Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City Council 2/26/2025

Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Place: Manassas City Council, Virginia
Length: 1h 38m (video)
Official meeting video (Wistia / RegionalWebTV): https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/o9kj5axxcj

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-17. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:17] Council budget work session to order. Mr. Smith, call the roll. Now. Mayor Davis-Younger? Present. Council Member Smith? Present. Council Member Osina? Here. Council Member Vasquez-Luna?

[00:00:32] Present. Council Member Hudson? Here. Lawrence present. Okay, thank you. If I can get an action item we have to take care of before moving on to the budget discussion. Item 1.1 is approval of participation in the City Council meeting by remote electronic communication for council member teresa coates ellis my mayor i want to approve the participation of the council meeting by remote and trying communication for council member we had a motion by councilwoman vasquez luna seconded by councilwoman hudson

[00:01:07] to approve the electronic participation remote electronic participation for member council member teresa coates ellis any discussion hearing and saying none mr smith please call the roll Councilmember Vasquez Luna? Yes. Councilmember Hudson?

[00:01:23] Yes. Councilmember Smith? Yes. Councilmember Osina? Yes. Thank you for that. Item two, discussion, tap supported funds operating in CHP. Do you want to open?

[00:01:40] However, y'all. I don't know who's doing what. I will defer to the chief because I know he has wonderful information to provide to the council as far as some of the questions that he received after presentation. Thank you, Mayor, Mr. Burke.

[00:01:59] Mayor, there's a couple ways we can start tonight, but it is Ms. Hudson's first budget process, so I think we would probably be better starting off with getting our books open, just kind of walking through where things are at so we all get familiar with how it's laid out.

[00:02:17] And then after we do that, take questions as we're going through it, And then if there's no major questions on that first part, we can jump right in and determine if there's questions from the actual presentation and or if there's specific items you want to jump into tonight.

[00:02:38] Okay. If you'll open up your books, we'll go right to the budget summary. Really, a lot of this is repeat for them. So if you have any questions, jump right in. This is just a little bit further explanation of how we develop our budget, how we try to tackle that, and then tie it back into your strategic priorities, which are our strategic priorities.

[00:03:06] And then also, as I said in the presentation, I'm trying to make that connection of what our previous strategic priorities were and then connecting that to that every two-year citizen survey. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they do not.

[00:03:22] new things come to light and then we try to blend those and balance that out in the budget. So I think the first thing is on page two. I'm not going to go over a lot of this in depth because we've already covered it. You're aware of the real estate assessments. That's probably the biggest thing that you will hear about as an elected leader as we move forward with your proposed tax rates uh you're going to hear mostly from residents that are going to say hey my tax my taxes are going up uh we and mr burke actually sent some emails today trying to clarify that out

[00:04:01] to a resident we didn't raise your tax rate your tax taxes that you were going to pay may go up simply because the assessed value of your house is actually increasing uh and sometimes that message gets confused with some of our residents that we raised the tax rate when in fact we did not.

[00:04:24] The mobility section of it, the middle paragraph, you'll see more of that in the CIP section as Matt will dive into that probably our next meeting and walk you through that. Educational attainment, I suspect, will be some discussions with us of what you can do, what we've already done.

[00:04:46] and what you may be able to do in the future at your current rate without changing anything in the budget or if you give us direction you want other changes made within our budget or again change your tax rate we we do want i do want to add there i know the schools presented their budget last night i do stand by how we presented there were some if you've seen that there were some new things in there my discussions and mr burke's as well with the superintendent at that point his top

[00:05:23] priority was paid for teachers that's the reason i included that in the budget as i presented it there are other initiatives that they are going to probably present when you have your joint meeting with them and then we can talk about what we could do staff will have some recommendations with how we can proceed if you want to have those discussions as well community vitality and the sustaining excellence both of those you'll see a little bit of those in the budget

[00:06:00] as presented as we tried to focus on things that were in that community survey and again to stress my point those only added positions in there were positions that were not coming out of the general tax fund. As an example, I'm going to pick on my own department. The police department has the one added position for the photo red light management and traffic enforcement. That is proposed to be

[00:06:31] funded out of your photo speed money. Right now on the governor's desk is a bill that takes all excess funds that are not there supporting the program cost will go to the state. He may veto it.

[00:06:49] I doubt it. State will take money where they can. So we believe that this opportunity, a little history for you, the photo speed enforcement is new. We've had photo red light for a while, but this was the first year with the photo speed enforcement to give us a better analysis of how much work it's going to take so workload for the police department on those photo red light school bus stop arms and photo speed enforcement by law every one of those must

[00:07:27] be reviewed by a sworn police officer so it's not the company they do the first screening then it comes to us then it goes back to them for the billing so it's quite a workload just like everything else if we're going to take one of our officers and make them do that that's less time they're out in our community so we grabbed this opportunity before things change that would be a cost associated with managing the program that we can pull off the top of those funds before it goes

[00:08:01] back to the state. Probably way more information than you wanted, and then Chief Mills is in the corner. We are recommending three positions. We talked about those earlier in the year. Only funding one of those, the other two would be added to your staffing plan, so we wouldn't have to come back to add positions to your staffing plan, but the one position he could absorb or we could absorb in your current rate as proposed so that's the reason we added that one as well um and if i'm

[00:08:39] going to go over things you already know again history as you know volunteerism has fallen off we talked about that at the one structural fire response uh this is a pathway to get us to a place where that second engine company would be staffed we still he still wants to work with the volunteers here's to see if they could help bridge that gap but at least this would give us one more person at this time um so that's it on the on the strategic priorities the city workforce uh don't in my

[00:09:17] opinion don't need to go a lot into it you you did a lot of work last year of getting us up to a level to make us competitive um again we need to sustain that we need to remain competitive it is our belief we can't do what we've done in the past which is get us there stop don't do anything for five six seven years let that gap get real big didn't make a big jump stay stagnant again we at least want to stay in the market i think the mayor has done a good job when she explained that to the schools the one day of our 95 of the market rate is where we want to be

[00:09:57] our proposal is a three percent that merit raise and again uh your our merit raises are not necessarily three percent if they're making less than midpoint it's going to be a little bit more than three percent if you're making more than midpoint it's a little less and then we have some money in there to adjust some of the pay bands with the cola the general consensus in the region as I was attending meetings and Mr. Burke has jumped in. Some of our surrounding jurisdictions,

[00:10:32] even though you're hearing in the news, yes, their assessments are going up. Many of them are proposing a tax rate hike, but they are also fighting the same battle we are, and they're proposing anywhere three to, some of them, eight or nine percent. So we're still at the bottom end of that but we we think with what we put in place and it give us a better assessment again going into next year because we knew this would be a tight year this year and the reason i say it's a tight

[00:11:08] year we had this discussion we we didn't predict uh data center money or a lot of growth this year we've always said that that would be fy 27 before you we started seeing those benefits I talked fast, and I'm sorry, I'll stop there.

[00:11:26] Any questions? You want to keep going? Okay. Then we get into the tax rates. I don't think that's the discussion tonight. We'll have that next week when we start talking about your proposed tax rate.

