I'm going to take a roll call at this time. Mayor Pro tem, are you here?

[0:16] Mayor Pro tem Kevin, she'll be joining us in a second. Mr. Joyner, are you here? Councilmember Andrews, are you here? Councilmember Lao, are you here? Councilmember Santa, are you here? Here. Councilmember Clinton, are you here? And the chairs here. We have a quorum we're hearing on counter for at this time. We're going to turn this meeting over to our city manager.

[0:40] Miss. Halt! Miss all. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of council, there was a request to move a little faster through these. Q and so we will do that, but certainly want to give them the air that they are due and also talk about some of these things to get them on the record. So we will scroll through these.

[0:59] I do I'm going to skip questions one and two, because we'll be talking about them a little bit later.

[1:07] So if we can go down to a question three, there were a lot of questions about the the appeals for revaluation and sort of what categories that fell into. So I believe that the table also partially extends below. Dylan, if you can see what's on the other one. So so if you look at that there are a number of active versus closed appeals that are in process.

[1:33] So all the ones that are active have not been settled yet. The highest number was for process was single family residential that there are about 16 of those. But when you look at the potential financial impact of these, you're really looking at your apartments at some of the higher residential properties, between 1 and 5 million in valuation as well as some of our industrial properties.

[2:01] And so it really kind of varies, but there is not a significant number of lower valued properties that are going through the appeals process still. So the majority of these are higher in value still to be settled. If you scroll down to close, these are the ones that have been settled. These were the determinations and where it landed.

[2:22] So out of the 40 closed residential appeals that were valued at less than $500,000. It was a total loss of about 656,000, spread across all 40 of those. But when you look down, the biggest one that impacts the loss of revenue because of the reduction in valuation is a residential property valued at north of $50 million. That alone, they reduced that valuation by 30 million.

[2:53] So that is about two thirds two, excuse me, 3/5 of the current appeals that are closed to date. And we will keep moving unless you all have questions. Again, just a request for the tax rate changes over time. As you can see, we have had increases as high as about 2.9 $0.02. But with revaluation each of the start years, the tax rate has then been lowered.

[3:22] So in the past ten years, we have been as high as 49.8 $0.04 per 100, and we currently sit at 28.25. After last year's revaluation. Mayor, I know you wanted a map for this one that is still in progress, so we will get that to you just as soon as we have it. But the question was about which properties are exempt from property taxes.

[3:45] Within Wilmington, about 2.8 billion is federal, state or local government as you as you look down, we have another 1.2 billion that are hospital properties. And then the others are some lower amounts. But the total amount of Nontaxable property within the city of Wilmington sits at about $5.6 billion. You did get the map. Oh pardon me. Oh, surprise of the morning.

[4:16] Is this it right here? Yes, yes, thank you for that. I didn't realize that that had been completed. The ones in green are the ones that are tax exempt. Correct? That would be correct. Props to our GIS team for churning that out in like a day. That is amazing.

[4:36] So obviously you and CW takes up a large portion of that. That would be a large portion of the amount that is considered local, state or federal Nontaxable when you spread this out. And I don't know if GIS could could have done this, but when you spread it out through the entire county, would you say that the vast majority of it is in the city?

[4:57] I'm sure that I'm sure there's tax exempt property, obviously, in the county and the unincorporated areas, I should say also. Correct? Yeah. But the vast majority of it would be would be in the city. I think the question would be, how would you count some of that outer barrier island area? I don't know that all of that is really buildable, even though that state owned Mason Islands.

[5:22] Right. But but just that it's out of city limits. So so so it does give me a pretty a better view of maybe some of the county properties to. Okay, okay. It's pretty significant. Can you go back to that list? Sure. For the tax exempt or the the appeals. So I have always mentioned churches to me and them having tax exempt properties and not utilizing them to the benefit of the entire community and necessarily agree with them about how people should do whatever with their property.

[6:05] But I just wanted to see if we have a dollar amount there for a church. So you've got about 357 million that is considered religious right. 357 million. Wow. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. That's tax value. So that's not a fair market value. That's tax value right. No I was just going to say and not including the religious schools educational.

[6:39] Religious. Yeah. And they were also talking about the smaller churches. And I guess most churches have some real estate. And they do whatever they decide to do with the most, just maintain them. But they've been entertaining ideas about development and things of that nature, which I don't feel that they should be pressured to do that, but I did.

[7:02] I just I want to ask that question. So I want to clarify my understanding on this. The assessed value of Wilmington is about 35 billion and about 5 billion, 5.5 billion of that is tax exempt. That's what we're looking at here. But that was on top of that. It would be on top of that. So so the 35 billion assessed value does not include the tax exempt okay.

[7:26] Got it. Thank you. That's what I wanted to make sure I understand.

[7:32] Okay. We will instead of scrolling Dillon we'll get to appendix A in just a minute. So we'll just keep going. Whoops. If you can go yeah. Go back to question seven. There was a question about when appeals need to be received. That deadline has passed. It was May 14th at five. So we do expect to have all of the appeals processed by the end of June.

[7:57] But that will of course be after we have adopted a budget. The total cost to outfit police and firefighters. It's about 37 for for a firefighter recruit, and it is 192,000 for a police officer. A lot of that comes down to firefighters going to be sharing a firetruck. A police officer would have an individual patrol are allowed that for friends.

[8:25] But but yeah, every everyone that you see driving around is about $200,000 just to just to get them rolling.

[8:35] Design and construction. This is a project that I know y'all get asked about a lot. So third and an streets putting a traffic signal there that is expected to be completed in November of 2026. So that is in progress. Looking at retirement, about 5% of police and fire are eligible for retirement within the next year, and about 17% in the next five years, which is a substantial amount of institutional and community knowledge that we expect to lose through the natural attrition of retirement.

[9:11] New Hanover County's current minimum rate. We did say that that was higher. Looking at their pay charts, it does appear to be $17 an hour. I had a conversation with the county manager. This was some months ago, but he said that they had moved to a living wage a couple of years ago. So that's where we are. But they are still paying some folks $17 an hour.

[9:34] Excuse me. Going back to the 17. And I remember when we established that even here with because it's gone, said the that's the minimum that we would ever pay anybody. Correct? Correct. So both governments have that minimum second rate of 17. And now.

[9:53] And that includes.

[9:59] That includes part time temporary I mean it does. So.

[10:07] Looking at some of our hard to fill positions this was pretty enlightening when HR pulled this. So equipment operators and some of our it's which is our traffic signal technicians are some of our hardest to fill positions. They are open for very long periods of time. And when you look at our average pay for the people filling those roles, compared to local market analysis of what they expect the pay to be or what it is locally, as well as the Bureau of Statistics for North Carolina, we are low compared to those.

[10:46] So part of the strategy in the proposal related to living wage is absolutely, fundamentally about competitive wages and lifting the pay scales up so that these base wages are listed in a way that are compelling enough that people want to apply. But right now, they are low enough that we continue to struggle to get these positions filled.

[11:18] We we were asked to look at the extending the laptops to a five year replacement plan, and doing that would save $40,600. So we do. We'll talk at the end about additions and subtractions to the budget, and this will be one that we'll talk about to see if council supports that. Unless you all know that you support it, we can jot it down and know to include it.

[11:46] I think we should talk about it. Perfect okay. No problem. We will do that.

[11:52] Asked to look at where folks come from. Very limited data. We only capture that in a couple of lots. I won't go through that just in the interest of time, but it is definitely a mix of local and then far, far away because we are very much a vacation destination.

[12:12] So so on the text of park and on the parking decks of the city owns most people that are parking. Parking, you know, they're putting in their license plate so they don't they haven't capture all of that data to be able to show us. So. So if you go into a parking deck, you just take a ticket and then pay when you're done.

[12:32] So that's not capturing the license plate with the current technology that we use. Chance. Is there anything to add to that? I see you sure. Yeah. You were on your way.

[12:50] Mr. Mayor. So the question was, we're not capturing are we capturing everything essentially. So we only use text to park in three areas of our parking system or two areas, really, the two parking lots, the old ligand Flynn parking lot on second Street, the Hanna block lot and our on street parking. And out of those three Texas parks, only about 4,243% of those transactions.

[13:16] So this is just a snapshot of of of those transactions in the parking decks. There aren't mobile payments. It's just credit card in cash. So we're not capturing that through our parking equipment provider. So so the parking program that we have, I think I think the same company that takes care of Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach, correct. And other places, are they doing a better job in capturing where their people are coming, where people are coming from that are parking, so they are managing the beach parking?

[13:50] I wouldn't say a better job. Not at all. They are managing the beach parking in a similar fashion to our on street and parking lots. So Surf City, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina beach, Myrtle Beach, there's no structured parking, there's no gated equipment, which means there's no mobile pay being used at those locations. At those beach communities, its surface lots and street parking, which is exactly what we're capturing here.

[14:16] So they're capturing the data because they have to put in the license plate. Yeah, right. Yes. It's only a piece. They're only managing a piece of our full parking program. But the pieces that we're not capturing are the decks. Correct? Correct. And this is zip code related, not license plate related. They're pulling the information from from the zip code on the transactions.

[14:38] Well, I mean, since we're a high tourist area, I would, I think to be fair to the council and to because we have to make adjustments to rates from time to time, I think we need to make certain that we understand exactly where these folks are coming from, because it has a definite impact. So if people coming in from out of town, which are a great thing and they're spending money, still have an issue with the 20% of sales tax revenue we're receiving, as opposed to 50% of it saying that, I think one of the ways to capture some of that back is what the beaches are doing, which is capturing it back on their

[15:09] parking rates. And I just I want to make sure that we're not harming our citizens, but that also want to make certain that the folks that are using the service, we have a clear understanding of where they're coming from and how much is it? Is it 50% is a 60% is a 70%, because I have a feeling that is probably higher than what we think, but we don't.

[15:29] We can't capture because we don't have the data here unless something if you were to spread, if you were to assume within some percentage points of what we captured and on street and the two lots and spread it across, which is probably fair, might be some some up and downs with some percentage points. I would say that a hefty percentage of our parking transactions are local in the county, city, immediate area.

[16:00] I mean I don't I don't the the number if you scroll up they I think budget grouped the individuals that goes into MSA general areas. But you can see the Wilmington number there by far exceeds the others. And I think eight out of the top ten zip codes on that list that we pulled were city or county zip codes.

[16:22] Yeah. We have to also look at it from the perspective is if somebody in the county, the unincorporated areas that is not a citizen of the city of Wilmington and they're coming in, I consider that to be when they're using the service out of the people that have to pay for these, the maintenance of these, of these parking decks and what have you.

[16:40] So I look at that as, yeah, they may be from the Wilmington area because everybody has a lot of people have Wilmington addresses, but how many of them live in this actual city and how many live right outside the city limits, which is, you know, one of the reasons we had annexation way back when, that we could capture that as as a community became more urban in nature.

[17:01] But of course, obviously that changed in 2010. So I just want to make sure that we're capturing, we need to capture. Yeah, we don't have the super granular in terms of county versus city. We can only see it by zip code right now. And that's that's a blend in some cases. So so page 124 of the original recommended budget includes a $375,000 expenditure from the parking fund for updating technology and equipment for city parking.

[17:28] So are you going to be or facilities? Are you going to be able to capture some of that with that upgrade? Yes, sir. The intent would be to similar to skyline, some of that we are pulling data from skyline because it's a gate even though it's structured. I've got to mention that it's a gate less facility. So they are using the mobile pay and a portion of the intent of this, of this technology upgrade is to go to more of a either gate list of blended gate and gate, gate less gate gated and gave us in our structured parking decks.

[18:00] And in those cases we would then activate mobile pay across the board where we where we where we see a solution. So yes. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Jane. Sure. There were a lot of questions about parks and recreation fees last time. There's some additional information that is provided, as well as what some of the reimbursement or assistance programs are that exist for that.

[18:30] Wanted to see if there were any additional questions related to fees for our parks and recreation programs. Yeah, I'm looking at.

[18:44] Information provided in the table in that section. And it says that there's a comparison of youth athletics and youth and adult single day events in 2026. I'm sorry. Do you mind speaking into the mic to get it recorded? So, you know, you just got a physical year 2026. Yeah. Programs were conducted as listed in the youth athletics table.

[19:07] There were no single day event programs conducted in fiscal year 26. There was a regional basketball tournament planned but not held due to limited registration, and it is projected that the new MLK center becomes better known throughout the region. This type of single day event and others will be become will become more prevalent. So again, my question is the disparity in that fee change compared to other successful programs, athletic programs that we may have throughout the city like tennis at entry park, golf at Muni, things of that nature?

[19:47] It's still not addressing why such a steep increase, the single day increase from up to 60 to up to 100, was primarily driven by staff wishing to host Swac basketball tournaments that you're probably familiar with it. Those are statewide athletic competitions, and we benchmarked what other cities were charging for those basketball tournament registration fees, and they were $100.

[20:17] So that was the primary driver in increasing it from 60 to 100. But in the table where the you see the bulk of our youth athletic programs, those we consider are still very affordable at either free or up to $35 currently. We don't anticipate raising those much this year, but we do recommend having a range just in case there's an anticipated new program through a grant or so forth, and so that we give ourselves the flexibility to have a range of costs or expenses, not changing them much.

[20:54] So there's a there's the anticipation for some change, just not much. I would not anticipate anything that you see in that table to change. And again, I want to make sure that council understands there's there's a few different recreation athletic fees in the fee schedule and they're meant to address different things. And so again the single day charge from 60 to $100 being recommended is for something like a basketball tournament with a team registration.

[21:29] The fees that you're seeing for our youth program that we run for athletics, I don't anticipate those changing. All right. Do we have pickleball tournaments there or outside? We currently don't have pickleball tournaments because we recently built new pickleball courts, dedicated pickleball courts at Olson Park, and last year converted the tennis courts at Greenfield to solely pickleball courts.

[21:57] We have added a pickleball tournament fee to the fee schedule. There's a lot of pickleball being played within the city. We do know that, right? Yes. So are we capital? I mean, are we capitalizing because we're looking at this saying, hey, we anticipate basketball tournaments coming to our returning to our facilities, but there is something that's happening that we could capitalize off of.

[22:21] And you're exactly right. That's and that's why we added that pickleball tournament fee to the fee schedule. In our recommendations for FY 27, there are several other successful athletic things that are taking place that we've only minimized the the fee increase. And so my main concern, which since I've been on council, has been just the flow of the money that goes back to the facility.

[22:45] And so I would rather have seen that change than to see this increase that says, hey, this will support adding new employees or the fee structure that goes back to the facility. So we also did increase that this year. So with youth athletic programs, were recommending that 20% of that of those registration fees stay with the facilities where they're collected, such as MLK center.

[23:12] We went because, you know, like I know that that allocation was $1 and the lowest was started at $1. I think it went to $5. And again, that's because there's a balancing act of we want to keep the youth athletic programs affordable, and we have an obligation to not decrease funding that was being contributed to the general fund by Parks and Recreation.

[23:39] So it's a balancing act of how much we can increase that committed revenue. But we have a practice of any time we're increasing recommending increasing fees. We correspondingly recommend increasing the committed revenue to stay with those facilities. Committed revenue at this point is $5. We're we're recommending that it go to 20%. Give me a dollar amount. So for 20% of $35, $5 right now I'd have to verify that.