[00:11:45] What we may get into a little bit tonight is going to be the computer tax. just depends on the flow of the night if you want to break that out and what rates you want those to be that's the reason that's listed in there we can have the discussion tonight mayor about the unfunded request or potential enhancements that that 2.1 million if you wanted to do that tonight staff is also prepared to provide you a recommendation of how excuse me how we would

[00:12:18] break that out if you if you want that um if not if you want to work on it amongst yourselves then you can have that discussion with us as well that kind of takes us to page six uh in the book again that's just the closing remarks and then then we move into pages seven eight nine um i'm actually going to skip right to nine unless you want to cover six seven can i just point out something eight so um i know there were some questions about on page

[00:12:55] eight this is this is the chart that shows the assessed value and total change broken down by class and the impact by leaving the rate flat at a dollar 26 of all of those classes townhouse condos single family and then non-residential so that i knew there were questions where that was included this is that page and if you see in the upper right hand corner the value of one penny is seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars so that that's for reference and then are you going to page nine okay okay on page nine um you'll see these are our current and the current rates for

[00:13:34] the current fiscal year and the rates included in this proposed budget the reason that i have some things in red as you know last year we had talked about establishing this year a data center tax rate so that's why that's in red that's for you to determine and we the commissioner has not yet set the value that we discussed about for the micron semiconductor money that he does not know that much yet so that's still in red you'll have that before the budget process concludes And utility fees are in red because we're still in the middle of a rate study.

[00:14:14] You saw the estimated rates up on the screen the other night, and we'll have a work session about those rates. So I didn't want to put any rates in here and confuse anyone until we actually have them. The next few pages, can I keep going? I've got some questions before you go too far.

[00:14:33] So back to page 8. In the past, when you've done the assessed value changes, you've also shown the assessed value changes, I believe, without the new construction included. And may we get that at a subsequent meeting?

[00:14:52] Sure. All right? Yeah. Like at the next meeting or just email it. As accurate as that can possibly be because that's using some formulas that... That would be helpful. All right, on that. So, and just so I understand on page nine here, so the two items in red, before we get all the way to the point of publicizing a budget, you know, based on our calendar, we

[00:15:30] will have, we will know what these amounts are. Not the tax, you know, not the tax rate, but we'll know what amount of money, well, what amount of money will come based on the current tax rate, at least on the semiconductor manufacturing, we'll have that information.

[00:15:52] And then on the data center one, I see on the page there with me, thanks to my good friend over here, showed me where to find it. On page 10 in red, a suggested tax rate for the data center right now is showing us.

[00:16:12] So are we going to be able to have dollar amounts for this? So the semiconductor dollar amount is already incorporated in this budget. Remember, we know that's a 4% increase, and then we back into the rate to do that. So you do know that. You'll have to talk to the Commissioner of Revenue for the assessed values for the data center rate.

[00:16:34] But, yes, I hope that we will set a data center tax rate in this process before you advertise the budget. So to discuss is the 360, because I believe that's the highest amount you could possibly do without, Craig, is that correct, Mr. Brown, that we can't, the 360 can't go over the, no, no, for, okay, for data center tax rate, we can't exceed the tangible personal property, the vehicle rate, right, business can't exceed, yeah.

[00:17:11] So unless without changing your tax rate on the vehicles above 360, you can't go higher on the status center rate than 360. So we will double check on that, but I believe that to be the case.

[00:17:27] So that's why that's the rate that's just put in here. There's no money budgeted associated with that right now. So may I ask, at this early stage, given those parameters, what other neighboring localities are charging for their tangible personal property?

[00:17:45] I will get with the Commissioner of Revenue who will come to a meeting. And what are other neighboring localities, so that would be Prince William and Loudoun in particular, charging for a data center computer equipment and peripherals tax?

[00:18:05] But I understand what you're saying, that the data center rate is tied to the tangible in terms of what the ceiling is. That's what we believe, unless something's changed. And you'll probably have to remind me of this multiple times.

[00:18:21] I'm sorry, go ahead. To the question of how much revenue you'll be receiving from the data center for this budget, it will be based on that $2.15 computer.

[00:18:37] And that's what the commissioner of revenue is waiting for the April 15th, whatever the valuation of the computer equipment in the brickyard data center would be based on this for this year. The rate that you are establishing would be the rate that would be assessed and the city would receive the revenue in the next fiscal year.

[00:19:01] So the rate you're setting will not affect the revenue that we will be receiving from the brickyard for this budget. So there's no expectation. The revenue is fixed at 215 for this budget because that's the number that was established.

[00:19:22] So really, we should be putting 215 in this red line then? No, well, technically no, because we've not established a data center. Since we've not established the data center computer value, their computer equipment defaults to a business computer.

[00:19:41] But if we set it in these discussions here, we will have set it. You will set it to be effective July 1. We won't receive that revenue until next year. Next year, what, April 15th? I'm lost already here.

[00:19:59] So we're receiving data center revenue. For FY26, we are receiving that when? In 26?

[00:20:14] In fiscal year 26? In fiscal year 26, personal property tax rates will be due in October. Personal property taxes are due in October.

[00:20:31] Gotcha. Well, all right. But we're talking about the data center here. So, let me see if I can go this a different way. I can take the real estate tax rate right now for FY26. When I say I, I mean council, and council can change that right now.

[00:20:54] And fire and rescue level, we can do that. And, you know, you see where I'm going. I'm going down this list here. I could do it on tangible personal property. I can, council can change that. But you're telling me when we get to data center, computer equipment, and peripherals, that last one, that cannot be changed for fiscal year 2026.

[00:21:17] I have to wait for fiscal year 27. I will need to confirm that because, again, the commissioner of revenue doesn't receive valuation until April 15th. And I personally don't know when that bill is, your tax rates, you know, we have fixed dates when real estate, I apologize, I don't know when, if they give the commissioner of revenue their valuation April 15, I don't know when we produce the bill and then when that revenue is due.

[00:21:58] remember we're talking i'm sorry and we get confused sometimes which is easy to do over fiscal year and calendar year all right so remember our fiscal years cross over calendar years and your tax calendar year on some things so that's we're going to verify with tim when he gets those bills in so the next meeting we'll be able to answer your questions that's going to be the best way to answer.

[00:22:34] So we're not repeating things or giving misinformation. That's perfect. That's why we're doing this and a list of questions. And forgive me, if I sounded agitated, I'm not agitated. I'm trying to understand this sort of thing here. Yeah, we're not trying to be vague or anything.

[00:22:50] We're not trying to keep information. We want to make sure you have the correct information. Gotcha. Sasha. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So adding a little bit to that, I would like to see the whole sheet that we had last year because um i want to see the changes that happen you know the ones that did take place for the other localities and if you do get you know what's gonna be uh we know the max is 360 3.6 right but so yeah but i i still want to see where is everybody else uh because it will it will make

[00:23:24] it better i feel like you know going through excuse me even if we don't intend to change them You know, I just want to have a better idea of that. I know I had another question, but I'll come back.

[00:23:45] I'm trying to get it through. But back to Mr. Ossena's question. If we assume for the moment that we were getting the computer equipment and so forth from the data centers, Would that be included or reported or accounted for in a separate column,

[00:24:18] or would it be blended in with the taxes that we would also have taxes or income that's coming from, revenue coming from the data? So if we were up and running with data, so everything was, they were operating and so forth. Are there two reporting lines?

[00:24:35] There will be once you separate that. Once it's in, it would. Two rates, yes. The adoption ordinance would look like it is where you can see the rate specifically for a data center versus a business computer. Would we have to, that was my point.

[00:24:54] I'm concerned about just filling in that this year to reflect the computers. If next year it's reported and then it looks like all of a sudden we've lowered the computer because now we're breaking it out. I was concerned about setting us up for what looked like double reporting.

[00:25:14] If they're going to be included in their computer equipment peripherals going forward, it would be misleading to put them there in a separate line by itself, and then next year we show a lower amount coming from them.

[00:25:31] No, I think, Craig, if I'm correct, this is a separate code section of personal property, and it would be broken out as a separate ring. And that's where I was headed, because I was concerned about trying to show it this year for the sake of showing it or whatever.

[00:25:48] But it may be some fuzzy accounting. No, I believe it will always show the two separate. You will always adopt, like, this rate schedule with the different rates, computer for businesses, and then data centers. Am I answering correctly or no?

[00:26:04] Yeah, I think so. No, no, yeah, you're just confirming what I thought. Oh, okay, yeah. I just wanted to express my concern about separate accounting. being careful in what we're here for. Ms. Hudson. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[00:26:21] Who set the limit that it has to be the same as the vehicle tax? Is that General Assembly? General Assembly. Okay. Yeah, we have to check. You keep saying you have to check. We have to check. I'm sorry. There were discussions about allowing a separate tax rate for data centers in the Commonwealth.

[00:26:41] Okay. Not sure if that's going through or not. So Steve may know the answer. No, no, no. The general assembly rule is the business, anything associated with a business personal property tax cannot exceed the tangible personal property.

[00:26:59] So you can't set a rate, and this happened, does everyone remember when this happened, and we inadvertently did that. So I just need to make sure that that, we have to double check if it applies, if this classifies as a business personal property of which you cannot exceed that.

[00:27:18] vehicles and business businesses cannot exceed so since your vehicle tax rate which is called the tangible personal property tax rate is 360 unless there is something that we can find in statute that allows this to go higher than the 360. And then for clarification for Ms. Hudson the list that Ms. Vasquez Luna was talking about we have our commissioner will be providing you a side-by-side of your surrounding jurisdictions so you can do a comparison that's the list

[00:27:56] they were referencing earlier we try to have that available so you know what your peers in the region are doing and again on if you flip to page 12 there's that business personal property line that says 360 and then all other below 360. it may only apply to that i i don't know That's the part that we're looking into.

[00:28:19] So to be safe, I started off with a blank 360 just to start. Ms. Luna and Danielle Steve. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Going back to the conversation that was done at first, the calendar year versus the budget year.

[00:28:36] My concern is I was under the impression that this year was going to be the rate set for the first portion of the data centers paid. But now that we're looking, I know that we're looking at the, we're waiting for the information so we can have the assessment, not for the payment.

[00:28:58] But my ask, is it going to, if it was going to stay, is it going to be a 215 or is it going to be as set as the new year, the new budget rate that we're going to set? I can answer that. And I apologize for the confusion, but thanks to the wonder of technology, our Commissioner of Revenue has provided clarification.

[00:29:22] For FY26, the city will bill for whatever computers that are reported at the data center as of January 1st, 2025. That is the information that we will receive April 15th, is the equipment that was in place January 1.

[00:29:47] The data centers will be billed at whatever rate council sets for computers for data centers effective July 1. So to your question, you are correct.

[00:30:05] Whatever data center rate council elects, that will be the billing rate. If council does not set a rate for data centers, it will default to the $2.15. So you do have that ability.

[00:30:23] Did he answer the question about whether it could be higher than the tangible property? No, sir. Okay. I'm not the sir anymore now. We'll get that question answered. That'd be good. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Tim.

[00:30:44] We're all thoroughly confused now, but we're going to try to keep going. Diane will kick me if I say this wrong. So I know we're talking about data center money. And what we don't know is the amount because we don't know how much they have in there, whether they have it from floor to ceiling or they got one rack.

[00:31:11] So we have not planned for any of that. So if that comes in in the fall, in 26, we will be able to have that revenue. that's where this discussion will go later in the next week you might be able to do different things mid-year fair enough fair enough they're sending they're sending the bill to Tim for equipment that was there from January 1 there's the valuation I mean yeah whatever that is yeah or whatever they have in there and then yeah they may come back and say they have a hundred thousand dollars

[00:31:49] worth or ten million dollars worth we don't we don't know until they send that And Tim has been very clear about that as well. Yes, that part, yes. We anticipate we won't get it until the 14th or 15th. They're not going to give it to us ahead of time.

[00:32:09] We're going to stay right here on page 8 and 9 for just a second. Again, we have a new council member here. Page 8 could be important for you as you have discussions with your constituents, especially at the top of the page where we break out the townhouse condos and single-family percentage change.

[00:32:30] That's always come up in the past, just to give you a little knowledge there. And then, as Diane pointed out, and I think you already had this question earlier on the phone with me, in the top right-hand corner is going to be another important figure for you, $0.01 equals $770,000.

[00:32:49] All right, just five of those away. All right, we've discussed solid waste fees or the utility fees in the presentation. We gave an estimate in there of what those would go up.

[00:33:06] We're still, is that March or April they're giving us the... Could be end of March, early April, because we're presenting it to the Utility Commission ahead of presentation to council. Okay, so you'll get a presentation from that contractor of what they believe those rates should be and again just as a you know information for you is they should be self-sufficient you know my if it costs 10 cents to fill a glass up with water we should be charging what it costs to fill up the glass with water or flush the toilet or whatever way you want to look at it and we know

[00:33:45] we haven't done a very good job in the past and that's what we're trying to do now is get caught up and get those rates appropriate and just for everyone's reminder some of our other jurisdictions have been last year i think prince william had a nine percent increase they're having another nine percent increase this year we weren't doing that so we know we're behind but it's not we don't believe it's going to be as painful as we originally thought yes and you're correct the utility

[00:34:22] the commission's going to have a presentation at their March 14th, I think it is, that Thursday meeting at that point to look over and at least, you know, provide some advisory input along the way here, which they're looking forward to doing. Yep, and as residential business owners, they have that view as well. Yep, exactly. Again, you know, a lot of these, a lot of the systems out of utility stormwater solid waste those are all pass-through things there's things we have to do

[00:34:57] um so we're not making money on those things these are upgrades that by law we have to make and you've made the unfortunate setting directly across diane covered uh page 10 that's that these are the ordinances that we know we're going to have to do. On page 13, Matt may jump in here as he wants. We've talked a little bit about this.

[00:35:29] These are, again, our user fees for Parks and Rec. Again, we know we were way behind. Why are we so popular? Because we usually have the cheapest fees in the area, so people want to come and rent our stuff. So with the upgrades to our fields and trying to get to a better management place, Matt and his team have updated the fees.

[00:35:53] And again, they're very reasonable compared to the region. Matt, do you have anything you want to... Yeah, the two major changes, thank you, are the Marsteller fees. We don't have any fees established to use Marsteller. And then as directed by Council at the retreat, we've also gone back and taken a look at our event rental fees and proposed an increase to catch up with what other areas are doing.