[24:10] I think that's what it's at. But I'd have to verify that again. There's so there's so many different parks and recreation fees in the fee schedule. I don't want to misspeak. So it would be 20% of any fee collected, which would be higher than $5 except for maybe 18 new basketball we got. So if it's $35, it's $7 that we would collect toward.

[24:34] That's correct. Yeah. And the reason that the 18 year basketball is a little bit less than many others is by the time we get to that point, sometimes the child, you know, 18 year old is paying themselves instead of parents paying. So that's why we reduce it when it gets to that. That makes sense. Thank you. And we are proposing to add staff to all of our recreation facilities.

[24:58] So they will all have a minimum of two staff members any time that they're open.

[25:06] With the road races, you've got marathons, you've got triathlons, you've got.

[25:13] Rugby, you got all these tournaments that play some at Encino, some in different places on the road races, because I know that that takes a lot of staff time and takes a lot of resources. How do we can you we collect $1 per registration for road races. And so that adds up very quickly. When you consider Iron Man and the Wilmington Marathon, those have three, 4 or 5000 participants.

[25:42] And then every five K every road race in the city of Wilmington, if it's on a public street, trail, greenway, sidewalk, we collect that money, a dollar per registrant, and that goes to committed revenue. And we have utilized those funds for improvements that otherwise may have been delayed. I think most recently we used it for the study to for safer improvements on Pine Grove Road near the golf course, in addition to what the race organizers pay, the race organizers are also required to pay several different types of fees when they're submitting a permit application.

[26:24] That money goes to the general fund. So in addition to those fees, we collect a dollar per register. That's correct.

[26:34] And I have to go back. I'm sorry. Okay. Go back to the hiring of the additional staff for the recreation centers. Are we talking about full time or part time? I know we have like one full time person, but I'll be talking about part time. In total, it's almost four FTEs. I believe that one is part time, one is full time, and the rest are part time.

[27:00] One will be a floater. The recreation staff currently has one floater on staff, meaning that we can send that person to any of the centers. They're multi-discipline. If we need an appendage to send them from Haliburton to MLK to fit for fun to fitness center, they can do that. We're going to add a secondary position just like that one, and then the rest would be part time.

[27:25] And that is just again to add for flexibility. These people won't be necessarily assigned to one center just based on the demand that we need. So it makes the most sense to have the most flexible schedule for that person. I'm asking. I'm asking because I had someone ask me yesterday, was that from a safety concern? But thank you for explaining.

[27:54] Yes, yes, I did say yes, but I just I wanted it on my record officially. Yes. We think it's important to have at least two people at every open facility. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So thank you. So I had a question a couple of weeks ago about the MLK kitchen, and I was told that because it didn't change, it wasn't in our.

[28:20] Budget records, but we had the attachment of the full fee schedule and I couldn't find it in there either. Did I miss something? There are fees in the fee schedule for the kitchen, and there are not any proposed changes. We can get you that information while we're here. Yeah, just pointed out to me it is okay. Thank you.

[28:40] Because I know that that was a really important expansion for us as as a city and as a Parks and Rec. To have that both as an economic development tool for small businesses and for, you know, people offering a service to the community as far as classes and that kind of thing. So I think it's yeah, we're really happy, particularly since the winter, spring, the amount of activity that's picked up there programmatically.

[29:09] It's been a success from the beginning with me and wellness classes from preschool all the way through to seniors, and that continues to thrive. And we're now seeing the business rental portion of it, which is the incubator portion that we were hoping for, pick up we have for regular rentals right now. Let me just ask something really quickly.

[29:32] Where are those classes advertised? Through the city's website and social media and email lists. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So my question is this, as we go back to what Councilwoman Santana said about the additional full time positions, and when we look to add the two full time position, are we offering the part time employees the option to go full time before we bring in our current employees?

[30:07] Yes, yes. Okay. Because I know a young man that. So I'm not going to pretend that I'm unbiased about it. I've known him since he was a little kid. He's been spotlight as an outstanding employee, and he really gives his all at the MLK facility. And he's been a part time worker for an extremely long time. And he he works in two capacities, but they're both with children.

[30:35] So he worked with communities in schools, and he also worked with us over the weekend. I was at the midnight basketball and he pops in after hours. And he was, I don't know, I think he was freelancing as a photographer, and he just came in and he ended up playing ball with the kids. So I think it's important that we do put an emphasis on the stability that that can be received from, from working for us and putting pressure on getting him from part time or anybody in that position, because I know a lot of people that work for us and moving them from part time to full time where they can gain some just

[31:19] stability. So, yeah, I know you're talking about. He's a great employee. And yeah, just so the public's where there's varying levels of part time positions with the city from nine hours to 19 hours to 29 hours. So while a part time person may not automatically go from part time to full time, they could change from a 19 hour to a 29 hour.

[31:42] And with that comes additional benefits. But it's been a long standing practice in our department, and I'm sure others to look internally to promote people in their current positions before we look externally. Thank you. Amy, before you leave, I remember when we were finishing up the lava Bank pavilion, and then we collect a certain amount of money per ticket through Live Nation, and I always understood that part of that money would be used because it was in the park for recreational purposes.

[32:15] Is that money earmarked specifically just for labor Bank to make improvements, or can we use it in other park initiatives within the city of Wilmington? Is it just strictly earmarked for that particular venue right now? The way it is structured, the city receives $2 for every ticket sold. One of those $2 stays with the park for landscape improvements, wear and tear, etc. the other dollar goes to the general fund.

[32:47] That would be Council on City Manager's decision, whether they want to do something else with that dollar that's currently going to the general fund. Well, I mean, I think because actually live Bank is actually a park is created as park, although the highlight is the venue itself. But I think that on that dollar that we're collecting or that one that we're taking into the general fund, from my perspective, I think it ought to be used for parks and Rec activities and to be used in other facilities, because one of the things that we touted when we built this was the fact that we would be collecting significant amount of money that we could then put

[33:25] in other park areas. You know, we had concerns about the maintenance of some of our parks, and now they're maintaining one avenue or improvements to those particular parks. So it gives us an added revenue stream. And I know that we've set that in, I think with Live Nation for think ten years. But it would be that's what I think we should do with that added revenue to kind of maybe offset some of these costs when we're dealing with improvements and what have you.

[33:56] What your little nation contract are we in?

[34:01] 19 seventh I think seventh year, I believe 2019 was when we went under contract with them. I believe when Live Nation agreed to commit an additional $2 million, the original contract had them committing $2 million towards the construction of the park. Midway through design, they committed an additional 2 million in exchange for the lengthening of their terms. I believe their contracts 15 years.

[34:30] I think we're in the seventh. Well, I'm happy to explore what the mayor proposed, but my my observation with Live Nation is that we're in a unique position. We're contracting with somebody who's got deep pockets, and I'm not certain that we should just tie up every dollar that we get out of them for parks only. I mean, I think that that's a revenue stream for the entire city.

[34:53] I think I'm happy with the $1 being committed to stay at that location for wear and tear. But I would before we make any hard and fast commitments with whether or not we're going to leave the second dollar in the general fund, I would I would like to explore that more. I'm really interested in what our relationship with our nation is.

[35:10] I've spoken with the city manager about this several times, and I think that we can leverage that for something better. We it's strange, right, because we have something really good. I mean, I think that we have a good partnership with them. I think they bring a lot of value. But I'm somebody who I like to travel and go to live music performances, and I see things that are happening at other venues that these folks are major, major players.

[35:31] And even if we're getting something good, like they need us to, they like this venue to. I think that the city manager is planning on talking about this later in the agenda. So I don't want to suggest that we talk about it twice. But there is currently a study underway for improvements in upgrades to Riverfront Park and Live Oak Bank Pavilion.

[35:58] I think one of the situations that it's important for people to realize right now is that because it is also a park, and because the city had certain design constraints that we imposed upon Live Nation, because it was important to the city that it be a park and not just a concert venue. They have to treat it as what they term a festival site.

[36:18] So they are paying for off site storage for a tremendous amount of their production, and they have a lot of labor costs bringing in things concert, pre-concert and post concert. And so I think there's some leverage there to that. If we're able to study the site and see if we can lessen the amount of off site storage that they have and the impact that that could be something to look at.

[36:48] And maybe the $2 fee also includes Greenfield, right. Greenfield also has a $2 per ticket. Okay. Yes. And same thing there. A dollar of it stays at Greenfield and a dollar goes to the general fund.

[37:04] Okay. We will keep moving. There were questions about providing additional school resource officers and whether or not that was our responsibility. Or the counties want to clarify that the county does provide a school resource officer to every school. The four that we have are in addition to the one. So these are bonus officers, if you will, at some of the schools that were determined to perhaps need a second set of hands.

[37:34] So we do receive a partial reimbursement from the school system for those four officers. That number has not been updated in a long time. So I would say that as a percentage of salaries that it's covering, it is a very low percentage compared to when this agreement appears to have started about ten years ago was the last update we could find to it.

[37:57] So I think that there may be capacity as part of next fiscal years budget to engage with the school system to see if that rate can be adjusted a little bit. But these are bonus officers. And so I do very much support continuing to have them there. We think that they're a great asset to those schools, but also want to be very careful in pointing out that we do have a great partnership with the sheriff's office.

[38:23] We serve on multiple joint task forces with them. And so this is really another example of that type of partnership where they backfill some things that that we would otherwise need additional staff to do as well. So it kind of goes both ways. Thanks for looking into this. I think I think I'm the one to ask these questions.

[38:42] So this is helpful. I do think it makes sense once we get through this budget cycle, to start talking with the school system about whether or not that reimbursement is an appropriate amount. Based on this explanation, I'm not interested in pursuing, like removing officers or anything like that, but I do want to make sure that we're looking at this reimbursement amount and that it's reflective of current costs, not costs from 2016.

[39:08] And while we're on this topic with number 11, can we just get a quick definition of unified command structure? Chief, would you like to define unified command structure?

[39:19] Before we do that? I just wanted to stay on ten for just a second and say that, you know, I think that it's fine to want to continue to support it, and I do I think we need to still continue to pursue, you know, what we're asking for the tax payers to support. That's really a county responsibility. And looking at the equity of what we're getting reimbursed for.

[39:47] Good morning. So unified command is a term used in what's external EMS National standards incident Command system or National Incident Management system. So the idea is basically if we have a large scale incident, let's God forbid say like a school shooting, there obviously are going to be police resources there. There's going to be fire resources that are going to be EMS resources.

[40:09] They're the idea being that we would have a supervisory boss, a manager from each of those organizations that's involved physically together in one location so that decisions are not being made in a vacuum, so that we know that police officers are going here and we aren't having firefighters going there, folks going there, and they're in conflict. So the idea being that the law enforcement folks are going to be making decisions on law enforcement issues, the medical folks are going to be making decisions on medical issues, but they're going to be doing that with each other at the same place to make sure that they're not being counterproductive.

[40:45] I appreciate that, and I'm certainly happy that we're following best practices from those, I guess, national and international standards. But my question is you have two law enforcement agencies, so who is the lead? Like at the end of the day, where does the buck stop on site? Who is the chief law enforcement officer over that mission or over that operation?

[41:03] How we handle the schools right now, is it the primary investigative function is handled by the sheriff's office, and we support them in any way we can. Now, it doesn't mean our officers can't make arrests at schools. We certainly have jurisdiction there to do that, but they're the primary investigative function. But truly, if there's a critical incident, there's going to be a senior leader from each of those organizations, WPD and New Hanover County, and they're going to be making those decisions together.

[41:32] I'm trying to decide if I want to. So so here's my question, and you can tell me if now's the time to discuss it or if not, Uvalde, the the I don't know all the great details, but the narrative is that law enforcement didn't go in in time and they didn't engage the attacker in time. And if that's incorrect, I'm saying right now on the record that I don't have all the details and I'm happy to be corrected.

[41:51] But what I want to understand, and it doesn't have to be right the second. But what I want to understand is if for some reason there is a disagreement between the two law enforcement agencies about what the best course of action is, who makes the decision? Yeah, that'd be more than happy from a technical and tactical standpoint to have that discussion with you.

[42:10] But I will tell you, I have got a great working relationship with Sheriff McMahon. My staff and his staff have great working relationships. As the manager mentioned, we have several task forces who work on regularly. I do not foresee that being an issue or a problem. We train together. We use similar tactics. So but having more than happy offline to talk that with you.

[42:28] Thank you. Yep. To David's comments. I do, I do remember when we had the incident and you had a high school several years ago when there was a shooting in the school. A young man shot another young man and thank God nobody died. And I remember that that whole day because we, our Chief Williams, brought out our command center vehicle.

[42:53] The sheriff also has a command center vehicle also that was also brought their nearby and in the command center there within our our vehicle, the chief was there, the sheriff was there. How he patrol was there. He was within that command structure was in our vehicle at the time. I think we had a newer vehicle. I think they had looked like an old bus, but I'm not certain what it is.

[43:18] But it seemed like the command structure there was within WPD actual physical structure. But the sheriff seemed to have taken the lead on that because it was on county property and the schools fell under his jurisdiction. And I like the way the structure went because everybody went through the sheriff and the chief was right there. I'm more interested in what I saw that day was the fact that the teams that the police and the sheriff sent into the building to clear the building to make sure that there was no one else in there that was an active shooter or what have you, because we didn't know at the time.

[43:54] That's that seemed to have been a pretty significant team of individuals that went into that building. Heavily armed, very professional. Is that team made up of sheriffs and police that worked together as a joint task force team. Is that how that works operates? Yeah. So every instance can be a little bit different. But what I'll tell you, generally speaking, you know, Columbine was a pivotal moment in law enforcement.

[44:20] Right. Because what happened in Columbine, if you remember, is police officers showed up, they stood around the outside of the building. They waited for a Swat team to get there. And meantime, kids were dying and staff were dying and other things. So the tactics significantly shifted. Right. And it's get in there and try to immediately stop the killing as quickly as you can.

[44:38] Right. And so in that situation, literally, as officers and deputies are showing up, they are going to pair up and team up in whatever fashion they need to to get through that school together. So if you and I showed up and were wearing different color uniforms and we're the only two there and we're still waiting for other people, we're just going to go in.

[44:54] You and I together. Right. But obviously as we get more numbers than we throw their tactics, we use and we're going to also partner again with our fire and our EMS folks, because without getting into all the specific tactics we used right there, tactics have changed as well, right from Columbine days, to make sure that we are trying to minimally stop the killing and then secondly, save as many lives as we can for those that have been injured or hurt.

[45:18] And I'll give you a really simple recent example. We had a protest month and a half ago, two months ago, maybe a no gangs protest here and in the command center for that was one of my captains, Elena Williams, who was sitting back here and a senior member of the sheriff's office sitting literally next to each other in our sting center, overseeing that operation with joint personnel involved in both.

[45:42] And they were making decisions together on deployment of resources and and how we responded if there were any problems with that. So so you folks trained because we had another incident, a couple of again, another about three years ago when we had an incident where somebody shot somebody at Wrightsville Beach and tried to kidnap a lady and her kids.

[46:03] That person ended up getting in his car, taking off, went into the city. The city then, of course, is part of that whole joint task force, I guess, trying to stop them. Guy gets out of the car. He's in the middle of Market Street. He's shooting at officers and sheriff's personnel, I guess, which they had to take him down.