[00:36:16] So those are the two major changes. This is the, we've gone through three years of increases. The last few ordinance you adopted for parks and rec has basically increased each year for three years. So we're much better than we were. And so this is more of a housekeeping primarily to address Mark Stellar.

[00:36:35] There you are. But just so I'm making sure I'm reading this correctly, like I'm Patriot Team, you're not proposing any changes to the pool fees, for instance. No, sir. No, right now it's just the event venues and Marsteller, it looks like, and the sports courts.

[00:36:56] And this is separate from the athletic field fee schedule. The fee schedule includes the athletic fields, but they've been increased now for the last three years. You've had three years of increases. The recommendation is to hold this year. No across-the-board increases.

[00:37:14] We're going to do a larger parks need assessment now that we've brought on so many fields. So it's probably something I'll speak to the Parks and Rec Committee and bring back in a 27 or a 28 budget for the recommendation for 26 is address Marsteller, the private event rental as directed by council, and then some more work at the staff and committee level to see if other people need.

[00:37:37] We will have more discussions about Marsteller as we move along. But no matter what we do with Marsteller, we needed to get this part in place as step one.

[00:37:58] What we're trying to do a better job of, Mr. Asina, is showing the strikethrough in the pages so you see the changes. because it was harder for us to track if we didn't do that as well. I would like to say, maybe not for this budget, for the next one, while that is being done, a comprehensive understanding of other localities because I think they do have higher fees for non-residents.

[00:38:29] And, you know, I believe that could, you know, I like, you know, being in the lower end And, you know, I'm not too thrilled about being, you know, they must sort of, you know, other than for the residents.

[00:38:44] But I would like to see if that is something that it can be, you know, operated, especially as we need three people for the Marstelle. So I don't want to jump too much because I know we're just listening.

[00:39:00] But I don't, for the following year, you know, I would like to see, you know. a resident and non-resident but also localities just to have an idea what others are doing because i do believe that some cities cities or other localities are making a drive through that but i'm not sure i don't disagree now that we've rebuilt the park system just you know we've done increases with the existing fee structure that's been in place largely this way for 20 years i think if we do a needs assessment and spend some more time, I'm absolutely interested in that

[00:39:39] suggestion. Manassas Park does it that way. I'd be very interested in looking at what different fee structures and what we've been doing for many years. I'm going to say skip all the way back over to page 21.

[00:39:56] Again, these pages are just showing your fee changes. Again, getting us back up to date to what the appropriate fees should be as we did these analysis which you and we both agreed that we needed to do. So this just brings us more in line with what the appropriate rates should be. Matt, are there any of these that you think you want to point out or talk about? Did I move departments? You helped with some of those fees

[00:40:35] didn't you for yourself? The fees that my department collects on behalf of the Fire and Rescue Fund are collected in support of the fire marshal's office the ambulance fees i am not going to no i don't expect you to so um where i'm going to jump in there and chief mills can correct me if i'm wrong when we added those positions and you saw in the budget for the fire department we talked about not changing your rate right to your fire levy rate and then the other cost from picking up on these fees that he did his assessment that's the reason he could add those

[00:41:11] things without an increase to the rate because these fees will pay for those upgrades in those positions so chief panels just so i understand it's entitled annual fire prevention code permits and then there's aerosol level and then there's one pesticides and propane consumer exchange could you explain so each one of those there

[00:41:42] they're required to be permitted to store this is a business right yes yeah it's not for residential right there's also fees for the inspections the annual inspection inspections of fire suppression systems being sprinkler hood systems for our restaurants and the annual inspection fee for sprinkler

[00:42:14] systems and fire launch systems to be tested. So let's say I'm in my business and you check my fire suppression system and you find deficiencies and then you write me up. I get it fixed. You come back. Am I charging a second fee? It's a lesser fee to come back for re-inspection.

[00:42:44] Very good. And in the course of you could inspect something, let's take these propane exchange cabinets, for instance, and you do your annual inspection at a hardware store or outside of propane, even a propane, you know, Walmart or what have you.

[00:43:03] But if you, you can also come there if you believe there, for whatever reason, there's a problem or there's gases, you smell gas or what have you. Inspect that. Do you levy a charge for that, those kinds of visits? At that point, if it comes in as a complaint from a citizen or someone, we go out and inspect it, we find a deficiency, we meet with the management of that business, let them know what the deficiency is and what corrections need to be made.

[00:43:35] They're not charged for that complaint investigation. Very good. Okay, continue now. So that ended us, you know, 20, 22, 24.

[00:43:53] Then next, all the way up to page 46, is all your revenues, where they come in. It's a lot of line items. What we would like to do, it's a lot of information there that's just where we get all of our money, where it all comes from across the city.

[00:44:10] What we would like to do and have some discussions, if you go to page 45, 46, and jump right into the revenue from the federal government page, page 46. So since, so as Chief said, all these pages were just breaking down revenues that we receive by different ways, by fund and source.

[00:44:34] So you can look through that. And then this is just some discussion about what we consider to be major revenues. But because of the discussions going on about revenue from the federal government, I've put some added information in here on page 46 to give you some context.

[00:44:51] This doesn't mean I know anything that's going to happen with federal revenue, but I just wanted to give you the context. If you see this, there's a line halfway through the page that says the FY26 budget contains federal revenue for the following purposes.

[00:45:07] There's a little bit in the general fund for the post office rent. That's how much the social services fund gets is the $3.6 million. The airport has tower and rent reimbursements. And the school funds, at the time of publication, I didn't know the amount that they're including in their budget for federal revenue.

[00:45:28] for FY 2025, it was $8.4 million. So those, if we were to lose dollars, that's just to give you some context about where it is, what's included in the operating budget. Now the CIP for one-time funding and grants for capital projects, mainly transportation and airport, is a different story that we can get into when we talk about CIP, but those are for capital projects. These dollars here are what's included for the annual operating budget.

[00:45:58] And then as of the date that I pulled this information, in FY25, these are some dollar amounts that we have budgeted and appropriated to use in the current fiscal year, not including the schools because I don't know, that we have not received yet.

[00:46:18] So are we still receiving revenue? Yes, absolutely. But if someone were to tell us you're not getting money anymore as of today these are the impacts that that would have to those different funds it's just an estimate i don't know nobody said we aren't getting any revenue but i'm just trying to give some context and then we also rely on some one-time grants not rely on we we do get them um annually these certain amounts and so here's some context for

[00:46:51] FY24. One of the bigger concerns would be the emergency management program. That's a federal revenue that comes in to fund a position. I haven't heard anything, Chief, about it being canceled, but again, these are just some, just to give you some context about impacts if they were to happen. And why, you're going to jump in there, the reason we are doing, that's your current budget um and we don't know depending on what news outlet you listen to or what tweets you

[00:47:25] want to read are they stopping the payments in this current year or is it programs going forward we don't know i do want to say diane and her staff this is this ton of stuff they do they do a great job this would be easy to overlook and not plan for right but we are looking ahead so you know building trust in your staff from you that we are doing the right things, they are doing the right things, they're watching this as closely as they can and trying to prepare for it. And we're monitoring, the schools are monitoring too, but just wanted to give you some, and this is like

[00:48:05] worst case scenario, everyone said there's no more federal revenue, this is, that's a horrible worst case scenario and i hope that doesn't happen but mr smith um yes thank you on page four to five we talked at the bottom we missed the state revenue so are the concerns that um you have regarding the federal level are the concerns for the state factored into these numbers anywhere um i'm going to give two answers and then she'll clean it up for me i have i have two ways to

[00:48:40] answer that the the preliminary governor the preliminary general assembly budget that's going to the governor actually puts more money locally uh specifically to schools um but but what we don't know and we can't answer is how much of that money is passed through from the feds that they were getting and then going to pass through to us we don't know the answer to that question and again

[00:49:09] And depending on what you read, there is one philosophy is this is exactly what the Fed wants to do is send it to the states, let them figure out how they want to spend it, not the Feds. So I probably confused you or didn't give you an answer because we don't know.

[00:49:28] I understand that. I guess what I'm saying is the picture could be even bleakier than what the numbers would show. Yes, it could be. Yeah, and that's and those are the things is both the schools and Diane are trying to match this up, especially when we hear things like, you know, there's a large percentage of more funding for schools for non-teacher programs that they weren't paying for in the past.

[00:49:56] That could be extremely beneficial to the schools because then that's money they don't have to spend on those positions and they can move elsewhere. And we don't know the answer to that yet. And the implications from the state, the threats are usually easier to accept with this federal mess right now, but the confusion about the federal revenue and what's coming from the state from those.

[00:50:26] But the state usually says something like speed cameras. So we would be able to say, hey, we get X amount of revenue, that all goes. Or sometimes they say, we're going to get rid of the machinery and tools tax, and we would be able to say, that's a $5.5 million hit to you.

[00:50:42] So theirs is generally more understandably programmatic than just pay, pause, federal revenue. So if and when any of those impacts were a major threat, that would really be able to quantify that a little bit better than federal, I think, right now.

[00:51:02] Right now. That's a right now. Any other questions? I'm waiting in your hand. I'm ready, though. So how, again, I'm sorry, at 46, how much is the non-one-time, like without the ARPA or the one-time money?

[00:51:25] Because I'm trying to look at it, but is it, what, like 12 million altogether? From the graph, on the 26th. Non-ARPA money, non-one-time? None of this, none of that you're showing there is one-time money, right?

[00:51:44] know that just the 22 huge jump had ARPA in it everything else is everything you're seeing in 25 and 26 is operating budget no yeah ARPA's done that one can't wait for it to fall off this chart it will I'm asking for the total yeah but I want the total oh well I have to add these numbers it's 15 and And it's not in the half.

[00:52:13] It's 8. It's more than me. It's more than 0.4. Less 0.4. This 3 really means a lot to me. It's like 12.1.

[00:52:32] Okay. Thank you so much. And this does not have, I mean, it's probably, I don't have the superintendent's budget in front of me. What did he, I don't know what he has budget for federal, so give or take 12 to 13 something million, a lot, in those specific areas.

[00:52:53] And I understand it's not limited to that. I just want to have it in the book. You got to move on, Mayor? Ms. Ellis, are you there? Can you hear us? Do you have any questions? Yeah, I am here. Okay. Yeah, I do have a question.

[00:53:10] I was trying to have, you know, listen. Oh, no, it's okay. But there is one question. I think Diane provided, like, a comparison. If you go back to the pages, you don't have to go back too far. This rate, she gave us a comparison last year of what a rate would be with a flat tax bill and how much we would have to shave off the budget to meet that rate.

[00:53:42] I don't know if you know that already, Diane, but that was my... Yeah, so the number that the Commissioner of Revenue had talked about that was going to be on the tax bill was a reduced rate of one, I think the total rate would have been 1.187, so a reduction of 7.3 cents, and that equates to roughly $5.5 million in cutting from where we are right now.

[00:54:12] Okay, is that anywhere in this book? No. Can we do like a little, you know, just an additional up-of-the-pay page showing that? Sure, for a flat tax bill. The Commissioner of Revenue already has that, and he sends it out, so that should not be a big ask for us.

[00:54:32] We'll be able to get that. Okay. Yeah, some of the other things I'll e-mail. Okay. I can talk about it Monday. Thank you. We're going to keep moving forward.

[00:54:52] You start getting into page 50, 51. That's your expenditures. Really go to page 50. That tells you the departmental budgets, And then by the funds for each one of what's budgeted in there, whether it's an increase or decrease.

[00:55:12] I don't know if you want to get into those weeds or not for what we've approved for each department at this point. You haven't in the past, you kind of have left that up to us, figuring it out. Again, I do want to make sure you understand that there were no additional positions or anything added into the budget.

[00:55:34] Plenty of asks. We always get plenty of departments asking for extra stuff, but again, going into this budget, I want to stress, we scrubbed it pretty good of trying to keep a flat tax rate and really taking those supplemental requests and putting them to the side, unless it's specifically tied into the community survey of what those top four things were and if that tied into your strategic plan.

[00:56:10] Page 52, we chose the picture of the picture. I'm sorry, I can send you. I just want to point out, I said that these numbers do not include shared services.

[00:56:27] So am I reading that wrong? Yeah, it's second line down, non-departmental, and shared services. It does show an increase in shared service, which is like the good that there will be some increase.

[00:56:46] So remember when I talked about at the retreat that in shared services, we have jail costs, all different corrections costs, and we have the bill that's called shared services. That bill did increase 3.3%, but we were able to absorb that with other decreases in jail costs that were actually going down so that the overall shared services budget was able to handle itself and not show an increase, which is really good for this year.

[00:57:20] That's not like a trend that's going to be continuing. I'm sorry. One of the major drivers there was your jail cost. We were way below our daily rate, where we estimate 12, I think it's 12 or 13 percent, and we were below 10 percent.

[00:57:42] So that means we didn't know as much. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So looking at page 50, I see there is an adopted 25 budget, and then there's an amended. So what, first of all, explain what that means.

[00:58:00] any amendments that we take to council during the year would show in here so if you look at the school's operating transfer it shows an amended budget of 112 million dollars if you recall they came back for an amendment to their budget in september when they got more money from the state and then we sold 50 million dollars of bonds for them which also was an amendment to the budget as well so that's why that number is so huge well that's where i was headed as one

[00:58:33] and that's the one that's the largest and if we get grants gotcha okay very good that was the one that yeah and it's the biggest difference so so now that the bonds were sold if that's the right term so next year fy 27's discussion we we won't see the the the bonds show up again correct correct They're in their capital project allocated to a specific project.

[00:59:08] You're not amortizing it through whatever period? No. Okay. Very good. That will come back out. Can I clarify something? Mr. Brown checked on the question that we had about the data center rate. What I said is correct. It cannot exceed the tangible personal property rate.

[00:59:25] So if you wanted to set it higher than 360, you would also have to raise the tangible personal property rate. I'm just happy I was right about something. I'm just kidding. you're right about a lot of stuff but Mr. Brown did confirm that he looked that up for us so thank you sir so unless you want to go if you want to go above 360 the other rate has to go as well I think I really really don't want to get in the weeds of this but I do and the only reason why you know the concern is because of the ability to perform the duties and that's you know the

[00:59:59] reduction of the city clerk and the city manager budget so I'm not really asking you know what is But I'm more asking us, you know, and, you know, and I get it, you know, this was work and everything. I just need to make sure that, you know.