[46:21] So you folks, I'm sure, trained together on a lot of these things because I'm going back to the incident. I saw it in you, head of high school. It seemed to be 100 individuals that went into that building to clear out the entire building, because they had to go from room to room to the gym, to the cafeteria.

[46:37] I mean, it's obviously a significant campus there. And same thing I saw at UNSW last year when they had an act, supposedly an active shooter on campus. I've never seen so many police and sheriffs in my life. So you folks practice this. So, you know, certainly whenever possible, we train together. But even if we aren't training together, we're training on similar tactics so that it is seamless, that, you know, whether it's an unqualified officer, a PD officer, a sheriff's deputy, fill in the blank of any surrounding law enforcement jurisdiction, which is why we also have an MoU with all these areas so we can call them in that way.

[47:14] We're using similar tactics to address that, and that's pretty standard across the industry. So just like curiosity, if it happens at USC, since they have their own police force, are they the lead command or is it because it's in the city of Wilmington? I mean, it's surrounded in the city. Would we be the lead command? How does how would that work?

[47:32] Again, in a perfect world, we're going to have a unified command structure. I will tell you, a lot of these events are chaotic. Some of the challenges you deal with is everybody wants to come and help, which is great. But some of the challenges is you also deal with is everybody wants to come and help and you get a whole lot of people there, and we need to be doing what we call a par or a personal accountability report.

[47:54] We need to know what officers or deputies are aware and what they're doing so that we don't run into what we would call a blue and blue situation, meaning where we have, you know, police officers that maybe don't know other officers are around the corner and they end up confronting each other and, you know, and which is important for identification and making sure that folks are properly attired.

[48:13] But in those situations, technically, it's uncW campus. They are the authority there, but they're also a smaller organization in terms of staffing and manpower and expertise in dealing with these things. So they could very well turn it over to us or to the sheriff's office if they chose to do that. But again, we're going to try every time we can to make sure we get bosses from each of those organizations together.

[48:33] Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to mention, just to make it more complicated, the August 2023 incident that you're talking about started in Wilmington. And there were. Yeah. And the first victim was actually in Wilmington, right on Lake Avenue. So, you know, makes it even more complicated when they move in between jurisdictions and commit crimes in each of them.

[48:54] Very well. Remember. Thank you.

[49:02] Okay. There was cost for a traffic count information. We got information from both WMU and then some more recent data. If you can scroll down a little bit. Dylan, there were also some point in time counts that were completed in 2025, fairly consistent between the two times.

[49:23] We will skip question 13, because we're going to talk about Vision Zero later. And then the final question in this group is there were questions about City Attorney's office and how their areas of specialization were distributed. And when do we retain outside counsel. So all of that is there for you to read. Any questions about any of that that was sent out previously?

[49:52] Okay. A couple of the appendices that we wanted to go over this. First one, again, thanks to staff who's done a tremendous amount of work pulling all of this together. So this does go over the combined tax rates of the largest cities in North Carolina by population, and includes both the city and county tax rate. We are amongst the different areas.

[50:18] It can be as high as Greensboro at 1.4 cents per 100. So I guess it would be 140 cents per 100 would be their combined tax rate, with 67.25 of that coming directly from the city of Greensboro. And we are notably lower than everybody else right now, with a combined tax rate of 58.8 $0.05 per 100, and Charlotte is the only one with a lower city tax rate right now.

[50:49] But when you look at what one penny generates, which is $23 million, it's not quite apples to apples.

[50:59] Looking at jurisdictions local to Wilmington, Leland and Jacksonville, they all have tax rates that are a little bit higher than ours. So Bergen, Jacksonville notably higher at 1.33 and 1.25 respectively. And then Leland is at .6120, which is a little bit higher than us. And if the proposed tax rate is implemented, it would push us just over them by about two pennies.

[51:31] Any questions on that? Okay. And again, different different ways to call out the information. Looking at what $0.01 tax what $0.01 generates. Looking at all of those communities. So again lots of work by staff. Thank you for that.

[51:56] Okay. We also included the parks recovery policy. Just again there were questions on that. I do want to do a check in with council related to the parks fees. Is there interest in leaving them the same? Is there a desire to make a proposed change? Just want to make sure that we're capturing any changes to be made for what's brought forward on Tuesday.

[52:19] I'm comfortable with the fees proposed in the budget. I don't know whether I stand.

[52:26] I'm not still got concerned about that single day activity fee and the disparity. Do you have a proposed number if that's different? No, I think, as I said earlier, just the the reallocation of the the one or the potential $5 or I mean, even if we change the if we keep the 20% aspect of the fee, but just not increasing the fee, the single day activity for everything else could remain the same.

[53:03] But if we change the the reallocation, that's fine with me, the funding source, because I've been saying that for for years and it never gains traction. So the desire will be so the proposal was to change it to 100, and your proposal is to bring it back down and keep it at 60. Yeah. But just change the the reallocation.

[53:23] Okay. Just for clarification. Sorry, I came up on invited, but we did not actually have an event, a single event last year in that $60 single day category fee schedule that we're proposing to change to 100. Again, the focus of that is for tournaments. So changing in a committed revenue for that line isn't really going to make an impact on committed revenue collection.

[53:54] So I just wanted to point that out. I did go upstairs and print out some pages of the fee schedule. We are currently collecting $5, so we get from $5 to 20%. And I have the kitchen fees 42. And I'll highlight those and give them to the table to pass out. I have a clarifying question to make sure I understand the concern.

[54:17] The on page nine, the athletics table that's obviously per person like $35 to for baseball the coach pitch base that's like per participant. Correct. But the the $100 single day that is for the entire event. Is that right. Like you get the right. So again there's $100. That seems like many, many different pages of parks and recreation fees.

[54:42] And unfortunately that's just the nature of the beast. So it can be very confusing, but it's similar from agency to agency. So on page 27 of your current fee schedule, there is a registration fee for for different programs up to $50. And that's what we base the athletic program fees on. So those $35 on down to 15 to free the single day event fee that we're proposing from $60 to $100, that's intended to be more of a group charge for a tournament, a special event, something like that.

[55:26] So they get the whole gym for $100 for as many people they want to put in there, whether it's 12 or 200. No, that's a gym rental and that's another fee. That's a different fee, this 60 to $100. If I wanted to enter a youth team into a youth athletic, into a youth basketball tournament, I'm the coach right now.

[55:51] I'm paying $60 to enter my team into a basketball tournament. We're proposing, based on what other cities, other parks and recreation agencies throughout the state are charging, particularly for the statewide athletic competition, Swac tournament. So our kids who play in our basketball leagues here, they often travel to other cities at the end of the year to play in Swac basketball tournaments.

[56:14] Now that we have a new gym, we want to host some of those. Most cities are charging up to $100 per team for those tournaments, so that's why we're proposing to change from 60 to $100 for a registration fee. Question. So you stated that we did not have any tournaments at that $60 rate. We did not. Okay. And so now we're looking to propose the 60 going from 60 to $100, because we have this new gym.

[56:45] And we can, you know, we want to host these. Yes, ma'am. So if, if we didn't host it at 60, well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that the reason for that had anything to do with the fee. I think it had to do with we just opened that gym last year, and so we started planning for a tournament pretty late in the process.

[57:09] And also people, just as other parks and recreation agencies and their programs become aware that we have a facility now that has two gyms, including one that's brand new high school size, we think we're going to generate interest in those types of tournaments. So we're trying to prepare for that by this recommended change to the fee schedule. How do you think we will generate interest?

[57:32] Here's here's my concern. I think that if we didn't we just opened this gym. It's at $60. You're proposing 100. We did not generate any interest this past year because it's a new gym, right? Everybody doesn't know. But I'm assuming our fabulous marketing team is going to jump on this, right? Okay, great. May I make a proposal that maybe we don't start kick it all the way to 100, but maybe to 75?

[58:03] Yeah, I'm fine with leaving it 60, 75, 100. It's not going to be that impactful at the end of the day. Again, our basis for the recommendation was looking at what other cities are charging. I understand, thank you. Yes, ma'am. I would say, let's test the waters and see if we become, like really popular and gain traction with this.

[58:26] And then, I mean, it's only one year, so then we come back next year. If it's wildly popular, then increase it. If not, then we haven't harmed anyone. That's my proposal with me, I, I would like to see the comparison with the other.

[58:47] Because what I'm hearing is that most of these tournament fees are being paid by people from other places that are used to paying a certain fee. I'd like to know what that is. Sure, I can get that for you. If it's for a whole basketball team that's only $20 a person, even if they didn't have a deep bench.

[59:04] So even if they have more people, the cost of bread and gas and groceries and potentially taxes in this area are going up. So, I mean, that may be okay with you, JC but maybe not the people that are going to try to travel and bring their kids here to play basketball. Or yeah, maybe rent a hotel room downtown.

[59:27] So I, so I, I think, I think I saw at least for agreeing to keep it at 60. We will we can raise hands back if you want. So please please do. Yeah. We'll keep it at 60. And then next year we'll have some analysis about usage and cost recovery. It's going to ask this question because I see it and maybe you can allude to it.

[59:52] You got the empty park and you'll have tournaments. And that's a lot of wear and tear. And every time you go out there, you know, you guys are replacing the tennis courts or Olson Park. When we have the softball tournaments and you have all these tournaments are coming into play and more and more people are wanting to come here, and we've got a lot of tournaments that are coming out there.

[1:00:11] We're trying to recapture the wear and tear on our facilities that we're charging our taxpayers for. That's why it's important that we look at these fees. I applaud the fact that we're finally looking at it, because I've talked to some of those folks that work at those facilities, and they get sick and tired of having to clean up and do all these things for people that are coming in here using our facilities that may not even be citizens of the city of Wilmington.

[1:00:34] And yet we're paying for that. That wear and tear is costing our taxpayers. And I want to be very clear, because it seems to be there seems to be a significant way that people looking at the city, even though we're part of a county, part of a state, that we're the ones that should be taking care of all this maintenance, and we have to figure a way to start recapturing some of these costs.

[1:00:56] Or is we're going to continue to go back to our taxpayers for all of these additional costs. And I just want to make sure that we're aware of that. I don't have a parliament holding at 60, but we're going to get more and more play here. And I just want to make sure that we're fair to the facilities and fair to the people that are coming in here.

[1:01:14] I want them to come in here and spend all the money they can for the 20% that we get, but I'm totally comfortable keeping it at 60. What I would like to see over the next year, though, so that when we have this conversation next year is some data to support whatever fee is recommended based on the usage that we've had this year.

[1:01:31] Since there hasn't been usage, I think it's it's hard to know if we're at the right number. And so I want to make sure that we're collecting data, data around the specific fee so that when we revisit this next year, we can make a decision based on data. Yes, ma'am. Yes, Mr. Mayor, I would I would go along with keeping it at 100.

[1:01:51] If we increase the fees at Muni by $40, dollars, $40, I mean, we're going up to and and they're squawking over there. I'm going up. We're going up $2 over there. And they're really successful. Maybe the most successful athletic program we have in the city. Yeah. And just a little $2 increase because, hey, we want to make sure everybody's okay.

[1:02:19] But we're upset about people coming in and using the facility. We haven't been mad about people about the pickleball is taking over Wilmington because they have. And and to your point, Kevin, and that's, that's that's the dilemma that we run into is that the fact is we want to adjust the fees to maintain the infrastructure. And every time we do that, somebody squawks and says, that's way too much.

[1:02:43] But then they expect us to have a facility of some standard. So I agree with what you're saying, because I think that these facilities need to be top notch, but it cost money. So it's either going to come out of the fee schedule or it's going to come out of the taxpayer's pocketbook. So I'm in a full agreement that that the golf course says that it is an enterprise fund should maintain itself, and that when people are saying, we want this and we want that, and we think this ought to be fine, it's like I always tell people, you want to pay for it.

[1:03:14] Which way do you want to pay for it? Do you want the users to pay for it, or do you want the taxpayer to pay for it and their lives? Some of the dilemma that we run into. So I want to be fair, and I do like the I would love to see more tournament playing basketball, because one of the things that I heard many years is we love to bring some tournaments here and be able to use the facilities here.

[1:03:33] We didn't have the facilities at the time, but now with the MLK gym, with the maids park, gym and obviously you got the school gyms and I don't know how that works in regards to leasing those facilities, but I think we're primed for that basketball tournament kind of concept to come to Wilmington. I think we just need to be if it happens, we can look at those fees schedules at that point in time.

[1:03:54] But and I don't even have a problem in the teams in Wilmington, as long as it's not as Wilmington totally centric thing, not even having to pay a fee because they're taxpayers and they're live in the city of Wilmington, I want to give the taxpayers in the community some benefit to for these things. So that's my take on it.

[1:04:12] And I just want to say thanks. Now you'll have the golfers in Wilmington mad at me and you add them to the list. You have to go out. They do a little putting everything on the putting green man. All right. We we are going to quickly flip to the attachment that I emailed out to you this morning. So you do not have a paper copy of this.

[1:04:35] Actually you do because I printed them. Here you go. So these were just a couple of late questions that came in in the last 24 hours or so. Cassidy, I do still owe you the compression ladder, but I was able to provide an answer in a different way, looking at it through that. So so I'm going to just confirm that the city maintains 744 acres of parks and athletic facilities, and New Hanover County manages 1153.

[1:05:08] And then we'll skip over this next question and go to the one after it. We'll talk about that with implementation scenarios. So the question has come up about Skyline Center, the debt to pay for this facility and the surrounding properties and parking deck. Is that why we need to raise taxes? Why can't we sell those parcels in order to pay off that debt?

[1:05:30] And so just wanted to go over sort of what has happened and where we are to officially get that on the record. So the purchase of Skyline Center campus is in no way causing the proposed tax rate increase. The city initially paid 68 million for the campus, and we are over five years ahead of schedule and paying off all of the debt associated with that purchase.

[1:05:53] We have paid off this year over $17 million in debt, including 100% of the variable rate debt on that purchase. So what's left? The total remaining debt is 40.29 million. 15.32 million. Of that, 40 will be paid with the parking fund because of the parking deck that we acquired as part of the purchase. So the total remaining that will be paid for with general funds over the repayment schedule of the bonds is $25 million.

[1:06:29] We prioritize paying off that variable rate debt with the proceeds of the sale of other properties, and that was to ensure that we insulated ourselves from any market volatility that might come from variable rate debt. And it also will save us significant dollars and interest payments that we will not need to make, because all of that debt is now paid off and again five years early.

[1:06:53] So that's five years of that variable rate debt that we will not be paying interest on. So in addition to bringing a number of city departments under one roof, which was a huge benefit of acquiring this facility, we're also able to rent out about half of the space within this building. That creates a significant, steady revenue stream that we are dedicating to the maintenance of our facilities, including this one, to make sure that we are able to keep it in the shape that it is in for decades to come.

[1:07:24] We are currently about 90 to 95% occupied, which is fantastic. And really, what's left is kind of the the bits and pieces of some floors where, you know, it may take a particular tenant being able to fit in that where if they need more space, that's just not going to be an option. So a few small opportunities left.

[1:07:45] But by and large we are almost completely rented out. I hear correctly the revenue from rent is going directly to maintaining the facility. Yes, it is now okay do and I I'm sorry I know I'm asking. We don't know right now, but what is that annually. What is that revenue annually for rent.