[01:00:16] No, I can help you. We can go to specifically to their pages, but usually in these two cases, it'll have to do with salary roll-off from previous years, employees. But we can go to those pages, and you'll see it in salaries and budgets, or it's going to be in salaries and wages.

[01:00:35] There's the turnover in staff and benefit changes. In small departments, you can see that show really easily. In a big department like police department, it's not. But when you have someone exiting or leaving.

[01:00:51] If I can answer a little further for you, your concern of thinking we took some of their operational money away is not the case. So we make sure we, in fact, I think operational, we actually increase the clerk's office for operations.

[01:01:14] One last question as I look at this. I see an increase in the police budget. And again, not micromanaging, but the reason for that, a $1.1 million increase.

[01:01:30] Am I reading that correctly? Yeah, we can. I mean, so police in total, let me just give some examples. If you flip to page 101, it will break down all of the, the majority of that is going to be on page 101, salaries and benefits changes.

[01:01:50] So the raises that Chief talked about in the beginning, they're flowing throughout all of the budgets now. And in a small department, like the clerk, any turnover in that staff will stick out, sometimes higher or lower, because there are a lot of people in police, so I get that.

[01:02:08] And internal service charges are increased costs of fuel, vehicles, maintaining buildings, and maintaining technology. And each department on their pages has budget highlights at the bottom that describes, other than salaries and benefit changes, any increases to the budget that aren't related to salaries or internal services.

[01:02:40] And there are no programmatic enhancements in any of these increases to departments. It's all something increased because the cost of service went up. And it might not be here, but this is the time I just can't live with the question.

[01:02:59] I remember we allocated money from the cameras to the equipment. And that was like a one time to upgrade the software. Yeah. So my ask, and because we're still at the police, my ask is that that money, there won't be no need for other use other than self-maintenance of the program and the new officer, there is no need to allocate that money for any other purpose.

[01:03:33] And I know they will have to go back if you have left over, but I'm just trying within the program, you know, what can... I can answer that question. Okay. So you have, I'm going to call it three checking accounts of your camera money.

[01:03:49] You have a checking account with photo, or you will, photo red light money. You have one with the bus stop form money. That goes directly to the schools. You and I, we don't keep that. And then you will now have your photo speed checking account.

[01:04:07] The position we've added this year is out of the photo speed. I'm getting to your question. The photo red light, we did use that to what we're doing right now. Live today, we're very happy nothing crashed. Our new computer-aided dispatch and records management system.

[01:04:25] diane keeps that money in a fund so that when we have these large uh either equipment or software purchases we don't have to use our general fund we'll take it out of that money so it's setting their building up they messed it up well it's not a fund per se it's an allocation within the general quit the budget talk keep it simple for me um so mayor council that that kind of gets

[01:05:01] your your big broad overview um we would actually like a little input from you of where you where do you want to dive into next do you want to talk about the unassigned money um is there other discussions you want to have i know we're missing at least the vice mayor i suspect you want to have some of these tax discussions while he's here as well you may want to have wait for this discussion

[01:05:36] of the unassigned i can provide you with what we believe as a recommendation for that money and let that you sit on it until the next meeting, or we can dive into why we are recommending the things we are tonight, just kind of whatever you desire to do.

[01:06:01] So first of all, I will not be -- well, I will be at next Monday's budget meeting, but I will be calling in, and so for me, I would like to be physically present for the discussion about the unassigned amounts.

[01:06:19] the same time that everybody else on Council is. So the first time we're all physically together again, I would like to, I would suggest, but I am not opposed to hearing staffs, certainly staffs recommendation tonight for the purposes of being able to mull that over until we're all physically together at one budget session relatively near future i mean you know what i mean

[01:06:58] it's not in there i have i gotta hand it out so the way i just heard this is march i gotta get my dates right right wednesday march 5th will be the next day that we believe all of us will be together that's also the same night you need to determine the tax rate but determining the tax rate is is is not necessarily connected to what we finally do because clearly when we set the tax rate it's just the rate that we will not go any higher and as we we work on things and traditionally

[01:07:36] a majority of us have determined to to have the rate a little bit higher than what's in the proposed budget to just on the off chance that there are going to be things that come along But inevitably, almost, well, not almost, every time we've adopted a budget at the rate that's been proposed by the city manager anyway in the workplace on the revenue and expenditure side.

[01:08:05] So, Mayor, Council, what we're handing out to you as we put in our presentation, I'm probably checking my math over here, there's unassigned funds.

[01:08:25] This was strategic by us. We knew these were all topics. that you wanted to discuss, along with many other things, a total of $2.1 million that is unassigned. What we believe we've heard, whether it's at the retreat or at the dais, is one of your high-priority initiatives was to remove the vehicle license tax, that $25.

[01:08:54] That accounts for $950,000, so we would recommend taking that out. We recommend reserving $570,000 until we figure out what the impacts of the federal government cuts are.

[01:09:12] We recommend increasing the school's allocation of money, a half million, $500,000. I know they asked for 1.7 to get to 7% raises. It is my understanding, again, talking to Dr. Newman.

[01:09:29] His budget includes a 5.5% pay increase for their staff. And I'm going to give just a little bit more text there, Mayor. Is, you know, the half million, again, we don't know. We know the state is saying they're giving the schools more money.

[01:09:47] We don't know what that is. Or if the governor's going to make changes, veto, or sign it and put it through, I believe you need to do, it would be my recommendation. gotta be careful how I say that you know I think I think we were better off waiting to see what that is I'd also think at that point correct me if I'm wrong by by the time you vote on a budget we're hopeful we'll have a better

[01:10:20] account for the school's capital reserve funds or the reserve funds right do you think you will have a they will have a better number I think you think they got it i think they i think that the finance director and i think believe it to be 16 million dollars okay there you go so um that's a new number that we haven't had but we were close yep with reserves so i think i think we've got to get all of that um confirmed um it would be my

[01:10:55] recommend our recommendation although you had three part-time positions approved in your staffing plan for more stellar i do believe it's important that we get some kind of programming there we we purchased the building we've had a community meeting would be our recommendation to get at least one part-time person there so we can begin some of the programming over the next year and then hmi had a request for a hundred thousand dollars it would be our recommendation to give them an

[01:11:32] additional thirty thousand dollars uh and then we would work with them of what we would expect to do with that money and that that's roughly a 10 increase for hmi total allocation is i'm gonna round it up to 300 000 is what they get from you so that that's a 10 increase those are our recommendations that eats up that 2.1 million dollars i can go i'm sorry sir no i can go over

[01:12:06] what the the total asks were probably in your book so you know we were spot on with of course the vehicle fee uh the marstella program is less than the three positions less to the schools less to HMI, the reserves, although here it's listed as social services reserve. We're just calling it

[01:12:43] reserves because we don't know where it may be needed at. And then it is not our recommendation to fund the equity and inclusion officer position at this time. Oh, good Lord. I'm sorry. Go on.