[1:08:04] It's okay. If we get well we'll have staff look that up. Yep. The other thing that we want to be very clear on is related to the sale of the parcels that surrounds Guideline Center. Some council members were not on council at the time, but last year the city did go through a process of considering the sale of one of its parcels.

[1:08:27] We received a number of proposals, but all of them were under the assessed value or, excuse me, the appraised value of the property by a couple of million dollars. And all of them included a significant component of market rate luxury apartments that we did not think was the highest and best use of that property at that time. Also, as the Parks and Recreation director mentioned, we are doing a needs analysis of Live Oak Bank Pavilion and Riverfront Park because it does not currently accommodate everything that is required to put on shows.

[1:09:10] And so before we sell the one parcel that we still have control over next to the park, we want to make sure that we can fit everything that we need to honor the park on the off chance that we can't. Retaining that parcel allows us to expand, if necessary, at least a small portion into the parcel next door to again prioritize and ensure that the Live Oak Bank Pavilion has everything that it needs instead of accidentally selling the opportunity.

[1:09:41] And now we're stuck with less than the product that that park can be. So we are currently going through that analysis. It will be completed, we expect, by the end of this summer and that will tell us where we are. Live Oak excuse me. Live nation has expressed a willingness to come to the table in financial partnership, but they would like to see the expected dollar amount of those additional improvements before they commit to a dollar amount, which I think that's fair.

[1:10:13] So so those conversations continue. But we do think that there will be an opportunity to offset some of those costs to fully build out the rest of that park as necessary. We are then, before the end of this fiscal year, going to be issuing RFPs for the downtown master planning of the city owned parcels that we've talked to you about back in February, staff felt it was important to complete the Greater Downtown Plan before embarking on this specific look at how these parcels should develop out as highest and best use.

[1:10:47] Council will be very involved in that process. The community will be very involved in that process. We want to make sure that it has opportunities for public gathering, public interest and that we are doing things that complement our existing downtown rather than compete or take away or don't deliver as much as it could to make downtown a place where people want to come and stay for a while.

[1:11:17] So all of that is is very much in the works and is coming. And just to be clear that the point for one sense that is proposed in the FY 27 budget has nothing to do with Skyline Center. All of that debt can be paid for. If you made no change to the CIP dollar amount that they are receiving every year, the .41 cents is for additional projects, $31 million in additional projects that we're looking to complete within the next two years.

[1:11:50] So if you did nothing, we will continue to pay skyline, but we would not be able to complete all of those projects. Any questions on that? Well, I think it's important that council members that were not here when we took that vote to not sell that property, I want to make sure everybody understands this because there's been some missing mis communication information out there.

[1:12:16] It was A61 vote. Yes it was. So there was only one individual that said we ought to sell it. The rest of us said we should hold back. Let's do the evaluation. Determine, because we've been having these ongoing discussions about in the improvement to Live Oak Bank Pavilion going back several years. And if we were to sell that piece of property, there's no way that we could make any kind of an adjustment to that park.

[1:12:44] And it's an urban park. It's in a very tight area. The logistics are challenging, although it's beautiful, but they are challenging. So as we got in there and we started to feel our way through that process and the concerts are taking place and how we move people in and out of the facility, we started to see that we needed to make some changes to the to the plan.

[1:13:07] And so this is part of that overall process. But our intention has been to sell the properties as quickly as possible. We've sold quite a few to the point where we have reduced this from $68 million down to $40 million. And I would like to compare that with any other government properties that are out there on the marketplace that you can see what we've done as opposed to what others have done, because I think that we've done a heck of a job in doing that, and we've been made a commitment to that, and we've got probably about $30 million worth of property left to sell, love to sell it as quickly as possible.

[1:13:42] So and I believe it will. It will sell when rates get better and we get out of a war and tariffs start to come down a little bit, there's a lot of things that are impacting the economy, but to do what we have done has been outstanding. And and you know, there was a lot of concern about the variable rate debt.

[1:14:00] And we have paid that often made that commitment that was gone. And that was the biggest thing here. So the great thing about this is we got a parking deck, six acres of property and this building for that kind of money, I'll put it up against anybody in the state. I appreciate that. I want to add for me, the high level takeaways here, because I wasn't on council when a lot of these decisions were made.

[1:14:24] We're ahead of schedule paying the debt on the Skyline Center, we are leasing out portions of the Skyline Center to help with the cost of maintaining the property, and we are continuing to look at selling the parcels that the city owns downtown as another revenue source for the city. And however, that may work out, but we want to do that intentionally so that we make sure that our downtown is Wilmington and it stays Wilmington.

[1:14:48] And it's in line with the vision that we have in the downtown plan that we've heard from the city. Those are my high level takeaways. That's exactly that's exactly right. And because the city has ownership of those parcels, the city doesn't need to just put a for sale sign out front and take whatever comes in. We can specifically say, this is the only thing that we're interested in selling it for, and then look for the right buyer or the right partner, whether that's an outright sale, whether that's a P3, there's a lot of opportunities for how to dispose of that property, to make sure that it develops out exactly how we want it to.

[1:15:28] And I just want to add, I appreciate the the long term vision and thinking about long term. How do these properties generate revenue for the city, not just a one time view of this? Because once we sell that property, that's one time money. That's not something that is going to generate recurring revenue for the city. And so I think it's just I appreciate the difficult yet responsible view that we're taking in terms of the intentional decisions that we want to make with regard to those parcels.

[1:16:01] Okay. I would suggest we take a break. Laura's got one thing. The amount of revenue that we're bringing in or from Lisa's just shy of $3.7 million right now. It's fantastic. $3.7 million in revenue from folks that are renting space out of the Skyline Center. Yeah. So, so many people said that we couldn't rent out anything. Well, okay.

[1:16:28] Thank you. I would also mention a great op ed that gave staff it. Was that that.

[1:16:37] That that really said, you know, Steph has done a rock star job and you're welcome. That mayor pro tem. Let's take a break.

[1:16:52] We're back in session. I'll also take another roll call here. Mayor Pro Tem, are you here? I'm here, right here. Councilmember Joyner, are you here? Here, Councilmember Andrews, you're here. Councilmember, while you're here. Here. Councilmember Seth, are you here? Councilmember. Councilmember Quintana, are you here? Here. Chairs here. Everybody's here in accounting for. Back to you, miss. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

[1:17:15] Mayor Pro tem, members of the council, we want to move now to talk about the living wage implementation. We had a couple of requests for some different scenarios. I do want to point out that the chart that is in your printed materials is updated slightly. Regarding tax impacts. It was rerun and pulled completely with benefits. And so the numbers that are in the packet are correct.

[1:17:41] They are slightly higher than what we see mailed to you early Thursday. Do you have a page number? We are on page two under the Q&A. Thank you. Yes.

[1:17:56] So do you just want to recap that the $15,000 was not arbitrary? That number was selected intentionally to try to create as much space between grades as possible, to try to prevent as much compression as possible, but we still driving as many dollars as we could down to the lowest levels of the pay scale. Want to look at the tax impacts?

[1:18:26] We had a request to look at what would be the impact of reducing the $15,000 cap to 12,000.

[1:18:35] Dylan, if you can scroll down just a little bit more. Yep. Just stop right there for now. So the biggest issue that we're seeing with that, and there was a request to show like a career ladder progression that I'll have to you all Monday. But the biggest issue that we're seeing is that will capture about 85 of our police and fire personnel who are sort of in that in between where they would get something north of 12 if the cap was 15, but nobody gets more than 15, where it would reduce the amount of pay that they would get, and it would also reduce the amount of pay that everyone above them would get.

[1:19:18] The problem that that then creates is all of those folks we expect to be promoting in the next year or two years, whatever. And our historical standard for the pay increases that we give upon promotion is 10%. By lowering that cap, we will not be able to give that full increase without those folks then jumping over people who are already sitting in the role.

[1:19:45] And so we would then be forced to give like a 7 or 8% increase. We already have some trouble incentivizing people to to go after promotions, because that is already viewed as a small increase compared to the increase in responsibilities that are expected under that promotion. And reducing it to a 7 or 8% is very much heading in the wrong direction versus what we would like to be able to give them, to make sure that they feel like they're being adequately balanced from what's expected of them.

[1:20:21] So that is the biggest impact that we see. Also show in a minute.

[1:20:29] Actually. Let's look to that now if you don't mind, Dylan, if you can go to the the handout that I emailed you this morning. So this is what was just handed out before the break. But but looking at it this morning, there was a request to look at how have our pay increases, how of our market adjustments kept up with inflation.

[1:20:54] And so when you go back, we went back to Fi 22. There was a 0% market adjustment, but CPI that year was 4.7%. So if you look at the starting pay for our positions, they didn't move that year. But the cost of living increased 4.7%. So basically you're buying power was 4.7% lower. That put them in the whole 4.7%.

[1:21:18] We then started kind of doing different raises for different groups of employees, but CPI and FY 23 was 8%. And so if you look at the bottom, it's really charting the cumulative impacts of CPI compared to the market adjustments. And that's basically how well is our starting pay keeping up with inflation. And so in FY 23 police and fire jumped just above.

[1:21:47] So it was 1.3% in front of inflation if you will. But because of the lower percentages that were given for other positions, the others dropped to a -5.2. Executives dropped to a -7.7. Repeat that in 24 2% market adjustment CPI of 4.1. The net result was a -0.8% for police and fire, -7.3 for others, -9.8 for executives. FY 25 market adjustment of 2 to 3%.

[1:22:20] I just went with a 3% for everybody to be as generous as possible. CPI was 2.9%. So your cumulative effect is -0.7 for police and fire -7.2 for others, -9.7 for executives. This current fiscal year, FY 26 9% increase for police and fire, 3% for senior firefighters and officers, 5% for all others. But CPI was 2.6%. So the net result 5.7, -4.8, -7.3.

[1:22:53] Dylan, if you could scroll to the next page please. So what we're proposing in FY 27 is a market adjustment of 20%. But there's been a $15,000 cap on what folks would be able to receive. The CPI year to date for this fiscal year is 3.8%. So cumulatively, because we're looking to kind of break folks up. So police and fire earning less than $75,000, the net impact would be a positive 21.9%.

[1:23:24] So that's great. And those are definitely very, very needed. So we like that. And this is again the 15 K cap that is proposed in the budget. Others earning less than 75,000. So this is non sworn police non fire. But everybody else in the organization earning less than 75,000. This 20% increase is actually a net positive of only 1.4.

[1:23:50] And a non-executive earning 75 to $100,000. It ranges depending on whether they're making 75 or closer to the 100. The net positive is 6.4 to 11.4, but then our directors and assistant directors taking all of that into account, it ranges from actually a -4% cumulative to a positive 1.22%. That is because we've implemented that $15,000 cap for anybody making more than $75,000.

[1:24:26] So depending on where you are in that range, it is a much smaller percent overall the higher you go up the range.

[1:24:36] So now if we can so any questions about that before we move on okay. If we can go back to the other document Dylan. Sorry. How would you jump around so much. Yep. So these are the tax rate impacts. We of course have the 5.7 $0.05 per 100 in the recommended budget if we went if you move over to the second column from the right, that is the 12,000 cap for everybody.

[1:25:05] It would lower your tax rate adjustment. We would be down to 5.44 if you kind of split the difference ended 15,000 for public safety, that's police and buyer sworn police and firefighters keep them at the 15. But do a 12,000 cap for everybody else. You'd be at 5.61. JC I know this was a little bit different than you proposed, but with the compression that we were seeing with the other, we knew that that that wasn't going to to bear out.

[1:25:39] But with this one it was running kind of a different one of could we do 15,000 for living wage, but then a 2.8% for everybody else? Obviously, that brings the tax rate down significantly to a 3.87% increase. But we we absolutely do not recommend that one. After looking at the cumulative impact of inflation compared to the increases that have been given, I do feel confident that the the budget as proposed is the right thing to do, but understand that that is ultimately council's call.

[1:26:16] And if you're interested in one of these scenarios versus what is in the proposed budget, these were confident that these are the tax rates that would be necessary to implement those, but certainly open to any others, open to discussion and feedback. Go back to number three. Number three, you said that that's a blend between the two. So the the alternative one is a blend between the two.

[1:26:42] I'll turn number three. So I'll turn now I'll turn number three is 15,000 living wage for public safety, but only a 2.8% increase for everybody else.

[1:26:54] I have a question about alternative two versus alternative one because I want to make sure I understand under alternative to. You're saying there are 85 folks in police and fire who upon promotion would be making more than somebody that's already at that higher level, which is not in line with typical salary philosophies. We would not give them the full percentage increase.

[1:27:20] We would we would lower their pay so that they were not making more. So you've got 85 individuals that would experience some sort of negative compression and it would make it. And I think what I'm trying to get at is that's that's an impact across those departments. It's not just those 85 folks, it's how to folks move from there.

[1:27:42] Yeah. There's like a ripple effect to all of this. And and there are other people in that gap in other departments that would see the same thing. Okay. The the focus that we gave it was just on police and fire because there's so many of them in those positions. So it's a it's such a big chunk of it's a, it's a big chunk, but it is more than 85 people.

[1:28:05] And then as compared to alternative one, if we went with alternative one, how many police and fire folks like is that number zero from 85 to 0. Is that 85 to 5? What does that look like? It would move all of the folks that are that 85 that are caught would no longer be caught. So so the public safety number would go to zero.

[1:28:27] You would still have others in other departments. We would have folks caught in other departments. Is there. And then what would that look like if we if we adopted one of those alternatives, what would that look like in the future to have to steer out of that? What would that cost us to address those compression concerns? I mean, it would be the equivalent of what would it be 0.08 plus.

[1:28:51] So .13 pennies, which is how much? Laura. And that's before we look at like cost of living or inflation. Okay. So one saves taxpayers a couple bucks a month depending on their the median household value alternative to saves a little bit more than that. And alternative three is yeah a more substantial alternative one. The the yearly impact for a $250,000 household is $4, the median household is $6 and 800,000.

[1:29:34] It is $11 a year, a year, a year, a year.

[1:29:45] So I have a couple of questions. First of all, what kind of retention metrics are we expecting to see because of the implementation of this paper? So you're always going to have a little I would expect it to be certainly south of 10%. I think you're probably going to be closer in the maybe 7 to 8. Again, that'll vary a little bit.

[1:30:12] But I do think that we can dramatically decrease our losing any employees, certainly voluntarily losing them, somebody leaving for another job. You're always going to have somebody moving away or something like that. That is a retirement considered a voluntary separation. So that so that is but that is, that is pulled out of all of these numbers. So because that is they've hit their years.

[1:30:36] So we're not counting that. Okay. And then I just had a follow up to that. What what does turnover cost us on an annual basis. It's it's going to depend on the position. But you're looking at lost productivity. You're looking at the cost to advertise. You're looking at all of the pre-employment screening. We pay for background checks. We pay for drug tests.

[1:31:02] Depending on the position. We pay for psychological evaluations, physicals, lie detector tests, and so depending on the individual, just the cost to get them through pre-employment in the cost of those tests is maybe, maybe about $100, up to about $600 or so. And then getting them in, getting them trained, I'd say you're readily not kind of up to speed for at least your first six months or so.

[1:31:30] So again, lowered productivity. So if you look at, you know, say a gap, some of these hard to fill positions have been open for 120, 150 days. The burden and the slowdown that that is putting on coworkers because the work doesn't stop in our in our fields. And so other folks have to pick up the slack and try to do their best to continue to move forward.