[01:13:00] That's it. And as we listed on the page, those requests equaled $3.5 million, so it was more than the amount anyway. So we thought we were being balanced and reasonable that allowed my way of wording things some wins for you, some wins for our residents, but also accomplishing some of our goals.

[01:13:29] Chief, I have, for sake of clarity and these uncertain times of people to understand in phrases and words, when we say federal impacts, are we envisioning a federal impact that comes, a state impact that comes to us through the federal, particularly in terms of social service, broader area?

[01:13:55] Say the state decides it no longer wants to fund something that we think is very vital for the benefit of those, impacted individuals. So they use it as an opportunity to cut the funding. Would this reserve be that it's not the federal? The federal obviously is shifting pressures and funding to the states. We can anticipate some states, I won't name ours, but some states may take advantage of that opportunity in a very negative way. Yeah, you're correct. We could use it for anything and you're

[01:14:34] right words matter so we can simply take the federal word out of there because it's really meant to backfill any cuts that we may get no matter where they come from okay thank you my ask will be so we'll wait to caucus on the allocation oh i remember that you said that you want when everybody's together so do you we wait uh to caucus in in the allocations that we want to see on any suggestions of that i just thought that that let let the we would all start talking

[01:15:14] then there's nothing to say we couldn't couldn't talk at this particular point but but you know it's just so much better to have you know everyone physically present so we can really you know get into it and hear everybody's point of view that's all i would say thank you the majority's here tonight so if everybody felt like they wanted to have their say I would love to start I've been at it I was here earlier because I wanted I knew that we have this but I know it's not going to be said it's just a conversation just like any other meeting we can watch it later

[01:15:52] and I have these meetings too so everybody can do we can have a conversation with them but for me I worry about our youth And our youth having programmings and making sure that, you know, all the ends of the spectrum, they have, you know, something going on.

[01:16:14] I believe some of the high school kids, they do get to, you know, go to work. But there is other age where, you know, for me, I would like to see two people at the position to become 100. my recommendation for two four-time positions in Marseilla because I believe that money is an investment on our youth and what they're doing and it could be a saving of them having a free time and you know hopefully not but I have two kids and you know having free time again you know they can get in trouble so I would like to uh for us to see that and I just giving you my humble

[01:16:53] opinion on why. Then, you know, I believe that we should continue the HMI allocation. I do know they have to, you know, look for funding and they continue to look for their own funding. I don't know if we were at 60 or 70% last time of the prior years in an effort to, you know, meet them in the halfway, I would like for that to be $50,000.

[01:17:28] You know, this is just for conversations and where I'm coming from. And that will bring the reserves to $500,000 and everything else, you know, the way it is. And the first one you said you want to add an additional part-time for the more stellar.

[01:17:45] Yeah, so the first is $950,000 as it is. The second, the reserve, will be $500,000. The school, $500,000 as it was proposed. The Marstela is here at $100,000, and the HMI increase to at least a half, which is $50,000.

[01:18:06] Okay, anybody else want to chime in right now? Sleep, I think. I'm more than happy that, if I may, Erin, just for me, I haven't changed my opinion since the retreat in January, and you know the reasons why, and I just remind everybody, It is just as we use the citizen satisfaction survey to explain this overall budget here

[01:18:44] and what we're trying to do along the way here, all different things along the way. Or, for instance, when the chief made your presentation, you pulled out the appropriate section there to use. You heard what our citizen satisfaction survey has said about our schools here.

[01:19:07] And, you know, I did have an occasion to watch the budget presentation of the school board from last night along the way and took some notes, and we'll hear more when they actually make the presentation in the latter part of March here, which is, I think, going to be a good time for all of us, myself included, to ask some deep questions along the way here.

[01:19:34] But at the end of the day, we were able to provide an additional $1.5 million in the current fiscal year we're in, which then put it up to almost a 6% increase that we were able to give them.

[01:19:52] 5.63, I believe, is the right number, right? And you heard what I said at the retreat, that I believe they're asking for 1.7. You know, you always start high and negotiate down or what have you. But I do believe that, again, we're serious and don't want to be kicking this can down the road continually.

[01:20:15] I recognize there's state money coming in, to Kean's point, you know, exactly how that works in, in terms of salary increases along the way.

[01:20:31] Of course, those are for, what are they? Standards of quality employees, and so that doesn't cover every employee, first of all, along the way on things. So, I mean, there's a lot. I'm just speaking as to Councilwoman Vasquez Luna was saying, you know, overall for me, that is the highest priority there.

[01:20:58] I'm certainly open on other things in that regard. But for me, I'm going to be an advocate for that along the way, which is why I hope that we'll be able to, again, support them as we did in the current fiscal year, those kinds of things here in that regard.

[01:21:27] I think it's better to, if you have not watched their present in the school board meeting, You should watch it because it all puts context around those numbers there. And, of course, I'm sure when they come and speak, there'll be more context added because hopefully by the time they come in, a little bit more will be perhaps clearer from Virginia on that kind of thing.

[01:21:53] So I don't want to preclude or do their presentation for them in that regard. But I think that's helpful to see that and how they arrived at those numbers on that. I will say that I was, I'm pleased not only to hear, it was hopeful to watch the budget presentation from their finance director.

[01:22:17] And then it was, I was pleased just to hear that there's agreement now about what the school reserve fund is between you and your counterpart with the schools. those are all good signs you know moving ahead because we're talking about dollars there and I think that should be acknowledged that those kinds of things are taking place and I appreciate that you know we've you've you Diane have stuck through this to to get us to that point and I hope in turn that helps us having trust that both sides and I don't want to use sides but both groups are talking

[01:22:53] about the same amount of money you know we agree on what the dollars and and so forth and we can have faith in what they have to say in that regard. So, but I'm, you know, really when we have more discussions along the way, I would say on the vehicle license tax, I, you know, again, I certainly want to see perhaps that is something that depending on what the data center funds, equipment funds come in later on as we're setting, we're planning on setting that aside

[01:23:30] is something we can address when I say the middle of the year. Maybe timing doesn't work out right, but I don't want anybody to think that I'm not cognizant of that fact. I have two vehicles, actually I have three, and I pay that out.

[01:23:48] So that would be $75 that I would save. So no question, I pay it out like everyone else does when you own a vehicle like in that regard. And so I'm certainly aware of those kinds of things in that sense.

[01:24:05] But I also am aware that for my $75 that I'd be getting back versus the investment I'm making in our kids, our future, our public schools, our teachers, you know, the whole thing down the road, to me, I'll get that $75 back if I have to make that kind of comparison.

[01:24:31] My thoughts. Thank you, Mayor. No, go ahead. Mine is budget-related, but it's not right on the front, so you go ahead. What I need to say is probably told us that we'll wrap up the remarks.

[01:24:48] Well, it's only information, right? As you, amongst yourselves, begin to have discussions, I would say leave on the table for your discussions. There's a lot of unknowns right now where we don't know what the federal impacts could be or the state impact, whether it's positive or negative.

[01:25:13] We also don't know what the data center money is because we don't have that. So I would say the option for you is always what you did last time. And you make a commitment to the schools. You'll revisit this mid-year and maybe provide money then because we know we'll have something from data centers.