[1:31:54] Well, you also told us this morning it costs $192,000 to get a new officer correct up to speed. Yes. In addition to yes, all of the things that you just listed for pre-employment. Yes. It's it's pretty striking number. It's massive.

[1:32:11] So when we make this adjustment, especially with public safety, in my past experience, there's a lot of other governments that are looking to see what we are going to do. Sure. And as soon as we make an adjustment, they have to make an adjustment or they go to their respective bodies, whether it be the county commissioners, the city council and Leland wherever, to make their adjustments.

[1:32:36] So they say, well, Wilmington has gone up to here. We need to also match up how with this, because I know this kind of helps solve a lot of the compression issues that we've been dealing with for many years, kicking the can down the road. How does it help? I mean, moving forward, or is this just so is this going to be a one year thing, or are you going to come into me next year and say, oh, by the way, so-and-so raised their so-and-so ratio theirs?

[1:33:01] Now we have to make an adjustment to keep up with them. Know what we're trying to do is to create a philosophy that that stands on its own, but also remains naturally competitive. And so the figures that we see out of this, we believe, are aggressive enough for those hard to fill positions, that it will be attractive because there are people who want to be in law enforcement, they want to be in the fire service.

[1:33:30] They want to be a mechanic, they want to be an equipment operator, but they can't afford to do that based on what we are paying now. And so what we're trying to do is lift these levels up to both a competitive wage. So we're at least in the conversation near the top, but also numbers that they can afford to live on.

[1:33:53] So if Leland goes up, if New Hanover County sheriff's goes up, those are very different agencies. And we know that we're offering something different in these in the city of Wilmington. And quite frankly, they wouldn't get to work for Chiefs if they go anywhere else. And he's great. And and so it is not then this race to the top of they went up $500 or they went up $1,000.

[1:34:19] We're happy sitting there close. We believe that that will be an effective recruiting tool, because if our neighbors are even able to do it, a lot of other people across the state aren't. And a lot of other jurisdictions across the country aren't. And so our number looks incredibly attractive to somebody who might be looking for a different opportunity.

[1:34:42] We're in a great location. We're doing a lot of great things to move the department forward. And so we, you know, we may not recruit somebody from Leland, but but if we do, great. But otherwise we might get somebody from somewhere else in the state. You know, we've had applications from Jacksonville and whatnot. So it's it's okay if a rising tide lifts all ship, all ships, because at the end of the day, it's often a different type of law enforcement officer that might be interested in working for us compared to those other localities, because they are they can be very different jobs.

[1:35:18] So when you first got here, you there was several positions within the city budget that we have been looking to feel for two years, maybe longer. I know you folks did an evaluation of that to determine why we were not able to fill those positions. Number one. And number two, you would evaluate those positions to determine, are there any of those positions that we could have or could eliminate from the city staff number?

[1:35:46] Yes. Did you know you did I think you did it. Yeah, we have absolutely done that. And we continue to do that. So every position that is vacant has to go through a process of justifying that it needs to continue to exist and be filled, or it needs to be tweaked. The job description needs to change. Or in some cases we have rejected them and said based on the workload or the operations of the department, we don't think this is necessary at this time.

[1:36:17] And those positions are are on hold or in some cases with the reorg, they were completely eliminated. And so as new vacancies come up, that requirement is not going away. We are going to continue to do that. Now, there are some that are fast tracked, like if a police officer is vacant, you know, straight to advertising. But any of these others that it's a little bit more nuanced or it has sat open for a long time, how else can we get the work done?

[1:36:47] Does it make sense? Like with surveying, we kept like one surveyor, but then the workload was such that we felt it was appropriate to then contract out some of those other services because it's really on an as needed basis, as opposed to having somebody full time here doing that work. But we used natural vacancies to be able to absorb that so that nobody lost their job.

[1:37:09] So I think we're about 1100 employees now with the city. We are. Yep. We absorbed 29 through our realignment process. When you absorbed them, you know, ones that you had in there that we could not fail that that we that we have not felt and then they are not in the budget. Okay. So 29 have been eliminated. Correct.

[1:37:29] Overall. Okay. And then looking at the turnover rate or the it seems like and it's always been this way. It seems to be the fire department is the lowest. It seems to be at about 5% somewhere in that range. Yeah. We can we showed that I think public safety I think most people get the public safety concept. People want to be safe.

[1:37:49] They they love the firemen. They love the police. Not all the time, but they love them. That's right. But they keep us safe. And I think talking to a lot of people out in the community, it seems that they are very supportive of the public safety component, of adjusting those, those salaries to make certain that those folks are getting paid properly.

[1:38:08] I think what we're missing in some of this discussion with the citizens is the there's 1100 employees, correct in this, in this city government that do a lot of other things. Accounting tree is maintaining your parks, picking up the trash, fixing, you know, cleaning the ditches a lot of things that a lot of people don't see every single day, but they play a very important role in how this city works and operates in those particular capacity.

[1:38:36] In those particular job descriptions. I would imagine that that that trash refuge is probably up there, because I know that we've always had an issue in retaining a lot of those folks in that department. Stormwater is another one that, you know, those are hard jobs getting in those ditches, cleaning them out, taking care of them with all kinds of critters in there in those ditches at times.

[1:38:59] Yes. So, you know, I think showing that to the community that this is not just about public safety, but this is the overall management of the city in all departments, I think is critically important. And, you know, people here living wage and they. Oh, that's a liberal thing or whatever they want to call it. I want to make sure that we're paying people properly to do all of these jobs, because they all play an important role at some point where there be zoning, whether it be the zoning, I mean, the code enforcement folks that have to go out there when they get calls all the time from citizens, I mean, they all play an important

[1:39:34] role. I just want to make certain that that that I think is being missed in some of this discussion is that that all these other roles also play a very important part of running the city. Absolutely. Dillon, can you scroll down to question for we went over this earlier, but to just and and then the other thing is I know that I think we asked I think quite Kevin asked this question how many what's the percentage of the employment base for the city that lives in the city?

[1:40:05] I think it came out to about 28%. I also want to allude to the fact that the cost of living, although I think in the city of Wilmington, the average price home now is $467,000. But those numbers that are in Pender and in Brunswick, unless you go further and further out, are very comparable in regards to what those costs are.

[1:40:25] They are. And the tax rates we saw are not better. If you live within town or city limits and those other localities. I was speaking to a police officer not too long ago, and he commutes well over an hour each shift because that's where he can afford to live. And and having an opportunity to be a little bit closer, it gets you home faster.

[1:40:54] It also gets you in faster if there's a critical incident, you know, wear and tear on vehicle is less so. You know, all of the things are better if you can have a shorter commute to work. But that's what he said he's able to afford. And Dillon I'm sorry it was question for under HR. So that's page six.

[1:41:14] Yeah. And I don't think that percentage was 28% because we get some accuracy on that. Was it less than that Kevin I thought it was 20 employees who live in the city. Yeah. Kevin asked the question. I mean I think it's 28 is what we were told. I think for officers it's much slower, though my officers was left.

[1:41:35] Was that was that the overall employment base of the city of 1100 or just the police and fire? I think it was it was the entire organization. I don't think it was 28. I think it was 38 people, not 38%, not 28%. Okay. I'll, we'll we'll we'll pull that back up. So, Dylan, if you can go to the top of this question please.

[1:41:59] So this was just to to drive that point home, mayor, we looked at the hardest to fill positions. And aside from police that we we have all talked about the other ones. You know, you're looking at equipment operator one. Equipment operator two, you could scroll down just a little bit. Equipment operator three equipment operator for these are in streets.

[1:42:24] These are in stormwater. This is page six of the packet that you have. So as we talk about this Becky sorry to interrupt. So I want to talk about equipment operator for vacant for an average of 795 days. That's two years. Can you talk about what that means to the residents of the city when those positions are vacant for two years?

[1:42:45] Like what? What are the residents of this city missing out on with these vacancies? Sure. What you're seeing are smaller crews with fewer skilled operators to be able to complete the work. So depending on the size and scope of the job, you're going to have at least one crew that goes out to to do that work. And equipment for operator is the absolutely most skilled that we have, their specialized equipment that they have certifications on.

[1:43:15] And and they have passed all of those tests. They tend to be very, very experienced. And so when you're digging around utility lines, you're in the right of way. You're in very treacherous places. There is a level of detail and accuracy that needs to come with the work that they are performing. And when those folks aren't on the crew, it is up to others to perhaps use other equipment because they aren't certified on the one that is actually best for the job.

[1:43:43] We may have to contract the workout, and the work is going to take longer because you have fewer people doing the work. I think I want to get more specific. Does this mean my storm drains aren't getting cleared as quickly as they could be, or as well as they should be? Does this mean traffic? Things that need to be fixed on the roads aren't getting fixed correctly or as quickly as they should?

[1:44:08] Is it a combination of both? It would be as quickly. It would be as quickly. So. So we're not going to ultimately do work that isn't correct, but it may take us longer to do it correctly. Or again, in some cases we may have to contract it out because we don't have that skill set on staff, which is then obviously a much greater cost than if we're able to do the work in-house.

[1:44:34] So there's a there's a delay in response time and in service that we experience. What these positions aren't filled. Yes. Okay. Question.

[1:44:46] So how do we advertise that these roles are available. And I'm asking this question in particular, not just these roles but any roles for the city. Because and I was talking to Mayor Pro Tem about this yesterday, just in general conversation. We attended. Mayor, I think you might have been there as well. A trip with the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce.

[1:45:13] We went to Fort Lauderdale, and one of the things we talked about was job opportunities in Wilmington. And I moved here seven years ago. My husband is a trailing spouse. He worked for probably less than $12 an hour, which was very little money. With his experience and a degree professional, I won't name the company that he worked for before he went over to step up Wilmington, thank God.

[1:45:40] But in all of that, a statement was made and it was said that we could feel all positions in Wilmington for every job and we would still need to recruit outside of Wilmington. Do you recall that statement? May I recall hearing that statement? Yes. That's right. And so I kind of giggled to myself when I heard that because I thought, and this was one of the arguments that Kevin had brought up, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem had brought up at the time, which was, we're not everyone in Wilmington did not have this opportunity or the opportunities to get these jobs.

[1:46:21] I'm curious how we're advertising these jobs, because there are people who are still unemployed that could use some type of education skill set to do these exact jobs. And I understand that if you contract it out, it costs more. So at what point do we I know we invest in our people to some degree, but in this case, these jobs were vacant for 421 days, 795 days, 111 days before they were even filled or not still currently vacant.

[1:46:57] So what actions are we taking to fulfill these positions? How are we marketing those? Are we doing anything with anyone here in the city to say, hey, we'd love for you to fulfill these roles. How can we help? How can we give you this experience? Yeah, it's I don't know if it's Kim in the room. Oh, okay. Are we able to answer that question with existing HR in the room?

[1:47:30] Okay. What are you looking for? That actually, could I just throw in the old background criminal history piece to to that because I think it matters.

[1:47:48] So at least preliminarily while they're getting more detail it depends on the level of job. So if it is specialized with like certifications with like ACP or something like that, those will go to those specific professional organizations, other jobs. I know that they're on government jobs. Com they are on our website and we certainly promote them on social media.

[1:48:17] As far as a comprehensive plan, I don't quite frankly know that we have one, but I am very interested in having one. We have some additional hires that we are making in HR. We're retooling some of the positions using the vacancies that we have in HR. That will very much be focused on recruitment in in a more intentional way.

[1:48:41] I, I agree that there are community outreach that should happen. Posting at the community college, going to local organizations and just getting that word out, its boots on the ground. And it takes time. But that is work that I have seen work in other places, and I don't see why it wouldn't be different here. But to to date, I don't know that that has happened to that degree.

[1:49:11] I'm not trying to beat a dead horse. I'm simply trying to revive it at this point because.

[1:49:18] I understand where you're coming from, and I'm saying the same thing, and that's what I'm getting at, right? We again, we talk about one city. We talk about how much we love our constituents and the people of Wilmington. I fell in love with Wilmington when I moved here seven years ago. I will be the first person to tell you I'm not born and raised here in Wilmington, but tag on it.

[1:49:40] I have talked to more of our community members. I don't care what color they are, whether they're black, green, yellow, purple or whatever. They are people that want these jobs, and I feel like it is our responsibility to find our citizens jobs. If we want to see our citizens progress, we have to give them a livable wage. We have to help them get education so they can work these jobs in order to buy a home or even rent some of these apartments, not just in the other parts of town that someone doesn't want to live in or want to live in, but also to be able to survive.

[1:50:21] And this is where I'm getting at. And to Kevin's point, let's roll back in the backgrounds of, hey, people have been punished for seven years for a crime or more. They came out and we're still looking at them with a side. I of you did a little something wrong. I don't want you to be an employee here at the city of Wilmington.

[1:50:42] I just need us to, like, really think about and dig a little deeper and open our eyes to find people to work these positions. I mean, I get it and have heard that loud and clear. And so I think we can. I don't want to take us down a rabbit hole, but just understanding that we are, you know, with the new economic development position and the realignment of that, that's a lot of what that work is.

[1:51:11] We have already done realignment within HR. So we've created business partners. And so that people are now working with the department from from start to finish, rather than just having sort of a recruiting function so that they can be under the hood and know what the needs of each department are, and then help to be able to guide department heads to the right places.

[1:51:33] We are providing certifications and trainings for certain things like CLS. So part of this is figuring out what else we need to do. We're going to be rolling out an Aspiring Leaders program to get people ready to take on management roles who are already within the city. So there are a lot of things that are in process that we think will start to help to address those sorts of things, because if we do have an operator three, we want to make sure they're prepared if they want to become an operator for.

[1:51:59] And that will help facilitating that, because obviously growing our own workforce is preferred. Candidly, were our own best or worst enemy. Right. So you are working in this field. You probably know somebody else in this field. And so you've probably said, hey, Larry, Sally, come work with me. And Larry or Sally candidly looks at our pay in some of these positions and says, I can't.

[1:52:23] I would love to, but I can't because of the the specialty that I have and what I can earn somewhere else, whether that be in the private sector or another locality, we're not competitive. And so that's part of the underlying theme here. And I think to your point, what you're referencing on a living wage, the our folks have friends who want to come work here and know about these opportunities, and they're talking to their friends and telling them come.

[1:52:48] But if they can't be compensated fairly for that level of work, we're not going to have that opportunity. Thank you. Dennis, as long as we're looking around our city and surrounding areas, I'm grateful for that. I look forward to the data next year. I was going to ask on the on the Labor's, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, North Carolina or it's it's North Carolina specific.

[1:53:16] Okay. I just want to make sure. Okay. Very good. And to go back to the previous question, 28% of our total workforce lives within city limits. 16.7% of our police department lives within city limits, and 33% of our fire department employees live within city limits. Okay. Thank you to staff for locating that and the positions that all these positions that have been identified on page six and seven are these positions that are currently vacant that you're looking at.

[1:53:50] So, so the ones that are listed are currently vacant. The ones at the bottom were hard to fill, but we have now managed to fill them. But they, they they had been they would have been on that list for a long time until very recently. Okay. And so, you know, Cape Fear Community College has a CDL training. They have, you know, that.

[1:54:15] Do we go over there and try to recruit those? We do. Yep we do. But the difficulty with CDL is if you're a long haul trucker, you're you're making probably six figures, 80 200,000. Not everybody wants to be alone because you got to be away from home. But but finding those people who who don't who do want something close to home.