[01:25:32] We're hoping that would offset any cuts. So there's a couple of ways you could tackle this without going into it, you know, diving headfirst on July 1st with a commitment that we don't know.

[01:25:48] So I hear you. I think I would say the conversations everyone is having now, at least with the ones I was part of, have all been very positive in the right direction. And I'm hopeful that I think we all want to be, our schools to be very successful.

[01:26:09] But leave that, you know, keep that in the back of your mind. That's an option for everybody to achieve possibly what you would like to do. And I would like to add, because of what we did last year, When I look at, you know, hopefully if not, you know, nothing happened or no major changes, when I look at the reserve, I feel like that's something that, you know, it will be reserved.

[01:26:34] And whether it's the 100 or just, I'm sorry, you know, just the 500, whatever we do, I see that at the end it can, it may end up just being for the schools, But I don't want to give them, you know, an assurance or assumption that that is what, you know, where it's going to go.

[01:26:56] So I'm sorry I didn't say it, but, yeah, that's my thinking that, you know, whether we hold in this, you know, 500 and 500, I feel like that. And then if there is still a need for, you know, have the reserves, you know, my biggest concern with the data tax, of course, you know, we try to raise it up, you know.

[01:27:20] as whatever we agree to, but at the same time, we have to be mindful of the hike that we're going to get in these one, two years, but then it's going to be nothing. And I don't want to be funding something that is going to, you know, create a problem in three years, you know, three or four years down the road.

[01:27:40] If the computers are not changed, then that will go down really, really fast. So I would like for that to be more of a reserves or any, you know, projects specific or one-time money that we can use until we have a stable income from that item in the budget.

[01:28:03] Mr. Smith, did you? Yeah, I just wanted to address a matter that, residents, let me thank all for listening in and engaging our conversation.

[01:28:20] My comments are prompted in a sense that it's a reminder of the need to address in these current times.

[01:28:37] Not at all any criticism about your comments, sir, but again, it just serves as a reminder that we just need to be aware of people's concerns. You very innocently, just within maybe a split half a second, mentioned the fact that we were no longer funding the DEI position, which is absolutely correct.

[01:29:03] But those words were heard. And I just want to say to our residents, at least from my perspective, on the general subject of that very much misunderstood concept of DEI, clearly misunderstood.

[01:29:18] We do have to bear in mind, though, that we have disenfranchised individuals, residents in our city. And from my perspective, the city's strategy would still be, yes, we have to perhaps avoid any portal-based systems.

[01:29:44] But I just want to reassure, reassure, reassure, reassure, and emphasize that from my perspective, that within the city, we will ensure that all opportunities within the city will be inclusive, particularly in respect to qualifications, abilities, and merit, be merit-based.

[01:30:10] We're not abandoning that. We did not fund, for various reasons, the DEI position last year. And I know that's the context in which it was stated. But I do want to reassure, to give some insurance to our residents, that we have not, we're not walking away from any of our residents.

[01:30:36] Those that are disenfranchised, those that are not disenfranchised, and those that don't understand the word disenfranchised. Again, it's just mindful, and I'm pleased that people are listening. You'll probably hear me repeat this several times because I know I personally, but I know this council and I know this city is not abandoning the concept that was behind that word misunderstood.

[01:31:04] If I may, I would agree with you 100%. I'm sorry if it was misunderstood. I WOULD SAY BASED UPON THE REALLY GOOD CONVERSATIONS WE'VE HAD WITH YOU AND OUR RESIDENTS, ONE OF THE THINGS WE ARE DOING A MUCH BETTER JOB AT, AND I HOPE YOU HAVE SEEN THAT IN OUR DEPARTMENTAL PRESENTATIONS, IS OUR HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT IS DOING A MUCH BETTER JOB OF CAPTURING AND REPORTING THAT BACK OUT TO YOU AND OUR COMMUNITY.

[01:31:37] um and as we do you know the housing position the community engagement and with social services and really all of our departments i would say instead of we're taking more of a holistic approach as a group to address this issue instead of it just being a single person so it's not off our radar it never will be uh in my opinion but well well said and understood sir thank you anyone else

[01:32:09] I don't know if we can, really, tonight. Do you have anything else that you want to cover? We'll be glad to cover anything else that you may.

[01:32:26] But I think next week, I'm sorry, you're calling in Monday night? And, Mayor, related to that, if there are going to be any handouts for next Monday, if I might get them by email, that way I'll have my pad with me, I'll be calling in, And I'll put in that request tomorrow, Mr. Smith, so you'll have it.

[01:32:46] And you can set up, or you can set up other arrangements. But that way I actually can look at them or have them printed out ahead of time and follow along. All righty. Diane and her team, all of us, will try to get these out by the end of the week.

[01:33:03] But with a Friday update, and then have them online, too, if we can. Oh, perfect. I can't speak for the commissioner. I think I can get them. I can't speak. I don't know if he'll be done by Friday. He's probably listening. Ms. Ellis, do you have anything to add?

[01:33:20] No, I'm fine. Thank you. I need to email her and Councilman Wolf my handout tonight. So they will get that as well. Thank you. And that can be on the front. But the thing that I think may have been missed, and I'm not trying to point in on it, but to keep the bill flat.

[01:33:44] I'm going to hear those numbers again if we can. I mean, just not knowing what we don't know and all of that, it was shaving off $5.5 million to keep the bill flat. To keep the average bill, so not by class, to keep the average as close as we can get to flat would be a tax rate of 1.187, which is a 7.3-ish reduction in the rate, which equates to roughly five and a half million dollars that we would cut out of what is in this

[01:34:20] proposed budget. That's what I want. Yes ma'am. If you remind me of what was the advertised tax last year? I think it was $1.28. $1.28 and we did $1.28. Thank you. Don't envy y'all at all having to do this. I don't have to vote on it and I know it's a lot of work. Our residents are going to be struggling a lot with all the uncertainty about employment.

[01:34:57] And we have, I mean, it's going to take a lot for you all to get through this this year, knowing that they're facing, you know, possibly losing homes, their, you know, daycare situation, it's money just going, going, going.

[01:35:12] And from day to day, we don't know how things are going to be. So it's a lot for you to think about and consider. But please ask questions, think about, I wanted that, I wanted that number restated because I needed people to hear how much would be coming, how much we would have to, you would have to shave off.

[01:35:33] That's no small number to make it flat. So I don't have you, but I know that you all will do the work and get to where we need to be and take care of our needs in the city, knowing what they are all facing.

[01:35:49] So, and we all are facing it, too, and we're not exempt from any of it. But please ask the questions, get the information you need, try to do the best you can with this. It's about the toughest thing I think you all have to do on council, and it's always, you know, from year to year, it's difficult, but when you add in all this extra, it's just, wow, you've got to try to make it work.

[01:36:13] But thank you for putting the extra effort in. I'm bringing it forward for the council to do the homework and get it done. So thank you. I just wanted to throw that out there.

[01:36:29] Thank you all so much. So anything else? Just in closing, let Mr. Burke close it out. If you have any topics or any questions, please forward them to us. We want to be well prepared for you on Monday night with any questions that you may have for us.

[01:36:52] I think that's... I'll stop now. You're good? I'm good. All right. We have nothing else. And we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody.

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