[1:54:38] Can I ask this question on the CDL? If you're driving a truck that's picking up trash, that would that would require CDL? Yes. Okay. Backhoe operator. Yes, CDL, correct. There's training that's involved in that specialized equipment. And some of these folks that have the CDL also have those certifications. So this is also something that we're looking at is maybe splitting some of these jobs into somebody who drives the big truck that takes the equipment there, and then somebody else who's operating the equipment, rather than being one one size fits all to help fill these roles.

[1:55:12] So those are the sorts of things that we're evaluating. And we do actually send folks to Cape Fear to get the CDL. And then I would imagine that anybody driving a fire truck is also has to have a CDL, correct? Yes, yes. Yeah. Oh we do. Yes. We encourage microphone because because I understood that that we use within our department on the CDL where we encourage it.

[1:55:35] And we've had employees who have been promoted into those roles, and we pay for the training and the sport and enabling them to get their CDL. So we do that in house as well. And then in regards to to picking up the trash, which is obviously huge, the turnover rate in that, what is that? I know we've lost 35 people this year.

[1:56:01] A number of them. What's the average pay for that? The the frontline workers at the bottom of the pay scale. 1739 an hour. See, you know, I'm going to tell you. So if you don't pick up my trash, you might get mad at me on some things. But that one right there is going to set somebody's hair on fire.

[1:56:23] And those folks need to be getting paid more than what they're getting paid. I mean, that's a that's a huge service that the municipalities provide. And I just think that we've had a problem there for years, and I think we just need to bite the bullet and make the adjustment. It's not just about police and fire, it's about that too.

[1:56:44] And that's a big one. Correct. And it's some of the hardest labor. It has some of the hardest labor. But it's also some of the you know, it's dirty, but also it's it's a labor that if you can get in. There's a career path. There is a career ladder from my perspective that we need to really look at that because that should be adjusted.

[1:57:06] Yes. I remember one time, you know, doing the hurricane season when we didn't pick up people's trash and they I mean.

[1:57:13] I'm glad there was not a noose out front. It is very much a vital service. Yeah. We just need to make that adjustment. And I like to know what the adjustment would be though. Becky two I mean, 17 I know that's that's true, but it's $17 an hour. You can't. You cannot live on 17. So that 17 is equivalent to the current the 37,000 and change.

[1:57:34] This would bump them up to 45,000. When my understanding of the solid waste and stormwater. Yes, those salaries are covered by the fees they are. So that doesn't even impact our. That's that's correct. Right. Yeah. Making those changes are fully covered by the fees that folks pay. So that does not impact the general fund. So so we're making the adjustment to the to that fee schedule this year.

[1:57:59] So no no no there's there's there's no change to the solid waste fee schedule at all. But the revenue pays for 100% of so so if we want to adjust that we have to increase. No, no we can we can fit it within existing revenues. We can. Same thing with stormwater. So stormwater is so there's a very small increase in the stormwater fee.

[1:58:24] But that is just because we increase it a few pennies every year. But we are able to also absorb the increases to stormwater employee salaries within the stormwater fund. Do enterprise funds do they just absorb salaries or does that include benefits. So it's it's salaries, benefits operating costs capital projects. It's it's everything. And Becky there's no I remember Chief Williams telling me this too.

[1:58:50] When we're training a police officer and we're going and it's pretty significant amount of investment that we're making into that individual is there. If that individual gets their their certificate, they can go to any agency they want to. There is no clawback provision that if we've made the investment in that individual for six months or whatever it takes to get them that that certificate, you are not able to do that.

[1:59:13] In North Carolina, we are prohibited. So I can get trained under the city of Wilmington. And at the end of the training, I can go to any department federal, state. And it happens with regularity. What was that total investment that we're making in that. So to to upset a police officer, including their vehicle is $192,000.

[1:59:40] So you're better off trying to recruit somebody from another agency who's already certified. And it also gets them to work faster because because if you're already certified in North Carolina, we would do a little bit of field training just to get you acclimated with the area, but then you're off on your own. If you are transferring from another state, it's a limited amount of coursework so we can get you on the street faster.

[2:00:07] The ones that take, you know, the four months full, four months of built, plus all of the field training you're looking at over a year before they're up to speed. And those are the folks that are spending some time here getting trained here. And then we've invested the $192,000 and then they move on. In six months, you start over with that correct investment.

[2:00:28] Okay. So question and maybe I just got this wrong. I know the Cape Fear is doing this program with nursing. Were there helping to pay for the education of that nurse. And then they're going to subsidize a certain amount of that salary they're good to know about and work their. So they in a way have kind of got a claw back provision.

[2:00:51] I don't know how that one's structured. I mean, we bring people on and pay them full time salary with benefits when they're in the academy. So we are we're paying so many a full time salary to, to go to school and get that training for both police and fire. Years ago, you didn't have to do that. There was such a demand for both police and fire that you could not pay them and they would go through the training.

[2:01:15] And then if they passed the course, you would hire them. But a you want to lock them in early to try to keep them, because otherwise somebody else will absolutely be at an academy trying to snag them. We've also moved to our own police academy, so we are no longer intermingling with other cadets at Cape Fear. So they are with Wilmington.

[2:01:38] We want to ingrain them with Wilmington, keep them here, and then we'll still go to the academy that Cape Fear is running. And if there's anybody who's unattached or looking, we're happy to hire them to. But we're needing to bring them on completely full time. And I've been told by multiple attorneys, including the one at the end of the table, that there is no ability to have a claw back provision.

[2:02:07] And that's right. Generally speaking, we will get their car back. Obviously, they have to return their uniforms and their guns and all of the physical things. The only thing that we could possibly recover money for would be the actual books and whatever we used for the training, and that is so nominal. It's probably $500 or less that it's just not worth it to try and go back after that.

[2:02:30] There are a couple of times that it may be worth it if for something like a polygraph operator that's like a $10,000 training. And so the only time that we have ever used a potential clawback is if we're going to spend that much money on your training, then you've got to stay here for like three years afterwards. And it's like you have to pay $6,000 back if you leave within one year, you know, 3000 within two years or nothing after three years.

[2:02:58] And so because that training is so expensive, it's the actual cost of the training that we can get back. But that really because we do our own academy, we're not paying anything for the training other than the cost of their books. And so other than something like that, that's a huge, expensive training. We don't have the ability. We cannot get back the salary they paid them or any of the benefits or anything like that.

[2:03:21] I think the arrangement you're talking about is like a forgivable loan. So they're they owe this money until they work a certain amount of time. That's forgiven. So that's probably how it's with the polygraph training. Yes. But with the regular training that they, that they go through, it's not really alone. But you know, it's it's an agreement that we enter into to with them before we agree to send them to the training.

[2:03:41] But but with the regular training, there's nothing really that we can do to get back that money. There's no by federal law, we can't get back their salary and all of those things. What about relocation points? I don't know what exactly we pay for relocation costs, so there's only certain positions qualify for relocation. It tends to be like a department head level or above.

[2:04:07] What qualify for that? Other people who might be moving here for a job, they they have to get themselves here. But generally speaking that wouldn't apply to police. They are for the most part, we could potentially do that in an agreement with someone. We were going to pay relocation costs. It would be a separate agreement that we would have to fill out.

[2:04:28] But I don't even remember the last time we've we've done one of those. But for anybody that's not a council appointed position. And Becky, I'm sorry if you've already said this is a lot to.

[2:04:44] Do. They get a promotion slash payment after they complete the training. They they do they they get a 5% pay increase once they complete the training. So, so they are at a slightly lower rate. And unless they're certified they do get a little bit.

[2:05:06] I want to go back to something that mayor said earlier. So the thing is important to expound on this, that $17 is not a lot of money or so people could live on $17. I think I've said this previous times, no stars. The fact that there's a portion of this population.

[2:05:40] But I know what we're managing. But there's a huge part of this population who have never even made it to the. And I'm not saying that our frontline workers don't deserve it. I'm just saying that there are some people within this community that would jump at the opportunity to make $17 an hour. There are some people who are.

[2:06:13] You know, they don't even make close to that. They've never even made $30,000 a year.

[2:06:20] And I think we're, we're we're overlooking that. I give you a cut off. And yet we were talking yesterday, and we do have been a real candid conversation. And I remember it was just for me professionally, nine, nine, ten years ago was, you know, the first time I started making 13,000.

[2:06:48] And at that time, you know, it was significant and it was life changing for, for me of, you know, so I think we have to look at that too. And I'm not saying that to say that people don't deserve it, don't deserve more money, but I'm saying that to say that there are some things that have impacted how people live their lives in Wilmington and, you know, from from a room full of professionals who are making.

[2:07:30] I can't speak for myself. And I say that has the potential to to make more to and to live in a good living. The other portion is population who have not, and they can't figure out how to get into it. And then their test was seeing other people come to this community and live better than them. And, you know, that's why we have to.

[2:07:59] I always say Milton has the potential to be a great place, but it is not great for everybody but other people who like you. I mean, I think and I'm not being facetious when I say this, Becky, but you said it a few months ago when you were saying, we're advertising and people come on down. I saw an advertising the other day for tech company in this area and they say, hey, if you don't know, that's close.

[2:08:24] Hey, if you're in New York or New Jersey, come on down. The more people that come on down at New York salaries, new Jersey salaries, California salaries or whatever, you know, the the greater of the opportunity to displace people who have grown in this community who want to remain in this community, but they are being displaced from this community.

[2:08:49] And we're telling them, oh, hey, this is you can't live on this amount of money. And they've never even gotten to that amount of money. And so they're not speaking up about it.

[2:09:00] True that.

[2:09:03] And I think that's important. And and it's it's it's definitely not negating what we're trying to do. And I and I'm not trying to minimize what we're trying to do as far as a livable wage. But my concern is what we do to ourselves as a community, and I mean the entire community and what we do to ourselves as an organization.

[2:09:30] I, I agree with with what you're saying, Mayor Pro Tem and I for myself, I'm really looking forward to seeing where our economic development strategy goes, because I do think we have a wealth of potentially untapped talent in the city that I think we need to focus on, because I think as we create opportunities in the city, they need to they need to include everybody that's already here.

[2:09:57] I so I absolutely think we need to do that. I think part of the the conversation that we've been having in these workshops since November, I think one of one of the facts that I continue to come back to is that we are having a very hard time filling a lot of very critical positions. It seems like at every level of a pay scale, and the feedback that we get is it's it's the salary that is the showstopper for excellent candidates, regardless of where they are.

[2:10:30] So I would like us to address that, which is why I'm supportive of the living wage philosophy. I think we need to address that so that we can continue to run the city. I mean, this is the economic reality of running a city. That's how I would say this. And we need to make sure that as we make those moves and we address these issues that we are looking inward for, for how we can help our community see these opportunities.

[2:11:01] So I think it's I think we need to do both. And I'm really looking forward to how we look at our local workforce to help us fill these hard to fill positions and making sure that we've got the right salary attached to them and going and going back to that point just so we can go back to what we're talking about here.

[2:11:22] If we make this adjustment, these positions that you've identified that are harder and we've been trying to get filled, you feel pretty confident. We'll have them feel. Absolutely I do because we we we are getting people to apply. And then they are pulling out at the end saying I just can't make the money work good.

[2:11:52] So wait one question, Becky. So is the salary range for these positions not advertised with the position? No it is. You'd be amazed at how many people apply and then ask for something else on the other side.

[2:12:09] No.

[2:12:12] No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be. Well, it's a negotiation tactic. Honestly it is. But but we mean it. The numbers we put on paper, we mean it when they're looking at our when they're looking when we're looking to fill these specific positions. Are we competing with other public sector communities around the state country. So a lot of these you're actually competing with both public and private sector.

[2:12:42] So if you look at and equipment operator, those are going to be on most construction job sites. And so so you're looking to either convince somebody to leave the private sector, or you're looking at somebody who is willing to come over from another locality, these types of positions, you're typically not going to get somebody unless they were naturally relocating to this area, maybe because a spouse is coming here or something like that.

[2:13:11] Typically this is going to be more local talent that you're going to see in those application pools. So and I would imagine that you have a how much you can do in-house. Is it better to go outside of the house to go into the private sector, talk to them, contract out with them on a particular job, whether it be an engineering firm or whether it be a construction firm?

[2:13:31] Correct. We have a value that, yeah, we try to do as much as we can with the existing staff that we have. But then when there are specialized projects and we don't have that expertise, that's or there's a volume issue and we have to get things done on a certain schedule, that's then typically when we're looking to go outside in terms of like fully outsourcing, we have looked at that, but like fleet was one that, you know, came up and I'll just say, like the volume of work that they have to keep our fleet up and running that directly serves police directly, serves fire directly, serves public works, those vehicles have to run.

[2:14:13] And when it's our own shop, they are able to squeeze something in right away. Hey, this is broken and we need it. Like right now. We're not competing for our place in line with a whole bunch of other people that you would get if you outsource and the volume that they're able to go through in getting our things out and back on the road is is faster than you would find in the private sector.

[2:14:39] So when you're looking at the city, Wilmington and I was kind of I knew this day was coming when your growth rate is less than 1% now. Yeah. And you're pretty much locked in geographically. You've got $5 billion worth of property you can't even tax. There's no more annexation in the state of North Carolina. You've got a lot of people using the city every single day or going through the city using city services, especially our streets.

[2:15:07] From an employment perspective, 1100 employees, is it something that is is going to grow or is it something that's going to be reduced, or is it going to be about static the way it is? That's one question. And then out of the departments that we do have, the ones that you do see the growth potential in, which are they sure.

[2:15:27] We believe that we will be able to continue to trim existing numbers from, I'd say, all departments except for like police and fire, as there's natural attrition and we evaluate. And with the realignment, we have found a lot of efficiencies already. And being able to multiply work to to go get it done. So we expect to continue to trim there where I do anticipate we will likely need additional staff in the futures and the police department.

[2:15:57] But right now we're so low on staff that we can't do a proper staffing study to know just how much you want to look at unallocated time, but they're so busy right now that it would show that we need a whole bunch more staff. Well, of course we do, because we're we're down about 40 positions. So our goal would be if we can get much closer to fully staffed, then do that analysis to be able to then see what might we need.

[2:16:28] On the law enforcement front, chief is also working on some reorganization of his existing staff that will also reallocate how things are done. So that will be another opportunity that may create some some positions that we don't need to add to our payroll, but we can create through that. So it's a both end, but I don't see other departments necessarily jumping out in my mind as needing a whole lot more staff.

[2:16:57] I think that we need to get our legs under us with the new organization and and do that assessment, but nothing is jumping out right now that says, oh, wow, even with this, all of a sudden we, you know, we just know that we don't have the people to do the job. The exception would be what we're trying to add this year, like the staffing for Parks and Recreation.

[2:17:17] That was something that we identified as we don't quite have the numbers that we need there, and that's important from a safety perspective. But I think short of police, we would be hanging around the number that we are now. What have you evaluated to in the past couple of years? Some of the partnerships that we've had at Be there, you know, gone away, they've terminated.

[2:17:37] We've got issues in regards to the unsheltered. We've got issues with affordable housing, because when I first got on here, that was one thing. The cities, we participated at some level, but there was no need for it at the time because there was equal there was an affordability in the marketplace where we're taking on more of those roles that may have crossed the line into public health, into social services that we were never built for, or the state never built these cities for that kind of a concept where we would collect the money to be able to take on more of these services.

[2:18:16] And yet we have other aspects of partnerships that are kind of pulling away from that. How do we how how are we going to adjust for things like that? Because, you know, we get elected from the citizens that are telling us these are the concerns that we have. We have limited amount of money that we can spend. You're trying to get the salaries to to make sure that we can take care of what we've got today, but now we're getting additional pressures put on us from nonprofits, from other groups that are saying, we need your help.

[2:18:44] And it's hard for us to say, no, we can't help you, or we can only do but so much. And it seems like our roles are starting to change a lot more than I even anticipated. And, you know, we've got a great endowment here that we're going to be partnering with. We've got a lot of things happening. So how are you?

[2:19:04] Are y'all looking at that? We we are. You bring up a lot of great points. And the the biggest issue that I think we need to keep in front of us is we do have a number of critical core services that we have to provide to the community, that we need to make sure that the dollars for those services are not having to compete with some of the ancillary requests that we have.

[2:19:33] We are looking with how we have reordered on the housing side to have the support that that needs, but a lot of it is going to come down to, to budget dollars. And, and I think really trying to assess what is the majority opinion of this community in if others are not stepping up in the ways that they feel are necessary, then are they willing to pay more for us to do it because we don't just have a pot of money sitting around for these other requests that we're saying we don't know what to do with it, somebody please come make a request.

[2:20:14] So every request that comes in is being pitted against core services. And that's ultimately a value proposition that council will have to decide. I wouldn't begin to to tell you where to stand on that, but but our ask would be, you know, we absolutely agree that those are critically important things that this community needs, but we are unlikely to be able to be all things to all people unless our tax rate is very, very different than what it is right now.

[2:20:50] Just to try and steer us back towards looking at numbers. My number one priority in this budget is capital improvement projects. I think, you know, 2023 before I was on council, constant feedback, constant community discussion about infrastructure and keeping up with growth and keeping pace with just the booming nature of this area. And then I want to say thank you to staff and to Tom in particular, who in my first, I think year or first two years on council, took me to every single CIP project site.

[2:21:18] And a lot of people in this room walked around with me, and we looked at things and where things needed to go and why things weren't there. And that experience sold me on. CIP needs to be our number one priority. So thank you for getting that .41 in here. Check. I'm good to go on that. I am sold and I support the idea of a living wage for city staff members.

[2:21:40] I think that we need to put our money where our mouth is. I think that we need to pay people who want to work in the government sector what they're worth. I think that we need to pay them not just a wage that gets them in the door, but lets them have a career and values the work that they put in and the vocation that they are called to every single day.

[2:21:56] I don't think that we are ever going to be a cash cow for folks. I don't think that anybody's ever going to come and work for the city of Wilmington and, you know, become a millionaire, a billionaire overnight. That's not the role that we're supposed to play. But I do think that we owe people the dignity and respect to pay them what they're worth.

[2:22:13] And I say that as a state and for myself and as the son of two state employees who I feel very called to the work that I do, and I also just want to acknowledge I'm a little bit sorry. I also just want to acknowledge the job security that comes with this and the benefits that come with this.

[2:22:29] And those are two important things that we can offer that others can't. But I still think that we need to come up to the living wage model. What I'm not comfortable with is 5.75. And so I'm ready to talk about numbers. We vote in four days and seven hours. And we have not really talked about numbers. So I'm a yes at 4.9.

[2:22:50] So I would say let's put ourselves in that alternative two. And let's figure out where we shave off the rest. And I'm ready to talk about the technology fund. If folks are ready to go down this conversation space with me, I know that I'm sort of trying to to drive us very quickly in one direction, but that's where I'm at, and that's where I'd like this conversation again.

[2:23:26] Page two, I think, is where you come up to when you had the options up here.

[2:23:35] It so I guess if we're going to thank you, David, for bringing us back in and making sure that we're making progress on this.

[2:23:47] I understand the compression issues with alternative to I want to understand more again, like how over time we see ourselves out of that, because I am also not happy with 5.75 understanding. I fully support all of these things, and I think it's important for us as we're making these difficult decisions, to to do so with all perspectives in mind.

[2:24:12] So alternative two takes us down to 5.44. What is it going to take us over time to address some of the compression issues that that we see out of alternative to. And I guess where where's the other point $0.05 come from or whatever it is to get you to 4.9.

[2:24:42] Mbeki I think the first question is probably for you, and I think the second question is for the rest of council. So you are at, let's see, .25.31 cents would be the difference. So third of a penny.

[2:25:04] 1.1.43. If you go to are you are you looking for a dollar amount. Like I think when I initially proposed alternative to would it look like to me was about 1.2 million and maybe a little bit more when you include some of the other benefits that may not have been in the original spreadsheet that we got, are we going down to the .49?

[2:25:30] Well, I think there's yeah, there's two questions. One is if we choose alternative to how are we in the long term going to address the compression that results of that. And then my second question I think is to the rest of council, which is what else are we going to walk away from to get it below that. So it's about a million, 85,000 is the difference between.

[2:25:56] So it's just over $1 million. That's we could do round numbers for the sake of discussion. Yep. But the you know, particularly if you're paring down the rest of the tax rate, unless there is unexpected natural growth or an alternative revenue source that relieves pressure on the property tax rate, the only way to do that is another property tax increase.

[2:26:22] I have two points that I would make on revenue. I appreciate that you've brought us conservative conservative estimates on interest earnings and sales tax. I would like us to do responsible estimates on sales tax and interest earnings. And so I'm curious if we adjust those up just 0.1 on each. What does that do in revenue.

[2:26:54] And while we're looking at that I think my first question on how do we in the long term address compression? I understand that that is going to cost money. I think what I'm looking for is what is the strategy? Is that something that we address as.

[2:27:11] Pay scales that are compressed as as we see folks moving into like making movement in there? Do we do we address the compression there? What I'm looking for is not so much a dollar amount as much as I am a strategy.

[2:27:28] Because what I get from this is that it's it's going to hurt. But what I want to understand is how do we how do we address it in the long term if we can't address it right now?

[2:27:43] I mean, the only way to do that would be to have the funds to move those pay scales that had been compressed, the additional $3,000, and then having the revenue to move the people with it. So worst case, that would mean if we wanted to address compression next year, we would be looking at that third of a cent as an increase next year.

[2:28:13] Yes. Or whenever we decided that we wanted to address that compression and that that would be a potentially depending on revenues and other factors, that would be a third of a cent increase in the future, but also depending on what else is going on with costs. Sure. And and then can we is the state going to allow us with the ballot measure that we're expecting to be put forward in November?

[2:28:45] Yeah. The what I will remind Council of is one penny of this increase is health insurance. And if the commitment is to not bring you a tax increase next year, which I think is very much the desire of council, if we get another $3.5 million increase in health insurance, we are going to have to figure out how to absorb that already.

[2:29:14] So, you know, I will just say, you know, when we started this conversation, we were at 6.25. We have worked to bring the recommended budget at 5.75. That was finding things that we could pay for it this year with existing revenues. It was trying to the replacement schedules for certain things. Like we we pushed hard to get it down to five, seven, five.

[2:29:42] But health insurance is a variable that we have very little control over. And it is a very significant component of what is driving these numbers this year.

[2:29:58] Cannot throw this out there. It may it may sound dumb, but I'm okay with that. When when we were talking about skyline, right. And we talked about being five years ahead of schedule. Ahead of schedule. Right. How creative can we be with that money as it relates to the financial issues we're facing now, or whether or not well, now.

[2:30:28] So creative. Can we still have debt payments that would be scheduled to be made next year, that we have dedicated debt service revenue to pay those bond payments? We we have to make those payments. So there's not it didn't it didn't create a pile of money that we now have for other things. Or if, if we do that went into the CIP model to drive down the .41 sense so we can complete everything else with only that point for one sense.

[2:31:06] Because remember when we were first talking about that, it was higher, but we were able to also ratchet that down because of where we stand in the CIP. Okay, so another potentially dumb question. The entire day talked about his the precedents that he's sitting on CIP projects. But what's the reality of completing the entire list? Because I know, and as long as I've been on council and been a resident of this community, all capital projects do not get completed in the time that they've been allotted.

[2:31:44] So we do have. Sorry, sorry, mayor Pro tem, you got anything else? Okay. So we go ahead. We do have we do have some slides on that that we're going to share. And we do have a plan that's actionable based on the the point for one part of the challenge, candidly, is that the capital program has never been resourced appropriately.

[2:32:05] And there's a variety of reasons for that. And that's not things that lay with council. Candidly. Those are it's just the reality of the situation. And so we we feel very comfortable that with that, with this allocation, we will be able to accomplish this projects in the timeline that we've defined.

[2:32:26] Okay. And so what what on that list, if anything, could we potentially look at stalling?

[2:32:38] Well, candidly, you could stall everything. I mean I mean, we could, but I'm saying like what what's top priority that we really need done that our citizens would say, my Lord, we've been waiting on that to be done for 15 years. Kudos to the city of Wilmington for doing that. And great. And then, you know, I and I, I don't know, I'm on a roll today.

[2:33:00] So I'm going to say this regardless. You know, I don't want to minimize the importance of trails and things of that nature. But hey, if we don't complete a trail next year or the year after that, you know, but we do something else that really changes, that really improves infrastructure or impact of a capital project in our community where citizens will say, you know what?

[2:33:24] I believe that's more important, and we've been needing to get that done. What type of items do we have on the list now that we can pick and choose from? So that list is the list that we shared with the council over time, as we did the work going back to the first budget sessions with the with the negotiable and non-negotiable funded and non funded.

[2:33:45] And we've distilled that down to and it's on the slide in your packet. Things like bulkhead replacement bridge replacements. So these these are these are bigger projects roundabouts things that that the community has been waiting on I think to your point for a long time a lot of these are transportation bond, air quote projects that have been lingering and have been unresolved and have been uncompleted and that the community expects and deserves.

[2:34:16] But the bouquet project is going to be a partnership with the federal government. So potentially it should be potentially potentially. Right. Potentially. We're applying for a grant. Right. So yes, that helps defray the cost. But it doesn't absorb 100% of it. Okay. I'm just going to keep asking dumb question there. All until we get it until we get to where we need to be.

[2:34:43] And I'll be honest, I'm hearing 4.9. I mean, of course, I think everybody knows that I'm not on board with the 5.75. I've been actually thinking around half of that. But, you know, my mind's not made up. If we can come out with something good that kind of serves all interests, I'm going to be on board. I might be the one lone person.

[2:35:09] That's that. This the saw thumb. But hey, we can all be optimistic about where we can go. I have a question. We are talking about capital improvements. Correct. And one of the projects that I keep asking myself about is the Water Street Park. We're talking about a little over a million to save, maybe put off. This is to renovate the old River Park space along Water Street in front of the Federal Building between Market and Princess Streets.

[2:35:47] Improvements include the creation of an event plaza, new benches, stools, decorative lights and Riverwalk walk handrails, new hardscape landscaping, a decorative fountain, and new street scaping along the road.

[2:36:06] Help me out. Yes, ma'am. So my name is Justin Carter. I'm the director of our design and construction group. So as we look at Water Street Park, there's been a project that's been around for a very, very long time. Has gone through a multitude of iterations. It is a project that right now is really just hard concrete down there across from the federal courthouse.

[2:36:27] The plan is to try to make that area something that it was before. We'll be redoing the street through that area. We'll be adding a green space down to that area. We'll be looking at also having a plaza area. One of the things that had been done in the past were Friday night concerts down in that area. So developing a plaza to allow that to happen.

[2:36:46] When we look at what the cost overruns are for that project, it is purely driven by the fact that this project has been around so long and has gone through so many iterations that cost escalation from Covid, and all of those things have taken that budget that was originally put in there, that we have some money in for it, and we really pulled it and blown it out of the water.

[2:37:06] That number and that growth that you're seeing as a negative is based on cost escalation from from just Covid and everything else, because this project hasn't got hasn't gone from a final project to construction and a reasonable amount of time.

[2:37:25] Thank you. That sounds great. But again, I'm still looking to find a million, a little over $1 million to pull. So so so what we do want to point out is the way our CIP projects are funded. If you were to remove that, we don't then have $1 million that we're reducing because we only pay a small portion of it with actual cash.

[2:37:50] And then that .14 cents is borrowing capacity to be able to pay for the rest. And so so you would only be saving, actually a very small amount of cash if you were to try to remove that to reduce the tax rate. So it's not CIP needs to be looked at a little bit differently than the rest of the operating budget.

[2:38:14] So I'm glad that we're going to sort of be discussing this and getting our hands dirty on this. I don't want to touch CIP at all, but I'm happy to have any conversation. I'm happy to negotiate on anything, but I don't want to touch the IP at all. Number one, for the debt capacity and the debt analysis that we've just discussed.

[2:38:29] But also, again, that's my number one priority. And some of these are very high profile projects that not only is it a negative when our community constantly sees them unfinished, but it would be a huge positive to see them finished. So I really again, I'm happy to talk about any of the CIP, but I think that that is not what we should touch.

[2:38:48] Instead, the strategy that I think we should take is to start going department by department, office by office, and shaving off a little bit here and there where we can. And we've still not talked about technology, which is a conversation I really want to explore. And before I turn my microphone, microphone off, I do know, mayor, that you we had a phone call and you did bring up one CIP project in particular that you thought was worth exploring.

[2:39:10] And, I don't know, I don't even remember what it was. I just remember we had a conversation. Which one? No, the the one that I have a lot of heartburn on. I know it was in the transportation bond projects in 2014 was Pine Grove and only in the drive. And the reason the reason that I have such heartburn and I can't understand why we didn't only in the drive like Market Street and College Road and all the major roadways are a state maintained road, and we're getting nothing for the improvement, for safety on a state maintained road.

[2:39:48] And in our past history with the state, we have partnered with them. We've gotten we've put skin in the game, and when we put skin in the game, they usually help us. They have said no and I can't understand why, and I'm just flabbergasted on that one because that the price on that one or the cost on that particular project, I think when we first looked at it many years ago, was like 1.4 million, 2 million, something like that has exploded.

[2:40:17] What's the cost now? Yeah, I think I think our cost is just over 10 million. And really the cost that we have in there was based on what our previous bid was that came in. We do hope when we go back out that we'll be more competitive and bring that bid down, especially as we look at maybe making some adjustments to allow for daytime work.

[2:40:36] So we do have a number in there that we think is reasonable based on what the previous bids were. That's a that's a huge number. The intersection is working. Yes. It's got we've got concerns about the safety on it. My bigger thing is Greenville Loop Road and Pine Grove Road without roundabout because that will help move the track.

[2:40:57] If you go down that roadway any day of the week, it is backed up. And I would also say the same thing, I think at Holly Tree and and Pine Grove, those two major intersections, because there's so much traffic going north, south, east, west, and there's two lane roads as having significant impacts there. And we want to finish those project.

[2:41:16] Plus it coincides with our cross city trail project that we're going to finish, which is underway currently as we speak. But the one that I thought that we could save some money on or could hold back on the CIP was that Pine Grove Road, because we have purchased the right of way. So that's we already got it. The design is 100% done, and we may find ourselves in a better environment in regards to construction costs, maybe in the very near future, depending on what the economy does and what happens.

[2:41:45] But I think that one is one. If we could hold back on and save some money on, I would like to hold off on that one.

[2:41:54] So can I just say this? And I hear David right. And I hear David, he's he's basically telling us what he wants and what he doesn't want. And I get it. That's your prerogative to to say so. But there's a consensus, right? There's a consensus that needs to be made about what we're going to do here as, as it relates to city business.

[2:42:19] And of course, the citizens of this community do deserve improvements. But if it's going to save them money, you know, would you much would you rather have improved infrastructure over a new park? I would the one thing that that's going to actually improve your life over a park. And I'm not saying parks aren't important. I take my kids to parks, quite often when I have time.

[2:42:54] But the thing that's going to help us save you money as it relates to paying property taxes or making sure that this community is safer, those I mean, there's a balance that we have to have here. And, you know, the professionals in the room, they know that no matter how you frame it, there's there's an approach that we have to have that we have to take.

[2:43:21] And I understand what you're hearing when you're in the community. But when I'm in the community, I'm hearing, hey, listen, do not raise taxes or why don't we have this or why don't we have that? Or, hey, I can barely afford this now. So yeah, I understand your list. All fine and well, but but staff, I want to make sure that you listen to what we're all saying, and we all can negotiate, come to an agreement of what we will and what we won't do and what we want as an, as an organization.

[2:43:58] Because that's important based on not just what we want, but what taxpayers have told us that they.

[2:44:09] And and that's totally valid. I think the, the things to, to bear in mind is it's never going to get cheaper to do the work. Right. So the longer we delay, if the intent is to accomplish the work at all, it's never going to get cheaper. So are there is there some variation in the market and some periodic fluctuation that we can take advantage of.

[2:44:32] And we can evaluate the phasing and those sorts of things? Absolutely. But to delay something ten years is only going to drive the cost up for when it needs to be done. So waiting a year? Absolutely. Or figuring out trying to time the market, I think those things are valid. The other thing about the 0.41 that I hope everybody also just bears in mind is its capacity that's built and carried forward.

[2:44:56] So that just rides along and allows us to continue to borrow in the future and helps us to be positioned to address things and be resourced to to go faster and take advantage of those opportunities as, as they come. So it's not just a for the now and completing these projects, but it's also a long term play to make sure that we have the borrowing capacity to do the work that we need to do now and going forward.

[2:45:29] Well, I'll say this if you're on Water Street and you're looking for a park, just walk on down the Live Oak Pavilion and we can make sure that we turn on. It's like a little splash. It has a splash pad feature there. You know, it's it does double as a park when there's no concerts going on. So you just have to take the kids there before some of the bands get there later that night.

[2:45:52] I mean, we have plenty of parks, so there's like, it's it's not like we're dying for parks. Do they need to be maintained? Maybe they need to be upgraded. Yes. But the, the the need for new parks. I don't know, I'm you know, it's kind of like we here on both sides. You're developing way too much. Protect more open space.

[2:46:15] Protect more green space. You get out here and you protect more green space. You got to improve it all. You're spending too much on part. It's you know, it's half a dozen one half a dozen other. And I get what you're saying on the on the park there on Water Street. Remember, we had to wait for the federal government to finish the ball cap before we could even get there, or we would have probably gotten to that park earlier.

[2:46:35] Now that we're into this phase, remember we have purchased the Coast Guard property to make that a linear park, but we now have to fix that bulkhead at a cost of $12 million, of which hopefully we'll get a grant to do that. Once that grant, hopefully we get that and we complete that bulkhead repair, then you have maybe you can go back and revisit that.

[2:46:56] I mean, when they had the concerts on the back side, they have the federal building. That was before we had Live Oak Bank Pavilion and other things going on. And it was kind of a way to get people downtown. I don't think that that's necessary anymore. And we can even change, maybe look at this as to what we may want to to accomplish or try to do there.

[2:47:13] That doesn't involve more of an elaborate system. Plus, the fact is, any kind of water feature that you have in regards to fountains, throw them out the window anywhere. I've seen a found even at the hospital, they don't even work. And and if they do work, they go down within a six months. And then something's happened to the thing.

[2:47:32] They're maintenance nightmares. You're down there on the river. Why are you looking at a fountain? You're there in the river. You know, that's insanity. No, no fountain there. No, no. Get rid of the fountains. I'm just. I mean, we've got one fountain. It's challenging enough. And as long we've been here, I think 70% of the time it's down.

[2:47:52] So what are we doing with the fountains? Come on, guys. Yeah. And we can look at bringing that project and it back. But that's some of the issues that I think has happened with this project over time is, is change. Direction has changed. And that's driven that escalation up. Right. And now we have had different things developed down there in the time that this project has been developed over.

[2:48:13] Absolutely. And we can revisit that. But we do so with hopefully the understanding across the board that we're going to scale it back. Right. Because if we don't, then we extend that schedule and that escalation and cost starts to drive that project budget up again. So to your point, we absolutely can revisit that. I just want to make sure we're cognizant of that cost escalation.

[2:48:35] Sure. But I've also seen cost adjust. And I'll give you a good example. When we did the convention center many years ago, when we built it, it was in the middle of the Great Recession in 2008, I believe we ended up because people were so desperate for work. We ended up building that center of $62 million at the time for million dollars under budget.

[2:48:56] And we maxed it out because we hit the market. Right. So you're going to have market adjustments. And although we've been applying pretty on and hopefully we'll continue to do well with the economy, you don't know what's out there. And we might end up in a in a situation where we end up pretty good. Now we also have to remember there's been six, $64 billion worth of damage in the western part of the state, which a lot of the contractors that we do business with have gone up there to do significant amount of work.

[2:49:25] Mike was just telling me they got $500 million in the western part of the state on a 40 corridor study for lane management. We got $2 million for this area, for this area, $2 million. And you got to say to yourself where it looks like we're the transportation people here. So it all falls on us. And so I want to finish these projects, just like I told the folks at Lovegrove many years ago, that would be the first project done.

[2:49:52] And it was the first project. If we had to do that project today, I think it cost us 5 or $6 million at the time. That project would probably be somewhere about, what, $20 million to do that bridge? Yeah, probably in the 15 to 20 million range. Yes. And if we hadn't jumped on it first, it would be that much today.

[2:50:07] So we've completed that project and made a commitment to those citizens in that neighborhood that we would do that, and we did it. So I think we have made this commitment. We should finish it. The only project left and out of the 2014 bond projects would be the Pine Grove Readjustment. And I think we're there is just can you get the timing right and hit it and maybe get it at a better cost than we currently got it at?

[2:50:27] Yes, sir. I want to jump in and just say, for the record, I don't want to move away from the point for one set for CIP to debt service. I think that's very important. Which leaves us with the increases that we're looking at in the general fund. I put forth a suggestion that would pull out $1 million. I think we've got to find two to get to the suggested below.

[2:50:51] Five the suggested increase, getting below five. That's about $2 million that we need to find in the general fund. So if if alternative two isn't the way to go, like we need to find that $2 million and I don't I don't know if we need to go with David's suggestion to just go through department by department and cut where we think we can until we hit that 2 million.

[2:51:13] I don't know if there's a better strategy. I don't know if a better number to try to cut is to start with a million. See where we land, try to find the next million. To your point, we're taking this vote in four days. We need to start to make some decisions about. I think we understand the problem in front of us, and I want to focus on solving that.

[2:51:36] I've gone through a budget process. Anytime that I've gone through a budget process, I've always gone back from the beginning to the end. So through every department, I think that's a great idea and not just necessarily focusing on one area. So if we can start, I'd love that.

[2:52:01] I agree not to touch the CIP money, and I think it's going to come out when we find the the things to cut. It'll be like smaller potatoes that add up to a larger potato. So going through some of the smaller items, I agree and I think that we need to I think we need to start having those conversations around what's coming out, and I do I know that staff has put a lot into this.

[2:52:26] I know that you've already found a half cent from your initial suggestion, so I, I do want to have that conversation together so that we understand if we cut this, what are what are the consequences of that. But if, if we don't have the votes as a council for 5.75, we need to find a place where we do have the votes and I think we need to do that.

[2:52:48] Becky, is there anything out of the fund for one time expenses from the fund balance that we can use or we we depleted that you can. The issue though is then you don't then have those dollars for new one time expenses the following year. So it again you compound. You're then limiting yourself in future years. I know that the counties I think their budget was about 20 to $7 million in the red and they've balanced it going through fund balance I think.

[2:53:24] So I'm going to ask this question. I have to ask this question. I saw what they were, I think, Barney, a certain amount of money to, I guess, offset some of those costs. What did how did they do that? I guess I'm looking I want to see see if we can use their magic in some respect. And I want to be fair.

[2:53:44] And I just want to know I want to be very delicate in how I answer this. So I would prefer not to talk about anybody else's budget and talk about fiscal policy and management. Can we borrow the money to do certain amount of these things? That's what I'm asking. So the short answer is yes, you can borrow money for a tangible whatever that you are buying.

[2:54:07] But from a fiscal responsibility and best practices standpoint, that is terrible. You are you are then paying more because you have interest payments. You then the next year have to make annual payments on that, plus pay for whatever new things you need. And so it is, it is considered an absolute desperate or it should only be considered as a last ditch, desperate act when there is just nothing else that you can do often for, say, very unexpected large expense in the middle of a fiscal year that you weren't counting on, and you don't want to deplete your fund balance.

[2:54:56] But even then it is. It is just not recommended because of the compounding issue that you have, because all of the things that you're buying that are a one time expense, they have a shelf life. So they start depleting. And often to get that annual payment down to something that doesn't completely kill your budget next year, you're having to stretch out payments for, in some cases longer than you own the equipment, and then you're still paying for it.

[2:55:23] When you need new equipment, you're still paying on the old equipment. It's like getting upside down on a car loan. What I'm hearing you describe is like in a personal budget, like living on credit cards. Correct? Correct. We very much advise against living on credit cards. Understood. I'm not in favor of pursuing that option. Just put that out there.

[2:55:46] And, Becky, I had said this in a while, but I agree with you on that. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I'll take it.

[2:55:57] Okay. I'll just say that I agree with that too. And I don't agree. I agree with keeping the the capital budget where it is and and with not not borrowing money for ongoing general fund expenses.

[2:56:14] The. This is ultimately council's budget and we are certainly happy to go line by line. We're happy to stay here as long as we need to.

[2:56:26] Again, it's up to you all. Did you want to go into the to that budget item in regards to or. We've not done that yet today? I mean, the mayor's question was do we want to transition and talk about the technology budget line item? I would like to discuss that. May I just propose it's 1150 now. Why don't we have that conversation, take our lunch break and we can ask staff to bring us, or at least give us an estimate on what it would take time wise, to bring us a more detailed line item budget for us to start going department by department.

[2:57:00] So let me ask this question when we're talking about cuts. Right. Department by department. Cut. What what are we cutting. Let's be specific. We have to decide. That's that. But I mean you're generalizing. Are we are we looking at cutting personnel. Are we looking at cutting. What. What are we anticipating. Cutting. I think that we have to get into the weeds and dig through it and figure that out.

[2:57:25] I mean, we could and I we have I am not 100% sure that we want to go down this road, but we could call up each department head one by one and give them a number and tell us where to have them. Tell us where to find it. I don't think that's the best use of our time, but I anticipate that if we got into the weeds on going item by item, these are tangible things.

[2:57:44] And I hate to call them toys, but specific items that we could forego purchasing.

[2:57:51] Oh, well, that's the question that I'm asking. Are we talking about cutting purchases or we're talking about cutting people because I don't know what I'm I'm opposed to cutting people. Most definitely. So that's that's not an option. Well, in agreement with the purchases and stuff of that nature is what we're talking about. Can we hold back? Can we hold back on purchasing something or doing something that we could hold back on for this year?

[2:58:18] So and I agree with that. I just think that that I don't know if we can get there from here as far as, you know, finding enough savings to really affect the tax rate. I mean, I'm already looking at, you know, we're talking about saving the average household and even the above average household, you know, at most a couple of dollars a month, you know, by by doing all this exercise.

[2:58:44] And I just don't think you can find enough light bulbs and toilet paper not to trivialize it to to make up for what our personnel costs are, which, which are the biggest part of our general fund budget. And out of that, our public safety is the biggest part, which is why, you know, we've done all this, all these exercises so far, and we're just talking about not saving that much money for the average taxpayer.

[2:59:08] So I know last year budget, we spent a whole lot of time on what each department could give up. And we ended up spending, I think, a couple of months talking about horses. And so I'm just, you know, I'm just saying I don't have a lot of faith in going back to the departments of the 11th hour and trying to find things, because I just feel like a lot of that has already been done, and it's not going to get us that much in savings with this a narrative.

[2:59:44] Go ahead, Kevin, I was just going to tell. So the same thing I just told Becky, you can just apply it to yourself. I agree with you down to.

[2:59:56] I'll just say there's a narrative out there that thinks that we're just out here just arbitrarily just want to do this. Correct. And remember, when we first came out, I think it was at six, six, two, five, six, two five. We've gone down to 5.7. There's some concerns. I think it's our responsibility in our job that if we want to go through this exercise just to see and if we don't get there, then we don't get there.

[3:00:18] But at least we we have exhausted every opportunity as city council members to evaluate it and look at it. And if that's what we end up, we end up that way. But I think we ought to at least give it a try, because at the end of the day, we know people are hurting and costs gas have gone up, insurance costs have gone up, food has gone up, everything has gone up, cost of doing business has gone up dramatically.

[3:00:45] And at the same time, you know, people are expecting us to try to do it with less. And that's also unfair to so we're having to make tough decisions. That's where we get elected for. That's why you have a representative for Montgomery to give us the opportunity to dig into this thing. So some people think I'll just slash and burn, you know, people use the buzzwords or they can cut their way to it, and maybe we can and maybe we can't.

[3:01:06] But I want to at least go through the exercise. So the people that are paying attention, that are listening in this, including the media that's watching this one, understand that we're taking this very seriously, and we want to make sure that we're fair and equitable to all parties, including the staff, including the city, the citizens. So I'm willing to go through that exercise.

[3:01:29] I agree, and I want to acknowledge I want to continue to acknowledge the cuts that have already happened. 29 positions from the budget, a half cent from the initial tax rate that that you brought. I think I just want to turn over every stone and make sure that there's nothing else that we are able to cut. And if this is where we land, this is where we land.

[3:01:49] But I just I think it is worth going through the exercise. Well, I just as expediently as possible. I don't want to do the exercise just to be performative. If we're doing an exercise just to check the box and we end up with the same result, then it's a waste of all of our time. Okay, I don't think I don't think ending at the same result means that it's performative.

[3:02:14] I think it is important for us to have a conversation where we understand at the at the level of detail that we need, that every expense in the budget should be there, even if that means we end up at 5.75. After that conversation, I can tell you I won't end up at 5.7, but.

[3:02:37] It's lunch. You can we can we take a break before we get into that? Lunches here so we can take a lunch break I don't know. Okay. We're going to take a look at you. See here. We'll go ahead and take lunch and come back. And Tom let's see you. It's 1257 1157 58. What time do you want to come back?

[3:03:01] 15 20 minutes. Sure. 20 minutes. Yeah. 20 minutes. Okay. We'll take it to a minute.

Council — City Budget Work Session - May 29, 2026 Part 1

Agenda

Transcript